The Wild Wild Left - Politics

On Political Fans and the Fringers

Diane G — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:30:49 GMT

I am Fringer. I want an American Socialist Revolution in my time. Ideally a World Revolution. I am fringe enough that even with the absolute certainty that my desires will likely never come to fruition does not make the fires of my desire burn even slightly less intensely. I am WAY out there.

In fact, I would seriously postulate that I am an extraterrestrial being, but I have evidence to the contrary: You never see bags under those huge alien eyes - and my human weaknesses are too telling in that way.

Life and gravity have not been kind to my all too human packaging.

I feel that a true desire for justice, for all that is good and right has an event horizon; a gravity that once you commit to it, will not allow one to back away from the position. Once you see that light, that is really all that exists. You are part of the singularity.

Budhydharma wrote a brilliant sermon (fiery as a sermon, anyway) in which he asks, "Do YOU Want The Republicans To Win?" The frightening title would infer trying to make people cling back to their partisan politics, to renew their support for Democrats. That was not his whole story, though. He accomplished that in some, while maintaining that the Dems themselves are doing nothing to stop it. His idea is to "push" the Dems to do better. The comment thread was the best part, inspirational to me.

I honed my analogy from last night, from the pages of WWL, where we have been discussing the same issues, just from a Fringe-Left position. The last 4 or 5 essays all have been in part, or in full, about the process of actual change in this country. Let me expand my thoughts. (and use the Red Sox, rather than the Tigers - I hear it will make a more compelling argument :-)

You cannot get a Red Sox fan EVER to like the Yankees.... but you can get a Baseball fan to get REALLY pissed at the Owners for locking out the League.

We need to change the very basis of the conversation.

The Owners of the League set the rules, the prices, the schedule, the ads, everything. They make bazillions off the trade. These, the richest of the Game, get subsidized by we the fan's tax dollars - to build larger shrines to them, larger so they can charge more, and fill more seats while so doing. Welfare for the rich, tax-fueled stadiums, and tax breaks for building them in our cities.

The Players? Oh, yes, they are the pampered and well paid whores that enable the process. It doesn't matter one bit if they wear a Yankee uniform, or a Red Sox one. They can change teams as easily as underwear.

You, the fan? Are nothing but an easily played means for more revenue. Back your Team! Show your Pride! Pay for the newest arena! Hate the other Team! Pay through the ass to watch what is still theater, meaningless team-less theater... brought to you by your Owners.

Do I need to point out the obvious analogy to our Political process?
My comment on Buhdy's essay in part, said:

Its all kabuki - There are no parties and the "wins" are only distractions... so that they can keep moving the conversation further right, with teams of extremists, and capitulators.
The better question may be "Do you really want the Neoliberal Corporate Elitists to continue to win?"
Because they are shock-doctrining us right to the place of serfs and masters, right into slavery.

But Banger nailed the real problem, in an excellent comment:

Real power is achieved through the ability to help your friends and punish your enemies. To the extent you can do either one that is the power you have.
The left has chosen, for a variety of reasons, to not play the power game in earnest in this country. Therefore it will not be listened to or considered seriously but will be flim-flamed every election into voting for a handshake and a smile. You and I know this is lunacy but to do something else requires the will to fight and leftists in this country just don't have it and show no signs except on the fringes of wanting to have influence.

I believe the Left has long been co-opted. The Power to "punish" became clear on November 22, 1963. That coup alone stifled any real earnestness in pushing back against those in Real Power.

But banger is right... the will exists only on the Fringe, and I am soundly in the camp of Fringe.

You see, I am interested ONLY in the Real Power now, and taking the Real Power back.

I have moved, in my thinking, far beyond electoral politics... they are meaningless fan-games.

I shall report on elections, I am sure; but only as a means - a teaching tool.

You see, the real revolutionaries are the ones who plant the seeds long before the revolutionaries of historical renown raise their voices.

We are the "fringers," the "crazies," the "moonbats," the "tin-foil hatters," the unrecognized prophets of our times. We ideate change from the ether. We are alchemists of movements. We create the new World by imagining it. We plant the seeds of possibilities in the minds of future generations.

We fringers may only number in the thousands now, against millions in this country - but it is the whispers in the wheat that bring winds to the field, and the winds that bring the hurricanes to the land.

I'll quote myself again:

(what National change takes) It says it demands dismantling the Oligarchy... and that, my friend takes Revolution writ large.
Revolution writ large demands changing the People's minds enough to risk EVERYTHING.
That kind of groundswell takes opening eyes, takes slow and constant whispers of complaints, and the focus of who is to blame for those complaints.
It takes propaganda of the truthy kind.
Which is what I do, anyway.

Everything else? Is just baseball.

And in the Darkness Bind Them

Rusty1776 — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:47:23 GMT

The latest update from Mordor is not encouraging . . .

There are still orcs in every agency of the federal government, uruk-hai still infest the Pentagon and the NSA, Congress is still filled to the rafters with Wormtongues and there are still five Nazgul on the Supreme Court.

I don't even want to talk about the Catfood Commission . . .

Nothing has changed in Mordor because Obama put the Ring of Power on his finger before Rick Warren even finished the Inaugural Invocation. We've all seen the consequences. The power of Mordor has not been broken, it hasn't even been seriously challenged.

Moria . . .

There is evil there that does not sleep.

The Dwarves of Capitalism delved too greedily and too deep. We know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dum . . . shadow and flame . . .

The Shadow and Flame of Economic Collapse

There is no precedence for the panic and chaos that will occur. The global food supply/demand picture has NEVER been so out of balance. The food crisis will rearrange economic, financial, and political order of the world, and those who aren't prepared will suffer terrible losses. As the dollar loses most of its value, America's savings will be wiped out.
The US service economy will disintegrate as consumer spending in real terms (ie: gold or other stable currencies) drops like a rock, bringing unemployment to levels exceeding the great depression. Public health services/programs will be cut back, as individuals will have no savings/credit/income to pay for medical care. Value of most investments will be wiped out.
The US debt markets will freeze again, this time permanently. There will be no buyers except at the most drastic of firesale prices, and inflation will wipe away value before credit markets have any chance at recovery. The panic will see the majority of derivatives end up worthless. Since global derivatives markets operate on the assumption of the continued stable value of the dollar and short term US debt, using derivatives to bet against the dollar is NOT a good idea. The panic will see the majority of derivatives end up worthless. The dollar's collapse will rob US consumers of all purchasing power, and any investment depend on US consumption will lose most of its value.

The Shadow and Flame of Catastrophic Climate Change

As the Arctic's sea-ice cover decreases, less and less sunlight will be reflected back into space. And as tundras heat up, more and more of their carbon dioxide and methane content will be released into the atmosphere. Thus each added ton of carbon will trigger greater rises in temperature as the years progress. The result will be massive ice cap melting and sea-level rises of several meters: enough to devastate most of the world's major cities.

The Shadow and Flame of Resource Wars

As famine, disease, and weather-related disasters strike due to abrupt climate change," a Pentagon report notes, "many countries' needs will exceed their carrying capacity"--that is, their ability to provide the minimum requirements for human survival. This "will create a sense of desperation, which is likely to lead to offensive aggression" against countries with a greater stock of vital resources.

Thank you, Dwarves of Capitalism. You've always believed Wall Street is a source of wealth to be mined. But it's not a mine.

It's a tomb.
And this whole country is going to be a tomb unless the Left starts getting serious and takes this fight for economic justice right into the dark heart of Mordor itself.

Can we win? I don't know. We're just hobbits from the Shire. But we can do this much at least--we can walk right into Mordor on October 2nd, we can walk right into that dark land of orcs and uruk-hai and Wormtongues and Nazgul and bring the truth along with us. We can call them what they are, we can call them all what they are, up to and including that grinning idiot with the Ring of Power on his finger and his head up his ass.

Some of us won't want to go, some of us don't have the money, some will say its a waste of time, and too many will be content to just clap louder for "Democrats", even if all we ever get from them is lower catfood prices. They'll call it the Expanded Entitlements Act. They'll have a big signing ceremony, high-five each other, and call it the greatest legislative achievement of all time.

But many others will go, they'll go because we didn't vote for this. We didn't knock on doors for this, we didn't volunteer and phone bank and contribute our last dollar just so Obama could put that Ring of Power on his finger instead of McCain.

By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?

Folk in those stories had lots of chances to turn back, but they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.

What were they holding onto?

That there was some good in their world. And it was worth fighting for.

There's some good in our world too . . .

And it's worth fighting for. Economic justice is worth fighting for, middle class families are worth fighting for, seniors who worked hard all of their lives and just want their Social Security benefits are worth fighting for, the restoration of American democracy is worth worth fighting for. Today. Tomorrow. On October 2nd within the walls of Mordor, and every day after that.

I see millions of people losing their jobs and their homes, while bankers and corporate criminals hoard trillions of dollars. They won't lend. They won't hire. They're inflicting nationwide suffering while "Democrats" do nothing. In the eyes of those who have been hit the hardest, I see nothing but despair. Despair that even worse days lie ahead, despair that no one will care, that no one will help them.

Well the time may finally come when the courage of progressives fails, when we forsake those who need our help and break all bonds of fellowship with them. But it will not come this day, it will not come this year, we will not let it come. A final hour of woes and shattered shields may lie ahead of us, but we will not forsake those who need our help. Not on October 2nd, not on any other day, not as long as the heart of the one progressive is still beating.

We're in a great story, full of darkness and danger. We are the story, we will decide how it ends, we will decide if American democracy, the rule of law, and economic justice are restored. It's our story, so let the truth be told in the heart of Mordor on October 2nd, let it be told every day on every progressive blog, until it rings out across this land and the walls of Mordor crumble.

A Day of Reckoning is coming, the Lords of the Black Land will be summoned to answer for their crimes, they will be judged, and justice will be done upon them in the courtrooms of this reawakened country. Until then, send them a message on October 2nd, send them a message from the jury, send them a message from the middle class, from the poor, from every American they've lied to, cheated, and betrayed.

If enough of us do that, if enough of us keep doing it, We the People will reclaim the power that's been stolen from us, and a New Age will begin . . .

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadow shall spring,
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

The Puppet

gottlieb — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:22:47 GMT

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai Presidential Address to the World:

I am not a puppet. It's not me who is on the CIA payroll. It's everyone around me. My brother whatshisname and my Security Chief, whoozeits. The Opium Trade is on the CIA payroll, not me. I am no puppet.
I am as legitimate as they come. I was elected. I counted the votes myself. I am trying to close down corruption. I am against the criminal contractors who steal DVDs and Skittles from my people. That's why I have given them three months to either leave the country or give me a fair share of the booty. Would a puppet do that?
And when they say 'puppet' what do they mean? A hand puppet or one of those with a bunch of strings to pull. A whatsit. A Marionette. As opposed to a Martinet. Are my critics saying America has its hand up my ass? Or are they just pulling my strings? I think it's an important distinction. Not that either is true. I am not any kind of a puppet. I am my own man. An Island in an Ocean of Men. I may not be a big island like Australia or Madagascar but I am certainly bigger than Grenada or St. Barts. I do have pipelines and opium and trillions of dollars in strategic resources that I want my fair share and no puppet would ever stand up to such profiteering when murder is only a drone away.
For the people. Fair share for the people of Afghanistan. That's what I meant. Thought it was inferred. Thought it was so obvious it didn't need saying. For the people. Fair Share for the People. Not me. I am a patriot. That's why I don't want America to withdraw the troops prematurely in the next century. Chaos. Chaos is the enemy of progress. We have profit to exploit for the people. One needs a police state in the modern world. Too many radicals around. Taliban, Mujahedin, War Lords, Drug Lords, Doctor without Borders, Christians without Crosses, you name it and there is a group to create chaos in the vacuum left without a police state to enforce the laws and make it impossible to impede progress of profit for the people.
I do not want the Troops to stay because I am a puppet. Stop calling me that. I am like a stuffed animal next to puppet. A puppet is someone with real power whose strings are pulled or whose someone's hand is up someone's ass to get the puppet to do something only he can do. Like oppress the people or give no bid contracts to your friends. I don't have any power. I don't have any friends. Now, Obama, he's a puppet. A puppet for Insurance and Pharmaceutical companies. Bankers and Finance Companies. Oil Companies. The military industrial complex. And the golf vacation industry. He's a puppet. Don't look at me.
Hell, they call me the Mayor of Kabul. I can't make a move without a mob chasing me down the street to stone me to death for treason. They've got me hermetically sealed in my Presidential Palace. If the troops leave I won't be the Mayor of Kabul, I'll be the fly-infested-maggot-ridden Corpse of Kabul. Does that make me a puppet? A thirst for self-preservation? My enemies are everywhere: Pakis to the right, Iran to the left not to mention Russia and dozens of Crazystans everywhere with their tribal elders who smell like camels and have the manners of goats.
I am civilized. And a cross dresser. I can wear Kaftans and Armani Suits. I am comfortable at an Arms Bazaar or a Board Meeting. Puppet. Pinocchio was a puppet until the fairies turned him into a little boy. I have always been a little boy and now you think the Neocons and Generals have turned me into a puppet? Preposterous.
I am not a puppet.
I am an employee.

