Netroots Nation

July 21, 2010

The Big Disconnect

By JESSE JACKSON

Will the U.S. once more sacrifice economic justice at home for war abroad? Dr. King used to say that the bombs dropped over Vietnam exploded in America's cities. The war on poverty was lost in those jungles.

And now? The war in Afghanistan is now in its eighth year. Vice President Joe Biden told "This Week" that our policy is "going to work," but "all of this is just beginning. And we knew it was going to be a tough slog," so "it's much too premature to make a judgment" about how we are faring.

Just the beginning after eight years? We are spending $100 billion a year on Afghanistan, with U.S. casualties rising, and with no noticeable progress on the ground. The government that we support is noted for its corruption and ineffectiveness. Our military is trying to do nation-building in a country whose warring tribes unite only to expel outsiders.

The drones releasing bombs over Afghanistan are falling on our cities here at home. More than 20 million workers are unemployed or underemployed. States and localities are facing another round of severe cuts, with some 300,000 teachers and educational workers about to face layoffs. Unemployment of young African-American men without college nears 40 percent.

We desperately need Congress to act -- to extend unemployment benefits, to forestall debilitating cuts in schools, teachers, Medicaid and basic services, to finance the rebuilding of America in everything from bridges to fast trains to a smart electric grid that will make us more competitive and put people to work.

But war drains our Treasury, takes the lives of our citizens and requires the attention of our leaders. Now our politics is turning perverse. Conservatives rail against deficits and block action on jobs in the Senate. Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell says that we don't have to offset tax cuts for the wealthy with spending cuts, but leads his party's filibuster against extending unemployment benefits unless they are "paid for." The supplemental for Afghanistan passes; the supplemental to keep teachers working is blocked.
http://www.counterpunch.org/jackson07212010.html

Frank Zappa

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive..." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?"

Jul 22, 1916:

...On this day in 1916, a massive parade held in San Francisco, California, to celebrate Preparedness Day, in anticipation of the United States entrance into World War I, is disrupted by the explosion of a suitcase bomb, which kills 10 bystanders and wounds 40 more........

....leading business figures in the city of San Francisco planned a parade in honor of American military preparedness. As the event neared, it was clear that anti-war and isolationist sentiments ran high among a significant population of the city (and the country), not only among such radical organizations as International Workers of the World (the so-called "wobblies") but among mainstream labor leaders. These opponents of the Preparedness Day event undoubtedly shared the view voiced publicly by one critic, former U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, who claimed that the organizers, San Francisco's financiers and factory owners, were acting in pure self-interest, as they clearly stood to benefit from an increased production of munitions....
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/preparedness-day-bombing-in-s...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9185863

Hundreds to attend EPA hearing on Pa. gas drilling
Hundreds of people are expected to attend a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hearing in southwestern Pennsylvania on a controversial natural gas drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking."

Drilling into the rich Marcellus Shale gas reserve below Pennsylvania is growing rapidly.

Fracking is currently exempt from federal regulation, instead governed by various state rules. The EPA is studying its effect on human health and the environment....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9185870

Democrats May Stop Bush-Era Tax Cuts for Wealthy From Expiring
by Alexander Bolton

Democrats are considering a plan to delay tax hikes on the wealthy for two years because the economic recovery is slow and they fear getting crushed in November's election.

It could mean a big reprieve for families earning $250,000 and above annually.

President George W. Bush's tax cuts will expire at the end of the year unless Congress acts to delay their sunset.

Some Democrats are now arguing forcefully that a delay is a win-win plan that would help the federal budget without hurting the economy.

Wealthy families would not have an incentive to cut back on spending and budget writers could assume an inflow of tax funds in future years, making five- and 10-year budget projections look less scary.

Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), a member of the Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over taxes, said some of his Democratic colleagues have discussed the idea out of fear of impeding the nation's economic recovery.

"I've heard some sentiment about raising the rate but not making it effective until 2012," he said.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, President Obama said he would not extend the Bush-era tax cuts for families earning more than $250,000.

Obama promised that families earning less than $250,000 would not see their taxes increase.

But vulnerable Democrats in Congress are worried about talk of raising taxes, even on the wealthiest families, when the national economic recovery has slowed.

"I think the recovery is sufficiently fragile that we ought to leave tax rates where they are," said Rep. Gerry Connolly, a freshman Democrat from Virginia.

Connolly said Democrats should not allow the 2001 Bush tax cuts to expire for anybody.

"People in the upper tax brackets have a huge impact, a disproportionate impact on consumer spending," he said.

Sen. Kent Conrad (N.D.), a senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said he could support a short-term extension of the Bush tax cuts for the highest income earners.

He noted that experts predict continued economic weakness over the next 18 to 24 months.

"My reaction would be don't cut spending, don't raise taxes and that would mean on anyone," he said.

Rep. Bobby Bright, a Democrat facing a tough reelection race in Alabama, said tax increases, even if limited to the wealthiest families, could imperil the recovery.

"I don't care if it's the wealthiest of the wealthy, you don't raise their taxes," he said. "In a recession, you don't tax, burden and restrict. The economy is like a ship, and if you sink the ship, all the good you might do goes down with it."

Families who make up the 5 percent of highest earners account for about 30 percent of consumer spending.

Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics, recently declared that a drop in spending by the rich has slowed the economic recovery.

"One of the reasons that the recovery has lost momentum is that high-end consumers have become more jittery and more cautious," he told The New York Times.

Liberals who favor the tax hikes note that these families also take in almost 30 percent of the nation's income, according to Congressional Budget Office data from 2007. The top 1 percent of earners collect 17 percent of the nation's income, according to CBO.

Yarmuth said Connolly and Bright, who don't want to touch the tax rate on the wealthiest, represent a minority opinion in the Democratic Caucus.

But he added concern over the economic impact of raising any taxes has spurred the idea of postponing when higher taxes go into effect.

Discussions are in the earliest stages and it's not yet clear whether the tax impact would be postponed until after November of 2012, when Obama faces reelection.

Even liberal lawmakers from the Northeast have begun pushing to shield some of the nation's highest income-earning families from tax increases.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat from Manhattan, has proposed legislation that would provide adjustments in income tax rates to reflect regional costs of living.

The legislation is sponsored by five Democrats representing New York City, its suburbs and Long Island where living standards and incomes are high.

They are Reps. Tim Bishop, Steve Israel, Nita Lowey, Carolyn Maloney and Carolyn McCarthy.

Rep. Jared Polis, a freshman Democrat from Colorado, said lawmakers are torn between concerns over the economic effect of raising taxes and the budget impact of keeping rates low for earners in the top brackets.

Allowing income tax rates to reset to pre-Bush levels for individuals earning more than $200,000 and families earning more than $250,000 could generate close to $700 billion over the next 10 years.

Families earning more than $374,000 a year in taxable income would see their rate jump from 35 percent to 39.6. Families earning above $250,000 in gross income would see their rate jump from 33 percent to 36.

The debate promises to get more contentious as Democrats near the end of the year.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has reiterated her support for raising taxes on individuals and families who earn the most.

"My position is also that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America did nothing to grow the economy during the Bush administration, did not create jobs, did not reduce the deficit," she said at a recent press conference.

In the Senate, some liberal Democrats such as Sen. Tom Harkin (Iowa) would like to see the Bush tax cuts expire for families earning $200,000 a year, or even less.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) disputed the argument that raising taxes on the wealthy could hurt the economy.

"One of the most robust periods of economic growth was prior to the Bush tax cuts," he said.

He said large federal deficits, which would be addressed by tax increases, have caused people to lose confidence in the economy.

Chuck Marr, director of federal tax policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank, said the economic impact of raising taxes on the wealthy is overstated.

He said the spending of high-income people is less affected by moderate shifts in income than is that of middle-income people, who often live "paycheck to paycheck."

"If lawmakers are concerned about the impact on the economy, they would be better off taking money raised from taxing the wealthy and channeling it in policies that deliver more bang for the buck," he said.

Some Democratic policy experts cite unemployment aid and infrastructure spending as policies with greater economic impact than keeping taxes low for the wealthy.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/22-1

Vilsack discriminated against Ms. Sherrod, and Vilsack did that by listening to only one perspective. Vilsack displayed clearly that he LACKED THE PRESENCE OF MIND to review with THOROUGHNESS the charge presented about her behavior!

And Vilsack LACKS that same PRESENCE OF MIND when it comes to a thorough review of the GMO facts and figures and missing safety research! Vilsack's CONSISTENT failure to be THOROUGH is absolutely DANGEROUS to all of us.

Vilsack favors CONSISTENTLY the opinions of the corporation's hired scientists and consistently ignores independent research and non-corporate science. He is discriminating against views outside the Corporate script and Corporations' profit-hungry growth curve view!

Is Vilsack a bagman for corporations? (Knee-jerk reaction perhaps to SIDE WITH CORPORATE FOX NEWS regarding Ms. Sherrod and her individual RIGHT to a fair review?) From my perspective, can Vilsack serve the Nation instead of the Corporations alone? NO.

VILSACK SHOULD RESIGN NOW!!!

Vilsack, leave your Dept. of Agriculture post.

The President needs to replace one trick pony Vilsack with someone with a DISCERNING MIND who can RESIST Corporate pressure to side with Corporations no matter what the corporations are promoting -- whether it is racism OR gene-spliced Frankenstein crops!

works. Elimination of Bush's tax cuts off the table! Fucking Democrats are afraid to push a little to the left. The BBC had some SC Republican Representative--who recently lost his party's lost the nomination to a teabagger--on pushing the need to deal with the deficits, and not increased social spending. (I am not sure where he would fall on this debate. The guy sounded very statesmanlike on the air.)

John Pilger

22 Jul 2010
In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the rise of Julia Gillard, Australia's first female prime minister who, in following her "role model" former prime minister Bob "Silver Bodgie" Hawke, has capitulated to the mining companies and reaffirmed Australia's race-based refugee policies and tradition of fighting in other people's wars.

...In 48 hours in June, she and Mates in Labor’s parliamnetary caucus got rid of the elected prime minister, Kevin Rudd. Her weapons were Rudd’s slide in the opinion polls and the power and prize of Australia’s vast trove of minerals. To pay off the national debt, Rudd had decreed a modest special tax on the profits of giants like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto. The response was a vicious advertising campaign against the government and a threat to shut down mines.

Within days of her coup, Gillard, who was Rudd’s deputy, had reduced the new tax; and the companies’ campaign was called off. It was a repeat of Hawke’s capitulation to the mining companies in the 1980s when they threatened to bring down a state Labor government in Western Australia. Like her predecessors, Gillard is pursuing a landgrab of the one region of Australia, the Northern Territory, where Aboriginal Australians have land and mineral rights. The deceit is spectacular and historical. The government claims it is “protecting” black Australian children from “abuse” and “neglect” within their communities. Official statistics show that the incidence of child abuse is no different from that of white Australia and the true cause of Aboriginal suffering is a systemic colonial racism that denies housing, water, roads, adequate health care and schools to indigenous people and harasses and imprisons them at a rate greater than in South Africa under apartheid.

Since her coup, Gillard has reaffirmed this racism at the heart of policy-making. Australia takes fewer refugees than almost any country, yet Gillard is using their “threat” to outdo the hysterics of an especially primitive parliamentary opposition led by Tony Abbot, known as the “mad monk”. Gillard’s “hardline” on refugees has been welcomed by the openly racist former MP Pauline Hanson as “sweep[ing] political correctness from the debate”. Hanson’s One Nation Party is the equivalent of the white supremacist British National Party. Gillard, an immigrant from Wales, demanded that refugees heading for Australia be “processed” (dumped) in East Timor, an impoverished country whose genocidal occupation by Indonesia was backed by Australian governments. Now liberated, the East Timorese have read their massive, under-populated neighbour a moral lesson by saying no.

Many of the refugees come from Afghanistan which Australia invaded at Washington’s insistence. “Our national security is at stake in Afghanistan”, said Gillard on 5 July, linking a faraway tribal war and resistance to foreign invaders with three terrorist attacks in Indonesia in which Australians were killed. There is not a shred of evidence to support her statement. Australia’s security is probably unique; since 1915, an estimated 22 people have died as a result of politically motivated violence....
http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=581

The burqua is torn off the face of the terrorists.
Submitted by ghettodefender on Thu, 07/22/2010 - 3:35pm.
Democrats May Stop Bush-Era Tax Cuts for Wealthy From Expiring
by Alexander Bolton
...
=====================

I like the way you used that 'burqua' word, Ghettodefender.

If the burqua fits, these guys should wear it!

"When the governments of Europe and the clergy of Europe, demanded of the women of the warring countries that they give themselves, in marriage or out, in order that the men might "breed before they die"--that was not a crime of maddened passion--it was the crime of cold-blooded, brutal selfishness--and by that crime the women of Europe were reduced to the status of breeding animals on a stock farm".

