"With Cheetos crumbs stippled in the folds of one’s jowls."

[source]

I hope you read Phil Rockstroh on a regular basis. He's wonderful.

What kind of miserable malcontent would resist changing this social milieu and personal mode of being: Sitting stuck in commuter traffic; eating high fat, low quality food from a drive-thru window; languishing in a cubical … stranded in a low benefits, little chance of advancement job — until, of course, the job is outsourced; waddling around the mall … clad in off-the-rack, sweatshop sown clothing; dozing off in front of the TEEVEE with Cheetos crumbs stippled in the folds of one’s jowls. Aint that the life — or what? We must preserve the deathstyles of empire.

This mode of being is far removed from the norms of nature or the revelries and attendant sublimations necessary to engage of civic life … Wherein, ruthlessness and rationalization banish reason; ambition trumps merit; expediency pushes aside wisdom; and empty sensation masquerades as experience.

Like interstate travel, the mode of mind of the consumer state propels us forward to the next empty agenda, the next perfunctory task, the next meaningless purchase … But depression slows us down, inducing us to feel the grief inherent in our alienation … to cease the incessant, habitual hurdling forward and striving upward … to stop and investigate the mysteries of our hearts … to feel the sadness of the suffering earth …

“I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”
–Samuel Beckett

Cross-posted to no friends no followers no bullshit.

"At the rate of 20 cables a day it will take 13,000 days to finish -- some 35 years."

Somewhere between a glacially slow leak and a rushing gusher, WikiLeaks hopefully will discover a suitable publication flow.

Cryptome:

The original Wikileaks initiative is dead, replaced by a bloated apparatus promising 260,000 cables at slower than a snail's pace. At the rate of 20 cables a day it will take 13,000 days to finish -- some 35 years.

The original merits of Wikileaks have been lost in its transformation into a publicity and fund-raising vehicle for Julian Assange as indicated in the redesign website which billboards him.

Its once invaluable, steady stream of documents, packaged in its own, no-frills format, is now a tiny dribble of documents apparently regulated by a compact with a few main stream media which amplify the material well beyond its significance. Days go by when nothing new is offered except outpouring of manufactured news about Assange and a slew of trivial news and bombastic commentaries for and against the initiative.

Will Wikileaks once again deliver its original promise or stay imprisoned in bombshells so beloved by the main stream media?

What happened to the back-log of submissions to Wikileaks? Thousands a week coming in, Assange claimed, for which he said there is no staff to process. What staff is needed to process a 3-20 cables a day?

"We register our testimony, not only against all wars, whether offensive or defensive, but all preparations for war."

"We register our testimony, not only against all wars, whether offensive or defensive, but all preparations for war; against every naval ship, every arsenal, every fortification; against the militia system and a standing army; against all military chieftains and soldiers; against all monuments commemorative of victory over a fallen foe, all trophies won in battle, all celebrations in honor of military or naval exploits; against all appropriations for the defense of a nation by force and arms, on the part of any legislative body; against every edict of government requiring of its subjects military service. Hence, we deem it unlawful to bear arms, or to hold a military office.

"As every human government is upheld by physical strength, and its laws are enforced virtually at the point of the bayonet, we cannot hold any office which imposes upon its incumbent the obligation to compel men to do right, on pain of imprisonment or death. We therefore voluntarily exclude ourselves from every legislative and judicial body, and repudiate all human politics, worldly honors, and stations of authority. If we cannot occupy a seat in the legislature or on the bench, neither can we elect others to act as our substitutes in any such capacity.

"It follows, that we cannot sue any man at law, to compel him by force to restore anything which he may have wrongfully taken from us or others; but if he has seized our coat, we shall surrender up our cloak, rather than subject him to punishment." - William Lloyd Garrison, Declaration of Sentiments Adopted by the Peace Convention, September 28, 1838

"In our time, as in times before, creep on the insidious forces that, producing inequality, destroy Liberty."

"In our time, as in times before, creep on the insidious forces that, producing inequality, destroy Liberty. On the horizon the clouds begin to lower. Liberty calls to us again. We must follow her further; we must trust her fully. Either we must wholly accept her or she will not stay. It is not enough that men should vote; it is not enough that they should be theoretically equal before the law. They must have liberty to avail themselves of the opportunities and means of life; they must stand on equal terms with reference to the bounty of nature. Either this, or Liberty withdraws her light! Either this, or darkness comes on, and the very forces that progress has evolved turn to powers that work destruction. This is the universal law. This is the lesson of the centuries. Unless its foundations be laid in justice the social structure cannot stand."- Henry George, Progress and Poverty, Book X, Chapter 5, "The Central Truth"

"It’s passing strange..."

"It’s passing strange to live in a country where people could take control of their lives and their government, yet choose not to."
- Chuck Dupree

"Rich countries did not develop on the basis of the policies and the institutions that they ... often force upon, the developing countries."

Ha-Joon Chang (via Dialogic):

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the historical fact is that the rich countries did not develop on the basis of the policies and the institutions that they now recommend to, and often force upon, the developing countries. Unfortunately, this fact is little known these days because the “official historians” of capitalism have been very successful in rewriting its history. Almost all of today’s rich countries used tariff protection and subsidies to develop their industries. Interestingly, Great Britain and the United States, the two countries that are supposed to have reached summit of the world economy through their free-market free-trade policies, are actually the countries that have most aggressively used protection and subsidies.

"Capitalism is only kept going by this army of anti-capitalists, who ... compensate for its destructiveness."

Rebecca Solnit:

Who wouldn’t agree that our society is capitalistic, based on competition and selfishness? As it happens, however, huge areas of our lives are also based on gift economies, barter, mutual aid, and giving without hope of return (principles that have little or nothing to do with competition, selfishness, or scarcity economics). Think of the relations between friends, between family members, the activities of volunteers or those who have chosen their vocation on principle rather than for profit.

Think of the acts of those -- from daycare worker to nursing home aide or the editor of TomDispatch.com -- who do more, and do it more passionately, than they are paid to do; think of the armies of the unpaid who are at “work” counterbalancing and cleaning up after the invisible hand and making every effort to loosen its grip on our collective throat. Such acts represent the relations of the great majority of us some of the time and a minority of us all the time. They are, as the two feminist economists who published together as J. K. Gibson-Graham noted, the nine-tenths of the economic iceberg that is below the waterline.

Capitalism is only kept going by this army of anti-capitalists, who constantly exert their powers to clean up after it, and at least partially compensate for its destructiveness. Behind the system we all know, in other words, is a shadow system of kindness, the other invisible hand. Much of its work now lies in simply undoing the depredations of the official system. Its achievements are often hard to see or grasp. How can you add up the foreclosures and evictions that don’t happen, the forests that aren’t leveled, the species that don’t go extinct, the discriminations that don’t occur?

The official economic arrangements and the laws that enforce them ensure that hungry and homeless people will be plentiful amid plenty. The shadow system provides soup kitchens, food pantries, and giveaways, takes in the unemployed, evicted, and foreclosed upon, defends the indigent, tutors the poorly schooled, comforts the neglected, provides loans, gifts, donations, and a thousand other forms of practical solidarity, as well as emotional support. In the meantime, others seek to reform or transform the system from the inside and out, and in this way, inch by inch, inroads have been made on many fronts over the past half century.

(h/t thoughtstreaming)

"Neoliberal hope – aspiration – is increasingly restricted to an ever-smaller circle of people."

Red Marriott:

Hope is individual in our world, never collective – the hope of entrepreneurs dreaming of making it big. Not just climbing the ladder but also winning out over all others. We hope for social mobility. Which is exactly how Penny frames it, as do most of the placards on the streets. Hope, the dominant form of hope, is to do better than your parents. Hope is not evenly distributed – what hopes there are and who has access to them depend on where you are located (be you poor, or black, disabled, a women, young, living in the regions, etc). Neoliberal hope – aspiration – is increasingly restricted to an ever-smaller circle of people: those people doing well through the current crisis; those people above the buffer of the ‘squeezed middle’. For the rest, there’s the lottery.

We need a wholly different kind of hope, a hope that transcends the old neoliberal hope that is based on clawing past others on the way to the top.

Drip, drip drip, the slo-o-ow, slo-o-ow leaking of WikiLeaks

[source]

The significant leaks keep coming, day after day, exposing the realpolitik of nations, giving the lie to the official propaganda that governments spew to con the public.