False Gods

gottlieb — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:37:46 GMT

False Prophets are a dime a dozen. From the clergy to politicians to flim-flam banksters, charalatans are monkeys in a barrel, if you have eyes to see and ears to hear.

The problem is while many are on the lookout for False Prophets, most do not question the Gods behind the religions of these socio-economic-religious shysters.

DOGMA spelled backwards is AM GOD. Dogma is strict adherence to the teachings of the Priest caste. When God is replaced by Religion-as-God, things turn sour.

But further, when you look at the great religions of Western Civilization - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - that, based upon the history of inhumanity practiced by these "great" religions, one must question the veracity of the God behind all these religions. And if one is fearless in the face of billions of believers, the God of the Victors who wrote the History and made the rules is a FALSE God.

As well, today we worship Money as God and the religion of the Market as the highest force for human aspiration. The Noble Cause is Profit. We defend the rights of Capital/Property to the death, but in relation to the state of the modern world with gross economic disparity, acute corruption and artificial manipulation of markets, we must also conclude the many who worship Capitalism/Free Enterprise/Free Market Capitalism, also worship a false god.

As I look at what passes for responsible economic policy these days, there's an analogy that keeps passing through my mind. I know it's over the top, but here it is anyway: the policy elite - central bankers, finance ministers, politicians, who pose as defenders of fiscal virtue, are acting like the priests of an ancient cult, demanding that we engage in human sacrifices to appease the anger of invisible gods.
Paul Krugman

Indeed, wasn't it Saint Goldman Sachs himself, Lloyd Blankfein, who said he and his priestly caste of investment bankers were doing "God's Work"?

Greenspan, Friedman, Rubin, Paulson, Bernanke, Geithner and all acolytes of the "Free Market" system take it as an article of faith that markets in and of themselves are self-correcting and honest and cannot be tainted, manipulated and destroyed by the ravages of unbridled human greed. While Marx said human greed will always win over the best intentions of Capitalists - dollars don't kill people, men with dollars kill people - Marx is a demon and the banksters are sacred assets to be rescued, bailed-out and praised for their boys-will-be-boys rape, pillage and plunder of the globe.

Much has been made in recent days about the construction of a "ground zero mosque" in the jihad waged against Islam by Christians and Jews. Islam is demonized by its enemies as a religion of ignorance, violence and hate. And it is. But not any more than Christianity and Judaism. Read the Bible and the history of Western Civilization. Humanity, as far as we know, has always been at war, has always failed to practice what it preached. But perhaps it is not these religions in and of themselves which are the problem. Perhaps the problem is God. The God who commanded the Israelites to smite every man, woman, child and beast in the villages they conquered in "His" name. The God who commanded the Catholic Church to burn "witches" and heretics at the stake in "His" name. The God who tells Muslims to kill fellow Muslims in a religious war of dogma spanning centuries in "His" name. And no matter the "Name" it is always HIM.

The modern world is plagued by archaic religions who worship a dead God. And that alone, a dead god, should be the proof of a false god. Where did YHVH go? Last we saw "Him" he was cavorting in the desert in a pillar of smoke. Did "He" pick up his ball, the Ark of the Covenant, and go home, abandoning his followers to a myth of return? Did Jesus Christ, who Christians believe is God manifest on earth, born of a virgin and God "Himself", ascend to Heaven, after resurrection from the dead, abandoning his followers with a myth of return? Did Mohammed ascend to Heaven on a wingéd horse and abandon his followers with a myth of return?

And do the followers of all these manifestations of the jealous god still wait and wait and wait while they murder, rampage and destroy to pass time until their God returns to smite all the believers of the false prophets and reward "His" faithful for their unswerving faith while "He" was away frolicking in Never Land?

Preposterous isn't it? And perhaps this analysis to glib and provocative. But don't the Jews await the Messiah, while the Christians await the return of the Messiah, while the Muslims await the Mahdi, their Messiah?

Billions of folks waiting around for God to return to a godless, sinful and evil world.

And maybe it's true. Certainly humankind has devolved into barbarism in the midst of modernity. Collapse is imminent in historical time. Humans obviously can't govern themselves above incompetence. Humans, given the gifts of ingenuity, innovation and genius can't govern themselves out of the proverbial paper bag. Too many egos. Though we are one race, one species, one people, we splinter, divide, atomize and repel for fun and profit. While the New-Agers celebrate diversity, the followers of the old religions, use diversity to justify their hatreds. How can these religions claim the same God while they revile each other over the supposed teachings and Laws of that God?

What is God waiting for? Prophecy to be fulfilled? There are crazy Christians who support the Jews they hate and the aspirations of a Greater Israel because they believe this hastens the prophecy of Armageddon and the return of The Lord. And then, of course, once this happens, said Jews will be sent straight to hell the by Lord of Love, Light and Mercy. I don't get a lot of hate when I read the supposed words of Jesus, but "His" followers? It's an orgy of hate at the end of empire.

But in spite of all that, the most perverse false God in the world today is the God of America.

Part of American mythology is its special, chosen blessing from God. It was a blessing to oppressed people desperate for liberty and whose prayers were answered. While America was not founded as a Christian nation its founding was awash with religion. Our founders were profoundly religious. They rejected the God of Dogma. But they did not reject God.

Jefferson said, ""Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."

Jefferson isn't saying he believes nothing. He is commenting on the priestly caste of dogma. The First Amendment is a protection from religion and a permission to worship as you will. Atheism is allowed, but only a fool would choose nothing. The Founders and society in general after the revolutionary war believed America was a gift from God. America was the New Jerusalem.

Truman said the Atomic Bomb was a gift to America from God. May God Bless America. A Shining City on a Hill. Today the debate rages - Is Obama a Muslim or Christian? Only his food-taster knows for sure.

This belief in one's special blessing leads to a certain exceptionalism. If there is One God and God is only speaking to you, then you speak for God. You perform God's will. American Exceptionalism does not allow for official self-reflection. Mistakes of strategy are never made but sometimes tactics are not successful. We are The World's Policeman; the Global Superpower; the Voice for Freedom in the World; the singular defense against ubiquitous forces of evil. We are Good, but the world is a dangerous place. We are surrounded by Evil Doers. But we are Good and God is Good, ergo we cannot lose. Take heart. Have faith. Stay the Course. Steady as she goes. Let's roll.

Meanwhile, the American People slouch toward poverty. The American People go without while The Government of America, which is God's voice upon Earth, spends every last resource to plunder every last resource to sustain for as long as possible a dead end road.

When future historians write about The American Empire they will only shake their heads and mumble, "Wow! All those previous empires to learn from and they didn't learn a thing."

All in the Name of God. The Father. Authority. The Enemy of Liberty.

How ironic the Land of the Free is fast becoming just another Police State in a world full of them.

By their Fruits ye shall know them.

Our Civilization is built upon the image of God in the Bible. Our Civilization is in shambles. Isn't there a self-evident truth here no one is talking about?

From finance to politics to religion to society & culture there is a distinct dysfunction. The People believed but their God has abandoned them with a myth of return. The Tea Party crowd is the manifestation of the cult of the return. Take Back Our Country! Time for a New American Revolution! Time for America to be reborn. Rebirth. Rebuild. Rejoice.

But like the worshipers of the old religions of return, Americans are going to have to wait in line.

We were played false.

American Tinder Box

gottlieb — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:53:23 GMT

On the one hand...

Bad Mood Rising. Short fuses on human time bombs. Powder kegs of combustible frustration. Palpable erosion of the social fabric. Race wars, class wars and culture wars. Rage; the new bliss. Violence; the logical extension of free speech in a tone-deaf world. Murder-suicide and fifteen minutes of fame. Write the note and blow out your brains along with the wife, kids and the management team who fired you for cause in the name of "results." Shareholder value. No longer a human but a line-item on a ledger. No longer a person but an impediment to the profit margin.

Politicians on the take and people on the run. Corporations on the make and most of the employed are Un. Everyone a suspect; no one above suspicion. Terror just another word for nothing left to lose. Bread lines, tent cities and tea parties. Poverty is Wealth. Despair is Happiness. Thousands of applicants for a single job and tens of thousands gather and clamor for cardboard box rent reduction vouchers.

From empire to banana republic. From McMansion to a hot tin roof. From King of the World to bottom of the barrel. From the land of the free to the land that time forgot. Vacant stares and empty smiles. A promise is an IOU for a kick in the teeth. Godot came and went as suckers sat and waited. The Savior is a marketing gimmick in a game of slaves. Life is misery; death is paradise. Give unto Caesar all that you've got and hope for the best when the Book of Debts and Credits is read by a jealous god in a stingy mood. Heaven is only a lottery ticket away but you can't win if you don't play.

Judge not the rich and love your enemy who hates you. Remember life is a wheel of fortune and tomorrow might be your lucky day.

Floods in Pakistan; fires in Russia, but America's Got Talent between the commercials. Mudslides in China, famine in Niger, as Obama changes oil into water at the wedding in Cana. Dip your toe in the toxins and call it a vacation. A clean bill of health with a thumbs up grin as fish float to the surface and frogs rain from the sky. There are no disasters only opportunities to shine.

The Banksters get billions in bonus for money-from-nothing hocus pocus while the sheep are fleeced of their mortgageable wool and scratch out a living from dust-devil crumbs. Hard boiled tennis shoes and poached rocks. Eat all your dirt-clods and be grateful. There are people in Africa who don't have enough dirt to even make a clod.

Jesus died for your sins but it don't mean you're forgiven. Suffering is Bliss. Count all your blessings on the way to the slaughter. Resist not the temptation to capitulate and cower. Don't question authority and obey all the rules because man is a sinner, an evildoer and fool. Man needs a boss to tell him what to do. Birthrights are reserved for Kings while we paupers have only Serve-rights. Serfs. Slaves. Peons. Chattel. The Service Economy; the codification of chains.

Meanwhile...

White Trash Nation in his trailer park armchair glued to the image of the beast looks for a scapegoat to sacrifice on the altar of his own petard. Ignorance is smug. He sits in a dungeon shackled to his prejudice like Jesus nailed to the Tree of Life. His eyes are beady and his balls itch. His mind is a loop of child porn and rape fantasy. His breath is stale from cigarettes and booze. His belly hangs over his waist like a jelly waterfall. He is half asleep. His animation is suspended like a mosquito in amber. His thought frozen on the last thing he heard. Something he can't quite remember. The details aren't important. He knows what he needs to know. The world is dangerous and the bad guys are coming to get him. His door is locked, his mind is bolted. His drapes are drawn, his lights are low. His guns are loaded, his trigger finger primed. He dares the ghosts to come through the walls. Out of the billions of targets out there he knows he is the one they're after. He's different. Special. He's no rube. He's not just another couch potato. That's his cover. He's deep under cover. He's a secret agent on a special mission. He waits for his moment. His chance. He waits for his door to open and the enemy to enter. Full metal jacket. Pump them full of lead. Kill the bastards. All of them. Every last one. All those bastards who stole his country. The coloreds, the womens, the commies and the Hollywoods.

Eve was a whore. She is to blame for original sin. Adam's sin was to listen to her and not to his Father. Man was made in His image. Woman was an afterthought. A maid. A hole to expel his shame. If only He made her without a tongue to speak then life would be paradise. No wonder it was legal to beat your wife until the Feminists gave blow jobs to the Supreme Court and financed all those brainwashing centers which masquerade as havens from abuse. Spare the rod...

America is White Man Country. White; the absence of color. Purity. Light. The White Knight battles the evil of color. Light versus dark. Black versus white. White magic versus black magic. We vanquished the primitives with smallpox and whiskey. We conquered Africa with a carrot and stick and made him slave. We nuked the nips. And we can't wait to send a billion chinks straight to hell. Maybe white men can't jump or dance, but no one has anything on us when it comes to strangulation, mutilation and the cold-blooded murder of anyone who stands in the way of progress.