And further,--

"Our enemies tell you that we Socialists are hindering enlistment. This is not true! Please understand me now, and do not misquote what I say, 'If any young man feels that it is his duty to enlist, then with all my heart I say: Go! and God Bless you!' His blood may enrich the soil of France, but that may be for the best."
Kate Richards O'Hare
1917

Is that an aspect of a Fascist State?

US to resume ties with Indonesia's special forces

The United States will resume cooperation with Indonesia's special forces more than a decade after ties were severed over the commando unit's alleged human rights abuses, officials said Thursday.

The Indonesian military has said it has greatly improved its human rights record, and the country has wanted the United States to reconsider resuming joint training.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the announcement after meeting with Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in the capital of Jakarta.

Indonesia's special forces were accused of major abuses through the 1990s in the provinces of Papua and Aceh and in East Timor, a former province that has gained independence....

Sen. Patrick Leahy, who authored the U.S. law, said Kopassus was unrepentant and unaccountable still, but he cautiously hoped the new cooperation would lead to reforms.

"I deeply regret that before starting down the road of re-engagement, our country did not obtain and Kopassus did not accept the necessary reforms we have long sought. But a conditional toe in the water is wiser at this stage than diving in," the Vermont Democrat said in a statement....

Human Rights Watch strongly criticized the decision as undermining the slight progress that Indonesia's military has made and said in a statement that the United States was disregarding the problems that will persist in implementing reforms and accountability....

"It’s hard to see the administration’s decision as anything other than a victory for abusive militaries worldwide."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9185896

This is when world wide socialism/communism went south. Both movements were always intended, and can only really succeed, as international movements. Nationalism killed socialism.

Police apologize after beating the wrong woman...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/22/china-police-beat-wife-offic...

Jesse Richards at TVNewsLies says think again about the old saw "the troops protect our freedoms" because it is misleading. His commentary--

http://tvnewslies.org/tvnl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=...

Fight for the Land of the Free.

campaign in the US wiped out the anti-war movement. It began soon after Woodrow Wilson--whose campaign slogan was "He kept us out of war"--won re-election in 1916.

Could delay BP pollution clean-up and sealing the Deepwater Horizon well by 2 weeks...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/22/AR201007...

[excerpt]
...

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said a cluster of thunderstorms in the Bahamas formed into a tropical depression Thursday morning, the Associated Press reported. It could reach the spill site within two and a half days, officials said.

As crews on key vessels waited for orders on whether to leave, nonessential barges and skimmers were likely to be sent back to shore, the news service quoted a Coast Guard official as saying.

BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells said that although boats and crew remain at the Macondo site, work on the relief well was stopped Wednesday to give hundreds of workers time to leave if necessary. Evolving plans for an additional effort to seal the well from above were put on hold.

"We could have a tropical storm at Macondo," Wells said, "and we have to be able to get out of the way. We have to watch the weather very, very carefully and adjust plans accordingly."

Anxiety built Thursday among the 75-member crew aboard the cutter Decisive, the Coast Guard's primary search and rescue vessel that would be the last of about 65 ships to leave in the event of an evacuation, the Associated Press reported.

"It's a controlled chaos out there," Lt. Patrick Montgomery told an AP reporter aboard the cutter heading from Pascagoula, Miss., to the spill site.

The Shell Oil Co. announced Wednesday that it was preparing to take all non-essential personnel off its platforms and rigs in the eastern gulf as a precaution. Spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh said the move was triggered by the possibility of bad weather rather than any clear threat.

BP spokesman Daren Beaudo said his company was watching the weather but had not yet decided on any evacuation.

If the weather forces workers to leave the leak site, the final sealing of the well could be delayed 10 to 14 days, National Incident Commander Thad Allen said Wednesday. Since a new containment cap was installed last week, the well has been plugged and the oil and gas geyser controlled. BP officials said they were confident the well as currently configured would hold up during a storm.

...
[more at link]

Edward Bernays then was hired to make the propaganda to sell the U.S. entry into WWI.

http://home.bway.net/drstu/chapter.html

[excerpt]

...Throughout the interview Bernays expressed an unabashedly hierarchical view of society. Repeatedly, he maintained that, while most people respond to their world instinctively, without thought, there exist an "intelligent few" who have been charged with the responsibility of contemplating and influencing the tide of history. Perceived by Bernays as one of these "few," he was willing to share his outlook with me in straightforward terms.

Although he had written extensively, over a lifetime, about democracy and on the important role that public relations plays in a democratic society, Bernays, himself, was clearly no democrat. He expressed little respect for the average person's ability to think out, understand, or act upon the world in which they live.

"There are strange things about the culture," he intoned. "The average IQ is 100 of the American public, did you know that?" Assuming I grasped what for him was obvious, Bernays then sketched a picture of the public relations expert as a member of the "intelligent few" who advises clients on how to "deal with the masses...just by applying psychology."

As a member of that intellectual elite which guides the destiny of society, the PR "professional," Bernays explained, aims his craft at a general public which is essentially, and unreflectively, reactive. Working behind the scenes, out of public view, the public relations expert is "an applied social scientist," one educated to employ an understanding of "sociology, psychology, social psychology and economics" in order to influence and direct public attitudes. Throughout our conversation, Bernays conveyed his hallucination of democracy: a highly educated class of opinion-molding tacticians are continuously at work, analyzing the social terrain and adjusting the mental scenery from which the public mind, with its limited intellect, derives its opinions.

Undoubtedly, this point of view offers a glimpse into Edward L. Bernays. More importantly, it reflects a foundational conceit governing the field of public relations more broadly. While some have argued that public relations represents a "two-way street" through which institutions and the public carry on a democratic dialog, the public's role within that alleged dialog is, most often, one of having its blood pressure monitored, its temperature taken.

[excerpt]

Bernays played a big part, but it was a group effort. I once researched the origins of Fort Lewis, how the people in Pierce County, Washington came to vote to give a huge tract of land to the Department of the Army to build a base. Read every damned local newspaper from 1916.

laid the template for what we have today. Chomsky alsway mentions him. I need to look more deeply into this. I believe that Bernays was related to Freud--not that Freud would approve of this sort of disgusting activity.

3 Such a frame of reference has been provided by Freud himself in his bookGroup Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, published in English as early as 1922, and long before the danger of German fascism appeared to be acute.4 It is not an overstatement if we say that Freud, though he was hardly interested in the political phase of the problem, clearly foresaw the rise and nature of fascist mass movements in purely psychological categories. If it is true that the analyst's unconscious perceives the unconscious of the patient, one may also presume that his theoretical intuitions are capable of anticipating tendencies still latent on a rational level but manifesting themselves on a deeper one. It may not have been perchance that after the first World War Freud turned his attention to narcissism and ego problems in the specific sense. The mechanisms and instinctual conflicts involved evidently play an increasingly important role in the present epoch, whereas, according to the testimony of practicing analysts, the »classical« neuroses such as conversion hysteria, which served as models for the method, now occur less frequently than at the time of Freud's own development when Charcot dealt with hysteria clinically and Ibsen made it the subject matter of some of his plays. According to Freud the problem of mass psychology is closely related to the new type of psychological affliction so characteristic of the era which for socio-economic reasons witnesses the decline of the individual and his subsequent weakness. While Freud did not concern himself with the social changes, it may be said that he developed within in the monadological confines of the individual the traces of its profound crisis and willingness to yield unquestioningly to powerful outside, collective agencies. Without ever devoting himself to the study of contemporary social developments, Freud has pointed to historical trends through the development of his own work, the choice
(From "Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda")

A huge propaganda
Submitted by Leah on Thu, 07/22/2010 - 4:50pm.
campaign in the US wiped out the anti-war movement....
===================

Would like to read more about this. Is there a resource you can recommend, Leah?

The Four Minute Men were a group of volunteers authorized by the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, to give four minute speeches on topics given to them by The Committee on Public Information. The topics dealt with the American war effort in the First World War and were presented during the four minutes between reel changing in movie theaters across the country.

In 1917 the war in Europe had been raging for three years and America's involvement had not begun. Woodrow Wilson had just been re-elected president under the slogan "He Kept Us Out of War". The British had been calling for the United States involvement and eventually helped convince Wilson through items like the Zimmerman Telegram and the sinking of the RMS Lusitania. Eventually on April, 6th 1917 the US Congress declared war on Germany.

With a large number of German Americans in the United States, and many others with strong isolationist feelings, there was a strong need for a propaganda campaign to stir support for the war. This effort had many unique challenges to meet to address the existing political climate. Wilson needed to speak directly to the fragmented and spread out audience in the United States. He had to address the country's self-perception to generate support for the war. The Four-Minute Men provided an answer to these challenges.
[edit]Addressing Challenges

The Four Minute Men idea became a useful tool in the propaganda campaign because it addressed a specific rhetorical situation. One of the challenges of the effort was the fragmented audience of the United States. Many different heritages were represented in the United States, and the president needed their support for the war. To address each groups specific needs, the director of the Four Minute Men, William McCormick Blair, delegated the duty of speaking to local men. Well known and respected community figures often volunteered for the Four Minute Men program. This gave the speeches a local voice. Also, the four minute men were given general topics and talking points to follow and rotated between theaters to help the speeches seem fresh, instead of generic propaganda speeches.

The Four Minute Men was a division of the Committee on Public Information, headed by George Creel. The Committee on Public Information appointed William McCormick Blair as director of the Four Minute Men. Blair appointed state chairmen of the Four Minute Men, who then would appoint a city or community chairman. Each of these appointments needed to be approved in Washington. The local chairman would then appoint a number of speakers to cover the theaters in the city or community for which he was responsible.

The Four Minute Men provided Americans with information, and served as a connection between the government and citizens. More than 75,000 citizens volunteered and served in the Four Minute Men. Over 11,000,000 people heard Four Minute Man speeches in the eighteen month program.
Because the American government created a positive propaganda source, United States citizens were informed about the war. The Four Minute Men contributed to public morale, and focused attention on the principles at stake in the war.

and repression. That is what was used to destroy "the pacifists".

Though she was not a pacifist, Emma Goldman insisted on the anarchist principle that the state has no right to make war. She believed that most modern wars were fought on behalf of capitalists at the expense of the working class, and that the draft was a form of illegitimate coercion.
As the United States appeared to be drifting toward war in late 1916, Goldman threw her energy into opposing the government's military preparations, using her magazine, Mother Earth, as a forum. Goldman was not alone in this cause: the antiwar effort was the product of a broad coalition of liberals, socialists, anarchists, and progressive unionists. Ultimately, however, the federal government crushed this movement and repressed its elements in an almost hysterical patriotic prowar and antiradical crusade orchestrated by President Woodrow Wilson. Mother Earth was banned, along with other periodicals opposing the war. Hundreds of foreign-born radicals were deported.

Although Goldman knew federal government officials had been looking for grounds to deport her for years, she pressed on with her antiwar activities. Within weeks of America's entry into World War I, she helped launch the No- Conscription League to encourage conscientious objectors and spoke repeatedly against the draft, attracting eight thousand people to one meeting. Predictably, the government responded, arresting Emma Goldman and her comrade Alexander Berkman on June 15, 1917. Charged with conspiring against the draft, they were convicted and sentenced to two years in prison with the possibility of deportation at the end of their term.

After an unsuccessful appeal to the Supreme Court, Goldman began serving her term at the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. On September 27, 1919, Emma was released, only to be re-arrested shortly afterward by the young J. Edgar Hoover, head of the Justice Department's General Intelligence Division. Hoover advanced his career by implementing to the fullest extent possible the government's plan to deport all foreign-born radicals. Writing the briefs and presenting the case against Goldman himself, Hoover persuaded the courts to deny Goldman's citizenship claims and to deport her.

On December 21, 1919, Goldman, Berkman, and over two hundred other foreign- born radicals were herded aboard the Buford and, accompanied by a fearsome block of nearly one hundred guards, set sail for the Soviet Union.
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Exhibition/deportation.html

in re deportation

At the very outset of this hearing I wish to register my protest against these star chamber proceedings, whose very spirit is nothing less than a revival of the ancient days of the Spanish Inquisition or the more recently defunct Third Degree system of Czarist Russia.

This star chamber hearing is, furthermore, a denial of the insistent claim on the part of the Government that in this country we have free speech and a free press, and that every offender against the law--even the lowliest of men--is entitled to his day in open court, and to be heard and judged by a jury of his peers.

If the present proceedings are for the purpose of proving some alleged offense committed by me, some evil or anti-social act, then I protest against the secrecy and third degree methods of this so-called "trial." But if I am not charged with any specific offense or act, if--as I have reason to believe--this is purely an inquiry into my social and political opinions, then I protest still more vigorously against these proceedings, as utterly tyrannical and diametrically opposed to the fundamental guarantees of a true democracy.

Every human being is entitled to hold any opinion that appeals to her or him without making herself or himself liable to persecution. Ever since I have been in this country--and I have lived here practically all my life--it has been dinned into my ears that under the institutions of this alleged Democracy one is entirely free to think and feel as he pleases. What becomes of this sacred guarantee of freedom of thought and conscience when persons are being persecuted and driven out for the very motives and purposes for which the pioneers who built up this country laid down their lives?

