"Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street and for Wall Street ... Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags ... the politicians said we suffered from overproduction. Overproduction when 10,000 little children ... starve to death every year in the U.S. and over 100,000 shop girls in New York are forced to sell their virtue for bread...
There are thirty men in the United States whose aggregate wealth is over one and one-half billion dollars. There are half a million looking for work ... We want money, land and transportation. We want abolition of the National Banks, and we want the power to make loans direct from the government. We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out ... We will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the Government pays its debts to us.
The people are at bay, let the bloodhounds of money who have dogged us thus far beware."
spoke these words at a time, admittedly worse than our own times, when the anger at wealth and backlash against elite privilege was rapidly rising.the Obama administration's willingness to compromise so extensively on the promises that candidate Obama made during the 2008 campaign would be that as president, he is playing for time. Obama is taking the best deal on the table today, but hopes and expects that once he is re-elected in 2012—a pretty strong bet, I'd say—he will build on the foundations laid during his first term to bring on the fundamental "change" that is not possible in today's environment. This would be consistent with FDR's strategy during his second term and makes a kind of sense when one considers the nature of the opposition he faces today and the likelihood that it will discredit itself following a takeover of one or both houses in 2010.Well, "hope" has been a staple of Brand Obama for a while, no? And perhaps Alterman, like many other left-leaning people, has not yet been burned hard enough by the failure to deliver on the progressive promises made during the 2008 campaign. This patriot held out too, hoping for much of the past year that the Obama Administration would make good on righting our ship of state and make the changes necessary to salve the pain of the past 30-40 years. To be fair, some good has emerged - e.g., the 2009 ERRA stimulus program, a New START Treaty to further reduce nuclear weapons, and a couple of non-wingnut Supreme Court justice nominations(but far from liberal, much less progressive). Other "achievements," such as health
care reform and financial regulation reform, are at best poor compromises developed by the real powers in DC (permanent incumbent politicians and their corporate lobbyist friends) to appear as relief for major problems while protecting those who are always protected. And there is much undone - or worse, continued to be done) such as a foreign policy subservient to a putative "ally," domestic wiretapping without judicial review, torture and illegal imprisonments and even assassinations of U.S. citizens at the order of the President.the system is rigged, and it's rigged against us.This is one reason I previously highlighted Drifty's post and George Carlin's famous "American Dream" monologue. To his credit, Alterman also points to one of the methods by which we "fix" the system - namely:
progressives who take movement organizing seriously need to develop their institutions independentlyand
[they] need to keep up the pressure they have begun to place on the mainstream media not to adopt the deliberately misleading and frequently false frames foisted on readers and viewers by an increasingly self-confident and well-funded right-wing noise machine (thank the FSM - or Al Gore - for the internets!)and
we need better, smarter organizing at every level and a willingness on the part of liberals and leftists to work with what remains of the center to begin the process of reforms that are a beginning, rather than an endpoint in the process of societal transformationThese practical measures are a start. But they are not enough. Progressives also need to wrest control of their local parties and governments from the hands of traditional party functionaries, many of whom have only "done government" their whole lives. In short, they need to lift a page from the Fundamentalist "Goldwaterites" inside the GOP who, once empowered, decided to trash the place (but remain, despite their national minority, firmly in charge of the political agenda).
Son, we live in a world that has plutoctats. And those plutoctats have to be guarded by men with newspaper columns.
Who's gonna do it? You, driftglass? You, Taibbi?
I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Journalism and you curse professional cum dumpsters like me. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Journalism's death, while tragic, probably makes the Ruling Class incrementally more powerful. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, makes the Ruling Class incrementally more powerful.
You don't want the to go to that cocktail party, because deep down, in places you don't talk about on your Journalism Listservs you want me at that cocktail party.
You me need me there.
We use words like craven, stenographer, Villager...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending entrenched interests.
You use 'em as a punchline.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to employees who rise and sleep under the blanket of the very ad revenue I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it. I'd prefer you just said "Thank you" and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a cocktail weenie and go grope a Senator. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to.