Like the Commie Obama. The Great Black Hope. Given the job by white whores from NOW hungry for musk. A silver tongue. As smooth as a snake. The devil himself. He hypnotized America. Mesmerism. A snake-oil salesman. How else can you explain a black man in the White House? And what is the first thing he did? He gave the country to the Commies. He made government take over the corporations. The Commie Government now runs all the corporations. Which, if you know words, is the very definition of Commieism. When Government and Companies are partners and all your rights are taken away and your tax money goes to corporations and politicians and executives are the only ones with special bathrooms is when you know your freedom is gone and we live in the U.S.S.A. All the cars now have GPS bugs to keep track on our movements. He installed GPS bugs in our phones so they always know where we are and what we say. Pretty soon we'll all have India ink tattoo bar-codes and subcutaneous smart chips which monitor our thoughts and transactions. We have a 1984 Commie surveillance society of secret cameras and speed bumps. Detention camps and secret trials. The White Man has been made the enemy while Mexicans steal into the country to take our jobs and collect Social Security.

Everyone knows Obama is an Islam. His African Daddy was an Islam who drank and gambled and messed around with loose white women. Just like Mohammad Atta who made 911. Everyone knows the other Mohammed was born in 666. Hello? Muslimry is the Anti-Christ. The darkie to our white light of Jesus. This is just common sense. You don't have to be a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist or even a Dentist to understand we are in an existential fight against evil which is dark versus those of us made in the image of the one true God. Do your research. Oannes, Quetzalcoatl, Osiris, Jesus and Zeus were all white. Not to mention the real God of the Bible. The Sistine Chapel. Hello? Doesn't that tell you some really important truth?

God is European.

America is the land of milk and honey because America is the New Jerusalem after the old Jerusalem was taken over by the Arabs after the old covenant went bust but was then restored by Thomas Jefferson when he wrote the Constitution which is another word for Covenant in Freemason. Look it up. Not that Jefferson was a Freemason but some of his best friends were and you had to speak Freemason if you wanted to be part of the Revolution club.

You see, you can't believe anything Hollywood tells you. The Hollywoods don't tell the truth. They make up stories. Just like they did in the Bible. The Hollywoods are great story-tellers. Just like Jesus who invented parables to tell the truth about the Hollywoods. Let those with ears listen closely. Like George Washington and the Cherry Tree. Or throwing a Silver Dollar across the Potomac. See the Hollywoods are myth-makers. That's why you can't take the Bible literally except for every word Jesus says. See Jesus overturned the apple carts in the Temple because the Hollywoods were spreading the story about the Apple Tree in the Garden of Eden, the forbidden fruit, when Jesus knew it wasn't an apple tree, but a Marijuana tree. See god wants us drunk and not stoned. Stoned is what you do to prostitutes and Islams who cheat on their husbands. Let those with ears listen harshly.

There is a new revolution coming where the white man gets his country back from wolves in cheap clothes and commies who want us all to live in a giant commie commune which is where commies come from. See, they want to make us all the same and take away our individuality and the duality of good versus evil. Commies want everything the same so we can't fight over what divides us as decreed by God. Sex, color, ethnicity, creed, religion and money.

Don't be fooled. There will never peace in the world until everything is destroyed so the white man can begin again in the image of fat-free donuts. Let those with ears listen intently to the wisdom of the ages.

Death is Life.

The White Man's patience is not infinite. We have been patient while the coloreds and womens and commies and Hollywoods stole our country and made it Babylon and Russia and China combined.

There is a war coming. We are ready, willing and able. All we need is a spark.

Secrecy is Transparency, Poverty is Wealth

gottlieb — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:48:57 GMT

Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off.
Samuel Johnson

In America, it is no mystery our Society of Secrets began a long time ago. And our Vice and Roguery is in full bloom.

A New York Times article Saturday notes, "In 17 months in office, President Obama has already outdone every previous president in pursuing leak prosecutions."

This is the same Obama who promised to put all Health Care Reform deal-making on CSPAN so The People could see the sausage making and hold their politicians and special interest lobbying to account. He promised transparency.

Of course, what occurred in reality was nothing of the sort. Back room deals, quid pro quo bribes and the People sold down the river of predatory profiteer-ism.

Same with Financial Reform. Same with colluding with BP to keep the apocalyptic severity of the oil gusher secret from the American people for as long as possible.

So it is no wonder Obama goes aggressively after whistle-blowers blowing the whistle on governmental corruption, criminality and cowardice. Obama has gone out of his way to protect the two-headed crime against humanity called Bush/Cheney. And he'll do what he has to do to protect his own war-criminal ridden regime.

Politicians will say anything to get elected and do anything to get reelected. Obama is a classic example. I did have not sex with that Hope for Change. Obama has proven his loyalties lie with corporations and the current insidious form of government which is nothing more than a bribe factory and criminal conspiracy of the rich against the poor.

Recently an American Hero wearing the uniform of the United States 'leaked' rather embarrassing stuff to Wikileaks. And now the government has arrested the whistle-blowing hero and sent an assassination squad on the trail of the Wikileaks founder.

Prove they haven't.

Recalling that he himself had been the intended target of a CIA hit squad in 1972, Ellsberg suggested, "As I look at Assange's case, their worry that he will reveal current threats, I would have to say, puts his well-being, his physical life, in some danger. And I say that with anguish. ... I think Assange would do well to keep his whereabouts unknown."

But this is just par for the course for Obama, the winner of the Nobel War is Peace Prize. Secret detentions, torture, assassination squads, secret wars, wars of aggression based upon lies, illegal surveillance, PR instead of truth, secrecy instead of transparency.

Obama is not the least bit interested in Truth, but in Managing Perception.

Perception Management is achieved not by transparency but by propaganda. It's about the release of selected and limited information with an attached spin. It's storytelling to children at bedtime - something to make one go to sleep.

The Economy is recovering. The Oil Spill is under control. The wars are necessary and vital. You are in danger and we will make you safe no matter what it costs. Our enemies will stop at nothing to attack us. It's better to be safe than sorry. If you have nothing to hide, then what it does it matter we open your mail, listen to your calls, pinpoint your location and peep into your bedroom?

But the truth: Obama is but the latest happy, shiny face on a darkening landscape of Security State oppression, economic warfare of the rich against the poor and environmental destruction of the planet for the sake of greed.

When the Economy collapses again, and for real this time, and because Banksters are the true Dark Overlords of this planet and must be repaid all the debt they have enslaved us with through unsustainable Bubble Economics, we'll see the true face of Happy Face Dictatorship.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
Thomas Jefferson

And when we all wake up homeless and all hell breaks loose, Obama will be the happy, shiny face of martial law. Bank on it. It's not about Freedom, it's about Authority.

And this is the crux of everything. Doesn't the quote above make Jefferson a greater prophet than either Marx or Orwell. Didn't the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 do precisely what Jefferson warned against? Didn't we abdicate our Constitutionally mandated sovereignty of our own monetary policy?

And now the United States of America, the greatest country in the history of the world, the world's oldest 'democracy' is nothing more than a ruthless financial oligarchy, backed by a Military Junta and protected in Law by the wholly-owned subsidiary of Bankster Inc. - The US Government. A Government of Lawn Jockeys for the Cabal of International Banks.

We should take our country back from the Tyranny of Private Banking Cartels. This is our only enemy and every other narrative of internal and external enemies is nothing but the smoke and mirrors of divide and conquer.

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The idea of secret banking cabals that control the country and global economy are a given among conspiracy theorists who stockpile ammo, bottled water and peanut butter. After this week's congressional hearing into the bailout of American International Group Inc., you have to wonder if those folks are crazy after all.

What does it mean something called The Federal Reserve, a private corporation, positioned above the law, above accountability, controls the very fabric of American life through secret market manipulation, currency manipulation, policy manipulation and the manipulation of public perception?

It means the United States of America is a myth. It means The People are second class citizens to corporations. It means your destiny is in the hands of others. It means you are a slave.

The Western World has been brought to its knees by Debt Slavery to Private Central Banks. The goal is a world at war which is coming, helpless populations which is here and the Totalitarianism of The Money Power.

"The powers of financial capitalism had [a] far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands, able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences."
Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope

There is a conspiracy amongst us of the rich against the poor and it is not a conspiracy theory to say so. It's a conspiracy of secrets where truth and transparency are its enemy. It's a conspiracy to monopolize and control governments, populations and circumstances. And in the minds of the conspirators, as in the words of Goldman Sachs' chief, Lloyd Blankfein, they are doing God's work.

All I can say is, God Help Us All.

Kick Your Own Ass Mr. President

gottlieb — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:37:28 GMT

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said Monday he's been talking closely to Gulf Coast fishermen and various experts on BP's catastrophic oil spill not for lofty academic reasons but "so I know whose ass to kick."

Ooh. You scared yet? Obama's going to kick some ass. You know how he does. You know how he kicked those insurance and pharmaceutical company asses to get us all Universal healthcare. How he kicked those Bankster asses of Goldman Sachs et al to regulate casino capitalism and bring the Looters to justice. How he kicks the collective ass of the Military-Industrial-Complex to stop the siphoning of trillions from the treasury better spent on the health and wealth of America and stop the illegal, immoral and irresponsible war crimes of aggression. And on and on...

Frankly, Obama's ability to kick ass is limited to a game of horse against an oil-soaked pelican.

Kick some ass. It's Obama who has had his ass handed to him on every policy initiative he's attempted.

Yeah, Obama's on a listening tour of the Gulf to hear whose ass he needs to kick. Holy Crap he can't even keep the attention of high-schoolers during their graduation commencement speech a he moralizes about the bright future they're all going to have going off to fight wars of Empire. Kick some ass.

Obama's facing a "natural" disaster which makes Katrina look like an April Shower and he brays about being in charge and giving marching orders to BP as he participates in a corporate cover-up about the magnitude of the catastrophe and denies the underwater plumes which are undeniable.

You've got an ocean of death Mr. President and you're telling old BP not to nickel and dime the victims while you have nickel and dimed the American people and promised to pay trillions back to private banks with taxpayer debt which can never be repaid guaranteeing it is only a matter of time before disaster capitalism comes to American which will make Greece, Spain, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Portugal, England and a bunch of other countries look like an ice cream social.

What happened to all those green jobs and rebuilt infrastructure with our economic stimulus, Mr. President? We've got Depression Era numbers for unemployment. Our debt is soon to be bigger than our GDP. We got folks squatting in their own houses. We've got an underclass of the underemployed living off potato chip fumes and prayer. We've got fellow citizens with no hope, no change in sight and no idea how they are going to make it to tomorrow. More and more working poor. More and more malnutrition. And bigger and bigger economic injustice vis a vis the rich and poor.

And you don't know whose ass to kick?

Did someone just tell you to go off, get pissed, to show how frustrated you are as just another calculated scene in kabuki politics? The injuns are getting restless Mr. President, time to show em whose boss.

You have a real stern look Mr. President. Show em how serious you can be between "pop nights" with McCartney and Clarkson.

Let's stop pretending Mr. President. Stop the charade of righteous indignation, not to mention simple competence.

There is only one person who needs his ass kicked.

You, Mr. President.

Perhaps you should kick your own ass.

Comfortably Numb

gottlieb — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:12:04 GMT

How else can you explain it?

Massacres, disasters, high crimes, betrayals, faked pandemics, the disintegration of decency, the destruction of dignity, the religion of the root of all evil and the genocide of the poor by the rich.

Flashes of outrage replaced by short-term memory fail. Moments of insight chasing the rabbit down the memory hole.

They say in time "everything that is hidden will eventually be brought into the open, and every secret will be brought to light."

But I say what more do you need? The truth isn't "out there" it's right in front of your face. Staring at you and daring you to do something about it.

It's not the truth which sets you free, but what you do about it which frees you.

And yet, except for this small choir of the few I'm preaching to who know the truth, the ugly truth, the truth which breaks the human heart and kills the human spirit, and except for the billions too starved to do anything - what do the many capable of acting do to stop the genocide and destruction of human aspiration? The lies in your face. The arrogance of power and entitlement. The Exceptionalism of Dostoyevsky's Extraordinary Men who believe themselves above the law, beyond justice and out of reach of self-evident truths. Criminals beyond punishment.

Is it Toffler's Future Shock of too much stimuli and cacophony of competing information which numbs the mind and immobilizes the soul? Is it most Americans are drugged and sedated? Is it the Kool Aid of Corporate propaganda: The Lobby of Liars? The Dumbed Down Population: The White Trash Bigotry of Trailer Park Nation?

What is it which allows The People to know the truth, know the lies, know the treason of inhumanity to man and yet stand idly while with the world catches fire in a conflagration of greed and lethargy? "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

How to lose your house, your job, your society, your country, your faith and remain comfortably numb?

To stand by while religions of love practice rituals of hate. While hatred is called justice and wars of aggression fought in the name of self-defense. While an Axis of Evil, led by the Land of the Free, enslaves billions to the tune of Free Markets, National Interests and Big Brother Knows Best.

While leaders of hope, change, progress and justice preach the same lies and practice the same cruel inhumanity as those they've replaced with the politics of prestidigitation. CHANGE: Now you see it, now you don't.