And what is the object of this star chamber proceeding, that is admittedly based on the so-called Anti-Anarchist law? Is not the only purpose of this law, and of the deportations en masse, to suppress every symptom of popular discontent now manifesting itself through this country, as well as in all the European lands? It requires no great prophetic gift to foresee that this new Governmental policy of deportation is but the first step towards the introduction into this country of the old Russian system of exile for the high treason of entertaining new ideas of social life and industrial reconstruction. Today so-called aliens are deported, tomorrow native Americans will be banished. Already some patrioteers are suggesting that native American sons to whom Democracy is not a sham but a sacred ideal should be exiled. To be sure, America does not yet possess a suitable place like Siberia to which her exiled sons might be sent, but since she has begun to acquire colonial possessions, in contradiction of the principles she stood for over a century, it will not be difficult to find an American Siberia once the precedent of banishment is established.

The Anti-Anarchist law confuses the most varied social philosophies and isms in order to cover with the same blanket, so to speak, every element of social protest, so that under the guise of this single law, striking steel workers, railroad men, or any other class of workers, may be corralled wholesale and the most active of the strikers hurried out of the country, in order to serve the interests of our industrial kings.

Collective bargaining for the workers is now an admitted right, recognized by the highest officials of the land and accepted by the most reactionary elements. Yet when the steel workers of this country, after a quarter of a century of desperate struggle for the right to bargain collectively, have mustered enough spirit and cohesion to enter into a struggle with the steel barons for that fundamental right, the entire machinery of government, State and Federal, is put in operation to crush that spirit and to undermine the chance of establishing humane conditions in the industry where conditions have been worse than those that existed under the most brutal feudalism. The workers in the steel industry have expressed no particular social philosophy. They are certainly not on strike to "overthrow the government by a force or violence," yet the Anti-Anarchist law is used as a means to reach out for these simple, hard-driven and hard-pressed human beings, who have endangered life and limb to build up this devouring monster--the Steel Trust. A reign of terror has been established in the strike region. American Cossacks, known as the State Constabulary, ride over men, women and children; deputies of the Department of Justice break into the strikers' homes, violating the sacred Anglo-Saxon tradition that a man's home is his castle and may not be entered except by due warrant of law; and to add the finishing touch to this picture of American "freedom," the Immigration authorities, the men of your department, take the strikers off secretly and order them deported by such proceedings as I am being subjected to today, without having committed even the slightest offense against American institutions, save the one that is the greatest crime today--the right of the workers to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness--a right that was made in America, and not imported by these hated aliens.

A commission, appointed by your department, finds that eighty per cent of the wealth in this country is produced by these aliens themselves or the sons of these aliens. In return for this, they are hounded and persecuted as criminals and enemies.

Under the mask of the same Anti-Anarchist law every criticism of a corrupt administration, every attack on Governmental abuse, every manifestation of sympathy with the struggle of another country in the pangs of a new birth--in short, every free expression of untrammeled thought may be suppressed utterly, without even the semblance of an unprejudiced hearing or a fair trial. It is for these reasons, chiefly, that I strenuously protest against this despotic law and its star chamber methods of procedure. I protest against the whole spirit underlying it--the spirit of an irresponsible hysteria, the result of the terrible war and of the evil tendencies of bigotry and persecution and violence which are the epilogue of five years of bloodshed.

Under these circumstances it becomes evident that the real purpose of all of these repressive measures--chief among them the Anti-Anarchist law--is to support the capitalist status quo in the United States. Vain is the pretence that the safety of the country or the well-being of the American people demands these drastic Prussian methods. Nay, indeed, the people can only profit by a free discussion of the new ideas now germinating in the minds of thinking men and women in society. The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people is the greatest and only safety in a sane society. In truth, it is such free expression and discussion alone that can point the most beneficial path for human progress and development. But the object of deportations and of the Anti-Anarchist law, as of all similar repressive measures, is the very opposite. It is to stifle the voice of the people, to muzzle every aspiration of labor. That is the real and terrible menace of the star chamber proceedings and of the tendency of exiling and banishing everyone who does not fit into the scheme of things our industrial lords are so eager to perpetuate.

With all the power and intensity of my being I protest against the conspiracy of imperialist capitalism against the life and the liberty of the American people.

Emma Goldman
New York, October 27, 1919

by Jessie Kindig

The decades leading up to World War I had seen the emergence of the union movement. Organizations like the Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) gained national prominence with their ideas of building a democratic worker-run society not tied to the interests of capital or business. Many movements for social change were framed in terms of labor—the IWW worked to organize workers of all ethnicities and backgrounds—and agitation against Europe’s Great War was no exception. In the Northwest, World War I highlighted organized labor’s place as an (often radical) political actor, and precipitated the Seattle General Strike of 1919.

World War I was a conflict between European powers over boundaries, borders, and spheres of influence in colonized continents. It emerged just as the United States entered a deep economic recession in 1914 and seemed to provide a way for American capital to solve the economic crisis by expanding into foreign markets and competing for its own sphere of political and economic influence.

While for some the prospect of American entry into the conflict meant jobs in war industries like shipbuilding, lumber, and shipping, for others it meant conscription into a brutal overseas war and a curtailing of democratic freedoms at home. In Seattle, the war reduced unemployment but also produced an outpouring of antiwar agitation, stemming from the labor and radical movements. Penned by socialist Hulet M. Wells, the Seattle Central Labor Council (representing 25,000 workers) passed an antiwar resolution the day after European fighting was declared in 1914. It stated:
http://depts.washington.edu/antiwar/pnwhistory_home.shtml

Fort Lewis, named after Meriwether Lewis of the famed Lewis and Clark expedition, is one of the largest and most modern military reservations in the United States. Consisting of 87,000 acres of prairie land cut from the glacier-flattened Nisqually Plain, it is the premier military installation in the Northwest.

Fort Lewis began as Camp Lewis in 1917 when the citizens of Pierce County voted by an eight to one margin to bond themselves for $2 million to buy 68,721 acres of land. They donated the land to the federal government for military use. The only stipulation was that the tract be used as a permanent Army post. Captain David L. Stone and his staff arrived at the camp site May 26,1917, and a few days later the initial construction began. The entire camp was ready for occupancy a month ahead of schedule. In 90 days, Stone had supervised the construction of a "city" of 757 buildings and 422 other structures all lighted and heated for 60,000 men. The first recruits moved into their new barracks on Sept. 5, 1917, exactly two months after the post building plan had been handed to the contractors. When they implemented auction of the new cantonment, workmen subscribed $4,000 to build the Main Gate - which is still standing. The arch was built of field stone and squared logs resembling the old block houses which stood in the Northwest as forts. Some 60,000 men,including the 91st Division, moved into the hastily constructed cantonment to train for World War I. Recruited largely from the Northwest, the 91st was considered "Washington's Own."

The following two years saw tremendous activity at Camp Lewis as men mobilized and trained for war service. Thousands of the nation's youth learned to know Camp Lewis and the state of Washington. With the conclusion of the war, activities at Lewis ground to a standstill. Camp Lewis passed from the hands of Pierce County and became the property of the Federal Government when the deed for 62,432 acres was recorded in the county auditor's office in Tacoma.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/fort-lewis.htm

Saw the BBC miniseries "Far from the Maddening Crowd" and was moved by how the fictional story flowed along with the historical facts of the introduction of industrial techniques of conducting agriculture and the resulting societal changes.

Thomas Hardy was a skilled storyteller, capturing this time time of change vividly.

The tone of the dramatization I saw did not take a position on these changes, and I haven't read Harding, so I don't know if he just recorded the presence of the industrial revolution as another character in his novels or if he took a position on the changes.

[From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy
Literary themes
Although he wrote a great deal of poetry, most of it went unpublished until after 1898, thus Hardy is best remembered for the series of novels and short stories he wrote between 1871 and 1895. His novels are set in the imaginary world of Wessex, a large area of south and south-west England, using the name of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom that covered the area. Hardy was part of two worlds. He had a deep emotional bond with the rural way of life which he had known as a child, but he was also aware of the changes which were under way and the current social problems, from the innovations in agriculture — he captured the epoch just before the Industrial Revolution changed the English countryside — to the unfairness and hypocrisy of Victorian sexual behaviour.]

I mention this because I wonder if the non-biological forces that alter our lives in a way that takes us away from our daily connection to the biology of the Planet -- industrial revolution machines, Chemistry's synthetic everything, cyber technology, biotechnology (gene splicing} and nanotechnology -- can rip humans away from what it takes to recuperate from trauma.

Natural disasters (and some consider war a natural behavior) happen, and humans have worked through these traumas, and picked up and started again afterwards, I gather, and did it from the ground up. But now I wonder if humans are suffering and unable to start over when non-biological technology separates them from the healing resonance provided by Nature itself. For example, the technology of, say, a BP, literally smothers the Earth, and leaves nothing but toxicity. At some point, this difference between the past (when Nature was still available) and the present (where Nature is utterly destroyed) and its affect on human ability to cope and rebound must be acknowledged.

The spin that all things 'modern' and 'new' are 'good' and 'practical' needs to be reevaluated. Mere cheerleading is no substitute for actual discernment.

$2 million for a wedding? Beyond the extremes of Conspicuous Consumption, imo.

When the people who lost jobs because of Bill's WTO/NAFTA are homeless and living under the overpass, it seems REALLY poor taste to have this wedding.

The Clintons got the success and wealth and influence they wanted, huh, over the crumbled lives of the victims of the profit predators.

Very, very flanting, and literal proof that the Clintons probably are essentially low-life tools of the Richest Class. Do the Clintons think this obscenely expensive wedding now proves they have joined the calss they represent, and that the Clinton Family now has that quality called 'class'?

Ignorant people.

Succinct observation by Karel.

http://www.green960.com/pages/karel.html

Throwing the mad man Mel a bone.
Gallipoli, which you've probably seen. Fantastic, tragic film, about Australia's involvement in the WWI.
One of Gibson's first films.

with Cenk right now.

http://www.theyoungturks.com/

"The fateful question for the human species seems to me to be whether and to what extent their cultural development will succeed in mastering the disturbance of their communal life by the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction. It may be that in this respect precisely the present time deserves a special interest. Men have gained control over the forces of nature to such an extent that with their help they would no difficulty in exterminating one another to the last man. They know this, and hence comes a large part of their current unrest, their unhappiness and their mood of anxiety. And now it is to be expected that the other of the two 'Heavenly Powers', eternal Eros, will make an effort to assert himself in the struggle with his equally immortal adversary (Thanatos). But who can foresee with what success and with what result?"
Civilization and Its Discontents Freud, 1929.

at the key point. It sounded like Sam was going to say he feared Obama would actually go after SS. But he got cut off.

Timeless.

Sam's got such as easy voice to listen to. I still can't believe he's not on anymore.

From the Narco News report

Posted by Bill Conroy - July 21, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Attorneys with the U.S. Department of Justice have filed a motion in federal court indicating that Congress has been notified officially of corruption allegations involving the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department.
The motion further substantiates a prior report by Narco News published July 4 that revealed at least one Congressional committee has launched an investigation into alleged CIA and State Department deceptions that surfaced in a lawsuit accusing officials from those agencies of spying on a DEA agent.

“The CIA and State Department’s OIGs [Office of Inspector Generals] gave notice to the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency and they also notified the appropriate [Congressional] committees about the corruption allegations raised in [former DEA agent] Horn’s litigation,” says the Congressional source, who asked not to be named. The source adds that an investigation is now underway by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and possibly additional committees, that is focused not only on the corruption charges that surfaced in Horn’s lawsuit, but also some “bigger issues.”

Re: Karel show...I can't even chat there yet as two of my email addresses say they are already taken...

Another pathetic imposter... :(

GD....the only person who could excite me to listen to them as I did Sam and Janeane needs to be way beyond that old useless, stinking, paradigm...just saying...

President Chavez ordered maximum alert on Venezuela’s border with Colombia after the Uribe administration made grave accusations against Venezuela claiming the Chavez government harbors terrorists and terrorist training camps

The outgoing government of Alvaro Uribe in Colombia gave a shameful presentation before member states of the Organization of American States (OAS) on Thursday, reminiscent of Colin Powell’s “weapons of mass destruction” power point evidence presented in 2003 before the United Nations Security Council to justify the war in Iraq....

Yet none of the images were authenticated or verified as reliable by any source other than the Colombian government. Colombia also used satellite map images, some from Google Earth, to show alleged “coordinates” where FARC members are in Venezuela....

The Venezuelan army verified and thoroughly inspected the locations and coordinates provided by the Uribe administration on Thursday and found none of the alleged “terrorist sites”, “camps” or “guerrilla presence” claimed by Colombia.