In the meantime, let me simply comment on General Stan's Spectacular Flame-out. I'm glad General Stan had his head (and job) handed to him. For Obama to do anything less than firing would simply taken away "the babymakers" (thanks FDChief!) and completely given the military dominance over even the office of the President. Frankly, they already dominate nearly all aspects of what are nation does, just as President Eisenhower warned us of. And I remain quite pessimisstic that until a complete and total economic collapse visits our lands, the military and its industrial-congressional-think tank enablers will continue to dominate the development of our national strategy - foreign and domestic. The ability of our current system to think critically, recognize its bias and develop a full range of honest options - much less reform itself - simply does not exist right now. Perhaps in the future it will but I doubt it.| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Sarah Palin Uses a Hand-O-Prompter | ||||
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"The Tea Party people are the corn-pone Nazis I have been warning you about. They are gathering strength in numbers as President Obama and congress fritter away their remaining legitimacy in a manner of governance that more and more resembles an endless Chinese Fire Drill. The delusional craziness of the Tea Partyists exists in direct proportion to the wimpy deceit of the government, especially in matters of money and statistics reporting. Our political leaders are resorting to wholesale deceit because the truth of our situation -- comprehensive bankruptcy -- is too painful to dwell on and for the most part they are too chicken too state it." (We're Weimar, Feb 8, 2010)So, is Kunstler right? Are we entering our own new Weimer period with the "Tea Party" denizens in the lead? Are these angry citizens delusional?
I have to admit, the so-called "Tea Party" folks have me flummoxed. These citizens are definitely angry about many of the same things I am angry about: lack of governance, arrogant elites, financial fraudsters, do-nothing legislators. But, it seems to me that often the root of their anger lies in more base human emotions: racism, tribalism, jealousy and busy-bodiness. And I cannot get over the fact that many of these genuinely angry Americans are being manipulated by the very forces they are angry with. I mean really, do they honestly believe multi-millionaire media stars like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh actually care about them - except as mindless listeners good for high ratings (and higher salaries)? Does Rupert Murdoch and his corporate media automatons in Fox News and the Wall Street Journal actually desire the involvement of these angry citizens in their own governance? And, if this really is a new grassroots band of Minutemen arising to oppose the tyranny of Washington, why does Sarah Palin get paid thousands of dollars to speak to them (if she's so committed, shouldn't she speak gratis? And the "convention" be not-for-profit?)??"When reporting depends heavily on access it becomes very difficult to challenge those who grant or deny that access. This craven desire for access has turned huge sections of the Washington press, along with most business reporters, into courtiers. The need to be included in press briefings and background interviews with government or business officials, as well as the desire for leaks and early access to official documents, obliterates journalistic autonomy."And with this, Hedges rightly identifies why (and how) it is so easy to mislead the Citizens in today's USA:
"Or is the public, as Walter Lippmann wrote, now so deeply uninformed and divorced from the inner workings of power and diplomacy as to make it a clean slate on which our armies of skilled propagandists can, often through the press, leave a message? "As they say, read it all.
I think that the aid program is a fig leaf trying to make Congress and the American people feel better about the war and about killing. I think that diplomacy in the areas of fig leaf to try to make the American people think that there is some constructive alternative to the war when the war itself is destructive and not constructive.
I think that the basic premise that we can alter Afghan society is greatly flawed. Afghanistan is simply the part of Asia that was never occupied by the Russians or the English in the Great Game. It’s not a country; it’s not even a place. It’s just an empty place on the map. It’s terra incognita. People who live there are a welter of different tribes, different language groups, different religious beliefs.
All over the country you find different people who have nothing to do with each other except for the fact that we call them Afghans, who don’t even call themselves Afghans. They’re Tajiks, or they’re Pashtuns, or they’re Hazzaras or someone else. The things that hold them together are simply the things that we try to create artificially.
The idea that we could transform that society or any other society through aid, I think, is entirely questionable. I’ve never seen it happen; probably never will happen. If you go to the Stan countries north of Afghanistan, and I’ve been to all of them, what you find is that the way that the Russians altered that society was by crushing it. Stalin killed half a million Muslims in Kazakhstan, in Turkmenistan, in Kyrgyzstan, in Uzbekistan.
He simply sliced off the head of that society in order to remake it in the image that he wanted. And I think that we would have to do no less if we wanted to remake Afghanistan in our image. We’d have to destroy it in order to save it, and I don’t think the American people are ever going to do that to anybody. So I think that the underlying premise is simply wrong.
I’ve been to 175 countries all around the world, including Afghanistan and every country in that region, and what I’ve seen everywhere I went is that there are some commonalities. Everywhere you go, people want to fall in love. Everywhere you go, people love children. Everywhere, they love children. Everywhere you go, there’s a taboo against violence. Every single place you go. And everywhere you go, people want to be left alone. And that’s the best foreign policy of all. Just to leave people alone. (Alan Grayson, 10/9/2009)
My policy has been, and will continue to be, while I have the honor to remain in the administration of the government, to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all the nations of the earth. To share in the broils of none. To fulfil our own engagements. To supply the wants, and be carriers for them all: Being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so.