What a gift to the world is WikiLeaks!

I used to think it best for WikiLeaks to dump its trove of documents on the world all at once, to get it all out there. Let us see it! But perhaps this slow daily leak is the best way to expose governmental lies.

Day to day, along come the official governmental pronouncements - and along come the daily leaked cables and documents reminding us that the official line is not the whole story.

Drip, drip, drip.

"They have laid bare their pro-establishment bias in the starkest way since these student protests began"

[source]

Alison Banville:

As Laurie Penny reported, children were being beaten up by the police as the royal family had their brief brush with the mob – not that you would know this if you chose to find out what was going on by watching TV news. They have laid bare their pro-establishment bias in the starkest way since these student protests began, including the embedded assumption that what happens to a member of the elite is of far more importance than what happens to those challenging the elite.

This explains why we have had the Charles and Camilla incident trumpeted with all the indignation of a major atrocity while the injuries of protesters at the hands of police have been sidelined in the media or omitted altogether.

[...]

The roles were cast long before the play began. The police are always the good guys in this drama. Police violence is justifiable, while any overt wrongdoing will be attributed to "bad apples". Institutional corruption will not be countenanced – meaning that inexplicably abandoned police vans and unprotected political party headquarters will only leave journalists scratching their heads, while the words "police provocateurs" never pass their lips.

"Failing to enforce the law of the land ... sends a message of impunity to agencies that decide to destroy records containing evidence of illegality"

A number of public interest groups are jointly demanding investigation of the destruction of records showing torture of detainees.

Dear Mr. Ferriero:

As organizations concerned with transparency and accountability, we are writing to support the re-opening of the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) destruction of federal records showing the torture of detainees at CIA black sites, and to thank you for your leadership on this issue.

[...]

When records are destroyed because they would reveal embarrassing information or illegal activities, the public is denied the right to understand and debate what the federal government is doing in its name, and hold the government accountable for its actions. Furthermore, the destruction of records makes it impossible for historians to someday write the authoritative history of our nation.

The destruction of records in this particular case is especially abhorrent. The records are videotapes showing the interrogations, including waterboarding, of two 'high value' detainees. The CIA’s actions destroyed evidence that is crucial to ensuring that torture victims have a fair day in court.

We are profoundly disappointed that the Department of Justice (DOJ) declined to bring any criminal charges over this blatant violation of the Federal Records Act and destruction of evidence. Failing to enforce the law of the land in this instance sends a message of impunity to agencies that decide to destroy records containing evidence of illegality, mismanagement, corruption, or even fairly benign mistakes. This decision stands in stark contrast to the President’s January 21 memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) directing Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies that the government “not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.” For these reasons, we hope DOJ will fully support your investigation and act on your conclusions.

"When records are destroyed because they would reveal embarrassing information or illegal activities, the public is denied the right to understand and debate what the federal government is doing in its name, and hold the government accountable for its actions."

"The sound bites never stop and the wars never stop - Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine"

Don't miss John Pilger's The War You Don't See. Here's part 1 of the 7 parts on You Tube:


Red Pepper:

In the ‘echo-chamber’ of the 24-hour news cycle, the words of those in power are amplified a thousand times over.

A line-up of respected journalists offered mea culpas on their reporting failures in the run up to the Iraq War, ‘Had journalists questioned the deceptions…the invasion would not have happened’ declared Dan Rather when Pilger needled the CBS news anchor on his wartime encomium to George W. Bush. Pilger’s argument is more self-effacing, and simpler: the news media’s job is to test government claims, and it isn’t doing its job.

"Why don’t I believe in God? No, no no, why do YOU believe in God? Surely the burden of proof is on the believer."

[source]

Ricky Gervais has a holiday message:

So what does the question “Why don’t you believe in God?” really mean. I think when someone asks that they are really questioning their own belief. In a way they are asking “what makes you so special? “How come you weren’t brainwashed with the rest of us?” “How dare you say I’m a fool and I’m not going to heaven, f— you!” Let’s be honest, if one person believed in God he would be considered pretty strange. But because it’s a very popular view it’s accepted. And why is it such a popular view? That’s obvious. It’s an attractive proposition. Believe in me and live forever. Again if it was just a case of spirituality this would be fine.

“Do unto others…” is a good rule of thumb. I live by that. Forgiveness is probably the greatest virtue there is. But that’s exactly what it is -­‐ a virtue. Not just a Christian virtue. No one owns being good. I’m good. I just don’t believe I’ll be rewarded for it in heaven. My reward is here and now. It’s knowing that I try to do the right thing. That I lived a good life. And that’s where spirituality really lost its way. When it became a stick to beat people with. “Do this or you’ll burn in hell.”

You won’t burn in hell. But be nice anyway.

Very nicely said! And when is our government going to explain its idiotic belief in god? If we are going to have "god" plastered all over our money, I think we deserve some sort of official governmental proof of this god's existence, don't you?

"Chromium-6 is a common pollutant in California tap water."

[source]

The Environmental Working Group's nationwide study found that cancer-causing hexavalent chromium is widespread in U.S. drinking water.

At least 74 million Americans in 42 states drink chromium-polluted tap water, much of it likely in the form of cancer-causing hexavalent chromium. Given the scope of exposure and the magnitude of the potential risk, the EPA should move expeditiously to establish a legal limit for the chemical in tap water and require water utilities to test for it.

“Because… Gays and Lesbians ought to be able to kill brown people too.”

[source]

Via Ian Welsh:

jcapan permalink
December 18, 2010

Why is this a great day for America? “Because… Gays and Lesbians ought to be able to kill brown people too.”

Morocco Bama
December 18, 2010

So true, jcapan, so true.

Liberation, American style. A Hat Tip to the Beastie Boys. You have to fight….for your right…..to slaughter…and consume, and dominate, and….fill in the rest.

"The last, thin line of defense between a civil society and its disintegration."

"I come from a new generation of Americans. I don’t want to fight the battles of the Sixties."

[source]

“I come from a new generation of Americans. I don’t want to fight the battles of the Sixties.”
- Barack Obama

Glenn W. Smith:

As Edward P. Morgan points out in his important new study, What Really Happened to the 1960s: How Mass Media Culture Failed American Democracy, the battles of the Sixties were over intractable poverty, unnecessary war, nuclear proliferation, environmental degradation, persistent racism, and the desire for a full-bodied, truly popular democracy. If we’re not going to fight those battles, just what are we going to fight?

Espionage Act: "used to jail poet E.E. Cummings for refusing to say he hated Germany."

[source]

Stephen Dick:

It's funny watching U.S. officials twist themselves into pretzels searching for ways to circumvent one of the bedrocks of American democracy: the First Amendment.

Members of Congress and the Obama administration are contorting themselves to figure out ways to prosecute Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to urge the U.S. to use all means in going after Assange. Rep. Peter King, a Republican from New York, likened Assange to a terrorist. This bipartisan outrage was joined by independent Joe Lieberman, of Connecticut, who wants the government to go after the New York Times for printing some of Wikileaks' trove.

Those who want to punish are eying the Espionage Act of 1917, one of the most disgraceful laws ever passed by Congress. That law was used to jail poet E.E. Cummings for refusing to say he hated Germany.

This was a time of Russian revolution and America was in the grip of the Red Scare where every communist sympathizer, anarchist and radical was rounded up and jailed. A 1918 amendment called the Sedition Act was added to the 1917 law. It made it illegal to "utter, print, write or publish disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive language" about the U.S. government, Constitution, military or flag.

Could anything be more un-American than this?

Attorney General Eric Holder is looking at the Espionage Act, among others, to go after Assange.

[...]

What kind of democracy does the U.S. want? Some members of Congress indicated that if all else fails, they would take the unprecedented step of crafting a law specifically to prosecute Assange. In the future, when Congress finds something it doesn't like, it will simply write a law to get rid of it.

That sounds like tyranny and a complete rebuke of the Constitution.