Upon arriving at the first coordinate indicated in Colombia’s report, identified as an alleged terrorist camp of alias Ruben Zamora, the Venezuelan army found a farm growing plantains, yucca and corn. The second coordinate, which was the alleged camp of FARC commander Ivan Marquez, was merely an extensive field with no structures or presence of anyone or anything.

INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION

During his two-hour long flamboyant presentation, Hoyos called for “international intervention” in Venezuela to verify the campsites and gave Venezuela a “30-day ultimatum”....

Chavez also ordered troops to secure all border areas. “I have ordered a maximum alert on our borders. Uribe is a mafioso and a liar, and is capable of anything”, he said, recalling how Uribe ordered the invasion of Ecuador’s territory in 2008 and then lied to President Rafael Correa about what had happened.

Venezuela accused Colombia of failing to resolve its own internal conflicts, including a 60-year old civil war that has negatively impacted its neighbors with violence and drug trafficking spilling over the borders. More than 4 million Colombians, fleeing the violence in their country, live in Venezuela today...
http://www.chavezcode.com/2010/07/venezuela-breaks-relations-with.html

I can't see beyond paradigms, Alice.

Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.
Sigmund Freud

Heart-wrenching. Cows overgraze and horses are blamed.

Round-up horses -- running foals until their hooves fall off.

The meat industry and their Interior Dept. Bureau of Land Management (Bureau of Mining and Livestock!) people are responsible. It's that profiteering DEATH CULT stuff that is turning the Earth into a cinder, and the systematic genocide of wild horses is a part of that.

AND THE MURDER OF WILD HORSES IS IN DIRECT OPPOSITION OF THE WILL OF THE U.S. CITIZENS WHO WANT THE HORSES PROTECTED, HAVE SET LAND ASIDE FOR THEM, AND WANT THEM PRESERVED. Is there a term for defying the will of the people, using public funds and office and bureaucratic position to OPPOSE and BYPASS the will of the people? I want to know that term.

This is a must see video, PART 1:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/mustangconspiracy/

The People have spoken and demand that wild horses live on public land with protected status; but Obama's Cabinet Interior Secty. KEN SALAZAR defies that legal charge and declares that wild horses have no place on public lands. AND BP's role in wild horse round-ups -- The Ruby Pipeline. PART 2:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/mustangconspiracy/part2.html

Hey Alice -
Prefer the Twist to the Olivers. And that body should be gin. Not vodka, OK?
Love to you and to P and the Cs
Loves
-T&A

I've tried myself with no success. Don't understand it.

The horses are being removed by the Bureau of Land Management for three reasons only:

:: To avoid bad P.R. in the future when wild horse enthusiasts would protest about destructive and invasive DEVELOPMENT of oil/gas pipelines infringing on the health of the wild horse herds and other wildlife. It's a scorched earth policy in effect -- scouring the landscape of living creatures before slashing and bulldozing through plains, forests, lakesides to develop Corporate profits on public lands.

:: To make more land available for the WELFARE PROGRAM FOR LIVESTOCK AND MINING/DRILLING CORPORATIONS.

:: To create a private profiteering scheme of CORRALLING wild horses until they die -- a moneystream of public funds that pays private landowners to wharehouse wild horses in corrals even though it would cost taxpayers NOTHING if the wild horses were permitted to live off the public lands in protected zones AS PROVIDED FOR BY LAW. In other words, this is a SCAM to syphon million$ of public monies into the bank accounts of scammers! This is BLATANT THEFT AND CORRUPTION facilitated by the highest offices in government like Interior Secretary Ken Salazar!

Drugs, thugs, planes and banks. Can't you just SMELL the Bush Crime Family?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20210

[excerpt]
When investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker broke the story four years ago that a DC-9 (N900SA) "registered to a company which once used as its address the hangar of Huffman Aviation, the flight school at the Venice, Florida Airport which trained both terrorist pilots who crashed planes into the World Trade Center, was caught in Campeche by the Mexican military ... carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine destined for the U.S.," it elicited a collective yawn from corporate media.

And when authorities searched the plane and found its cargo consisted solely of 128 identical black suitcases marked "private," packed with cocaine valued at more than $100 million, the silence was deafening.

But now a Bloomberg Markets magazine report, "Wachovia's Drug Habit," reveals that drug traffickers bought that plane, and perhaps fifty others, "with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.," Wachovia and Bank of America.

The Justice Department charge sheet against the bank tells us that between 2003 and 2008, Wachovia handled $378.4 billion for Mexican currency exchanges, "the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history."

"A sum" Bloomberg averred, equal to one-third of Mexico's current gross domestic product."

Since 2006, some 22,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence. Thousands more have been wounded, countless others "disappeared," torture and illegal imprisonment is rampant.

In a frightening echo of the Reagan administration's anti-communist jihad in Central America during the 1980s, the Bush and now, Obama administration has poured fuel on the fire with some $1.4 billion in "War on Drugs" funding under Plan Mérida. Much of that "aid" is destined to purchase military equipment for repressive police, specialized paramilitary units and the Mexican Army.

There is also evidence of direct U.S. military involvement. In June, The Narco News Bulletin reported that "a special operations task force under the command of the Pentagon is currently in place south of the border providing advice and training to the Mexican Army in gathering intelligence, infiltrating and, as needed, taking direct action against narco-trafficking organizations."

One former U.S. government official told investigative journalist Bill Conroy, "'Black operations have been going on forever. The recent [mainstream] media reports about those operations under the Obama administration make it sound like it's a big scoop, but it's nothing new for those who understand how things really work'."

...

"Troubled Assets" or Something More Sinister?

When Wells Fargo bought Wachovia, once America's fourth largest bank in 2008 at the fire-sale price of $12.8 billion, the bank and its former CEO, Kennedy "Ken" Thompson, who "retired at the request of the board" before the full-extent of the financial meltdown hit home, were in deep trouble.

...

However you slice it, although it was clear that the Golden West deal had gone south quicker than you can say "credit default swaps," this didn't seem to stop Wachovia from paying "smartest guy in the room" Thompson $15.6 million in total compensation in 2007, a year after the fatal Golden West transaction. Nor did these losses stop the bank from showering Thompson with a severance package worth nearly $8 million.

But was something else going on here?

Wells Fargo bank admitted in a signed Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the federal government that they would not contest charges brought by the Justice Department in itsindictment of the bank.

The banking giant was forced to admit charges by prosecutors that "On numerous occasions, monies were deposited into a CDC [Casa de Cambio] by a drug trafficking organization. Using false identities, the CDC then wired that money through its Wachovia correspondent bank accounts for the purchase of airplanes for drug trafficking organizations. On various dates between 2004 and 2007, at least four of those airplanes were seized by foreign law enforcement agencies cooperating with the United States and were found to contain large quantities of cocaine."

Bloomberg reported that Wells Fargo, in the wake of the settlement "declined to answer specific questions, including how much it made by handling $378.4 billion--including $4 billion of cash--from Mexican exchange companies."

There was however, more than "troubled assets" and charges of money laundering to the story. In fact, the purchase of these drug planes have been tied to some of the Bush administration's most secretive "War On Terror" programs.

Drug Flights, CIA Renditions. Just Another Day at the Office!

Replicating a pattern used by the Central Intelligence Agency during the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, the secret state used a network of cut-outs and legitimate businesses to transport prisoners to Agency black sites for "special handling."

[more at link]

Obama blames the MEDIA for the Sherrod Racist Slur Scandal! Obama weasels out of responsibility for hiring a someone like VILSACK who never met a corporation he didn't like -- even Fox News! Sheesh.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/22/obama-media-shirley-sherrod_n_6...

http://www.helium.com/items/1882339-doomsday-how-bp-gulf-disaster-may-ha...

There it is again -- that testtube sweet called fructose.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/07/22/high-fruct...

Rep Engels asks Secretary of the Interior Salazar about 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf of Mexico and Salazar's chilling reply:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bo6kyjot0M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogKc-JewgCI&feature=related

See ya manyana...

National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform
President Obama created the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to address our nation's fiscal challenges. The Commission is charged with identifying policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run.
http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/

Next MeetingNext Meeting of the President’s Bipartisan Fiscal Commission
July 28, 9:30 AM - 12:00 PM

The bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform will address our nation's mid- and long-term fiscal challenges in a series of meetings in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, with video always streamed live at WhiteHouse.gov/live.

Submit Ideas
The Commission welcomes your input as we seek out creative solutions to our nation's mid- and long-term fiscal challenges. Anyone can submit comments, ideas, and suggestions at anytime via email by contacting commission@fc.eop.gov. All comments received, including attachments and other supporting materials, are part of the public record. Due to the volume of comments we receive, we are not able to respond to each submission.

Email comments to commission@fc.eop.gov.

(ChattahBox)—Republicans are certainly predictable. During remarks made before the GOP Youth Convention today, right-wing Tea Party Caucus Queen, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) acknowledged Republican plans for 2011, if her Party regains the majority in the November elections. What are those plans? Paralyze the Obama administration with endless subpoenas and investigations. And shut down the government by defunding programs Republicans don’t like. What about legislating and promoting the GOP agenda? Naw, it’s more fun to engage in pointless right-wing freak outs and wacky conspiracy theories, such as the birther nonsense that Obama is an illegal alien.

During the Clinton administration when Republican lawmakers had control of the House, they sunk the legislative process into paralysis, as they abused the chamber’s subpoena power to conduct never-ending investigations of former President Bill Clinton. There was no time for actual legislating with such pressing matters as the Clintons’ Christmas card list.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has gamely tried to keep up the tradition of pursuing investigations of mostly manufactured scandals against President Obama. But as a member of the minority party, he lacks subpoena power.

If the GOP regains majority control in the House come November, Issa, the most powerful Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, would likely become chairman. And with subpoena power in hand, he has already announced he would increase his staff to handle the endless investigations against Obama.

And Bachmann shamelessly admitted it today.

“Oh, I think that’s all we should do,” Bachmann said. “I think that all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another. And expose all the nonsense that is going on. And it’s very important when we come back that we have constitutional conservative leadership because the American people’s patience is about this big.”

And in between holding endless press conferences to announce yet another investigation of the White House, GOP lawmakers will work in the chamber to defund government programs supported by Democrats:

“This is the year – this is it,” Bachmann continued. “All of our chips are on November. If we don’t get it back and then starve the beast – the House, we have the power of the purse – so we can starve ObamaCare. We don’t have to fund any of these programs and that’s exactly what we need to do – defund all of this nonsense and then unwind it.”

No wonder Republican leaders are unable or unwilling to articulate a campaign agenda for the mid-term elections—they have no intention of doing the actual job they were elected to do, such as legislating on behalf of their constituents.

http://chattahbox.com/us/2010/07/22/michele-bachmanns-plans-for-gop-win-...

...oh it will get worse. So start putting some hip service into that lip service.

And they will. You don't prosecute the Bush Crime Family and that's what you get.

On July 23, 1914, Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia following the killing of Archduke Francis Ferdinand by a Serb assassin; the dispute led to World War I

San Francisco {Ol'} Transbay Terminal building

:):( :):( :):(

Tea & Wine & Whatever Cheers :):(:):(

varnishing the living room baseboards. inspired by one of the old victorian houses i restored in San Francisco.

lost my camera. ding dang orangatan!

Hosni Mubarak makes TV address in attempt to halt health rumours

Egyptian president appears gaunt and pale on national day after postponing several scheduled meetings

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/23/hosni-mubarak-health-egypt

by Alan Greenblatt

...Schorr joined CBS News in 1953 as one of "Murrow's boys," the celebrated news team put together by Edward R. Murrow. He reopened the network's Moscow bureau, which had been shuttered by Joseph Stalin in 1947. Ten years later, Schorr scored an exclusive broadcast interview with Nikita Khrushchev, the U.S.S.R. Communist Party chief - the first-ever with a Soviet leader. Schorr was barred from the U.S.S.R. later that year after repeatedly defying Soviet censors....

...Schorr was surprised to find himself on the so-called Enemies List that had been drawn up by Richard Nixon's White House when he read it on the air. The list - naming hundreds of political opponents, entertainers and publications considered hostile to the administration - became the basis for one of the charges of impeachment against Nixon.

Schorr, along with some other members of the list, counted his inclusion on it as his greatest achievement...
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/23-5

... almost every quality-of-life measure, the German system surpasses America's. Yes, what you've heard is true: With
What anemic America can learn from Europe’s export-happy engine and largest social democracy.

...with six weeks of vacation time, Germans work less. Poverty rates for children and the elderly are less than half that of the United States. Unlike most Americans, the average German isn't perpetually indebted because basic "public goods" (healthcare, education, childcare, public transit, etc.) are paid for by the state. This last point is crucial for understanding the paradox of how Germans can pay much higher taxes and be able to save money. As Geoghegan notes,

Over here, only some of our taxes come back to us. A lot of them go to the private market It's not just that Europeans spend more; unlike us, they know how to spend the money effectively. Even the least efficient health care systems, like Germany's, take up only 11 percent of GDP. In America, by contrast, health care takes up over 17 percent...
http://www.alternet.org/vision/147560/america%2C_there_is_a_better_way%3...