Armies of pitchforks, peashooters and passion are no match against cold-blooded, remote-controlled killers armed with lasers, microwaves and nukes. Nobody is suggesting armed insurrection or violent revolution - that is the way of madness and suicide. But where is the peaceful resistance of tax rebellion, general strikes, and non-conformity? Where is the turning away and non-participation in a society of smoke and mirrors where leaders lie to the people as a matter of course because the business of America is business and not truth and justice?

Where is the outrage against emotional foreign entanglements, enslaving "special relationships", which create generations of enemies and a legacy of shame and guilt - and the karmic inevitability of divine retribution? Where is the resistance to the Robber Baron Corporate Borg which assimilates competition, institutionalizes conformity - the Orthodoxy of Capital - and sucks the energy, like parasites, from Labor, the ONLY engine of wealth creation known to man? Where is at least a look askance at the Reverse Robin Hood Voodoo Economic Pyramid Scheme which has created the largest abyss of wealth disparity in the history of humankind? How come the Many is saddled with egregious, usurious, un-payable debt while the Few enjoy the fruits of everyone else's wages?

The Right Wing Fascist Tea Party wants to "take the country back" from Liberals, Feminists, GLBTs and Poor People of Color - the only candidate populations to possibly mount a challenge against The Patriarchal Money Power - and seal their slavery with the kiss of death because they just love giving to Caesar what is Caesar's while they wait in cages of ignorance to fight the windmills of their minds.

We fought a Civil War to end the evils of slavery and today the blind led by the blind fight for the privilege of chains to protect them from mean nasty terrorists and free-thinkers who are the real freedom fighters against tyranny in the world today. To the army of the dumb, critical thinking means which brand of toilet paper to buy. To the lock-step, mentally dazed zombies of capitulation The People are commies and the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Media-Complex of Predatory Capitalism is the Second Coming of Christ to usher in a thousand years of peace under martial law and justice by confession through torture.

Meanwhile, everybody else stands in Dealey Plaza wondering what the mist of red haze was as the Limo whizzes by. Everybody waits for the commission report to give them the truth despite what they saw with their own eyes. A Decapitation. A Coup d'ètat. A False Flag. A Controlled Demolition.

Comfortably Numb, but getting less comfortable all the time. More and more losing more and more. The glamor, the facade, the veneer, the veil, fog, haze - the cover of darkness is lifting. Slowly, but surely. And in America, more slowly because the Project of Social Control through propaganda, jingoism and peer pressure is strong medicine. The brain-washed, indoctrinated belief in AMERICA is strong medicine. The Spectator Sport of Scandal, War Porn and Porn Porn is strong medicine.

But some are wiping their eyes and shaking their heads and remembering all the times they've been fooled, lied to and promised better times ahead while the Few bamboozle, hornswoggle and pickpocket the Many.

Still numb after all these years, but less and less comfortable. Until those with eyes can see and those with ears can hear and those with courage will act.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

A time to cast away and a time to renew.

A new world order of the people, for the people and by the people.

The numb need not apply.

SCOTUS: How Many Is Too Many?

gottlieb — Wed, 19 May 2010 13:03:43 GMT

Pat Buchanan recently opined the near-certain confirmation of Elena Kagan on the Supreme Court will bring Jewish jurists on the court to three. This 33% representation far outweighs the overall Jewish demographic of about 2% of the general population.

Pat Laments:

Buchanan was responding to a Washington Post story about black leaders expressing disappointment over solicitor general Elena Kagan's record at Harvard Law, where the faculty members she hired were mostly white.
"But while leaders in the black community may be upset, the folks who look more like the real targets of liberal bias are white Protestants and Catholics, who still constitute well over half of the U.S. population," he wrote. "Not in living memory has a Democratic president nominated an Irish, Italian or Polish Catholic, though these ethnic communities once gave the party its greatest victories in the cities and states of the North."

What Pat fails to mention is that there are already six Catholic justices on the court.

Now, if you are one of the few deluded remnants of pipe-dream America who believe we are a Representative Democracy, then sure 2% of the population does not merit 33% of influence on arguably the most important institution in these United States.

Blacks make up 13% of the population and have one representative on the court. Of course, by any stretch of the imagination Clarence Thomas represents black America about as closely as Angelina Jolie represents ugly, but, hey, we're not talking politics here, we're talking Demographics. And anyway, Blacks expect to be discriminated against. It's part of American tradition like Mom, Apple Pie and Baseball.

Asians comprise about 4 1/2% of the population. They get nothing. Except a straight A grade point average.

About 15% of the population is Hispanic of one flavor or another. It's hard to tell. Because as the CIA Fact Book says -

note: a separate listing for Hispanic is not included because the US Census Bureau considers Hispanic to mean persons of Spanish/Hispanic/Latino origin including those of Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican Republic, Spanish, and Central or South American origin living in the US who may be of any race or ethnic group (white, black, Asian, etc.); about 15.1% of the total US population is Hispanic.

But, still they got Sonia Sotomayer of Puerto Rican descent to swell the ethnic pride.

Other ethnic groups represented are indigenous Americans - slightly less than 1% and Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders about 2 tenths of 1%.

So no surprise there. Though, the new math of Jewish representation should allow American Indians and Eskimos 1.5 justices on the Supreme Court. But then, of course, there are only nine Supreme Court justices and you can't please everybody.

Now Jews are not listed as an ethnic group by the CIA but as a religion. Which is weird because the overwhelming number of Jews I know are Atheists who believe in their ethnic tradition. But, golly, the CIA has screwed up before and we just have to grin and bear it.

So, according to the CIA, the religious Demographic of the USA is:

Protestant 51.3%,
Roman Catholic 23.9%,
Mormon 1.7%,
other Christian 1.6%,
Jewish 1.7%,
Buddhist 0.7%,
Muslim 0.6%,
other or unspecified 2.5%,
unaffiliated 12.1%,
none 4%

Now when you look at the numbers a few things stick out:

Protestants, the overwhelming majority of the religious by a 2 to 1 ratio, get squat. Now, Pat Buchanan is a Catholic, hence his hysterical concern that 66% representation on the court for 24% of the population is not nearly enough and the Jew, Kagan, is taking up another Catholic slot.

Now, while it is undoubtedly true Jews control the world or least Hollywood, Mainstream Media and Wall Street, if it were really true then Jews would have a majority on the court, in spite of their puny demographic because everyone knows the Jews allowed the pagan Romans to kill Jesus and with six Catholics on the court they could turn at anytime and send the Jews to the camps. We all know The Church in Rome turned a blind eye to the Holocaust during WWII. And while back in the 60s Americans were frightened the first Catholic president JFK was a secret agent for the Pope who instead turned out to be the Playboy of the Western World, it is obvious the Conservative Catholic, Chief Justice Roberts, is made of sterner stuff.

Indeed, the Catholic Church is one of the more heinous institutions of Western Civilization: Think religious Dogma and the Inquisition if you don't slurp up the dogma like a Belushi speed-ball. Jews may think they walk on water, but Catholics think Mary was knocked up by God and after three days the murdered Jesus, wounds and all, resurrected, broke bread with his heart-broken disciples and then ascended to heaven where he still lives today, waiting to come back at some soon but unknowable time to wreak havoc on all the sinners, myself prominently included in that group. Okay, Protestants believe the same thing, but the reason there are protestants is because Luther wanted to reform the corruption of the Church and the Church, obviously, like today's politicians, just can't say no to Power.

Now, while I believe in God as much as the next guy, religion, any and all religion, is absolutely nuts. Sorry. There is no difference between religion and superstition in my book. God doesn't need a middleman. And, quite frankly, the Great War being fought in the world now is a religious Holy War as much as anything and the quickest road to peace would appear to be the abolition of religion.

So, Catholics, who have ¼ of the population own 2/3rds of the seats on the Supreme Court bench. Methinks Mr. Buchanan doth protest too much.

Based upon the demographics shouldn't Atheists have a seat or two? The crazy Mormons should have one. Not to mention, "other."

So, over representation in a quasi representational society is relative. Sure the Jews have more influence than they deserve by the numbers. But so do the Catholics.

And where are the Tea Party Protestants in all this? Stop whispering about Elena's rumored delight in the scissors position and start clamoring for a Baptist or Lutheran or Presbyterian or Anglican or Episcopalian or Seventh Day Adventist or Amish or Methodist or Mennonite or Quaker or Congregational or Pentecostal or "Other."

Oh. Hmm. Maybe that's it right there. Maybe after all the Protestants splinter into their little groups the numbers don't warrant a seat on the Supreme Court. Why can't the Protestants all just get along and form a union or something so they can get some influence in this country?

The Jews have Orthodox, Reform and Conservative and probably "other" too, but they know how to form a more perfect union to exponentiate and hyperventilate their influence beyond their meager number. Of course when you control the social narrative and everyone owes you money, it makes it a lot easier - but that's another story.

So, when we are talking about undo influence, sure there some real reasons for some demographics to bitch and moan.

But Catholics aren't one of them.

Postcard from the Propagandist

gottlieb — Mon, 17 May 2010 13:23:06 GMT

It's a bombardment. Up, down, left and right. Inside out and upside down. An onslaught. Back and forth, to and fro, here and there and back again. A blizzard of threats. A maelstrom of lies which prey upon your worst fears.

Invading hordes of coloreds. An avalanche of disaster. Moral depravity and economic catastrophe. Politicians and Piranhas swim the tank of bottom feeding frenzy. And you are fish food.

No where to run and no place to hide caught in the web of surveillance and submission. Red shirts, green shirts, brown shirts, hair-shirts and rabble-rousers line up to mimic revolutions past and become the canon-fodder of warning and example for those angry enough not to take it anymore but unable to screw their courage to the sticking place. No sacrifice is too great except the sacrifice of sticking one's neck out while everyone else watches the beheading on the ubiquitous bandwidth of fair and balanced public relations designed to foster consumption and debt.

Be angry and afraid. Emotions encouraged to run wild, the better to identify the trouble-makers. As the screw turns mobs are shot down in the streets. Liberty takes a back seat to 'order.' The security of the rich and the few is paramount. The fate of the many seal their doom with complacent ambiguity. The propaganda of fear and loathing settles into the marrow like cancer; an epidemic of blame; a pox on everyone's house. The citizenry, a circular firing squad given ammunition by those standing outside the circle.

You have been dumbed, numbed and plumbed. Your brain is fried, your mind is muddled and your entrails poisoned with additives, supplements, steroids and barbiturates. Game Theory knows your every move. Chemistry knows your psychology. We know what you are thinking because we put the thought in your head. We know what you are feeling because emotions are birthed by the thoughts we inject like saline to the dehydrated. You are thirsty to believe what you are taught and hungry for the red-meat of emotional roller-coasters.

When everything feels like the movies, you bleed just to know you're alive.

Surrounded by slapstick stupids and bitch-slap crazies you circle the wagons and shoot at anything that moves. You hunker down in your Barcalounger bunker to sweat-out the nuclear winter of economic collapse. You dumpster dive for crumbs. You hunt and peck for scraps. You take care of your own and others be damned. You play by the rules. You do the right things. You go along to get along.

And where has it got you other than a clean conscience on the road to serfdom? You've been taught everything is a cycle and this too shall pass. You are promised a better world is just around the next bend on the corkscrew of life.

You pray for justice while the Cult of Blankfein sucks the life-force from society and craps on the rug of the American Dream. You pray for change as they put a black bag over your head and rendition you for resisting your birthright as slave. You pray for death as they torture you with the laughter of sadists and the cruelty of impotence. Your children are taken from you, drugged, indoctrinated and taught to rat-out non-conformity and critical thinking. Mean girls. Drunk boys. Bad seeds.

Every few years you are encouraged to believe in hope again and then taught to smile as hope is dashed against the rocks of reality. Abandon all hope for those who enter here. Where the hell do you think you are? In some kind of feel-good Frank-Capra-Jimmy-Stewart morality play with a few laughs, crocodile tears and the obligatory happy ending? Sure, we gave you that propaganda during the the Great Depression and the Great War to take your mind off of food rations and body-bags. But you have been conditioned for sterner stuff now. No stinking happy endings for you. There is no prosperity ahead. It's all been done. We've done communism, fascism and capitalism. We've done the propaganda of nationalism, humanism and religion. Pop, pop, pop. What is left? The money is gone, the cupboard is bare. After the looting, comes the escape and unless you are one of the looters there is no escape. Form a posse if you want and go on a wild goose chase for truth, justice and the American Way. What is the American Way except an excuse for Oligarchy in the name of Democracy.

War is Peace; Ignorance is Strength; Freedom is Slavery.

More than Party slogans, but public policy. You can't have people running free. That is madness. You have to make people believe they are free, while under the strictest control. Sure the Tea Party was a popular revolt for about a weekend until it was co-opted by Party bosses and crime syndicates. Sure there was a Progressive outcry against war, corruption and injustice until it was co-opted by the Al Jolson minstrel show of Change, Hope and a Sucker Born Every Minute. The new President loves the smell of napalm and crispy fried kids in the morning.