Naomi Wolf (via Cogitamus):

The Espionage Act was crafted in 1917 -- because President Woodrow Wilson wanted a war and, faced with the troublesome First Amendment, wished to criminalize speech critical of his war. In the run-up to World War One, there were many ordinary citizens -- educators, journalists, publishers, civil rights leaders, union activists -- who were speaking out against US involvement in the war. The Espionage Act was used to round these citizens by the thousands for the newly minted 'crime' of their exercising their First Amendment Rights. A movie producer who showed British cruelty in a film about the Revolutionary War (since the British were our allies in World War I) got a ten-year sentence under the Espionage act in 1917, and the film was seized; poet E.E. Cummings spent three and a half months in a military detention camp under the Espionage Act for the 'crime' of saying that he did not hate Germans. Esteemed Judge Learned Hand wrote that the wording of the Espionage Act was so vague that it would threaten the American tradition of freedom itself. Many were held in prison for weeks in brutal conditions without due process; some, in Connecticut -- Lieberman's home state -- were severely beaten while they were held in prison. The arrests and beatings were widely publicized and had a profound effect, terrorizing those who would otherwise speak out.

Presidential candidate Eugene Debs received a ten-year prison sentence in 1918 under the Espionage Act for daring to read the First Amendment in public. The roundup of ordinary citizens -- charged with the Espionage Act -- who were jailed for daring to criticize the government was so effective in deterring others from speaking up that the Act silenced dissent in this country for a decade. In the wake of this traumatic history, it was left untouched -- until those who wish the same outcome began to try to reanimate it again starting five years ago, and once again, now. Seeing the Espionage Act rise up again is, for anyone who knows a thing about it, like seeing the end of a horror movie in which the zombie that has enslaved the village just won't die.

"The roundup of ordinary citizens -- charged with the Espionage Act -- who were jailed for daring to criticize the government was so effective in deterring others from speaking up that the Act silenced dissent in this country for a decade."
- Naomi Wolf

"The obtuseness of the 'left establishment' is almost too hard to bear today."

Another great Michael Yates post:

Now, the simple explanation of what Obama has done is that he was never a progressive to begin with. There was ample evidence for this. For me, the most telling was his selection during the presidential campaign of a University of Chicago economist as his chief economic advisor. Since becoming president, his choices have been similar. His appointment of two vicious opponents of social security to chair his deficit reduction commission is as good an example as any.

[...]

The obtuseness of the “left establishment” is almost too hard to bear today. In late 2010, two years into the Obama presidency and with hundreds of billions of dollars spent on economic recovery, the economic conditions of working class America, and especially those of racial minorities, are desperate. In New York City, a recent report found that one in four young black men (those between sixteen and twenty-four) has a job. Only one in ten without a high school diploma is employed. Nearly 70 percent of these men are not in the labor force, too discouraged even to look for work. One of the study’s authors said, “Now young black men between 16 and 24 years have become the banner of hopelessness, particularly here in New York City.” This sense of hopelessness deepens when we consider how many young black men are in prison, on probation, or on parole, not just in New York City but across the nation.

How is it not compulsory now for all on the left to ask some obvious questions? What has Obama done for young black men? For young black women? For the poor? For the working class? For organized labor? For the one million black men and women in prison? For all those in prison? For undocumented immigrants? For gays and lesbians? For those who don’t have adequate or any health care? For the world’s impoverished masses? I am afraid that the answer to all of these questions is “next to nothing.” If this isn’t enough to make us the implacable enemies of Barack Obama, what is? Someday, if a radical political situation arises, the “left establishment” will try to take control of any movements that develop. Let’s remember, even as we make necessary alliances, that these people couldn’t see through someone whose political choices have been as transparent as those of Barack Obama.

"What has Obama done for young black men? For young black women? For the poor? For the working class? For organized labor? For the one million black men and women in prison? For all those in prison? For undocumented immigrants? For gays and lesbians? For those who don’t have adequate or any health care? For the world’s impoverished masses? I am afraid that the answer to all of these questions is 'next to nothing.'"
- Michael Yates

Obama hasn't done anything for the oppressed because he's too busy sucking up to Republicans. Obama used the good will of millions of people to become a President who caters to the rich and powerful. His tax "compromise" guarantees that the inequality plaguing this country will worsen. Every liberal should wash his or her hands of this terrible President and call for a primary challenge to his re-election.

"Hunting--beyond being a thing I like to do--helps keep my imagination vital."

I can't believe the Sierra Club ever sponsored this crap. Actually, I can believe it. They sold out their values a long time ago. No need to ask why the environmental movement is in the toilet. Organizations like the Sierra Club put it there.

All I know is that hunting--beyond being a thing I like to do--helps keep my imagination vital. I would hope never to be so blind as to offer it as prescription; I offer it only as testimony to my love of the landscape where I live--a place that is still, against all odds, its own place, quite unlike any other. I don’t think I would be able to sustain myself as a dreamer in this strange landscape if I did not take off three months each year to wander the mountains in search of game; to hunt, stretching and exercising not just my imagination, but my spirit. And to wander the mountains, too, in all the other seasons. And to be nourished by the river of spirit that flows, shifting and winding, between me and the land.

Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd fame has written:

“I have no intention of attending a meeting of a hunting club. I wonder how many of the Sierra Club’s 750,000 members know and approve of killing animals with their contributions?”

"If Obama wasn’t black, he’d be a 'moderate' Republican."

Ian Welsh:

If Obama wasn’t black, he’d be a “moderate” Republican. He is not a progressive, not a liberal and neither is Harry Reid. Pelosi would be liberal in a different world, but she will do what the President tells her to do, she’s a good soldier. Originally she wasn’t going to pass TARP, for example, unless an equal percentage of Republicans voted for it, but when Obama came out in favor of it, she fell into line.

There is no constituency in Congress for liberal policy. None. Even those who prefer liberal policy, like Sanders and Pelosi, will not do anything to actually make sure it happens, or to stop conservative policy.

This is why I generally don’t write about legislative fights any more. There is no point, the outcome is usually determined long before the actual vote, and everything you see is just theater for the rubes.

"Overall more than 25 percent of the federal budget gets swallowed in the financial black hole that is the Pentagon."

Gilbert Mercier:

If the Pentagon was a corporation, it would be the largest in the world. The curiously called, Department Of Defense, costs the American taxpayers, since the ill advised attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, around $700 billion a year. Of course, if you add up health care for wounded veterans, and layers of new “security” administration such as the Department of Homeland Security, the numbers keep adding up to top $1 trillion a year. Overall more than 25 percent of the federal budget gets swallowed in the financial black hole that is the Pentagon.

"Tragedies like this are bound to occur in an asylum like ours."

Dennis Perrin:

Clay Duke, the Florida man who opened fire on his local school board and somehow missed hitting any of them, is the latest specimen of a system gone berserk. Not that Duke's actions were laudable: there are better, more creative ways to register one's disgust for our wretched conditions. But it seems that Duke craved martyrdom and believed, correctly, that this was his final living act. Whatever his intentions, Duke will soon be forgotten, save for family and those who literally dodged a bullet.

Duke's V For Vendetta fetish adds to the confusion, showing that even in one's darkest moments, pop culture plays a major part. Were Duke truly faithful to this narrative, he would have picked off government targets individually, privately, away from cameras (except perhaps his own), leaving cryptic notes about his lethal reasoning. But that would require serious work, and luck, to achieve. Clearly, Duke's public freak out and death was all he had the energy for. He didn't even bother to wear a mask.

On his Facebook page, Duke cited Warren Buffett's boast, "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class that's making war and we're winning." After Duke's wife lost her job and benefits, sentiments like Buffett's must have burned into Duke's brain, lighting his fuse. According to reports, Duke had a history of violence, serving four years in prison for aggravated stalking and shooting. So the fuse was always there, only this time Duke made it political.

Tragedies like this are bound to occur in an asylum like ours.

Assange's Mom: "Don’t take your freedoms for granted or you’ll lose them. They were hard fought for."

Democracy Now!:

Christine Assange:

"It’s a worry of course. I am no different to any other mother, you know. Every time the news goes on, I am glued to it. 'Is he okay?' And these massive forces have decided they are going to stop them, and they are not going to play by the rules."

"Don’t take your freedoms for granted or you’ll lose them. They were hard fought for. People lost their lives, over and over again and if we don’t protect them, we’ll lose them, and next time it could be your son, or your daughter."