Left and Right is passe
Submitted by Alice on Thu, 07/22/2010 - 9:18pm.
-----

Well said, Alice. Best line on the thread I have seen :)

Because There is no such thing as left or right
there is only one party with the same goal
the rest is total propaganda to keep the TV watchers and radio listeners hoodwinked and bamboozled

Every single Congressperson, Rep, Dem or whatever, up for election must be voted out. I don't think I am the only one who hopes that people wake up and realize what is going on. Having a Dem Pres and a Dem Congress is no reason to go to sleep or to continue the old "lets beat up on the Rethugs" nonsense game. So passe. So pathetic.

""When the Cybersecurity Act was introduced by Senator John Rockefeller last year, he made similar claims about the threat of cyber attacks, adding “Would it have been better if we’d have never invented the Internet?”.

Rockefeller’s legislation gives the president the ability to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any “critical” information network “in the interest of national security.” The bill does not define a critical information network or a cybersecurity emergency. That definition would be left to the president, according to a Mother Jones report."

----please follow links and check videos posted in this article

===
False Flag Cyber Attack Could Takedown The Internet

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Wednesday, Jul 21st, 2010

An increasing clamour to restrict and control the internet on behalf of the government, the Pentagon, the intelligence community and their private corporate arms, could result in a staged cyber attack being used as justification.

Over recent months we have seen a great increase in media coverage of inflated fears over a possible “electronic Pearl Harbor” event, with reports claiming that the U.S. could be “felled within 15 minutes”.

Vastly over-hyped (and in some cases completely asinine) claims that the power grids and other key infrastructure such as rail networks and water sources are wired up to the public internet have permeated such coverage.

Threats against computer networks in the United States are grossly exaggerated. Dire reports issued by the Defense Science Board and the Center for Strategic and International Studies “are usually richer in vivid metaphor — with fears of ‘digital Pearl Harbors’ and ‘cyber-Katrinas’ — than in factual foundation,” writes Evgeny Morozov, a respected researcher and blogger who writes on the political effects of the internet.

read here

http://www.infowars.com/false-flag-cyber-attack-could-takedown-the-inter...

The paradigm continues there.

Short, not too eventful, but fun to see Sam talking to our own(Minnesota's)Mike McIntee, host of Quick on the Uptake here in the beautiful Twin Towns. The Uptake is a non-profit, citizen journalism video caster, that broadcast the Franken-Coleman trial gavel to gavel. They're awesome.
http://uptake.blip.tv/file/3915837/

Must See Films:

The Road
w. Viggo Mortensen

IMO one of the most imp. films ever made. But absolutely terrifying. I watched it two weeks ago and can't get it out of my mind. It changes everything ....

Edge of Darkness
w. Mel Gibson

never has a film made the "Takeover of the Corporations w. their own security fiefdom" so clear

The most frequent and powerful line is "Thats classified."

The following line should also be used when addressing the mainstream servant press:

"Senator, I think you're in a position, Senator, regarding Northmoor ... where you had better decide whether you're on the cross ... or banging in the nails."

True. But there still are a few leftists. Chomsky isn't William Kristol.
But more importantly, there really is a right here. And it ain't nice. Listen to Beck for fifteen minutes. Or better still, just watch him with the sound off.

"Every single Congressperson...up for election must be voted out. "

Well, I actually like Malloy's idea of voting for the Rethugs in in order to finish this nation off (at least, academically I like idea). However, if Kucinich were my rep, I would never vote against him just because I was pissed.

America, There Is a Better Way: It’s Called Germany
Submitted by ghettodefender on Fri, 07/23/2010 - 8:05pm.
----

thanks for posting this article, ghetto :)

I wish it was that simple. Then it would be a piece of cake.

I don't watch TV mainstream news and listen to Radio Talk. And there is a reason for it.

I am not born yesterday and I know what the Repubs are all about. Same goes for the Dems.

The so-called progressives annoy me. Big Time. They promoted the election of Obama when they should have known better and now even refuse to fight for their own civil rights ... they even helped Obama kill the peace movement. From Day One. They remain in total denial. Even people like Chomsky could do much better in the truth department. His indifference is appalling at times. There are other authors/academics/former gov. officials turned whistleblowers, etc. etc. I respect so much more.

I don't care what people like Beck et al talk. And I was unlucky enough to see the post about Bill Press the other day. A total nitwit.

Besides

Everyone has to decide for herself or himself how to go about this almost hopeless affair ....

I'm done.

New Yorkers, please call the Hotline at 212-330-8029 to travel with the NY Coalition to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal.

ONA MOVE, All!

As I'm sure you all know, this August 8th marks 32 years of unjust imprisonment for The MOVE 9. Our main activity is to pressure the parole board about their release but we won't let August 8th go by without reminding people what that day represents. We will gather at 11th and Market Sts. from 11:00 am until 3:00 pm on Saturday August 7th. We will have info to distribute to people and will be available to talk to people about The MOVE 9. Hope to see you there--Ramona

Just to remind folks of the August 8, 1978 events, reprinted below is an August 8, 2004 Mumia Commentary. You can hear this in Mumia's voice at http://www.prisonradio.org/maj/maj_8_8_04move.html

The Move 9; 26 yrs. in Hell

WHAT A FAMILY WE ARE WHEN WE'RE ONE FORCE, ONE UNIT, A POWERFUL FORCE THAT NO SYSTEM CAN EQUAL, FOR WE HAVE THE POWER OF LIFE AS OUR ALLY, MY MAMA, OUR MAMA, THE LIFE FORCE OF MOVE, NO DIVISIONAL THING CAN EVER DEFEAT US AS LONG AS WE HONOR THE GRIP OF THE FAMILY ....
*John Africa*, MOVE Founder

For 26 years now, a group of revolutionaries known as the MOVE 9, have been encaged within prisons all across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, all of whom face continuing sentences of 100 years, despite evidence of their innocence.

These men and women are all members of the MOVE Organization, who were captured, dragged through a show trial in Philadelphia Courts, and sentenced to a century in cages by the notorious Judge Edwin Malmed, who when asked, in a talk show radio interview to name those who were guilty of the crime of murder (of which all 9 were convicted), replied, "I haven't the faintest idea."

This writer knows this because it was I who asked him that question, and I who received the astonishing answer, on the air!

He would tell other reporters, "They were tried as a family, and I sentenced them as a family." It would seem that a more accurate response would be, 'I sentenced them because they *are* a family.'

They were convicted of being united, not in crime, but in rebellion against the system and in resistance to the armed assaults of the State.

They were convicted of being MOVE members.

Here's why I say that: On August 8th, 1978, when the police unleashed an armed assault on MOVE's home and headquarters in West Philadelphia, it ended the assault with the arrest of not 9 young men and women, but 12. Several of the women, young mothers, were, quite understandably, terrorized by the kind of violence they saw by the police, and quietly left the MOVE Organization. As soon as they renounced their memberships in MOVE, charges against them were dropped! Why, unless their very 'crimes' were nothing more than membership?

Understand that none of the MOVE women were charged with weapons offenses, yet all of them were sentenced identically to the men, who were given weapons charges.

For 26 years, both MOVE men and women of the MOVE 9, have continued their work, by living according to the Teachings of John Africa, despite their cruel incarcerations. Many are indeed Ministers of that Teaching, and work to counsel people in the prisons who are trying to withstand the onslaught of repression.

On March 13th, 1998, the brave and brilliant Merle Africa had her life stolen by 20 years in state dungeons. To many, many women in the prison system, she is remembered for her warmth and caring, but also for her spirit of resistance to prison injustices. Her death did not stop her spirit, which radiated through all who knew her, whether in, or out, of prison.

On August 8th, 1978, MOVE folks were protecting themselves from a vicious, premeditated, police and paramilitary act of urban war upon their home and offices. Under what America claims is its 'law', one has an alleged right to self-defense. But, when people actually do so, they are given all kinds of nasty names by the corporate media.

Not surprisingly, when the State hurts people, when they shoot people, when they *bomb* people (as they did to MOVE on May 13th, 1985!) they are never called nasty names. They are simply 'doing their jobs.' That's OK.

MOVE members from the August 8th attack are still fighting for their freedom 26 years later. They are: Janine Africa, Phil Africa, Janet Africa, Delbert Africa, Debbie Africa, Mike Africa, Chuck Africa and Eddie Africa.

Surely, 26 years is long enough! Join the Movement to Free the MOVE 9. Join the growing Friends of MOVE, which are literally, people from around the world.

Tea & Whatever Cheers To All ;)

;)

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/07/23/pentago...

[excerpt]
WASHINGTON — Federal investigators have identified several dozen Pentagon officials and contractors with high-level security clearances who allegedly purchased and downloaded child pornography, including an undisclosed number who used their government computers to obtain the illegal material, according to investigative reports.

The investigations have included employees of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — which deal with some of the most sensitive work in intelligence and defense — among other organizations within the Defense Department.

The number of offenders is a small percentage of the thousands of people working for sensitive Pentagon-related agencies. But the fact that offenders include people with access to government secrets puts national security agencies “at risk of blackmail, bribery, and threats, especially since these individuals typically have access to military installations,’’ according to one report by the Defense Criminal Investigative Service from late 2009.

Some of the individuals have been prosecuted and other cases have been dropped, while more have languished several years without resolution, according to the previously undisclosed documents about the investigations.

The more than 50 pages, compiled by the investigative service, part of the Pentagon’s Inspector General’s Office, contain summaries of investigations initiated since 2002, including some cases that remain open.

The uneven discipline reflects difficulties in bringing prosecutions, according to specialists. The evidentiary standards are high for prosecution in child pornography cases, according to child welfare specialists, including positively identifying victims as underage or known victims of abuse. In others, evidence was lost or misplaced and investigators said they lacked sufficient resources to complete all of them.

Gary Comerford, a spokesman for the Pentagon’s Inspector General, said the agency takes such cases very seriously but said he could not comment on individual investigations.

Many of those apprehended were swept up in a much broader probe initiated by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in 2006. Operation Flicker identified an estimated 5,000 people who had paid money over the Internet to access websites operated overseas. But until now, it has not been disclosed that a sizable number of cases were referred to the Defense Department for investigation because they involved military personnel, intelligence officials, or defense contractors.

The investigative documents were provided to the Globe by a government official after they were approved for public release.

The exact numbers of cases involving Defense Department personnel were not contained in the reports and officials at DCIS could not immediately provide statistics. But the official reports indicate that more than 30 government employees were investigated.
...

[more at link]

[excerpt]
by Janine R. Wedel

This is the first of a Shadow Elite series, investigating the game-changing effects of government contracting on the most vital government functions.

It's one of those ideas that might seem sensible at first-glance: retired military officers hired to serve as "senior mentors" to the armed forces. Only on closer inspection are the potential conflicts of interest revealed: the retired officers were paid by contractors, advising on military services even as they were consulting for companies seeking to sell military products, as reported by USA Today. When news of the program came to light, Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered changes, but the paper reported Tuesday that "senior mentors will not have to disclose their business ties or finances to the public, under a [July 8 Defense] directive...That falls below what [Defense Secretary Gates] initially called for...."

This Pentagon program is not simply an isolated conflict of interest story, or "coincidence of interest"--where players craft roles across organizations to serve their own agendas, instead of those of the organizations for which they supposedly work. It illustrates the perils of a governing landscape that has transformed in recent years: where once federal employees executed most government work, today more than 75 percent of that work, measured in terms of jobs, is contracted out and many of these jobs involve government functions. Many contractors are integrally involved in formulating and influencing policy on issues ranging from defense (as seen in the mentoring program), to the economy and energy to homeland security and intelligence. Even when many, if not most, of these contractors perform admirably, whether contractors always have the public interest at heart, or whether, beholden to shareholders, they might have their own, is a crucial question.

The Washington Post reported this week on the influence of contractors and the unmanageable growth of the intelligence community since 9/11. I also studied this development (in the area of intelligence and beyond) as part of my research for my book Shadow Elite and in a follow-on study (supported by the Ford Foundation), Selling Out Uncle Sam: How the Myth of Small Government Undermines National Security, soon to be released. In addition to interviews with government and contractor officials, I poured through piles of Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports, inspectors general audits,and congressional testimony evaluating the role of contractors in federal agencies. And a key finding that emerges is that information that once was or should be in official hands is being privatized, ceded to government contractors, at a time when government oversight is increasingly overwhelmed and undercut.

When information that is supposedly of and for government is in private hands, it is not just that government often isn't kept in the loop. The information, and the power that goes with it, can be used to serve private agendas with the risk of corporate and private players influencing policy to suit those agendas. This is far more insidious than simply hiring a contractor to provide food service or even contracting security assistance in a war-zone like Iraq. Contractors are now routinely carrying out what's known as "inherently governmental functions," the work so fundamental to the public interest that only federal workers should conduct. The privatization of information is especially dangerous when these core functions are outsourced.
[more at link]

I think sixteen is too young for kids to spend that much time (2 mos.) away from home in the grips of Big Brother.