Isn't it obvious what the game is, what is the score? Isn't it obvious to everyone with a Scarecrow's brain? After 10,000 years of the same game with the same result you've got to ask the question? How do they do it? How do they fix the game? How do they win every single time?

First they make you believe a lie is the truth - The King rules from a birthright granted by the Gods. Then when that wears off after a few centuries, they feed you another lie as truth - The Church, infallible, rules by the Will of God. Then another - The Constitution is Law passed to us by the Creator - and another - Goldman Sachs does God's Work. And if you ever stop believing they shoot you in the head in front of your children and say to the kids, "You believe it don't you?"

This is Propaganda. Bernays named it Public Relations, because Propaganda has a bad connotation with the common man. The purpose of propaganda is to manage the thoughts and behaviors of the public through the propagation of one-sided information. The goal of Propaganda is to influence. To make you believe something someone else wants you to believe for that someone else's political or economic benefit.

"Propaganda is neutrally defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels."
Richard Alan Nelson, A Chronology and Glossary of Propaganda in the United States

Irish are drunks. Italians are thugs. Jews are greedy. Lazy, shiftless Negroes want to sleep with all "our" white women. Mexicans are coming to take away all our jobs. Feminists and liberals want to destroy Family. Terrorists are coming to make us all Muslims. If it weren't for Capitalism there would be no jobs. Communism is a menace. Labor is socialism. Business is Democracy. Wealth is success. Poverty is failure. Everybody loves a winner. America is the greatest country in the history of the world.

The Few has always ruled over the Many. Aristocracy, Oligarchy, Monarchy, Plutocracy, Theocracy has always been the way. Slaves, serfs and servitude has always been the way.

Why? Because the many has been taught to believe in the divine right of kings. There is a natural order, a natural law, to top-down society because that's the way it's always been. To question the legitimacy of authority is to question nature, the history of humanity and God in one fell swoop.

And through this nature, history and faith, human civilization is on the brink of self-annihilation. If this was the way it was supposed to be wouldn't the result be the definition of good? Isn't Creation supposed to be good?

But instead we have civilization-fail. The height of technological wonder has brought heights of war, poverty, disease and the evil of man's inhumanity to man. The Few get fewer and the Many get more. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

All it would take to change the way things are and the way they've always been is for the many to sweep away the few in a fit righteous indignation in the name of 'enough is enough.'

But they don't. Why? Because the few pay people like me to convince you not to. Don't question 911, go shopping instead. Leave it to experts, leaders and managers to fix what's broke and don't rock the boat. We keep things coming at you at a rocket pace, future shock, so things from yesterday go down the memory hole today. What stolen elections? What WMDs? What lies? What corruption? What promises? What change?

There is only today. And today you might lose your job or your house or your life. Just take care of yourself and let the process take care of everything else. It's worked okay this far. Sure things aren't perfect, but they could be worse. You could be an Afghan or African or Greek. So, take it one day at at time. Don't look back. Don't look ahead. All there is is now. This moment. And your purpose is to live through it.

You can't fight city hall. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's.

God will sort it all out later.

Super Hero Fail

gottlieb — Mon, 03 May 2010 13:02:32 GMT

Well, it looks like the National Enquirer who brought us the live burial of John Edwards has finally got the goods on Barack Obama. It's not enough Obama is an African Nationalist, Muslim Communist and Political Promise Breaker. Not enough he is a shiny-happy war criminal and smooth talking flim-flam man. Not enough Obama swings both ways while he lectures black daddies to take care of their birthing and babies.

President Obama is a philanderer. Our Tiger Woods President.

They say power corrupts but the truth is the corrupt seek power. Same as it ever was.

And, if true, is it really so surprising? Isn't Obama just following in the footsteps of countless other men of power who say one thing and do another? Isn't temptation just another word for succumb?

Another 'hero' bites the dust. Another myth shattered. Another reason to shake the head and gnash the teeth of disillusion.

Yet, it doesn't matter Obama did or didn't have an affair six years ago or is having one now. What's more important is Obama wages Bush's wars with Bush's lies as their justification. What's more important is Obama plays Pyramid Scheme Politics and reverse Robin Hood voodoo economics just like Republicans. Trickle up a few trillion to the banks in hopes they trickle some down to ease the credit crunch for the common man brought on by a Usury-centric finance system which seeks to enslave, smother and beat you into submission.

It doesn't matter Obama smokes cigarettes, crack or super-glue and admits to nothing like Israel and her nukes. What matters is he says one thing and does another like Guantanamo, DADT, Renditions, Health Care Reform, Transparency and Accountability. What matters is his pious affected black preacher drawl in the pulpit moralizing to the families of dead coal miners while he sends drones to kill non-existent enemies and murder countless innocents in the name of a crime which has never been properly investigated and the blame for which has never been proven beyond the accusations of known liars, war criminals and profiteers.

What matters is not his possible amorality but his subservience to entrenched elite interests while he wags the tongue of populist propaganda in support of the common man. What matters is not his supposed succumbing to temptation but his worship of the military-industrial-complex and his sophomoric Bushist view of the world: His American Exceptionalism as America elevates itself to global monster. His glib arrogance in the face of serious questions. His complete disregard for the liberals who elected him.

Barack Obama is a poseur, a pretender, an imposter. He is not self-made but a created product of Mad Men brought to you by FIRE, Energy and War Mongers. He is the 21st Century poster boy for egregious profit and unbridled greed. He is spokesperson for the status-quo of the few against the many. He is a shill, a tool; a co-opted politician owned and operated by those who shovel double-speak into both sides of his mouth and expect triple digit returns on their investment.

Many people still "buy" Obama and don't want to hear about his imperfections. Indeed, Tiger Woods was well received by the galleries at The Masters. We love Tiger because he is a genius at his game not because he is a duplicitous, hypocritical sex addict who's career and endorsement empire was built upon a squeaky clean sparkling smile of home and hearth. So many folks give Obama the benefit of doubt and say he does all he can in the face of 'power'. But Obama is the opposite of Horton the Elephant who says what he means and means what he says. If Dr. Seuss can bring ethics in a nutshell to elementary school children why is it so hard for so many adults to walk the walk instead of talk the walk - say one thing and do another. Indeed, isn't that the adult lesson so many children hear? Do as I say, not as I do.

I guess it's just so hard to be an adult in the real world. We can't live up to childhood ideals. We can't measure up to storybook heroes and fairytale morality. We sell out our dreams for food on the table and jettison our beliefs in the name of getting along to go along. 80% of folks are unhappy with the way things are and 90% of them are paralyzed with fear, frozen with perceived impotence of usurped power. We have raised bitching, moaning and whining to an art, but we have forgotten how to organize, mobilize and actualize.

Cynicism has replaced confidence. A long time ago we sent men to the moon and now we just go around in circles and do high school science experiments. A long time ago we set ourselves free from millennial servitude only to piss it all away to Private Banks who own us just as sure as antebellum plantation owners clamped chains on slaves and traded them like baseball cards.

But isn't it understandable cynicism reigns at the height of civilization because humanity has proven itself incapable of Good (not to mention self-governance)? The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse run rampant over the landscape. Diseases are created in laboratories and spread to populations for pharmaceutical companies to profit. Wars are created for fun and profit by arms merchants and loan sharks. Starvation and poverty is the breakfast of champions for billions of our brothers and sisters who we regard as feckless losers because they can't pull themselves up by the bootstraps out of hell. A plague of proverbial locusts contaminate our water, air and soil. Maybe God didn't rest on the Seventh Day because creation was good, but went into hiding for the shame of humanity.

Our Soviet-style elected leaders of our two-sides-of-the-same-coin political system suck up bribes from corporations like vampires drink the blood of anything that moves in order to survive. Congress builds moats instead of bridges and politicians cower instead of engage. The people are sheep or cogs or units of measure but are never human unless it serves the purpose of a politician to pretend when the natives get restless and the sheep begin to look up and need the somnolent of rhetorical cliche and feel-good sweet-nothings.

So, who cares if our personages of respected authority are nothing but walking, talking blow-up sex dolls? Hell, all of us are addicted to something to assuage the misery of modern civilization. Sex, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, shopping, over-eating, gambling and incessant channel surfing are all indicative of people running from the past, afraid of the future and unable to deal with the now.

The point here is to understand our heroes are human and very likely frauds built up by PR media machines to turn a profit or get a vote. And just because one is flawed does not mean one isn't effective. If Obama is a cad it doesn't mean he can't be a good President. What makes him a lousy President is not his shallow character but his old-fashioned, out-of-date, neo-liberal, colonial policies Time and time again people who thirst for the salvation of leadership turn the leader into a super-hero and forget the promised land we're hopefully led to. Obama swore to the Promised Land of Change and delivered the swampy-quagmire-quicksand of business-as-usual. More war, more corporatacracy, more disenfranchisement of citizenry. And in time this hero worship morphs into dogmatic belief-systems as long dead heroes are embodied by present-day charlatans. So we have hate-mongers for Jesus. Hate-mongers for Mohammad. Hate-mongers for Zion. Hate-mongers for Krishna. Hate-mongers for every cult figure to come down the pike.

And thus we have apologists for Obama. Apologists for Clinton. Apologists for Reagan. Apologists for Disaster Capitalism. Apologists for evil.

We have Coneheads and Stupids fomenting rebellion. We have Simpletons for Creation Science. We have Democrats for Fascism. And Republicans for Hell on Earth.

We have a whirling dervish of opposing opinions; a cacophony of sound and fury of absolute certainties all signifying utter ignorance of the truth. We have henny-penny-chicken-littles running around the proverbial barnyard with heads cut off shouting about the falling sky and who is to blame.

But, what we don't have is a modicum of self-reflection about why humanity as a whole is a failed system responsible for ALL it laments. Western Civilization is in the last throes of death by a thousand cuts. We are in a dark age of quickly creeping totalitarianism. Man's aspiration is now nothing more than to survive the day without losing more than has already been taken away from him. Keep the head down, keep the line straight, keep it moving forward in an orderly way. Tote the barge, lift the bale, push the paper, serve the master. Shuffle along until the last breath makes you a trifling footnote.

Shakespeare said all the world was a stage and we are players upon it. But, in reality, most of us are not players because we have lost the ability to control our destiny and create our world. We react to circumstances and don't make them.

In order for the bleak picture painted here to turn around and renew and rebuild human endeavor with the joy of the human spirit and intelligence of creative mind, we, all of us, every one of us, must stop watching the world go by in an addictive stupor of numb complacency and denial and each become the hero of our own drama and discover new worlds of understanding, cooperation and purpose.

The hero is not someone else. The hero is each and every one of us.

Slouching Toward Renaissance

gottlieb — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 17:33:58 GMT

Rebellion and Revolution are so yesterday. No sense to rebel and revolt today. Those strategies of yesteryear are doomed to fail in the present day. Power is greater and people are as dumb as ever. Trust in Big Daddy. Bear hugs and poontang. Shiny and happy. Better safe than sorry. Where is democracy in the modern age? Politicians do the opposite of what voters want. People clamor for change because things aren't so hot right now. Politicians sell change like celebrities sell soap. They don't even use the stuff. It's all show biz. Kabuki-square-dance-mambo-tap. Ignore the footwork but enjoy the big smile.

Rebellion and Revolution fail today because State Power, which, contrary to propaganda, is not demotic, public power, but private, corporate/military power, has gone quantum. Exponential. People get focus groups, free-speech zones, opinion polls and Tupperware parties. Think G.I. Joe versus Mr. Whipple.

The only way out of our indentured servitude of consumer debt and ambivalent obedience is not through revolution, but renaissance. Revival. Reboot. Re-imagine. The freedom to dream and create.

We are at the pinnacle of human civilization and in the middle of a New Dark Age. Orwellian. Dystopian. Deja vu and WTF all over again.

A surveillance society of orthodoxy snoops for clues of heresy while Homeland Inspector Clouseaus stumble over truth like drunken teens in a slasher film. The guilty are legion but none look alike so all are suspect in the eyes of the law. Show your I.D. and keep your head down. Conformity; a cozy womb. Happiness a warm cage. Dark Age zealots and couch-potato Huns stumble toward Zion to witness the Advent and shoot all the saints in the name of the Savior. The wink of an eye. The curl of a lip. A knife to the ribs. Assassins for Jesus. Deny don't regret.

Most of humanity is kept in chains fighting for scraps. Scrambling for fumes of sugar and fat. Too weak to fight and too tired to care. The Michigan Militia versus Blackwater scabs. Righteous Indignation on TV screens while tails between legs are just out of frame. Quotes from the Bible, the Preamble and Ron Paul but frothing mouths mimic Pavlov's bell. Everyone is angry and no one's to blame so bring on the scapegoats to wipe the slate clean.