"If you don’t like abortion don’t have an abortion ... don’t treat all women like they are your children."

amendment

wouldn’t it be nice if
we had an amendment
to give civil rights to
women
to once and for all just
really lay it down from
the point of view of
women

I know what you’re thinking
that’s just redundant
chicks got it good now
they can almost be president
but it's worker against worker
time and time again
because the rich use certain issues as a tool
and when I say we need the ERA it ain't 'cause I’m a fool
it’s ‘cause without it nobody can get away
with anything cruel
you don’t need to go far like
just over to Canada
to feel a heightened sense of live and let live
what is it about Americans
like so many pit bulls
trained to attack and
to never give
we gotta put down abortion
put it down in the books for good
as central to the civil rights of women
make diversity legal
make it finally understood
through the civil rights of women

and if you don’t like abortion
don’t have an abortion
and teach your children
how they can avoid them
but don’t treat all women
like they are your children
compassion has many faces
many names
and if men can kill
and be decorated instead of blamed
then a woman called upon to mother
can choose to refrain

and contrary to eons
of old-time religion
your body's your only true communion
nature is not here to serve you
or at any cost to preserve you
that’s just some preacher man’s old-time opinion

life is sacred
life is also profane
a woman’s life
it must be hers to name
let an amendment
put the brutal game to rest
trust that women will still take you to their breast
trust that women will always do their best
trust our differences make us stronger, not less

in this amendment
the family structures shall be free
we'll have the right to civil union
it takes unions of all kinds
unions of hearts and minds
to give society communion
let’s do more than tolerate
let gay and straight resonate
and emanate all things human
with equal rights and
equal protection
intolerance finally ruined

and then there’s the kids' rights
they’ll naturally be on board
a funnel through which
women's lives are poured
our family is so big, we’re all so very small
let a web of relationship be laid over it all
over the strata of power piled up to the sky
over the illusion of autonomy on which it relies
over any absolute that nature has not supplied

and the birthing woman shall regain her place
in a circle of women in a sacred space
turn off the machines put away the knives
this amendment shall deliver from bondage midwives

"Thousands of American soldiers have died in places they might have never been had the citizenry been allowed to fairly weigh the facts."

Barry Crimmins:

The grisly realities of the past decade have been obscured behind images of fluttering flags and inspirational stories of soldiers learning to live again despite having been emotionally and/or physically maimed in needless war. With our own people pressed into service as mascots for a criminally suspect foreign policy, it's difficult not to opt for unquestioning compliance.

But our silence is beyond expensive.

Thousands of American soldiers have died in places they might have never been had the citizenry been allowed to fairly weigh the facts. Unfortunately, such enlightenment wouldn't suit the usurpers of American power. It wouldn't be good for those who export and profit from agony and use other peoples children, spouses and parents to deliver the awful goods.

The cynics who own and operate this racket deify the pawns whose boots are on the blood-soaked ground of other peoples' countries. They tell us to thank them for fighting for our freedom while expecting us to smile and wave the flag as we choose between radiation and molestation at the airport.

Everyone gets so spun around by this flimflam that we can't even manage to ask the simplest and most obvious of questions. Queries such as: why would I leave something as precious as my freedom lying around in Iraq or Afghanistan? A sane person would no more do that than store milk on a windowsill in July.

The cynics who set hokum-baited nationalistic traps real slogan is "Support our dupes." Sadly that's what our troops are to them.

"What was missing is ... more radical: namely, a capacity to see ourselves as acting rather than querying, searching, waiting for action to happen."

Jodi Dean in her new book Blog Theory (p. 122):

We end up oscillating between extremes. On the one hand, we have opinions, theories, ideas, and information that we want to share. So we write our books and blogs, adding in our contribution to the circulating flow. Just what was needed – another blog. On the other hand, the information age is an age wherein we lack the information we need to act. As communicative capitalism incites a continuous search for information, it renders information perpetually out of reach. Outraged, engaged, desperate to do something, we look for evidence, ask questions, and make demands, again contributing to the circuits of drive. A concrete example here is the George W. Bush administration’s torture policy. Before and after Bush left office, a refrain circulated concerning the need to get to the truth of the situation, to see more photographs, to read more documents – as if it had not been known since at least 2004 that the US was torturing prisoners captured in the so-called “war on terror.” Since photographs and documents already were circulating, since members of the Bush administration – including Vice President Cheney – had already acknowledged that they did in fact approve the policy of torture, the problem was not the absence of information. What was missing is instead more radical: namely, a capacity to see ourselves as acting rather than querying, searching, waiting for action to happen.

Cross posted on no friends no followers no bullshit.

Hedges: "We have a choice: you can either be complicit in your own enslavement or you can lead a life that has some kind of integrity and meaning."

"I come down pretty close on the side of the anarchists. I distrust all systems of power. ... I have come from the Julien Benda school of intellectual thought, which is that we must all ... keep ourselves arms lengths from all power systems."
- Chris Hedges

"Canada doesn't have a banking crisis because Canada didn't remove the firewalls between commercial and investment banks. They didn't allow local banks to become hedge funds."
- Chris Hedges

"We are not going to salvage either our environment or our country through electoral politics. ... From now on, all resistance is local."
- Chris Hedges

The second video is one of Hedges' best speeches. My eyes began to well with tears towards the end. What is happening to this country is heartbreaking.

Chris Hedges' latest book is Death of the Liberal Class. It has been called "pessimism porn." If purchasing, Hedges reminds us in the second video, "go to Amazon as a last resort."

"Commit yourself to actively supporting the protests of Obama administration policies which are now beginning to materialize."

From "An Open Letter to the Left Establishment":

It has advanced repeated assaults on the New Deal safety net (including the previously sacrosanct Social Security trust fund), jettisoned any hope for substantive health care reform, attacked civil rights and environmental protections, and expanded a massive bailout further enriching an already bloated financial services and insurance industry. It has continued the occupation of Iraq and expanded covert and overt wars in South Asia and across the globe.

Along the way, the Obama administration, which referred to us on the left as "f***ing retarded" individuals who required "drug testing," stepped up the prosecution of federal war crime whistleblowers, and unleashed the FBI on those protesting the escalation of an insane war.

Obama's recent announcement of a federal worker pay freeze is cynical, mean-spirited "deficit-reduction theater". Slashing Bush's plutocratic tax cuts would have made a much more significant contribution to deficit reduction but all signs are that the "progressive" president will cave to Republican demands for the preservation of George W. Bush's tax breaks for the wealthy Few. Instead Obama's tax cut plan would raise taxes for the poorest people in our country.

The election of Obama has not galvanized protest movements. To the contrary, it has depressed and undermined them, with the White House playing an active role in the discouragement and suppression of dissent – with disastrous consequences. The almost complete absence of protest from the left has emboldened the most right-wing elements inside and outside of the Obama administration to pursue and act on an ever more extreme agenda.

We are writing to you because, as well-known writers, bloggers and filmmakers with access to a range of old and new media, you have in your power the capacity to help reignite the movement which brought millions onto the streets in February of 2003 but which has withered ever since. There are many thousands of progressives who follow your work closely and are waiting for a cue from you and others to act. We are asking you to commit yourself to actively supporting the protests of Obama administration policies which are now beginning to materialize.

It's signed by a lot of people I admire:

Sen. James Abourezk, Michael Albert, Tariq Ali, Rocky Anderson, Jared Ball, Russel Banks, Thomas Bias, Noam Chomsky, Bruce Dixon, Frank Dorrel, Gidon Eshel, Jamilla El-Shafei, Okla Elliott, Norman Finkelstein, Glen Ford, Joshua Frank, Margaret Flowers M.D., John Gerassi, Henry Giroux, Matt Gonzalez, Kevin Alexander Gray, Judd Greenstein, DeeDee Halleck, John Halle, Chris Hedges, Doug Henwood, Edward S. Herman, Dahr Jamail, Louis Kampf, Allison Kilkenny, Jamie Kilstein, Joel Kovel, Mark Kurlansky, Peter Linebaugh, Scott McLarty, Cynthia McKinney, Dede Miller, Russell Mokhiber, Bobby Muller, Christian Parenti, Michael Perelman, Peter Phillips, Louis Proyect, Ted Rall, Cindy Sheehan, Chris Spannos, Paul Street, Sunil Sharma, Stephen Pearcy, Jeffrey St. Clair, Len Weinglass, Cornel West, Sherry Wolf, Michael Yates, Mickey Z, Kevin Zeese

"We didn’t change our values just because a Democratic president moved into the White House..."