Starting with a shorter local program maybe, but longer term away from home opens too much opportunity for questionable indoctrination outside the view of parents, imo.

I hope this isn't the same kind of program Rahm Emanuel is planning for our children.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7903312/National-Cit...

National Citizenship Service for 16-year-olds launched today

Every teenager in the country will today be invited to take part in a two-month summer residential course under plans for voluntary programme of national service.

[full story at link]

Leonard Cohen -

Everybody Knows That The Dice Are Loaded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q63plx5NClI&feature=related

Leonard Cohen -

First We Take Manhattan
Then We Take Berlin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFBKV0zVXSE&feature=related

By Nicola Nasser

Friday, July 23, 2010

Since 1860, when the American Jewish tycoon Judah Touro donated $60,000 -- a fortune for that time -- towards the construction of the first Jewish settlement outside the old walls of Jerusalem, public and private American funds have aided the creation and territorial expansion of Israel. Israel today is the foremost recipient of US aid. According to a USAID green paper, between 1946 and 2008 Israel has received more aid than Russia, India, Egypt and Iraq. In fact, the US has poured more money into Israel than it did into the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. However, a recent New York Times article adds a new dimension to the story. On 5 July, the Times reported that, over the last decade more than 40 American groups have collected more than $200 million in tax-deductible gifts for Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, indicating that the US Treasury is effectively aiding and abetting illegal settlement expansion and the Judaization of Jerusalem.

While the New York Times honed in on the irony of how a US government organ was facilitating the funneling of private funds into activities and goals that ran counter to official US policy, and as significant as this is, the article failed to mention that the amount of private tax-exempt "donations" pales in comparison to the public funds that Washington has steadily poured into the Zionist project. For example, the US federal budget for 2011 has earmarked $3 billion in aid for Israel, or 42 per cent of the total amount of aid to be allocated to the so-called Near East for that year. It is also interesting to observe that the policies of USAID, an instrument that the State Department uses to pursue the US's objectives overseas, also conflict with Washington's official stances. USAID programs for the Palestinians effectively exclude East Jerusalem. Its green papers and other official reports and statements make frequent mention of "the West Bank and Gaza" as headings for its activities, but rare are references to East Jerusalem. It is as though, for USAID, East Jerusalem is not an indivisible part of the occupied territories, in spite of Washington's official acknowledgement that it is and in spite of the inclusion of East Jerusalem among the final status issues in the US- brokered negotiating process between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel, the occupying power. One cannot help but suspect USAID -- and by extension the State Department -- of perpetrating a certain calculated deception through its deliberate and systematic omission of East Jerusalem in its programs and documents.
http://www.zcommunications.org/whos-aiding-judaization-by-nicola-nasser

The whole thing was a sham. And I see the World Court has legitimized it.
http://www.counterpunch.org/germanmemo.html

As in the case of the Clinton Administration, the present regime in Germany, specifically Joschka Fischer's Foreign Office, has justified its intervention in Kosovo by pointing to a "humanitarian catastrophe," "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" occurring there, especially in the months immediately preceding the NATO attack. The following internal documents from Fischer's ministry and from various regional Administrative Courts in Germany spanning the year before the start of NATO's air attacks, attest that criteria of ethnic cleansing and genocide were not met. The Foreign Office documents were responses to the courts' needs in deciding the status of Kosovo-Albanian refugees in Germany. Although one might in these cases suppose a bias in favor of downplaying a humanitarian catastrophe in order to limit refugees, it nevertheless remains highly significant that the Foreign Office, in contrast to its public assertion of ethnic cleansing and genocide in justifying NATO intervention, privately continued to deny their existence as Yugoslav policy in this crucial period. And this continued to be their assessment even in March of this year. Thus these documents tend to show that stopping genocide was not the reason the German government, and by implication NATO, intervened in Kosovo, and that genocide (as understood in German and international law) in Kosovo did not precede NATO bombardment, at least not from early 1998 through March, 1999, but is a product of it.

Declarations of Independence
July 23 - 25, 2010

If Kosovo, Why Not Palestine?

By JOHN V. WHITBECK

On July 22, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion on the following question posed to it by Serbia: "Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo in accordance with international law?" By a 10-4 majority, the court ruled that, because "general international law contains no applicable prohibition of declarations of independence", Kosovo's declaration of independence in February 2008, coordinated with and supported by the American and most EU governments and subsequently recognized by 69 countries, "did not violate general international law." The clear implication is that no declarations of independence violate international law and that all are therefore "legal".

Because the court's majority chose to rephrase the question before the court (addressing violation of, rather than accordance with, international law in circumstances in which international law is silent) and to respond with wording which has permitted the supporters of Kosovo independence to claim an unequivocal victory and the American government to call publicly on all countries to recognize Kosovo as a sovereign state, not only Kosovars and the American and most EU governments will be celebrating this advisory opinion as a vindication of their positions. So will the peoples and governments of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transniestria, Nagorno-Karabakh, Bosnia's Republika Srpska, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Iraqi Kurdistan. Discontented minorities and potential separatists elsewhere (including Alaska, Hawaii and Vermont) may also find cause for encouragement in this opinion...
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitbeck07232010.html

It looks as though the National Enquirer is closing in on the former vice president, in a re-run of its auto-da-fe of John Edwards, soon to be a motion picture. First the Enquirer featured the charge by Portland, OR, therapist Molly Hagerty who had told local police that she had been molested by Gore in the Lucia hotel in 2006 , when he demanded unscheduled services during a $500-plus massage session.

Now the National Enquirer describes two new allegations, the first on a trip to Los Angeles to attend the Oscars in 2007 - when An Inconvenient Truth won best documentary – and the second a visit to Tokyo in 2008. On the first occasion, Gore is alleged to have demanded more than a traditional massage at his Beverly Hills hotel, while in Tokyo he is said to have dropped his towel, and directed the masseuse, "Take care of this".

Tipper has already baled. Here at CounterPunch Books Jeffrey St Clair and I are pondering a reissue of our classic Al Gore: A User’s Manual, with an afterword by Ms. Hagerty.
ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Some Local Reflections, a Book Tour, and a Web Site
By Paul Street

Saturday, July 24, 2010

THE DEMYSTIFICATION PROJECT CONTINUES

As a few of my regular readers know, I am currently involved in a modest self-promoting fundraising effort. I’m trying to scare up $1500 to pay for a short east coast book tour for my second major left-progressive critique of the Obama phenomenon. The new volume is titled The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power (order at http://www.paradigmpublishers.com/ books/ BookDetail.aspx?productID=243410). It is a follow up to my summer 2008 book Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2008), ), a volume that the eminent left political scientist and author Adolph Reed Jr. called “a much needed burst of clear, brisk conceptual air that cuts through the fog of fantasy and wish-fulfillment. [Street’s] meticulously researched, carefully argued analysis of Obama’s career and his politics,” Reed wrote, “performs an important task of demystification. It is also an eloquent and bracing reminder that progressive agendas will not be advanced through vesting hopes and aspirations in candidate-centered politics, that there is no quick and easy substitute for the task of building a serious, institutionally grounded, working-class based political movement —from the bottom up and top down.” The fundraising project can be surveyed and responded to) at www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulstreet/the-lefts-fiercest-critic-goes-s... do not hesitate to help out if you wish to see my effort at radical truth-telling on the Obama phenomenon/presidency get a better hearing and achieve more visibility than they have so far [1].
(more)
http://www.zcommunications.org/resisting-left-invisibility-in-the-age-of...

by Ralph Nader

Last month, Big Business interests shamelessly dealt our already depleted democracy a devastating blow by misleading California voters into approving Proposition 14, without their opponents being able to reach the people with rebuttals. This voter initiative provides that the November elections in that state for members of Congress and state elective offices are reserved only for the top two vote-garnering candidates in the June primary.

There are no longer any party primaries per se, only one open primary. Voters can vote for any candidate on the ballot for any office. Presidential candidates are still under the old system.

Since the two major parties are the wealthiest and have the power of incumbency and favored rules, the “top two” as this “deform” is called, will either be a Republican and a Democrat or, in gerrymandered districts, two Republicans or two Democrats.

Goodbye to voter choices for smaller third party and independent candidates on the ballot in November who otherwise would qualify, with adequate signature petitions, for the ballot. Goodbye to new ideas, different agendas, candidates and campaign practices. The two Party tyranny is now entrenched in California to serve the barons of big business who outspent their opponents twenty to one for tv and radio ads and other publicity.

To seal this voter incarceration by the two-party duopoly, Proposition 14 decreed that even write-in votes in November by contrarian citizens could no longer be counted.

The Democratic and Republican Parties nominally opposed it, devoting very little money or staff to show their seriousness. Their principal complaint is that the Proposition opens a larger door for known celebrities to jump into the race and disrupt the Parties’ command-and-control systems.

The prior public debate over Proposition 14, for those who noticed the measure, was strange. First, the Ballot Book, sent to voters, misled voters by describing the measure as one that “Increases Right to Participate in Primary Elections.” In fact, it wipes out all other candidates on other lines but the top two vote-getters in November, thereby decreasing the right to participate in the general election.

Second, many of the state’s largest newspapers, except for the conservative Orange County Register, editorially endorsed Proposition 14, saying it would reduce “partisan bickering.”

As detailed in Ballot Access News, Richard Winger, the San Jose Mercury News claimed the measure would not harm minor party candidates. Their one example of a Green Party legislator was erroneous. The Monterey County Herald inaccurately claimed the League of Women Voters had endorsed the initiative. The Sacramento Bee, supported it, saying that the Green Party could well place first or second in San Francisco. The Greens never placed first or second in blanket primary years, according to the super-accurate, Mr. Winger.

Indeed, the smaller Parties all opposed Proposition 14. These included the Peace & Freedom Party, the Libertarian Party, and the Green Party. The energetic ballot-access group Free & Equal developed the leading web page (freeandequal.org) against the measure, and along with Californians for Electoral Reform used their tiny budgets to organize lightly covered press conferences to inform the public.

The final vote was 53.7% for and 46.3% against. The pro side advertisements, distorted as they were, reached millions of more voters than did the penurious opposition.

Curiously, if the by-mail voters were taken out of the equation, more voters who went to the polls on election day voted against Prop 14 (52%) than for it (48%). Winger suggests this difference may reflect the fact that election day voters benefited from the fuller public discussion of the Proposition 14, including its negatives, in the two weeks before election day.

Supporters of a “top two” scheme want to spread it throughout the country, with Michigan as the next stop. Already, Washington state enacted “top two” for the 2008 election. Predictably, it resulted in a “Democratic-Republican monopoly on the ballot [in November] for all congressional and all statewide state offices,” reports Winger.

The Washington state law is being challenged in the courts. Opponents of Proposition 14 assert they too will file a lawsuit challenging this censorious law, on constitutional grounds, in the federal courts.

The constant squeeze plays on the peoples’ democratic procedures to have a voice, to participate, challenge and dissent extends from the courts to the patsy regulatory agencies and the elections.

Ballot access obstacles are not enough for the monetized minds of corporations. Better, they say, to abolish election day altogether for minor parties and independent candidates.

What’s next for the corporate supremacists, who misled and lied to the people to get their vote for Prop 14? When will the people awake and repeal it?

roll the bones ;) mwah haha

...(you know, the ones with those bootstraps that you use along with hard work, to be a successful entrepreneur) to wade through the crap they keep telling US about what is necessary to get ahead in America.

"No one wants to hear the story of the rich, well-connected guys who meet up @ the Marriott conference room to hatch a business plan--ya know, there's no romance in that."
--Dan Heath, Co-Author of Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die...Made to Stick & Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard.
http://www.madetostick.com/
http://heathbrothers.com/

Listen here to this weekend's re-broadcast episode of "This American Life: Origin Story"

In one story, a man tries to set the record straight about his life's achievements, which he says include inventing thumb wrestling and popularizing the eating of shrimp in the New York area. And the story of a seven-year-old old boy trying to figure out where he comes from.