They say through every black hole is a whole other universe. Imagine. We use only ten percent of our mind and they still try to dumb us down. Imagine we turn on more of ourselves and operate at a fuller capacity. The reason renaissance replaces dark age is because lights go on. Imagine a world of justice and happiness. The peace which comes from understanding. Humanity is not hotly divided prides and prejudices but one big happy family. Dysfunctional at the moment, surely, we're having a Ground Hog's Day eternity of family Thanksgivings. We can't stand each other, sure, but it's only because we've forgotten the truth. We've been separated by the sterile system and funneled into jobs, roles and milieu. But, we're family. All of us. Through thick and thin.

Many of our fellow disgruntled, dazed and confused citizens are being incited to suicide by super-serious talking-point barkers and bread and circus slapstick clowns. Keep your eye on the prize while your pocket is fleeced. Loud mouth pecker-woods bray Tom Paine and blame the economy on Stalin and Marx. Patriots whine about Government and how Jesus Saves! Get the guns and prepare The Way - A Blast from the Past! Costume drama on steroids and nostalgia. Beware: the nuttery of a few is collective punishment for the rest. A few rotten apples endanger us all so all of us apples must bend over and cough. Take off the shoe. Pee in the cup. Keep your head down and remember The Towers. Lock-step Luddites think aliens live in the White House and demons perch on doorsteps disguised as census takers: black helicopter pastiche; FEMA camps by train tracks and Soylent Green for chow. A full-scale white-trash-couch-potato-Tea-Party-Patriot-arcade-game-of-action-and-romance. Revolution II and we're fighting for Freedom. Red Dawn and the Alamo rolled into one. Take Back Our Country!!! As the greenback swirls down a sinkhole economy and the Banksters fly Virgin to the moon. That's the reality of Left Behind. Oligarchy in escape pods as the sheep look up.

Imagine the beauty of knowing a unified humanity who want the same thing. Mutual respect. Golden Rules. Live and Let Live. Please pass the peas. Thank you.

An understanding of a Universal Human, protected by Humanity. Reject the bigot, remove the veil, unlock the chain and throw away the key of our prejudice and embrace the genius of creation. Imagine a renaissance in religion. Honor the message and not worship the messenger. God, like Art, left to the eye of the beholder. Free to pursue the wonder of Creation.

We are a species of animal with the power to dream, create, choose and judge. God was made in Our image.

Isn't a human an animal who has the power to choose thought and behavior unlocked from the animal instinct of fight or flight? And what about the organism we reside; the planet we call Earth. Terra. Gaia. Home. Does she want death and destruction or dancing and joy? Does she want her creation at each others throat or wrapped in a hug? Volcanoes, earthquakes, super-storms and tidal waves. Coincidence, synchronicity or the luck of the draw... We talk about the entitlement of empire, but perhaps our human-entitlement to the planet, Nature under our dominion, is more than our share.

Imagine an Age of Wisdom. A Time to Know. Beyond the Age of Belief. Beyond the politics of manners to the appreciation of Creation. When gratitude runs our hearts in thanks for the joy of life and humility runs our brains because we know we know so little. Society as celebration.

Imagine a million years of perfection. Beyond what you dream. Heaven on Earth. Good Will toward All.

The Age of Happy Endings.

Or the final desolation.

You choose.

The Party of "No!" in the Age of Yes

gottlieb — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 17:34:59 GMT

The Republicans have re-branded themselves after their embarrassing defeat to the second "black" president in 2008 as The Party of NO!. Their mantra is No. Their philosophy is No. And their tactical approach is to block, obstruct and hinder, or in the words of the great Republican anti-drug crusader and fashion maven, Nancy Reagan, "Just Say No!"

How ironic in this new age where wars rage and poverty ravages and disease devastates and all could be made right by saying Yes, that the Party of the Culture of Life condemns so many to death by just saying no.

Indeed, in our world today No is Death and Yes is Life.

The Party of No rejects Government as Socialism in an Orwellian Irony of tragic proportions as it is clear the current Siamese Twin of Politics and Corporatism is the textbook definition of Fascism to which the Party of No, gleefully says Yes! We enjoy the politics of bribery, not the politics of public service. The PUBLIC has no place in Government whatsoever and therefore to call Obama's policies Socialism shows the no-brained, zombie, robot army of Republicans for what they are: STUPID!

The Party of No rejects any control on the corporations who have fouled the air, polluted the water, sickened our food and poisoned our planet. Pharmaceuticals do not heal disease. Nature prevents disease. And because Corporate greed has raped nature, stripped her cleanliness, neutered her nutrients and strangled her growth, humanity faces unprecedented starvation, thirst, poverty and disease. All this is is cured by saying Yes to regulation, control and accountability.

The Party of No is addicted to the death and destruction of wars without end and enemies without manifestation. Fear is their Breakfast of Champions. Hate is their fun. Panic is their thrill. They demonize Muslims, Women, Gays, Liberals and anyone who does not practice their particular and narrow version of their Christian cult. They rail against the Great Deceiver, Satan, but worship at the Altar of known liars and war criminals; Bush and Cheney and the Cult of Death called Neo-Conservatism. They turn the notions of good and evil upon their heads and practice evil in the name of good and destroy good in the name of evil.

To say NO! to peace, health, nature, justice, humanity and truth is to embrace, affirm and enthusiastically say yes to Death and revel in man's inhumanity to man. The Party of No is the Cause of Tragedy. All tragedy is preventable through humility. The Party of No is the Party of Hubris. It is the party of vainglory practiced by those who believe they are chosen by providence to rule by truth over the witless mass. But it is not Truth they possess but dogmatic dark-age superstition which burns witches at the stake and tortures free-spirits and thinkers who have the courage to live beyond the cages of princes, priests and the power to enslave.

It is time for the rest of us to Just Say No to No! And live, breathe, embrace and adopt the philosophy of YES! We can have peace and prosperity. We can know justice and truth. We can live free and in harmony with all humanity with all its diversity and difference. We can achieve the Happiness given as birthright to all if only we pursue it. We can sing, dance, eat, drink and be merry with reverence to Creation, Nature and the planet we call Home. We can say Yes to Life and all she offers.

For all of humanity's thousands of years of civilization we have already endured war without end, society without justice, cruelty, poverty and ignorance without limit. The Party of No wants to codify archaic superstition and sniff the incense of eternal hellfire. They want a desolation to call peace. They want a smoke and bone pyre of sacrificial heathens to show their god of jealousy, pettiness and monstrosity they are indeed made in HIS image. To the Party of No, change is anathema unless it is a change back to a mythological time which never existed where Father Knew Best and Mom was barefoot and pregnant and everyone was Amish.

They have pitchforks and they are not afraid to use them. We have courage to face the unknown and embrace real faith and not shallow belief that humanity is Good in and of itself and needs no other justification of its existence. They have fear and hate. We have love and courage. It is time to face them down with our superior number, our deeper understanding and our greater wisdom.

It is time to say No to a return to a past which never existed and say yes to a future we make ourselves in the name of the good and the true.

A New Language To Describe It

Rusty1776 — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 21:26:23 GMT

The Founding Fathers gave us democracy. We have the moral responsibility to restore what was given to us, to take back what has been taken away by corrupt politicians of both major parties. There is no longer any doubt that the two-party system has been used to Establish, Maintain, and Expand corporate Tyranny. It has been used to divide and conquer, to prevent We the People from uniting in defense of our rights as citizens.

The false paradigm of We the Left against We the Right must be rejected. Americans must embrace a new ideology of Citizen Empowerment, they must speak a new language of Political, Social, and Economic Activism, they most forge a new movement, a local, state, and nationwide alliance encompassing the values and goals they share in common. They must cast aside the dead language of We the Left and We the Right, for among the victims of corporate Tyranny, there is no We the Left nor We the Right anymore, there is only We the Powerless.

A Declaration

When in the course of outrage after outrage, it becomes necessary for American citizens to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with the Democratic and Republican Parties, and to attain empowerment as We the People, our common respect for the Constitution and the rule of law compels us to declare the causes which impel us to this separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that both major parties are complicit in war crimes, in massive Wall Street fraud, in crimes of banking and finance so malicious and extensive as to beggar description. The repressive corporate agenda of both major parties has been exposed, it is self-evident that they no longer believe that all men are created equal, they serve only the corporate masters of America, they have granted them unalienable Rights, that among these are the right to plunder the Treasury, the right to control the media, the right to subvert the banking system, to corrupt the electoral system, to ravage our economy and reap the illicit profits of shock doctrine capitalism.

Tradition dictates that a political systems long established should not be rejected for light and transient causes; but when a long train of two-party system abuses and betrayals, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce an entire nation under corporate Despotism, it is the right of We the People, it is the duty of We the People, to condemn that system, and to establish a new system for our future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of Americans; and such is now the necessity which compels us to dismantle the corrupt two-party system. The history of that system is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of corporate tyranny over the United States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world:

Both major parties have refused to pass campaign finance reform, which is most wholesome and necessary for the public good, thus investing in corporate lobbyists the power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

They have refused to enforce oversight and regulatory Laws of immediate and pressing importance, they have refused to enforce the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, they have utterly neglected to conduct themselves in accordance with the foundational principles of representative government.

They have refused to investigate the corrupt banking industry, and have empowered corporate interests to bribe and intimidate our elected representatives, thus rendering American citizens powerless to defend themselves against repeated exploitation and abuse.

They have kept among us, in violation of the Bill of Rights, NSA spies who are monitoring with impunity every phone call we make, every email we send, every form of communication we engage in no matter who we are or where we are.

They have engaged in punitive and arbitrary taxation without representation, for being ignored cannot by any measure be called representation. They have confiscated 10 trillion of our taxpayer dollars and given it to the Federal Reserve, which has handed it over to Wall Street criminals with no oversight and no accountability.

They have engaged in systemic abuses of power and obstructions of justice, in violation of our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving their Assent to unconstitutional Acts of repressive Legislation such as the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act.

They stand condemned:

For enabling the Bush Administration to launch wars of aggression and occupation in violation of the Geneva Conventions and international law.

For protecting them from criminal investigations, thus conferring upon them legal immunity from prosecution for war crimes, torture, and other heinous assaults on human rights and dignity.

For decreeing that telecoms engaged in massive violations of the 4th Amendment are above the law and immune from criminal or civil action, thus ensuring that they will not be held accountable for their crimes:

For complicity in depriving American citizens in many cases, of the benefit of habeas corpus and Trial by Jury:

For complicity in transporting them beyond the Seas to be tortured for pretended offenses:

For complicity in abolishing the regulatory system which protected our banking system and economy from corporate exploitation and Wall Street fraud, establishing therein an Arbitrary government of Plutocrats with unlimited power:

For complicity in taking away our Bill of Rights, for complicity in abolishing our most valuable Laws, for complicity in fundamentally altering the Forms of our Government, leaving only the illusion of democracy behind:

For complicity in plundering our Treasury and burdening us with monstrous deficits in blatant disregard of the consequences.

For complicity in torture, inflicted with Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of a civilized nation.

For complicity in funding and funding and funding yet again large Armies of troops, Blackwater mercenaries, criminal contractors, and CIA operatives in in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, with consequences counterproductive to our national security, and productive only to the furtherance of defense industry profiteering.

In every stage of these Oppressions, Americans have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms, but our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated betrayals. The Republican and Democratic Parties, whose destructive legacy has been characterized by every act which defines corruption and moral bankruptcy, are unfit to be supported by any American citizen.

We have reminded the politicians of both major parties time and time again of our grievances. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, we have implored them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably sever our connections and support if they continue.

But they have been deaf to the voice of justice, they have been deaf to our repeated appeals. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity of declaring our Separation, consign the Democratic and Republican Parties to Oblivion, condemn the two-party system as an abusive and corrupt anachronism, and call upon every American to grab the nearest shovel and bury it in an unmarked grave.

We, therefore, the citizens of the United States of America, appealing to the Supreme Judge of History for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name of, and by Authority of the Founding Fathers who gave us this democracy and asked us to preserve it, solemnly publish and declare, that we will embrace a new ideology of Citizen Empowerment, that we will speak a new language of Political, Social, and Economic Activism, that we will forge a new Movement encompassing the values and goals we share in common, that we are Absolved from all Allegiance to both major parties, that all political connection between us and those mercenaries of corporate power is and ought to be totally dissolved, that we will unite as We the People and take our government back.

As American citizens in support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance upon one another, with unwavering support for the Constitution and the rule of law, we mutually pledge that we will restore American democracy, no matter what sacrifices are required, no matter who stands against us, until this Dark Age of Corporate Tyranny ends, and government of the People, by the People, and for the People in America shines once again, shines as it was meant to shine, as a Beacon of Empowerment to every oppressed human being throughout the world.