Eli at Firedoglake:

The war should have been over by now, save for the occasional skirmish. All the money and talent and resources should have been freed up for more productive uses, but the “peace dividend” never materialized. 21 months after Bush departed, we progressives are still at war with the White House – if anything, we’re in the middle of a surge.

It’s not that we want to be; I know I would be perfectly happy to stick to ridiculing stupid Republicans and media wankers, maybe post the occasional Muppet video, but it didn’t work out that way. We didn’t change our values just because a Democratic president moved into the White House, and unfortunately the executive branch didn’t either. Conflict was inevitable.

Progressives still believe in transparency, due process, rule of law, environmental protection, DADT repeal, marriage equality, choice, immigration reform, unions, Social Security, affordable universal health care, and the overarching principle of standing up for ordinary people against the rich and powerful. The White House… still doesn’t. Through a combination of compromise, incompetence, inaction, and deliberate embrace, Obama has ended up on the Republican side of every single one of these issues – and attacks and ridicules us for refusing to follow him there.

Filibuster!*

Catch the Bernie Sanders filibuster of the tax break for millionaires bill.

* It's only a filibuster if he makes it to Monday when the business of the Senate resumes.

"If only Obama were half as progressive as Hoover or Nixon."

Louis Proyect:

In “Audacity of Hope”, Obama expresses sympathy for Reagan’s antagonism toward high corporate tax rates since they “distorted investment decisions” and led to tax shelters. In the same paragraph, he blamed welfare for creating “perverse incentives” when it came to the “work ethic”. One wonders if the “progressives for Obama” ever read this crap before they made fools of themselves.

Considering the fact that tax breaks are seen as a job-creating stimulus by these people, one wonders what they make of the fact that under the New Deal tax rates were at an all-time high. And what’s even more interesting is that they were raised under Herbert Hoover, a politician that Obama has been likened to. Sigh. If only Obama were half as progressive as Hoover or Nixon, for that matter.

"Let us pray the next generation is a tad sharper."

Joe Bageant:

Like the old song says, "Them that don't know don't know they don't know." I venture to say that even if they did, they would not know why. Primary truths elude us because of the junk affluence and propaganda. We get buried under a deluge of commodities that suggest we are all rich, or at least richer than most of the world. A mountain range of cheap shoes, cars, iPods, ridiculous amounts of available foodstuffs, and the entire spectacle of engorgement defines, and is enforced as, "quality of life" under materialistic commodities capitalism. The goods we have in our clutches trump the philosophical, or even the most practical considerations. "I may die early eating unidentified beef byproducts soaked in waste chemicals, but I'll die owning a 65-inch HDTV and a new five speed automatic Dodge Durango with a 5.7 L Hemi V8 under the hood!"

Even the threat of toasting planetary life is not enough to shake Americans loose from this disconnect. As Professor Emeritus of Natural Resources and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Guy R. McPherson points out, "79.6% of respondents to a Scientific American poll are unwilling to forgo even a single penny to forestall the risk of catastrophic climate change. Scientific American readers undoubtedly are better informed than the general populace. And yet they won't pay a thing to avoid extinction of our species. Kinda makes you warm and fuzzy all over, doesn't it?"

Let us pray the next generation is a tad sharper.

"So wealth becomes the foundation of public esteem, and the mass of men who labor ... are thought to be vulgar and meaningless and insignificant."

Richard Henry Tawney (The Acquisitive Society, 1920):

So wealth becomes the foundation of public esteem, and the mass of men who labor, but who do not acquire wealth, are thought to be vulgar and meaningless and insignificant compared with the few who acquire wealth by good fortune, or by the skilful use of economic opportunities. They come to be regarded, not as the ends for which alone it is worth while to produce wealth at all, but as the instruments of its acquisition by a world that declines to be soiled by contact with what is thought to be the dull and sordid business of labor. They are not happy, for the reward of all but the very mean is not merely money, but the esteem of their fellow-men, and they know they are not esteemed, as soldiers, for example, are esteemed, though it is because they give their lives to making civilization that there is a civilization which it is worth while for soldiers to defend. They are not esteemed, because the admiration of society is directed towards those who get, not towards those who give ; and though workmen give much they get little. And the rentiers whom they support are not happy; for in discarding the idea of function, which sets a limit to the acquisition of riches, they have also discarded the principle which alone give riches their meaning. Hence unless they can persuade themselves that to be rich is in itself meritorious, they may bask in social admiration, but they are unable to esteem themselves. For they have abolished the principle which makes activity significant, and therefore estimable. They are, indeed, more truly pitiable than some of those who envy them. For like the spirits in the Inferno, they are punished by the attainment of their desires. A society ruled by these notions is necessarily the victim of an irrational inequality.

"The pretend patriots who use the national security argument to gut ... our constitutional guarantees of a truly free press."

Robert Sheer:

The pretend patriots who use the national security argument to gut what remains of our most important security asset -- our constitutional guarantees of a truly free press -- are just what President George Washington feared when in his farewell address he warned "against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the Impostures of pretended patriotism. ..."

The pretended patriotism of Feinstein, the first Democrat to co-sponsor the bill extending the U.S. Patriot Act, represents the death of the Democratic Party as a protector of our freedoms. As a California resident, I will not vote for her again, no matter how dastardly a right-wing Republican opponent she might face. There is no lesser evil to be found in one who would so cavalierly imprison practitioners of a free press.

That is the issue here, pure and simple. It is unconscionable to target Assange for publishing documents on the Internet that mainstream media outlets have attested had legitimate news value. As in the historic case in which Daniel Ellsberg gave The New York Times the Pentagon Papers exposé of the official lies justifying the Vietnam War, Assange is acting as the reporter here, and thus his activities must be shielded by the First Amendment's guarantee of journalistic freedom.

[...]

Abandon Assange and you abandon the bedrock of our republic: the public's right to know.

I'm sorry I ever voted for Dianne Feinstein.

"Abandon Assange and you abandon the bedrock of our republic: the public's right to know."
- Robert Sheer

"Without a viable political alternative ... the likelihood that economic discontent can evolve into a political movement remains low."

From a Wikileaked 2009 U.S. cable about Russia:

Without a viable political alternative and the tandem's control over mass media, the likelihood that economic discontent can evolve into a political movement remains low.

One could say very similar things about the United States:

1) No alternative political figure or party has emerged to challenge the status quo (the Tea Party does not count),
2) The mainstream media is nothing but the handmaiden of those in power,
3) Our distress does not find expression in a powerful political movement; our discontent festers, diffuse, unfocused, going nowhere.

"We believe in the idea of a free press; but we oppose it in practice when the press offends our patriotism."

Stephen J.A. Ward:

A narrow patriotism — the psychological equivalent of a knee jerk — is an under-recognized force in modern journalism ethics.

It distorts our thinking about the role of journalism as soon as journalists offend national pride and whistleblowers dare to reveal secrets. Narrow patriotism turns practitioners of a free press into scolding censors. Suddenly, independent journalists become dastardly law breakers.

Narrow patriotism is the view that “love of country” means not embarrassing one’s government, hiding all secrets and muting one’s criticism of foreign and military policy in times of tension. Narrow patriotism is an absolute value, trumping the freedom of the press.

The Wikileaks saga proves, once again, that this form of patriotism is a powerful commitment of many journalists; often, more powerful than objectivity or independence.

For instance, as WikiLeaks rolled out the American diplomatic cables, Jeffrey T. Kuhner of the conservative Washington Times called for the assassination of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assangein a December 2 opinion piece. “We should treat Mr. Assange the same way as other high-value terrorist targets: Kill him.”

[...]

The Wikileaks controversy reveals tensions in our view of the role of journalism in democracy.

We believe in the idea of a free press; but we oppose it in practice when the press offends our patriotism, or works against some vaguely defined “national interest.”

The same narrow patriotism was at work among major American media when President Bush decided to go to war with Iraq on flimsy claims. TV anchors put flags on their lapels and reporters accepted too easily the existence of weapons of mass destruction.

In times of conflict, the strong emotions of patriotism override journalists’ in-principle commitment to critical informing the public and to impartiality. The word “patriotism” rarely occurs in journalism codes of ethics but its influence on practice is substantial.