Prologue.
Host Ira Glass talks to business professor Pino Audia and Fast Company magazine columnist Dan Heath about corporate creation myths, and why so many of them involve garages. (7 minutes)

Act One. Mad Man.
TAL producer Sarah Koenig tells the story of her father, Julian Koenig, the legendary advertising copywriter whose work includes the slogan “Timex takes a licking and keeps on ticking” and Volkswagen’s “Think Small” ads. For years Sarah has heard her dad accuse a former partner of stealing some of his best ideas, but until recently she never paid much attention.Then she started asking her dad for details of this fight for his legacy, and what she learned surprised her. (20 minutes)

Act Two. The Secret Life Of Secrets.
Ira tells the story of the 1953 U.S. Supreme Court case that formed the basis for the controversial state secret privilege—the precedent that allows the United States government to stop lawsuits by claiming that national security secrets might be revealed in court. Ira talks to Barry Siegel, author of the book Claim of Privilege, and Judy Loether, whose father’s death was at the center of the landmark Supreme Court case. (14 minutes) Song: "Friends and Ancestors," Nedelle

Act Three. Wait Wait...don’t Film Me.
Peter Sagal, host of NPR's Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me, tells Ira the origin story of one of the worst movie sequels ever made. (5 minutes)

Act Four. Bill Clinton’s 7-year-old Brother.
Reporter Mary Wiltenburg tells the story of a little boy stymied by the question “Where do you come from?”
No. 383

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/383/Origin-Story

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Is the Israeli right a more credible peacemaker?
By Jonathan Cook

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

(Nazareth) -- A fascinating debate is entering Israel’s political mainstream on a once-taboo subject: the establishment of a single state as a resolution of the conflict, one in which Jews and Palestinians might potentially live as equal citizens. Surprisingly, those advocating such a solution are to be found chiefly on Israel’s political right.

The debate, which challenges the current orthodoxy of a two-state future, is rapidly exploding traditional conceptions about the Zionist right and left.

Most observers -- including a series of US administrations -- have supposed that Israel’s peace-makers are to be found exclusively on the Zionist left, with the right dismissed as incorrigible opponents of Palestinian rights.

In keeping with this assumption, the US president Barack Obama tried until recently to sideline the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyhau, Israel’s rightwing prime minister, and bolster instead Ehud Barak, his defence minister from the left-wing Labour party, and the opposition leader Tzipi Livni, of the centrist Kadima party.

But, as the Israeli right often points out, the supposedly “pro-peace” left and centre parties have a long and ignominious record in power of failing to advance Palestinian statehood, including during the Oslo process. The settler population, for example, grew the fastest during the short premiership of Mr Barak a decade ago.

What the new one-state debate reveals is that, while some on the right -- and even among the settlers -- are showing that they are now open to the idea of sharing a state with the Palestinians, the left continues to adamantly oppose such an outcome.

In a supplement of Israel’s liberal Haaretz newspaper last weekend largely dedicated to the issue, Yossi Beilin, a former leader of the ultra-dovish Meretz party and an architect of Oslo, spoke for the Zionist left in calling a one-state solution “nonsense”. He added dismissively: “I’m not interested in living in a state that isn’t Jewish.”
http://www.zcommunications.org/one-state-debate-explodes-myth-about-the-...

Advocacy and Realism: A reply to Noah Cohen
Noam Chomsky
ZNet, August 26, 2004
Noah Cohen’s charges raise some interesting questions about advocacy, principle, and realism, which have much broader applications. Let’s focus on his particular case – defense of Palestinian rights -- bringing up the broader issues in this context. The core question, then, has to do with the stands that can be taken by people with serious concerns for the fate of the Palestinians, who have suffered severely and face an even more miserable future unless we find ways to reverse the processes now underway, for which we bear considerable responsibility and accordingly, can influence if we choose.

Among the options under discussion are one-state and binational approaches. These are crucially different. There are many forms of multinationalism in the world: Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, etc. The concept is a cover term for arrangements that allow forms of autonomy for groups within complex societies, not necessarily only those that choose to regard themselves as “nations.” Quite different are one-state systems, with no form of autonomy for various communities. In the US, for example, Latinos do not have autonomy or control over language or education in the areas stolen by violence from Mexico (or elsewhere); nothing approaching, say, the partial autonomy in Catalonia, to mention one of many cases of some form of multinationalism.

Let’s turn to some of the relevant background. Pre-1948, binationalism was a minority position within the Zionist movement. From 1967-73 Israel had a real opportunity to institute a binational settlement in cis-Jordan in the context of a full peace treaty with Egypt and Jordan, hence the relevant part of the Arab world. There was no interest. The PLO had no interest. US articulate opinion was bitterly opposed. My own writings on the topic were harshly attacked from all sides.
http://www.chomsky.info/letters/20040826.htm

DGA plans blitz at Netroots Nation
By: Alexander Burns
July 22, 2010 06:21 AM EDT

The Democratic Governors Association has planned an aggressive outreach effort to court liberal bloggers this week at Netroots Nation, the annual convention of online activists that kicks off Thursday in Las Vegas.

The committee is putting multiple sets of boots on the ground there, including Executive Director Nathan Daschle’s, and plans to launch an eye-catching Web offensive to coincide with the gathering. The DGA’s message is a blunt one, designed to appeal to the Democratic Party’s most fired-up members.

“We must fight back against a tea-party-Sarah-Palin-GOP fringe which — if they win — will take our nation and our states in a terrible new direction,” Daschle explained.

Through both in-person meetings and online organizing tools, the DGA will be drawing bloggers’ attention to a group of high-value governor’s races, which just happen to feature the kind of lightning-rod conservative candidates the netroots might get excited about beating.

While Democrats are facing a tough electoral map and are expected to lose governor’s seats this fall, there are several big trophy prizes up for grabs that the DGA will spotlight for the party’s base. Among those elections are the Texas governor’s race, where Democrats are attempting to unseat incumbent Gov. Rick Perry, a national Republican leader aligned with the tea party movement; the open-seat races in California and Florida and the fight to reelect Gov. Ted Strickland in Ohio, over a challenge from Fox News contributor and former Rep. John Kasich.

The DGA is launching a website — and promoting it heavily at Netroots Nation — to magnify the committee’s messaging for the convention. The site, fighttheright2010.com, casts the midterm elections as a battle royal between the Democratic Party and an extreme Republican base. And there’s plenty of Web candy on the site to help make the point, including a “Six Degrees of Sarah Palin” feature linking GOP candidates to their party’s most divisive leader and a “Fringe 16” tournament that lets users vote for the most polarizing GOP candidate of the year.

Much like the Republican Governors Association rallied its supporters earlier this year with a video titled “Remember November,” the DGA’s pushing a pep rally video of its own, channeling films from “The Lord of the Rings” to “Animal House,” to urge activists: “We never surrender.” (The final film clip shows Bruce Willis, in “Die Hard,” saying “Yippie-ki-yay — ” but cuts off before he can complete the line.)

It’s a message that should resonate with the audience in Las Vegas, which is partisan enough to appreciate the red meat but wonky enough to care about detailed issues, such as redistricting, that are particularly salient for the DGA.

“Democrats have a simple choice — we can give up or we can stand up and fight back,” Daschle said. “Democrats must start fighting back against the far right, do more to excite their base and maybe, more importantly, stop listening to the naysayers and the right wing that think elections are decided in July.”

Daschle will also be communicating that message on a panel at the conference, where he’ll be joined by Democratic strategist Harold Ickes, online organizer Mike Lux and Rory Reid, Clark County, Nev. commissioner and Democratic nominee for governor Nevada..
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/40093.html

...listen here:
http://www.620kpoj.com/main.html

Also -

Netroots Nation 2010: LIVE Streaming Video, Full Conference Schedule

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/23/netroots-nation-2010-live_n_654...

Jewish Voice For Peace

equally?
A: No. Although Palestinian citizens of Israel are entitled to vote and participate in Israeli political life, and several Palestinians are members of the Knesset (the Israeli parliament), they do not receive the same treatment as the Jewish citizens at the hands of the government. Israel still applies 20 laws that privilege Jews over Arabs. For example, the 1950 Law of Return grants automatic citizenship rights to Jews from anywhere in the world upon request, while denying that same right to Palestinians. The Basic Law of Human Dignity and Freedom ensures that Israel is the state of the "Jewish people," not its citizens. This law was passed in 1992 to serve as a "bill of rights," as Israel does not have a written constitution. Israel's flag and other national symbols are Jewish religious symbols, not neutral or national ones that represent all the citizens of the state. Government resources, meanwhile, are disproportionately directed to Jews and not to Arabs, one factor in causing the Palestinians of Israel to suffer the lowest living standards in Israeli society by all economic indicators. Human Rights Watch has compiled an extensive study of Israel's policy of "separate, not equal" schools for Palestinian children, finding that "Government-run Arab schools are a world apart from government-run Jewish schools. In virtually every respect, Palestinian Arab children get an education inferior to that of Jewish children, and their relatively poor performance in school reflects this." As many as 100 Palestinian villages in Israel, many of which pre-date the founding of the state, are not recognized by the Israeli government, and are not listed on maps and receive no services (water, electricity, sanitation, roads, etc.) from the government. More than 70,000 Palestinians live in these unrecognized villages. Meanwhile, hundreds of new Jewish towns have been established on lands confiscated from Palestinians.
(From Jewish Voice for Peace)

...and a Democrat, there are children alive in Maryland to dispute that and those who are NOT in Virginia.

Maryland Infant Mortality Rate Drops to 10 Year Low Preliminary Numbers Show Progress, Much More to Accomplish
(Department of Health & Mental Hygiene News Release)

BALTIMORE, MD (July 21, 2010) - John M. Colmers, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH), told members of the Maryland General Assembly's Joint Committee on Children, Youth and Families today that the statewide rate of infant mortality in Maryland has declined to the lowest annual rate in ten years.

Preliminary figures indicate that Maryland's infant mortality rate dropped 10 percent in 2009. There were 7.2 infant deaths recorded per 1,000 live births statewide, down from 8 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2008.

Reducing infant mortality is one of the O'Malley/Brown Administrations 15 strategic priorities to improve the quality of life in Maryland.

"I believe that it's within our capacity and our conscience as Marylanders to dramatically reduce infant mortality in our State. And so we've set the big goal in our Administration of reducing infant mortality and saving more than 60 young lives per year," said Governor O'Malley. "It's been said that to save just one life is to have saved the entire world. As Marylanders, we're united by our belief in the dignity of every individual and our understanding that there is no such thing as a spare Marylander."

"This represents progress and it is heartening to know that our efforts so far may have saved lives and improved health care for women and their babies," said John M. Colmers, DHMH Secretary. "To make sure the progress continues, we've intensified this program because every expectant mother in Maryland needs comprehensive health care and every newborn deserves a healthy beginning and the best possible chance to grow and thrive."

While the 10 percent decline in Maryland's infant mortality rate represents significant progress, the numbers show more must be done to target infant mortality within the African-American community. To that end, DHMH and its state and local partners in the public and private sectors have focused and coordinated multiple programs in three jurisdictions where the challenges are greatest. Baltimore City, Prince George's County and Somerset County have concentrated their outreach and offerings to women of childbearing age that includes pre-pregnancy health services, pre and postnatal services as well as comprehensive follow up care for new mothers and their babies.

"These efforts go beyond standard pre-natal care which remains a key element to ensure every child is born healthy," said Frances Phillips, DHMH Deputy Secretary for Public Health Services. "Ideally, we need to reach every at-risk mother-to-be before they get pregnant so they will be prepared, when the day comes, for a robust, full term pregnancy that delivers a healthy baby."

Efforts now focused on reducing infant mortality in these three jurisdictions are expected to produce improvements for mothers and babies statewide. The leading causes of infant mortality are preterm/low birth weight births, congenital anomalies, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Preterm/low birth weight births are associated with 2/3 of all infant deaths.

For more information on the DHMH and Local Health Department infant mortality efforts:
DHMH Plan for Reducing Infant Mortality in Maryland
Baltimore City: B’more for Healthy Babies
Prince George’s County Tapestry Program
http://www.dhmh.state.md.us/pressreleases/2010/pr072110.html

That was then

Governor Kaine announces infant mortality rate reduced to lowest level in state history
– Rate among African-Americans also falls to historic low –
4 August 2009
(Gov. Kaine Press Release)

RICHMOND – Governor Timothy M. Kaine announced today that Virginia’s infant mortality rate has declined to its lowest level in history, with 6.7 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2008, down from 7.7 in 2007. The rate among the state’s African-American population was also reduced to its lowest levels ever, with 12.2 deaths per 1,000 in 2008, down from 15.5 in 2007. These dramatic improvements follow major efforts by the Kaine administration to reduce the Commonwealth’s infant mortality rate–including the establishment of the Health Reform Commission in 2006—which recommended targeted strategies to improve this critical health indicator.

“While we mark today’s announcement as a major milestone in the health care outcomes of our Commonwealth, we all know that there is still work to be done,” said Governor Kaine. “We have not only set a new benchmark for Virginia’s overall infant mortality rate, we are seeing encouraging progress in closing the gap in racial health disparities.”

Governor Kaine set the goal of reducing Virginia’s infant mortality rate to below 7.0 per 1,000 live births, a goal the state has now exceeded. A state’s infant mortality rate—the number of deaths before age one per 1,000 live births, reflects the quality and availability of prenatal and birth care for both children and mothers. While the rate in Virginia has been trending down over the years, from 12.9 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1982, the rate has consistently remained higher than the national average. At the same time, the rate among African-Americans has consistently exceeded that of the overall population.
Continue reading here:
http://www.msv.org/MainMenuCategories/MemberCenter/PressRoom/News/Govern...
(2008: 6.7/1000 when he left office)

This is now...