Well today, the SCOTUS ruled -- and not unexpectedly -- in a 5-4 decision that reinforces the principle that "corporations" are "persons" in the eyes of our Constitution and laws. (Of course, "enemy combatants," real living humans who probably engaged in real crimes against our Citizens, remain "non-persons" not entitled to any protections given in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. But, I digress.) Naturally, opinions are as divided as our "apolitical" SCOTUS, with many of our more expressive authoritarian leaning citizens expressing glee that no one can be silenced, not even corporations! On the other side, citizen advocacy groups bemoan this decision as the end of any real representation in elections as now even greater amounts of BIG MONEY will flow into the electoral process, lining the pockets of the infotainment ad delivery companies, airing even more campaign ads (at least they will displace the erectile dysfuntion pitches) and further distracting-bamboozling-and stupefying the voters who bother to do their civic duty."When President Barack Obama took office last year, he promised to “restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great.” Toward that end, the president issued an executive order declaring that the extra-constitutional prison camp at Guant�namo Naval Base “shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.” Obama has failed to fulfill his promise. Some prisoners there are being charged with crimes, others released, but the date for closing the camp seems to recede steadily into the future. Furthermore, new evidence now emerging may entangle Obama’s young administration with crimes that occurred during the George W. Bush presidency, evidence that suggests the current administration failed to investigate seriously—and may even have continued—a cover-up of the possible homicides of three prisoners at Guant�namo in 2006." The Guant�namo “Suicides”: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle—By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine)This article demands to be read. And read again by all officers of our government who are connected to national security and intelligence. Most importantly, it demands an answer from our Attorney General, not only to the specifics of this case, but to the broader issue of what exactly is the Department of Justice doing to investigate torture- and "enemy combatant"-related crimes, but also how FREE the Department actually is to go after those who committed heinous crimes in all our names.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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| Clusterf#@k to the Poor House - Wall Street Bonuses | ||||
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it to be an excellent, thought-provoking exposition on our shared future in the declining resource world. Greer's fundamental thesis is that despite the cresting of the cheap energy era, our chances of complete, Hobbesian collapse and chaos are much less likely than a slow, steady roll into a de-industrialized future. If you've read James Kunstler's The Long Emergency, and then feared for your future, then The Long Descent may be for you."My more perceptive readers may be wondering at this point whether I’m seriously proposing that corporations should be thrown in jail or put to death. Yes, that’s what I’m proposing, with the adjustments needed to account for the differences between corporate persons and natural persons. What’s the essential nature of imprisonment for a crime, after all? The criminal ceases to be a free person; for a specified period of time, he is a chattel of society, and society has the right to profit from his labor during that period. And capital punishment? The criminal, having proven that he isn’t willing to abide by even the most minimal standards of social existence, ceases to exist by act of society. Both of these can be applied to corporations easily enough."
Two former Blackwater operatives were arrested by US federal agents on murder charges, stemming from their alleged involvement in the shooting deaths of two Afghan civilians in Kabul in May. They have been identified as Justin Cannon, 27, of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Christopher Drotleff, 29, of Virginia Beach, Va. They have been charged with “crimes including second-degree murder, attempted murder and firearms offenses while working as contractors for the U.S. Department of Defense in Afghanistan,” according to the Justice Department. The 13-count indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia on Jan. 6 and unsealed today.Mercenarie
RebelReports - Two Blackwater Guards Arrested by FBI on Murder Charges
s were suppressed after Europe's devastating Thirty Years War... for good reason. Mercenaries are not bound to states or their citizens; they are only bound to their next paycheck, and when that paycheck stops or the wars end, then what? Britain's use of mercenaries in North America during the 1770s was a significant part of why the colonists formed their own army and fought to free themselves. And the return of these unlawful combatants to our modern scene is yet another indication that the world of states that monopolize the use of lethal force within their established borders is in decline (perhaps terminal decline)....if one holds his state on the basis of mercenary arms, he will never be firm or secure; because they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, unfaithful; gallant among friends, vile among enemies; no fear of God, no faith with men; and one defers ruin insofar as one defers the attack; and in peace you are despoiled by them, in war by the enemy.
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