"Blitzer was nearly beside himself ... wondering why the government couldn’t ... keep him ... from discovering what it should be his job to uncover."

Great piece by Michael Yates at Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate:

Two things seem clear from what I have read so far about the WikiLeaks documents. First, what the United States does diplomatically has nothing to do with the noble ideas of freedom and democracy.

[...]

Second, the U.S. media are as deceitful as the government. Why haven’t our vaunted news media been telling us all along what WikiLeaks now reveals? Don’t they have the capacity to look beneath the surface of things and ferret out the truth? Isn’t that their job? Obviously not. Wolf Blitzer was nearly beside himself on CNN wondering why the government couldn’t prevent such exposures of the truth, in other words, keep him, presumably a journalist, from discovering what it should be his job to uncover. Instead of asking whether it is true that Iran has received ballistic missiles from North Korea, as some cables suggest but others dispute, Blitzer wants the government to make sure that he is forever unable even to try to find this out.

[...]

Here is what I believe is going on. We live in a society dominated by large corporations and their owners and financiers (often the same). The government serves their interests, in as many ways as possible—with tax money, with legislation, with court decisions, with police and military actions when necessary. Since these facts fly in the face of any claim that we live in a free and democratic country, they must be suppressed. One way to do this is for the system’s many and well-rewarded apologists to tell us, over and over again, in every imaginable venue, that they are either not true or don’t matter. But another way is to ignite the false democracy of patriotism, to make it appear as if it is us (all Americans) against them (our enemies). From earliest age, we are bombarded with nationalist propaganda. We live in the best country in the world. God shed his grace on thee. We are the world’s beacon of freedom. We are the shining city on the hill. We are surrounded by evil enemies who want to destroy our way of life.

[...]

I’m not sure that the United States isn’t already at least half dead. But if it is to raised back to life, we are going to need a lot more “treason,” and many more “traitors.” They will at least try to tell us the truth, to strike our freedom- and democratic-loving nerves, to goad us into action. This is why they are so dangerous to the powers that be; they threaten to remove the veil that so tightly covers our eyes.

So all hail to Julian Assange, to Specialist Bradley Manning (who is charged with supplying WikiLeaks with documents giving us a damning picture of U.S. military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan), Daniel Ellsberg, to all of those who made the decision to make the truth known, to be citizens of the world. Regardless of the consequences.

Zinn knew about "the false democracy of patriotism" and that we are not all in this together and "one big happy family."

"All hail to Julian Assange, to Specialist Bradley Manning ... to all of those who made the decision to make the truth known, to be citizens of the world. Regardless of the consequences."

- Michael Yates

"Fighting to drive the money changers from the temple."

A topic Obama knows nothing about.

"In 1932 we were attacking the citadel of special privilege and greed. We were fighting to drive the money changers from the temple. Today, in 1948, we are now the defenders of the stronghold of democracy and of equal opportunity, the haven of the ordinary people of this land and not of the favored classes or the powerful few."
- Harry Truman

"United States ... a mediocre 52nd among 139 nations in the quality of its university math and science instruction in 2010."

Alfred McCoy:

...the U.S. education system, that source of future scientists and innovators, has been falling behind its competitors. After leading the world for decades in 25- to 34-year-olds with university degrees, the country sank to 12th place in 2010. The World Economic Forum ranked the United States at a mediocre 52nd among 139 nations in the quality of its university math and science instruction in 2010. Nearly half of all graduate students in the sciences in the U.S. are now foreigners, most of whom will be heading home, not staying here as once would have happened. By 2025, in other words, the United States is likely to face a critical shortage of talented scientists.

The N.Y. Times reports on the recent internationally-administered PISA test:

PISA scores are on a scale, with 500 as the average. Two-thirds of students in participating countries score between 400 and 600. On the math test last year, students in Shanghai scored 600, in Singapore 562, in Germany 513, and in the United States 487.

In reading, Shanghai students scored 556, ahead of second-place Korea with 539. The United States scored 500 and came in 17th, putting it on par with students in the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and several other countries.

In science, Shanghai students scored 575. In second place was Finland, where the average score was 554. The United States scored 502 — in 23rd place — with a performance indistinguishable from Poland, Ireland, Norway, France and several other countries.

Not to worry. More tax cuts for the wealthy will solve the problem.

"The incredibly wealthy just got a tax cut. What a sick, sick country."

[from Promises about Taxes on the Obameter]

A N.Y. Times reader:

The incredibly wealthy just got a tax cut.

I know a girl in her mid-20s who just got out of the hospital after 4 days on IVs. She was there because an infection spread through her body after it went untreated. She doesn't have insurance and didn't have the money (or trust in the system) to see a doctor and get antibiotics, which would have treated the problem easily.

I'm 27. I earn $18,000 a year, can't afford a car, and my bus fare to work has gone up a whole dollar a day in the past year and a half alone. That will impact how much I can heat my apartment this winter.

And the incredibly wealthy just got a tax cut. What a sick, sick country.

"It is not easy to consider challenging the first African-American to be elected as President ... the time has come to do this."

Clarence B. Jones:

It is not easy to consider challenging the first African-American to be elected as President of the United States. But, regrettably, I believe that the time has come to do this.

[...]

You don't have to be a rocket scientist nor have a PhD in political science and sociology to see clearly that Obama has abandoned much of the base that elected him. He has done this because he no longer respects, fears or believes those persons who elected him have any alternative, but to accept what he does, whether they like it or not.

It is time for those persons who constituted the "Movement" that enabled Senator Barack Obama to be elected to "break their silence"; to indicate that they no longer will sit on their hands, and only let off verbal steam and ineffective sound and fury, and "hope" for the best.

The answer is blowin' in the wind.

The pursuit of the war in Afghanistan in support of a certifiably corrupt Afghan government and the apparent willingness to retreat from his campaign commitment of no further tax cuts for the rich, his equivocal and foot dragging leadership to end DADT, his TARP for Wall Street, but, equivocal insufficient attention to the unemployment and housing foreclosures of Main Street, suggest that the template of the 1968 challenge to the reelection of President Lyndon Johnson now must be thoughtfully considered for Obama in 2012.

"Unwilling to imagine and fight for an alternative, we acquiesce to neoliberal rhetoric about the absence of alternatives."

[John William Waterhouse's The Siren]

One of my favorite academics is Jodi Dean. What other academic would blog on "Best shields for street protests"? Visit I Cite.

Dean is giving a talk at a symposium on democracy this week. Here are a couple of extended excerpts:

While criticizing neoliberalism as particularly nasty, leftists since 1989 have nevertheless tended to acquiesce to capitalism—in the process absolving ourselves of responsibility for the fact that our acquiescence, our failure to present persistent and united opposition, enabled neoliberalism to take hold. Bluntly put, we didn’t sufficiently defend the welfare state. Mark Fisher’s term “capitalist realism,” is appropriate here: “capitalist realism” designates our resignation. Unwilling to imagine and fight for an alternative, we acquiesce to neoliberal rhetoric about the absence of alternatives. Since there are multiple, interesting, alternatives of varying degrees of radicality—including Tobin tax, universal health care, universal education, the elimination of corporate agriculture, the criminalization of derivatives and other instruments of finance speculation, a lottery system for political office, the nationalization of banks, a ban on genetically modified seeds and animals, ... the criminalization of usury, the prioritization of feeding and housing the planet, a ban on weapons trade, to mention but a few—we should note the depth of leftist accommodationism: by accepting capitalism as the only alternative in the face of undeniable evidence to the contrary we can enjoy its benefits guilt free if not debt free.

[...]

The myriad entertainments and diversions available on-line, or as apps on our iphones, are not free. We don’t usually pay money directly for YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, or Twitter. These don’t cost money. They cost time. It takes time to post and write and time to read and respond. We pay with our attention. Our attention isn’t boundless. Our time is finite—even as we try to extract value out of every second (we don’t have time to waste). So we cannot respond to every utterance, click on every link, read every post. We have to choose even as the possibility of something else, something wonderful, lures us to search and linger. Demands on our attention, injunctions for us to communicate, participate, share—ever shriller and more intense—are like so many speed-ups on the production line, attempts to extract from us whatever bit of mindshare is left. When we do respond, our contribution is an addition to an already infinite communicative field, a little demand on someone else’s attention, a little incitement of an affective response, a digital trace that can be stored—and on and on and on. We pay with attention and the cost is focus.