2009: 7.0/1000
http://vaperforms.virginia.gov/agencylevel/src/displaymsr.cfm?measureid=...

Let me be the first to cast my vote...

Maybe this will teach OBAMA a lesson: Be nice to a Bushist, and get badmouthed and demonized ANYWAY.

Why not just prosecute these creeps instead of pretending they did nothing wrong, instead of pretending there is no evidence against their illegal acts.

And get rid of those Rove/Bush-appointed federal prosecutors -- unless by NOT getting rid of them, Mr. President, you are telling us you are a/ a Bush puppet or b/ is it the case that you approve of these rightwingers representing the DoJ during a Democratic Administration?

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175275

[excerpt]

...

Big Oil Blowback

Here’s the simple, even crude, lesson these ambassadors offer: whether Americans like it or not, we are all connected in new ways -- and not ways the advocates of “globalization” once promised -- now that we’ve entered what resource expert Michael Klare calls the age of extreme energy. Think of it as a new kind of blowback.

Our addiction to oil is now blowing back on the civilization that can’t do without its gushers and can’t quite bring itself to imagine a real transition to alternative energies. Humberto Piaguaje might say that the wound BP gashed in the floor of the Gulf of Mexico has unleashed the wrath of the Earth’s millions-of-years dead.

Put another way, corporations presume that it’s their right to control this planet and its ecosystems, while obeying one command: to maximize profits. Everything else is an “externality,” including life on Earth. "What we conclude from the Gulf of Mexico pollution incident,” says Nnimo Bassey, “is that the oil companies are out of control. In Nigeria, they have been living above the law. They are now clearly a danger to the planet.”

Think of oil civilization in its late stages as a form of global terrorism.

Ellen Cantarow is a journalist whose work on Israel/Palestine has been published widely for 30 years including at TomDispatch. She is now working on climate change and big oil, which have much to do with the Middle East, Israel, and Palestine, as well as the rest of the planet. Recent phone conversations with her stepdaughter Kim -- she and her husband have a scuba-diving business in the Florida Keys -- led indirectly to this story. To catch Cantarow discussing what led her to this piece, listen to Timothy MacBain's latest TomCast audio interview by clicking here....

[end excerpt]

It's not Mineral Management Service anymore but now Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (isn't this a disturbing name -- indicating arrogantly that offshore drilling in oceans will continue unabated?!). And Salazar is still doing a Cheney-Bush style STONEWALL.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/23/bp-atlantis-whistleblower-salaz...

Dems Demand That Salazar Stop Dragging His Heels And Investigate BP Whistleblower Allegations
First Posted: 07-23-10 07:13 PM

[excerpt]

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar still has yet to conduct a formal interview with Ken Abbott, a whistleblower from BP's Atlantis rig where operators are allegedly missing engineering documentation essential to averting another oil rig disaster.

This week, House Rules Committee Chair Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and 17 other members of Congress asked Salazar to sit down and talk to Abbott.

"A long, thorough investigation is certainly called for," wrote Slaughter and her colleagues, "but in the meantime... immediate steps are absolutely necessary in order to assure that the Atlantis does not turn into an even larger disaster than the Deepwater Horizon."

Abbott first brought his safety concerns before the Minerals Management Service last year, and this past June he testified before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Minerals.

Lawmakers expressed dismay this week that Interior has not even attempted to confirm Abbott's allegations, instead letting the Atlantis continue operating only 190 miles south of New Orleans.

"If there is even a small chance that the Atlantis is a 'ticking time bomb' as some have called it, the pace at which the Department has worked to resolve the questions raised about the Atlantis' safety is worrisome," the congressional letter reads.

Though the Minerals Management Service -- now renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement -- had vowed to investigate Abbott's claims and report their findings in May, Salazar said last month that the probe had only just begun.

...

[end excerpt]

Yea Verily ;)Grrr

Corporatists hire scientists to do their bidding in pursuit of PROFITS; but when it comes to REAL objective Science -- these Corporatists ignore and censor it! This is UNACCEPTABLE and must end.

Disgusting.

These Corporatists are a danger to humans and the Planet -- as their repeated behavior in rubberstamping all Gulf oil drilling PROVES BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT. The BP Toxic Spewage was NO accident, but a PREDICTABLE result of the Corporatist sense of PRIVILEGE.

If bagmen for Corporations like Salazar, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu (a real handmaiden of BP even when he was on the University of California faculty!), and Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack (who has never met a GMO he didn't like) are in Obama's cabinet -- then Obama is either a fool or a Corporatist -- or both.

This MUST not continue. We must change course and start to utilize science instead of continue to allow these Corporatists to MANIPULATE science for their PERSONAL gain.

Yes, gr-r-r-r-r!

...Tip of the Spear: Engaging with Progressives in Congress.
(from Netroots Nation)

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8488086

Here is the USTREAM Recorded video

Of Sam Seder, Josh Orton, Nicole Sandler, & Laura Flanders at
Net Roots Nation:
Panel Discussion:

air america; the good, the bad, and the ridiculous

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8487969

---
Al Franken Will Make a Closing Keynote in a few minutes:
Pavilion Stream:
http://www.dailykos.com/tv/w/002751/index.html

_ _ _ _ _ _
|

Netroots Nation Closing Program
Sat, 07/24/2010 – 6:00pm (Pacific Time), Pavilion 5-11 On the campaign trail, Al Franken fought for the middle class, focusing on issues like making college and health care more affordable. During the recount, he fought for a fair Democratic process. And as a U.S. Senator, he fights every day for real progressive values just as the former Sen. Paul Wellstone did.

/clip/

Our closing lineup will also include Congressman Raul Grijalva, Chuck Rocha with the Blue/Green Alliance-CWA and EMILY’s List executive director Stephanie Schriock, as well as Texas’ Linda Chavez-Thompson, who’s running for Lieutenant Governor and Minnesota’s Tarryl Clark, who’s running for Congress in MN-06. Laura Flanders, hostess of GRITtv, will emcee.

http://netrootsnation.org/agenda?room=Pavilion%205-11
or
http://netrootsnation.org/node/1468

Pavilion Streams:
http://www.dailykos.com/tv/w/002751/index.html
or
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nn10-pavilion

_ _ _ _ _ _
|

Leonard Cohen - Everybody Knows

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it's coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q63plx5NClI&feature=related

"knowing" joke - especially "to roll the bones".
;):(

...great post and also for so many other reasons...
;)

The Israelis in charge are not sane people.

(Israel really is Mini-Me to the USA's Dr. Evil. Because our USA top leaders are also no longer sane -- sending a nuclear powered mega-ship to Korea. These leaders are out of their minds with power or paranoia or profiteering or all of the above.)

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/aid-for-gaza-must-be-deliv...
[excerpt]

Published 02:36 23.07.10
Latest update 02:36 23.07.10
Aid for Gaza must be delivered by established land routes, UN says
Israel's UN envoy and defense minister urge Lebanon and the international community to prevent two aid ships from sailing to Gaza from a Lebanese port.
By Haaretz Service, Barak Ravid and The Associated Press

The United Nations said Friday that aid destined for the Gaza Strip should be delivered by land, after Israel said it would prevent a Lebanese Gaza-bound aid flotilla from breaking the sea blockade on the Palestinian enclave.
...
Defense Minister Ehud Barak issued a statement on Friday saying that the Lebanese Gaza-bound aid ships were an "unnecessary provocation" like other flotillas heading toward the blockaded coastal city.

"We hold the Lebanese government responsible for preventing the flotilla from departing today, and if it does depart it will be accompanied by Israel's Navy to the Ashdod port," he said, adding that "if the ship refuses to be accompanied to Ashdod we will have no choice but to apprehend it in open waters."

Earlier, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, accused organizers of the aid ships Junia and Julia of "seeking to incite a confrontation and raise tensions in our region."

A deadly Israeli commando raid on a Turkish ship trying to bring aid to Gaza on May 31 killed nine activists and focused international attention on Israel's blockade of Gaza, imposed after the Islamist militant and anti-Israel Hamas violently overran the Palestinian territory in June 2007.

...

[end excerpt]

Only the science that serves the Corporate Interest and everything else must be silenced -- that's what BP thinks science is from the looks of this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10731408

[excerpt]

The head of the American Association of Professors has accused BP of trying to "buy" the best scientists and academics to help its defence against litigation after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

"This is really one huge corporation trying to buy faculty silence in a comprehensive way," said Cary Nelson.

BP faces more than 300 lawsuits so far.

In a statement, BP says it has hired more than a dozen national and local scientists "with expertise in the resources of the Gulf of Mexico".

The BBC has obtained a copy of a contract offered to scientists by BP. It says that scientists cannot publish the research they do for BP or speak about the data for at least three years, or until the government gives the final approval to the company's restoration plan for the whole of the Gulf.

US Oil SpillOil spill vessels return to site
How BP has tried to stop the leak
Gulf oil rig alarm 'turned off'
The scale of the damage
It also states scientists may perform research for other agencies as long as it does not conflict with the work they are doing for BP.

And it adds that scientists must take instructions from lawyers offering the contracts and other in-house counsel at BP.

Bob Shipp, the head of marine sciences at the University of South Alabama, was one of the scientists approached by BP's lawyers.

They didn't just want him, they wanted his whole department.

"They contacted me and said we would like to have your department interact to develop the best restoration plan possible after this oil spill," he said.

AdvertisementRuss Lea from the University of South Alabama: Some clauses in the contract "were very disturbing".
"We laid the ground rules - that any research we did, we would have to take total control of the data, transparency and the freedom to make those data available to other scientists and subject to peer review. They left and we never heard back from them."

What Mr Nelson is concerned about is BP's control over scientific research.

"Our ability to evaluate the disaster and write public policy and make decisions about it as a country can be impacted by the silence of the research scientists who are looking at conditions," he said.
...

[more at link]

Obama's special commission to review BP toxic spewage turns out to be thick with oil industry interests, connections...

http://www.latimes.com/sns-ap-us-gulf-oil-spill-web-of-interests,0,16434...

[excerpt]

INSIDE WASHINGTON: Obama's oil spill commission had web of BP and oil industry interests

WASHINGTON (AP) — Oil runs so deep in American life that when President Barack Obama formed an independent commission to investigate the Gulf spill, he ran into something of an oil patch of his own.

Both commission chairmen had stock in BP as well as broader interests in the oil industry. Another commissioner, a university fundraiser, is chancellor at a school that received millions from BP. Another had substantial ties to Transocean, owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico and set off the spill.

Ethics waivers released by the White House in response to an Associated Press request indicate the commissioners shed at least some of their investments and interests that might pose a conflict of interest.
[more at link]

Austerity?
By Peter Bohmer and Robin Hahnel

Sunday, July 25, 2010

[This is the second of a three part ZNet commentary series this month, about global economic crisis and relating to Greece, by Peter Bohmer and Robin Hahnel. Hahnel spoke at the Greek anti-authoritarian movement’s B-Festival in Athens last May and Bohmer will be speaking at the festival in Thessaloniki in September.]

At the recently concluded G-20 meetings in Toronto Canada the leaders of the major economies issued a communiqué pledging to cut their budget deficits in half over the next three years. Instead of draconian fiscal austerity, what is needed is a massive, globally coordinated, fiscal stimulus to pull the economy out of the worst global recession in over eighty years. In Greece, when PASOK was in opposition it called for pro-growth policies favoring middle income sectors. Now, as Prime Minister, Papandreou is presiding over policies even more draconian than those of the previous right wing government he and PASOK criticized. How does one explain this madness?

One possibility is that many in the economics profession have contracted amnesia and forgotten the most important economics lesson learned during the twentieth century – governments must spend more when the economy is depressed and save only after the economy has recovered -- and that center left, along with right wing politicians, have now made the mistake of embracing the advice from misguided establishment economists to do just the opposite.

Two Nobel Prize winning economists, Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, who have not forgotten Keynes’ lesson believe this is exactly what has happened, and there is evidence to support their hypothesis. Keynes was only able to successfully challenge the wisdom of traditional, balanced budget orthodoxy which requires governments to cut spending when recessions reduce their tax revenues with a powerful assist from practical experience during the Great Depression. Moreover, even when conservative economists like Milton Friedman and right wing politicians like Richard Nixon were quoted saying “We are all Keynesians now” during the late 1960s and early 1970s, many economists and politicians remained uncomfortable with Keynesianism and were already hard at work organizing an economics counter revolution. Over the ensuing decades establishment economists labored mightily to write Keynes out of their macroeconomic theories, models, and text books, and conservative politicians happily reverted to their pre-Keynesian, balanced budget orthodoxy. These conservative politicians and their advisers focused on balanced-budgets and zero inflation in order to accomplish their real agenda -- decreasing the bargaining power of working people. There was never any great mystery about why right wing political parties pushed an agenda designed to increase unemployment rates, weaken unions, and raise the cost to workers of being unemployed by cutting the social wage...
http://www.zcommunications.org/why-are-center-left-political-parties-sup...