(Cross-posted at Docudharma and Firedoglake)

Ground Control To Major Rahm . . .

Rusty1776 — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:23:48 GMT

Ground Control to Major Rahm . . .

Take your profane pills and put your helmet on,

Commencing countdown, engines on . . .

The White House has the bill it really always wanted. They have their deals with PhRMA, AHIP, and the Hospitals more or less unbroken . . . they have their real goal in sight.
The White House has their individual mandate--a law that will require those without coverage to buy from private health insurers under pain of penalty enforced by the IRS--they have their restrictions on drug reciprocation and direct drug price negotiation intact, and they have kept their word on the handshake deal that they made last spring with the medical industrial complex: no public option.

This is Ground Control,
to Major Rahm,
You've really made the grade . . .

In hiring Emanuel, Obama avoided the mistakes of his Democratic predecessors, who first gave the chief of staff job to besotted loyalists. Obama's first year fell apart in large part because he didn't follow his chief of staff's advice on crucial matters. Arguably, Emanuel is the only person keeping Obama from becoming Jimmy Carter. Obama's greatest mistake was failing to listen to Emanuel on health care. He opposed the public option as a needless distraction. Had it gone Emanuel's way, a politically popular health-care bill would have passed long ago, leaving plenty of time for other attractive priorities.

Like awarding Dana Milbank a Medal of Freedom, for example.
But as Spaceship Rahm heads into the Black Hole of November at Warp Factor Nine, some earthbound observers have offered some advice in the hope of saving everyone aboard from annihilation . . .

The only way Democrats may be able to salvage November, according to Michael Moore, is to "find their courage" this week, add a public option back to the health care bill and start passing as much liberal legislation as possible.
"I can only sit here and imagine how they're gonna run," he said. "They were handed the ball and couldn't take it 10 yards down the field. They're in for a huge ass-whooping."

Can you hear him, Major Rahm?

Apparently not . . .

This is Major Rahm to Ground Control,
I'm stepping through the door,
And I'm floating,
In a most peculiar way,
And the stars look very different today.
But I think my spaceship knows which way to go . . .

That's a nice galaxy you're floating through, Major Rahm. Which one is it?

Ground Control to Major Rahm
Your circuit's dead,
there's something wrong . . .

Can you hear me, Major Rahm?

There he is,
Sitting in a tin can,
Far above us all,
Planet Earth is through,
And there's nothing he will do.

But as Congressman Kucinich reminds us, there's something we can do . . .

"Keep standing up for what you believe in. We should not let this moment pass without demanding more of our system, that we reject the kind of minimalism that doesn't lead forward. It leads backwards.
We have to find the greatness, not just in each one of us, but in ourselves to call ourselves to a higher set of responsibilities and a higher degree of accountability for creating our future. And we are selling ourselves short so often, and are enabling this system, which is so retrograde, with so much force and power and effect on our lives
We are forgetting who we are.
We are forgetting that this system was created by our own hands.
And by our own hands we can refashion the system to make it work for us.

The World They Set On Fire

Rusty1776 — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:47:39 GMT

The plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty used to say, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

Now it says, "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here."

Why did everything go to Hell so fast?

driftglass knows why, we ll know why . . .

We got the Bush Regime, arguably the most incompetent, corrupt and outright-treasonous Administration in American history. A regime so reckless, savage and gleefully bestial that it made the career-Nixon-hating Hunter Thompson actually pine for the good old days of Tricky Dick: "I miss Nixon. Compared to these Nazis we have in the White House now, Richard Nixon was a flaming liberal."
And, like Nixon, it is more than likely that not a single one of the smirking traitors who nearly wrecked this country will ever spend a day in jail. Instead they remain lodged in our flesh like so many ricin pellets, oozing their poison into our national bloodstream, waddle from one fawning audience to another, worming their way into major media outlets, or dispatching their degenerate children and underlings out into the world the keep their poison pumping.
They soiled our good name, bankrupted the country, shredded the Constitution and kicked the crutches out from under the global economy on their way out the door, and while it is sometimes hard to focus on them through the flames of the world they set on fire, we must.

America could have had justice.

But America didn't get justice.

America got Hopey McChange, who said he wants to look forward, not backward. Who said there must be no "retribution", no "vengeance", no "payback", who said the era of "divisive partisanship" must end.
I don't have to translate that for you, progressives have learned the hard way how to translate Hopey McChange Language into actual words with actual meanings. You know what he meant. So do the war criminals who set Iraq on fire, the Wall Street Ponzi Schemers who set the global economy on fire, the DOJ fascists who set the rule of law on fire, the Diebold criminals who napalmed the 2004 Election into a firestorm of fraud, the torturers at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo and hell only knows where else who torched the Geneva Conventions to ashes, and most of all, Bush and Cheney, who handed out blowtorches for 8 years to every halfwit RePug appointee in the entire federal government and smirked while democracy in America went up in flames.

Those criminals all heard him. They heard Hopey say no "retribution", no "vengeance", no "payback". They knew what that meant, they knew exactly what that meant, it meant they're home free, it meant they're above the law and always will be, it meant they can lodge even deeper into our flesh like so many ricin pellets, ooze even more of their poison into our national bloodstream, escalate their rampage against democracy, against human rights, against equality, against the truth, against reality itself.

What else needs to be said? About Hopey McChange. About his moral cowardice. About his obscene refusal to defend the Constitution and the rule of law. About his complicity in wars of aggression, in torture, in massive financial crimes against humanity.

The truth has indicted him. The truth has convicted him. Nothing can exonerate him. His guilt is manifest. Speeches cannot wash it away, charm cannot wash it away, the scheming of Rahm cannot wash it away, the prattling of Gibbs and Axelrod and Plouffe cannot wash it away, the clapping of Obamabots cannot wash it away, nothing can wash it away.

Anyone here, anyone on any progressive blog, any progressive anywhere who will not support a primary challenge in 2012 against Obama needs to walk away from their computer right now, find the nearest mirror, and look in it. They'll see a craven hypocrite looking back at them, a fraud, a "pragmatic" Russian Roulette player with a gun in their hand and a Lesser Evil bullet in every chamber.

Progressives pumping Lesser Evil bullets into their heads every election doesn't seem to be a very effective strategy. Progressives who have so many Lesser Evil bullet holes in their heads they need a calculator to count them all will call me a radical, but I think progressives should start pumping bullets into the Two-Party system instead. Truth Bullets. Reality Bullets. Third Party Bullets.

(Cross-posted at Docudharma and Firedoglake).

Quiet Storms

Rusty1776 — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:20:55 GMT

Four score and twenty betrayals ago, when Barack Obama was busy posturing as a transformational leader, when he was busy promising government of the people, by the people, and for the people, he spoke of the core values progressives have always believed in as the solution to America's problems . . .

That spirit of looking out for one another, that core value that says I am my brothers keeper, I am my sister's keeper, that spirit is most evident during times of great hardship, but that spirit can't just be restricted to moments of great catastrophe. Because as I stand here and look out at the thousands of folks who have gathered here today, I know that there's some folks who are going through their own quiet storms.

Hurricane Ike had just hit the gulf coast of Texas, Wall Street was about to implode, the foundations of the economy were crumbling, Americans everywhere were losing their jobs, their homes, their last remnants of trust in the government . . .

All across America there are quiet storms taking place. There are lives of quiet desperation. People who need just a little bit of help. Now, Americans are a self-reliant people, we're an independent people. We don't like asking somebody else to do what we can do ourselves, but you know what we understand is that every once in awhile, somebody's going to get knocked down.

Every once in awhile . . .

Yes, and every once in awhile, the sun comes up. Then, every once in awhile, it goes down again.

Low income Americans get knocked down every day, middle class Americans get knocked down every day, seniors on fixed incomes get knocked down every day. Republicans knocked them down for 30 years, and now Barack Obama and that gang of corporate enforcers that used to be the Democratic Party are doing it. A punch in the face is a punch in the face. Analyze that, Beltway Republicrats. When Americans are flat on their back all the time, they don't give a damn whether the fist that knocked them down was a Republican fist or a Democratic fist. A corporate fist is a corporate fist. Whistle past that graveyard, Obamabots. Have an "ideologue" diary contest, fill that wreck list of yours with "ideologue" ravings and let's all see who can clap the loudest.
Every time Americans try to get up they get punched to the ground again, by health insurance profiteers, by bankers and predatory lenders, by credit card company and drug company and oil company thugs. Those profit-addicted junkies in their crack house corporations can call it "free market capitalism" all they want, but that's not what it is.

It's a highway of diamonds with nobody on it, it's a black branch with blood that keeps dripping, it's a walk through the depths of the deepest dark forest, where the people are many and their hands are all empty, where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters, where the home in the valley meets the damp, dirty prison, where the executioner's face is always well hidden, where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten.

Turn off the network "news". Put the petitions away. Hang up the phone. Forget about calling Congress. You don't need to watch TV to know what the "news" will be, you don't need to send petitions you know will be ignored, you don't need to call Congress to know what the answer's going to be.

Bob Dylan was right 40 years ago, and he's still right.

Those quiet storms Obama talked about before Rahm handed him a club and told him to use it on all the wrong people won't be quiet storms much longer. There are too many quiet storms, there's too much suffering, there are too many consequences piling up, the silence is not going to last, the biggest storm this country's ever seen is heading our way and there won't be anything quiet about it.

It would be wise to get ready for that.

I remember the protesters at the Republican Convention in St. Paul. I remember their courage. They were the heart and soul of change we can believe in. They were the freedom you've never had, they were the leaders you've never known, they were the answer you've never understood. They were no one, but they were everyone, they were nothing, but they were everything. They were humanity taking a stand against inhumanity, they were the light on streets of darkness, they were reality in a system of unreality, they were the truth in a nation of lies, they were the promise of healing in a world of pain.

There will be more of them next time. At both conventions. Many more. Too many for the "free speech zones" to hold, too many for the talking heads to explain away, so many that the whole world will be watching.

Be one of those protesters. Be one of those Americans. Be the heart and soul of change you can believe in, be the leader you didn't know you could be, be the answer you finally hear blowing in the wind. Be humanity taking a stand against inhumanity, be the light on streets of darkness, be reality in a system of unreality, be the truth in a nation of lies, be the promise of healing in a world of pain.

This world is going to need healing, because a Storm of Karma is coming.

The Beltway Republicrats are heading right into it, but they don't even see it. I don't know when it's going to hit, but I know one thing, when that storm hits full force, it's going to be much too big for their little boat.

How many times can a politician turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn't see?

Every time.

That's how many times . . .

(Cross-posted at Docudharma and Firedoglake)

OTW: What Did You Learn in School Today?

Sally Panic — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:24:08 GMT

crossposted at docudharma

These children: Granted.

These children: Pending? Limbo? Repatriated?.

The German family, according to the rules, sought (and got) asylum because they are being persecuted.... for homeschooling.

In January, Judge Lawrence Berman of Tennessee ruled that Mr. Romeike was being persecuted by Germany for teaching his children at home, a practice forbidden by Germany's Constitution and that can lead to fines or imprisonment there. Children can be removed by German social services if parents insist on homeschooling.

So school there is compulsory. If you want to homeschool your children, there can be dire consequences.

Advocates of homeschooling argue that German compulsory attendance laws were a product of the Nazi government. But they have been around since the 19th century. The Weimar Republic passed such laws in 1919, and after World War II, similar laws - upheld by the European Court of Human Rights - were added to the Constitution.
snip
Meanwhile, there is no political support to alter compulsory attendance laws - or to allow homeschooling. It is also uncertain if the political asylum ruling will stand. The US may appeal the decision, handed down Jan. 27.

Seems like, well, you decide:

Professor Spiro says that other Germans who wish to homeschool children in the US could come here, claim membership in this persecuted group, and get asylum. "Germany is trying to suppress a social movement," he says. "And they are very aggressive in doing it."
Donnelly says his group is not directly affiliated with a Christian church, but his website mentions staff members' faith. He also said the homeschooling movement in the US was not just Christian - the National Center for Education Statistics says only 36 percent of homeschooled students are kept home for religious reasons.
Yet the movement is largely recognized as a Christian one. Donnelly came to know Romeike though a German homeschooling group with ties to the church.
Most Germans who wish to homeschool cite religion. Jonathan Skeet, a Briton with a German wife who left Germany for Britain in 2006 after being fined, says he was not happy with the sex education in German public schools.
"Our Christian faith influences our whole view of family life, and of course, doing Christian home education was an opportunity to pass on what you think is important, the essence of our Christian values," he says. "Our main motivation was the quality of the education and the school."