"He is clearly the wrong man for the job for President of the United States."

A N.Y. Times reader responds to a Frank Rich op-ed:

Some people find themselves held hostage, not by enemies, but by a job or career for which they are not suited. It is not a question of being promoted to a post beyond one’s intelligence or competence, a phenomenon commonly known as the “Peter Principle”. It is, rather, coming to the realization that one is trapped in a position for which one’s skill sets and temperament are a bad fit.

Barack Obama got more than he bargained for in his election to the presidency. Leadership, which includes confronting one’s opponents directly and forcefully when necessary, is not in the skill set Mr. Obama brought to the White House.

Another reader:

If the President is unwilling or unable to learn from his colossally ineffective interactions and negotiations with the rapacious Republican leaders, for the sake of the Country, he should not seek re-election. The Democrats, America, and indeed the World need a politically savvy, strong, resolute, charismatic leader and that person is not Barack Obama.

I have no doubt that Obama could be a brilliant leader of a University or some not-for-profit institution, but he is clearly the wrong man for the job for President of the United States.

And another reader:

I think that psychologically, the President is depleted, not because of processes related to the Stockholm Syndrome, but because he truly does not have within him the necessary emotional make up or personality traits to cope with such vicious opponents who are out for his political blood at all costs. He looks and sounds like a beaten man. ... and is in the midst of a political version of a nervous breakdown. He is no longer politically fit to lead the Democratic party and it would serve the country well if the Democrats have a candidate in 2012 who would stand up and fight for the principles that the vast majority of Democrats, and in many cases a majority of the country supports.

Franken on tax cuts for millionaires

"Congratulations ... you're going to vote to put over 9,300 dollars more debt on the head of every child in America. Way to go."
- Al Franken

Franken discusses the tax rate (16.62%) for the wealthiest 400 Americans. Here is a little more information from David Kay Johnston:

In 2007 the top 400 taxpayers had an average income of $344.8 million, up 31 percent from their average $263.3 million income in 2006, according to figures in a report that the IRS posted to its Web site without announcement that were discovered February 16. (For the report, see Tax Analysts Doc 2010-3372 .)

The figures came at the peak of the last economic cycle and show that widely published reports in major newspapers asserting that the richest Americans are losing relative ground and "becoming poorer" are not supported by the official income data.

The long-term data show that under current tax and economic rules, the incomes of the top earners rise when the economy expands and contract during recessions, only to rise again. Their effective income tax rate fell to 16.62 percent, down more than half a percentage point from 17.17 percent in 2006, the new data show. That rate is lower than the typical effective income tax rate paid by Americans with incomes in the low six figures, which is what each taxpayer in the top group earned in the first three hours of 2007.

UK Uncut cuts to the heart of corporate crookedness: tax evasion

UK Uncut:

At the same time as making massive cuts to public services, this government is letting rich individuals and corporations avoid billions of pounds of tax. Join UK Uncut’s Big Society Revenue & Customs (BSRC) and become part of an army of citizen volunteers determined to make wealthy tax avoiders pay.

"Ms. Roberts was being thrown out of her house because of Bank of America’s carelessness."

Banks are carelessly destroying people's lives. Do not miss this N.Y. Times story from yesterday on one Queens woman's foreclosure experience. What happened to her is absolutely disgusting. No reversal of course on the part of banks - often only the result of an intense legal fight and media pressure - can make up for the damage that is being done to people's lives.

“It’s offensive that BofA thinks a foreclosure action, an eviction notice of an elderly woman sitting in her house fearing that she will spend the remainder of her days in a shelter, is some sort of party invitation that can be ‘rescinded,’ ” she wrote in an e-mail. “Their disrespect for the law is appalling. But it is a pattern of behavior that led to this crisis and that is continuing to keep this country in this crisis.”

"When some teabagger starts thumping his chest over protecting the Constitution ... he wants to wipe out the last couple of centuries of history."

Mahablog:

When the Constitution was written, there was no air traffic. There weren’t even any railroads yet. The “right to bear arms” referred to owning muzzle-loading muskets that could only fire as quickly as the shooter could load and fire — three rounds a minute was the standard.

[...]

Jobs could not be “outsourced.” In fact, not many people worked for a salary, anyway. Most men were independent farmers or artisans (e.g., silversmith, shoemaker, tailor), aristocrats supported by family wealth and plantations, or live-in servants or slaves. Nearly everyone lived in proximity to where they worked; any sort of commuting was rare.

National security consisted of enrolling most men into state militias that could be called up in case of invasion or Indian attacks. The regular military consisted of a standing army of maybe 600 officers and men and a naval fleet of six wooden frigates. Just about any army in Europe could have crushed us were it not such a nuisance to get men and ordnance across the Atlantic Ocean in enough numbers to do the job.

As a nation, we’ve been through a lot of stuff that would have been unimaginable to the Founders. We’ve increased in size several times, and within our borders are lands the Founders didn’t even know existed. We’ve experienced a Civil War, waves of immigration, two World Wars, the Great Depression. We live in a world in which nuclear war is possible. We live in a world in which dumped industrial waste can kill hundreds of people. We live in a world in which a sloppy slaughterhouse in Minnesota can give a fatal dose of e coli to a child in Florida. We live in a world in which a worker in China can take a job away from one in North Carolina. We live in a world in which medical science can extend one’s life by many years, but at great cost. We live in a world in which most people depend on a job, and a paycheck, to live. We live in a world that is fighting with itself over issues of race and sexual orientation that 18th century white men simply did not consider.

This world we live in didn’t exist in 1787, and the delegates of the Constitutional Convention couldn’t have imagined it.

As a nation, we have gained much in experience and knowledge since the Constitution was written. We, the People have seen many things, lived through many things, learned many things. The problem is, much of the nation does not trust that experience and knowledge. The modern world is frightening and baffling to them, and they want to retreat to a previous time that never existed, or at least never existed as they imagine it.

When some teabagger starts thumping his chest over protecting the Constitution, what he’s really saying is that he wants to wipe out the last couple of centuries of history and human development. And I bet they could do it, too, if they aren’t kept in check.

PayPal no pal of WikiLeaks

The shunning of WikiLeaks continues. The statement:

PayPal statement regarding WikiLeaks

December 3, 2010

PayPal has permanently restricted the account used by WikiLeaks due to a violation of the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity. We’ve notified the account holder of this action.

This is nothing new for PayPal. In 2004, they denied PayPal to the Leonard Peltier Defense Fund. PayPal is owned by eBay.

Freedom is going down the toilet thanks to corporate America. A commenter at PayPal's "watercooler":

A free society needs free information. Wikileaks demonstrates that it is the US (and other!) governments who are engaged in illegal activity.

The Pentagon Papers were released to show a government's immorality. Everyone agrees this was essential for a correction in a government's direction. We need whistleblowers to show where governments and corporations DO NOT represent their peoples' interests or values.

PayPay does a disservice to freedom, truth, and democracy by turning on truth-seekers.

"If the left doesn’t stand against Obama and doesn’t primary him, it stands for nothing and for nobody."

Byron York:

“By the end of 2010, President Obama will have escalated the war in Afghanistan, there will be 50,000 American troops in Iraq, Guantanamo will remain open, some of the most controversial aspects of the Bush war on terror will still be in effect, there will be no grand climate legislation, no comprehensive immigration reform, no second round of stimulus, and oh, by the way — they’re going to extend Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.”

Ian Welsh:

He’s a Reaganite. It’s what he believes in, genuinely. Moreover he despises left wingers, likes kicking gays and women whenever he gets a chance and believes deeply and truly in the security state (you did notice that Obama administration told everyone to take their objections to backscatter scanners and groping and shove them where the sun don’t shine, then told you they’re thinking of extending TSA police state activities to other public transit?)

Let me put it even more baldly. Obama is, actually, a bad man. He didn’t do the right thing when he had a majority, and now that he has the excuse of a Republican House he’s going to let them do bad thing after bad thing. This isn’t about “compromise”, this is about doing what he wants to do anyway, like slashing social security. The Senate, you remember, voted down the catfood comission. Obama reinstituted it by executive fiat.

If the left doesn’t stand against Obama and doesn’t primary him, it stands for nothing and for nobody.

John R. MacArthur (Harper's):

So who is the best person to take on Obama? My first choice would be a rejuvenated Howard Dean, who might be the only hope left for the cause of liberal reform, at least in my lifetime. After scaring the wits out of the party’s Iraq-compromised establishment in 2004 with his anti-war and pro-small-donation crusade, Dean performed the thankless task of chairing the Democratic National Committee in some of its dark years. In that post, he compromised himself again and again in the interest of party unity and beating the Republicans in 2008. This involved the deeply unpleasant task of collaboration with the violent-tempered Emanuel, as well as with New York Senator Charles Schumer (another anti-reform Democrat), who was chairman of the party’s Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Yet for all his hard work, Dean was rewarded by being passed over for the new Cabinet and was not invited to continue running the DNC. What’s more, in an ugly bit of symbolism, RahmObama named as press secretary Robert Gibbs, who was spokesman for the Democratic 527 committee whose sleazy advertising contributed to killing off Dean in the Iowa caucuses six years ago.

Already detested by Emanuel (our new Dick Cheney), Dean has more recently committed the cardinal sin of party disloyalty by openly denouncing Obama’s (and Max Baucus’s and Joe Lieberman’s) attempt to transfer huge amounts of taxpayer money to Wellpoint and other big insurance companies. So what’s he got to lose, except maybe an election? The country, on the other hand, might have much to gain. And Obama could relearn an important lesson about politics, and the consequences of betrayal.

"GIVEN THE PERSIAN NEGOTIATOR'S CULTURAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS..."

A WikiLeaked confidential U.S. cable from 1979:

PERHAPS THE SINGLE DOMINANT ASPECT OF THE PERSIAN PSYCHE IS AN OVERRIDING EGOISM. ITS ANTECEDENTS LIE IN THE LONG IRANIAN HISTORY OF INSTABILITY AND INSECURITY WHICH PUT A PREMIUM ON SELF-PRESERVATION. THE PRACTICAL EFFECT OF IT IS AN ALMOST TOTAL PERSIAN PREOCCUPATION WITH SELF AND LEAVES LITTLE ROOM FOR UNDERSTANDING POINTS OF VIEW OTHER THAN ONE'S OWN.

[...]

GIVEN THE PERSIAN NEGOTIATOR'S CULTURAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS, HE IS GOING TO RESIST THE VERY CONCEPT OF A RATIONAL (FROM THE WESTERN POINT OF VIEW) NEGOTIATING PROCESS.

America the arrogant and condescending. No wonder they hate us.

"I ask Amazon to terminate immediately my membership ...Yours (no longer), Daniel Ellsberg"

Antiwar.blog:

Open letter to Amazon.com Customer Service:

December 2, 2010

I’m disgusted by Amazon’s cowardice and servility in abruptly terminating today its hosting of the Wikileaks website, in the face of threats from Senator Joe Lieberman and other Congressional right-wingers. I want no further association with any company that encourages legislative and executive officials to aspire to China’s control of information and deterrence of whistle-blowing.

For the last several years, I’ve been spending over $100 a month on new and used books from Amazon. That’s over. I ask Amazon to terminate immediately my membership in Amazon Prime and my Amazon credit card and account, to delete my contact and credit information from their files and to send me no more notices.

I understand that many other regular customers feel as I do and are responding the same way. Good: the broader and more immediate the boycott, the better. I hope that these others encourage their contact lists to do likewise and to let Amazon know exactly why they’re shifting their business. I’ve asked friends today to suggest alternatives, and I’ll be exploring service from Powell’s Books, Half-Price Books, Biblio and others.

So far Amazon has spared itself the further embarrassment of trying to explain its action openly. This would be a good time for Amazon insiders who know and perhaps can document the political pressures that were brought to bear–and the details of the hasty kowtowing by their bosses–to leak that information. They can send it to Wikileaks (now on servers outside the US), to mainstream journalists or bloggers, or perhaps to sites like antiwar.com that have now appropriately ended their book-purchasing association with Amazon.

Yours (no longer),
Daniel Ellsberg

"The jobless rate has now topped 9 percent for 19 straight months, the longest stretch on record."

A.P. (via TPM):

The jobless rate has now topped 9 percent for 19 straight months, the longest stretch on record.

All told there were 15.1 million people unemployed in November.

Adding those unemployed people to others who are working part time but would prefer full-time jobs and those who have given up looking for work, 17 percent of the labor force is "underemployed." That was the same as October. Still, the figure remains close to a record high set last year.

Another grim figure: There was a record 1.3 million "discouraged" workers in November. Those are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available to them.

The next time someone says the recession is over, shrug your shoulders and say, "so what?"

"Sabotage is the younger cousin of the boycott ... for bad pay, bad work!"

"The less we allow ourselves to be put down by the bosses, the less intense will be our exploitation, the stronger will be our revolutionary résistance, the greater will be the consciousness of our dignity and the more vigorous our desires for liberty and well-being."
- Emile Pouget

From a simpler time, an excerpt from Emile Pouget's Sabotage (1898):

Sabotage is the conscious shirking of duties, it is the botching of a job, it is the grain of sand cunningly stuck in the fine gears so that the machine remains broken down, it is the systematic sinking of the boss…. All this practiced on the sly, without making a fuss, or showing off.

Sabotage is the younger cousin of the boycott. And, hell, in a whole string of cases where the strike is impossible it can render damn good service to the proles. When an exploiter senses that his workers are not in a position to strike, he doesn’t deprive himself of the pleasure of humiliating them. Caught in the spiral of exploitation, the poor buggers, afraid of being sacked, dare not say a word. They are eaten up with anger, but bow their heads: they submit to the bosses’ indignities, burning up inside.

But they suffer it! And, whether it is with or without rage, the boss doesn’t give a damn, provided they do as he wishes.

Why is it this way?

Because the proles have not found a means to respond tit-for-tat and, by their actions, neutralize his nastiness.

Yet the means exists:

It is sabotage!

[...]

Recently, the International Longshoremen’s Union, which has its offices in London, sent out a manifesto advocating sabotage, so that the dockers will have the nerve to practice it, since up to this point, the English proles have used sabotage particularly in the mines and textile factories.

Here is the manifesto in question:

What does “Go canny” mean?

It’s a short and useful word to designate a new tactic employed by workers instead of going on strike.

If two Scotsmen are walking together and one is going too fast the other says to him: “Go canny,” which means, “Slow down.”

If someone wants to buy a hat worth five francs he has to pay five francs. But if he wants to only pay four then he’ll have one of lesser quality. A hat is a form of “merchandise.”

If someone wants to buy six shirts at two francs each he has to pay twelve francs. If he only pays ten he’ll only get five shirts. A shirt is a form of “merchandise sold in the market.”

If a housewife wants to buy a piece of beef worth three francs she has to pay for it. And if she only offers two francs then she’ll be given bad meat. Beef, too, is a “merchandise sold in the market.”

Well, the bosses declare that labor and skill are “merchandises for sale in the market,” like hats, shirts, and beef.

Perfect, we answer. We’ll take you at your word.

If it is “merchandise” we’ll sell it like the hat maker sells his hats and the butcher his meat. They give bad merchandise for bad prices, and we’ll do the same.

The bosses have no right to count on our charity. If they refuse to discuss our demands, well, we’ll put in practice the “Go canny,” the slowdown, while waiting for them to listen to us.

Here, then is sabotage neatly defined: for bad pay, bad work!

[...]

The less we allow ourselves to be put down by the bosses, the less intense will be our exploitation, the strong will be our revolutionary résistance, the greater will be the consciousness of our dignity and the more vigorous our desires for liberty and well-being.

Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth provides a wonderful set of translations of radical works. Check it out.

“If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books.”

L.A. Times:

Amazon.com Inc. seems to have kicked WikiLeaks off its computers.

The website, which recently released troves of sensitive diplomatic cables, had been hosted by the online retailer’s servers.

But on Wednesday, WikiLeaks posted on Twitter that it had been “ousted.”

“Free speech the land of the free – fine our $ are now spent to employ people in Europe,” read one missive, quickly followed by another: “If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books.”

Color me unsurprised. Wouldn't want to tarnish the old corporate image by hosting for a guy that Mike Huckabee wants to execute.

That's one less bookstore to receive my business.