I just wonder ... where are these children now?

Or these? What kind of school do they learn in?

And how about these?

...
Curious? Me too. There's statistics, lots of them, at the UNHCR site.

There were some 42 million forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2008. This includes 15.2 million refugees, 827,000 asylum-seekers (pending cases) and 26
million internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Where's this little girl now?

Yemen

Women and girls represent on average 49 per cent of persons of concern to UNHCR. They constitute 47 per cent of refugees and asylum-seekers, and half of all IDPs and returnees (refugees). Forty-four per cent of refugees and asylum-seekers are children below 18 years of age.

These Burmese children are in a crowded detention cell in Thailand. I wonder what kind of schooling is set up there for them. Wonder if they will be granted asylum on the grounds that they are being persecuted because, let's say, I dunno... food is ... well I suppose it's not like it's forbidden exactly...

But the faces of these children in the picture stir a sense of extreme helplessness. It makes clear that they are the children of a country which is not fit for children to lead a normal life. In fact, Burma is a country where innumerable children are living in a state of utmost miseries, cruelties and inhumanity. In other words, it is the grinding militarism which has pushed them to the worst level of wretched life - a situation which has compelled them to be illegal immigrants or break the law or whatever.

And this family ... perhaps they wish, if only, they could have a home to homeschool in...?

Current Humanitarian Situation, Iraq
Refugees International has observed extreme vulnerabilities among the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees living in Syria, Jordan, and other parts of the region, as well as the millions of internally displaced persons within Iraq. Most refugees have not been granted legal status and thus live in limbo, often without access to basic services and work opportunities. Many persons displaced within the country have no access to assistance, basic levels of protection, or any hope of return to their original homes.
The Government of Iraq has access to large sums of money, but it lacks both the capacity and the political will to use its resources to address humanitarian needs. The continued lack of security makes it nearly impossible for the UN to access the populations in most need of assistance. Local NGOs often have the best connections and access but are often not directly funded by international donors.
Though there have been some returns of both internally displaced and refugees, the majority have not been able to access their original homes and properties. Their properties have been occupied or destroyed. Ongoing violence, especially in the central provinces, coupled with a lack of jobs, basic social services, and opportunities, makes voluntary return impossible for most. While Refugees International hopes that Iraqis will be able to return to their homes in the future, the necessary conditions for returns to take place in safety and dignity still do not exist. Returns must not be encouraged until the violence subsides and people can receive adequate assistance and protection.

I don't know. Let's go have another look at those Asylum Seekers rules again, the criteria:

To win legal protection from being deported asylum seekers must:
1. Be outside their country of nationality. Asylees are by definition in the United States and thus necessarily outside their country of nationality.
2. Be afraid of persecution. Torture and imprisonment are persecution - recognized under the law, but harassment or discrimination usually are not. Where these lines are drawn is different in each case.
3. Be harmed or fear harm by the government or others. Harm by the police or the army counts. Harm by right-wing or left-wing political groups or religious zealots that the government is "unable or unwilling to control" also counts.
4. Be affected by at least one of several defined conditions. As suggested above, these conditions are: political opinion, race, religion, nationality, and social group. The last category, social group, usually refers to people with certain characteristics that a particular society might lump together and have generally unfavorable attitudes about, such as homosexuals. The law generally does not include people who fled their homes due to civil wars, generalized violence, and criminal prosecution. However, even these reasons may suffice if they can be connected to one of the five listed reasons.
5. Not be a dangerous person. Finally,international law recognizes that countries have the right to exclude asylum seekers who may be a danger to society. These include those who have committed serious crimes, pose threats to national security, or who have committed war crimes or "crimes against humanity".
Terrorism concerns can lead to automatic disqualification from asylum. Even before the events of 9/11, people with terrorist connections were ineligible for asylum and subject to deportation. However, laws passed by Congress after 9/11 in 2001 and again 2005 have broadened restrictions even further. Under current U.S. law, any person who provides "material support" to terrorists will be refused asylum. Since there is no exemption for cases of coercion, even acts such as providing drinking water at gunpoint to terrorists are to be considered material support.

Anyone know the current head count in Haiti? Are there schools under the tarps and tents there I wonder?

Hmmmmmmm. Okay, I'll stop now.

EDIT 11:30 a.m.CST: oops. Also not considered (different scenario):

On Pine Ridge, 63% of the population lives below the poverty line, that's 2 out 3 people. (USDA)
One-third of the homes are severely substandard, without water, electricity, adequate insulation, and sewage systems (Indian Housing Authority)
The High School drop-out rate is 70%, compared to a national average of 11% average (United Nations and Peoples Organization)
Schools on Pine Ridge are in the bottom 10 percent of school funding by the U.S. Department of Education (Bureau of Indian Affairs)
There is an estimated average of 12 people living in each family home; a house with only two to three rooms (National American Indian Housing Council)
The teenage suicide rate on Pine Ridge is 150 percent higher than the national average (Dakota-Lakota-Nakota). Alcoholism affects 8 out of 10 families on the Reservation, while the death rate from alcoholism is 9 times the national average (Dakota-Lakota-Nakota)
Pine Ridge is not the only American Indian reservation in the United States, suffering from this extreme poverty, poor health care and inadequate educational system, but it is the worst. We have no magical cure for these deeply burdening troubles, but we do feel that each and everyone of these individuals, especially the children and elderly, deserves the same access to food that the rest of our society is privileged to. We desire to provide access to this fundamental necessity, so as to allow these people to again become self-sufficient. source

Accountability NOW! now w NYT links

Sally Panic — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:11:41 GMT

Yah.

... for Teachers.

War Criminal Torture Champions roam free, teach Law, and show up as guest/experts on the Sunday Talk Shows, but failing to teach all those brown kids to pass those tests is just ... wrong!

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - President Barack Obama says a Rhode Island school that recently fired all its educators is an example of how there needs to be accountability.
He made the comments Monday in Washington at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He called for "accountability" if a school continually fails its students without improvement.
He said that is what happened at Central Falls High School, where the school district's board of trustees voted last week to fire 93 teachers, administrators and other staff. No more than half could be hired back under federal law.
Obama pointed out that just 7 percent of students at the high school have tested proficient in math.

Right. That'll fix it. Fire them. Just fire them all.
Don't question the method, or the curriculum design, or the numerous extra-curricular factors that impact the students and their families. That might help us understand WHY or maybe HOW this happens. Just toss out the teachers. It must be their fault. Don't doubt the frikkin NCLB Teach to the Test way of .... teaching... that is imposed on the teachers by Administrators etc.

"There's got to be a sense of accountability," Obama said in announcing his latest get-tough school proposal at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The president's plan would seek to help 5,000 of the nation's lowest-performing schools over the next five years.
"In this kind of knowledge economy, giving up on your education and dropping out of school means not only giving up on your future, but it's also giving up on your family's future," Obama said. "It's giving up on your country."
more

This is so stupid I can't stand it. Okay, I'll calm down and actually go read the rest of it now. I promise I'll let you know if it gets any better. It's possible ya know. I'm so impatient.
:-/

To get a share of the new money, states and school districts must adopt one of four approaches to fix their struggling schools:
* Turnaround Model: The school district must replace the principal and at least half of the school staff, adopt a new governance structure for the school, and implement a new or revised instructional program.
* Restart Model: The school district must close and reopen the school under the management of a charter school operator, a charter management organization or an educational management organization. A restarted school would be required to enroll, within the grades it serves, former students who wish to attend.
* School Closure: The school district must close the failing school and enroll the students in other, higher-achieving schools in the district.
* Transformational Model: The school must address four areas, including teacher effectiveness, instruction, learning and teacher planning time, and operational flexibility.

Oy.

Guess I better go check out the America's Promise Alliance site.

sigh. Remind me again... Didn't we elect a Democrat POTUS?

Tuesday morning UPDATE: h/t to commondreams.org again: NYT article has a little more & the response from the AFT:

The president's comments incensed the leadership of the American Federation of Teachers, which criticized Mr. Obama for "condoning the mass firing" of teachers at the Rhode Island school.
"We know it is tempting for people in Washington to score political points by scapegoating teachers, but it does nothing to give our students and teachers the tools they need to succeed," the president of the union, Randi Weingarten, said in a statement.
In their efforts to overhaul failing public schools, Mr. Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, have frequently drawn the ire of teachers' unions.

and... this tasty little morsel:

Mr. Obama is seeking to use federal money as an incentive for local schools to improve their standards. The initiatives his administration is pursuing are similar to those of the Bush administration. At the event on Monday, Mr. Obama recognized Margaret Spellings, a secretary of education under President George W. Bush, who was seated in the front row.

Niiiice.

More to read in this short NYT Editorial, dated Jan 16, 2010, entitled: Walking the Walk on School Reform.

Ms. Weingarten called for a new collaboration between schools and unions that would replace this "perfunctory waste of time." She called on the states to adopt basic professional teaching standards that would spell out what teachers should know and be able to do.
She rightly warned against using test scores in crude, statistically invalid ways, and proposed a sophisticated analysis to determine if students were showing real growth under a given teacher. Just as important, Ms. Weingarten said districts that so often take a sink-or-swim approach to teaching should develop support and mentoring programs that both improve teachers' abilities and keep them from leaving the profession.

Crap. I honestly don't have time for this, but let me just mention that, of COURSE, there's a lot more to all this. The NYT editorial linked above has a few more links to follow which gives more of the lead up and back story.... I need to catch up on that but it will simply have to wait.

This whole thing really pushed my buttons, on so many levels. Among other things, I have worked in a (county) bureaucracy and I know first hand how intensely flawed that culture can be. I also worked in a small non-profit drop-out prevention outfit that was a different kind of mess. Sigh.

03/02/10: crossposted from docudharma

The Fallen Dreams of Escape

gottlieb — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:06:14 GMT

The classic Ambrose Bierce short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge has a man being hung and miraculously the rope breaks and he escapes and has an adventure only to find in the end the rope didn't break and his escape was a dying dream of desperation. In the end the man hangs from a stiff rope, dead of a broken neck.

Barack Obama is our dying dream of the desperate.

When he was elected after eight years of twisted fascism, Orwellian diktat, military evil and economic madness, the United States of America was at the end of its rope, hung by its own petard. American Empire, much like any empire, conquered in the name of exceptional pride, fought cruel wars of genocide in the name of peace and ground up its citizenry and treasure in the name of self-preservation. We became what we despised and traded our promise of enlightenment for dark age ignorance. We jettisoned reasoned principle and pursuit of wisdom for irrational fear and embrace of ugly hate.

Our political system was morphed, over decades, from the idealism of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to the cynicism of Let's Make a Smoke-filled, Back-Room Deal Where Mr. Politician Gets Rich and We The People Get Screwed. We went from Disney to Political Pornography.

The People were left to dog-eat-dog it in a Darwinian nightmare while Corporations were crowned King, Neo-Liberalism made religion and citizens of the 'greatest democracy in the history of the world' made wage-slaves, debt-serfs, peons, cogs and widgets. Humanity was made a number and wisdom reduced to the least common denominator.

America no longer held the promise of the shining city on the hill but was found a garbage dump.

America was desperate for a savior after the Nero/Caligula regime and we settled for a happy, shiny knight riding the trusty steed of hope, change and the best ideals of human aspiration. He was swept to power on a rising tide of optimism twinged with desperation.

Facing endless and escalating wars, savage economic depression created by inhumane fat-cats and the systematic shredding and dismantling of Constitutional protections, trashing of human rights and a vicious program of divide and conquer, the election of Barack Obama was the snap and let loose of our noose and an escape to freedom; the chance for survival in the face impending and inevitable doom.

But the euphoria of release and relief was tainted soon after as the knight removed his shiny armor and helmeted visor to reveal his counselors and advisers as the very architects and enablers of the doom we fought so hard to escape. Bankers were brought in to steal the people's loot and give it to the bankers, the very greed-mongers who orchestrated economic collapse on the backs of ordinary people. Military Officers who hadn't won a war in 60 years were promoted and put in charge of commissions of war crimes, genocide, the devastation of peoples and the desolation of souls, creating, like despotic gods, legions of broken hearts bent upon eternal revenge against the evil American empire.

The knight left the care and feeding of hurting, diseased and desperate citizens in the hands of amoral corporations whose only mandate is profit at the expense of people. He called himself a leader but he was nothing but an appeaser. He called himself a man of principle but he was nothing but a back-room dealer. He called himself a man of peace but he was nothing short of a Machiavellian prince of death and destruction. He called himself a man of faith but he was nothing but a cynical charlatan flim-flam man who talks out of both sides of his mouth without moving his lips. The plausible deniability of political ventriloquism.

And so now we see the truth. The charade is over. The dream is over. The escape is over. Life is over.

As we, too late, hear the snap of our neck.