#IReadsYou Review: GOOD ON BOTH SIDES - A (th)ink Anthology

GOOD ON BOTH SIDES – A (TH)INK ANTHOLOGY #5
KEITH KNIGHT PRESS/Microcosm Publishing

CARTOONIST: Keith Knight
ISBN: 978-0-9788053-5-7; paperback; 6" x 7.5" x 0.4" (June 2022)
128pp, Color, $20.00 U.S.

Good on Both Sides is a new collection of the socio-political, single-panel comic strip, (th)ink.  Debuting in 2000 on the now defunct website, Africana.com, (th)ink is the creation of Keith Knight, a cartoonist, comics creator, and musician.  Knight is also the creator and an executive producer on the recent Hulu series, “Woke.”  (th)ink currently appears in several outlets, including the Nib, Daily KOS, Antigravity, and The Funny Times.

Good on Both Sides, the fifth (th)ink paperback collection, takes its title by paraphrasing Donald Trump's moral equivalency after the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.  It covers (th)ink episodes published during the early years of Donald Trump's masquerade as the 45th President of the United States.  Knight captures the absurdity of the time under an absurd leader and chronicles and depicts everything that made non-white supremacists cringe.

THE LOWDOWN:  In a sense political cartoonists are a dime a dozen.  The truth is that I have a hard time finding many that are really bad at their chosen professions.  What makes Keith Knight different?

I first became acquainted with Knight's work in late 2006 when I received a copy of Are We Feeling Safer Yet? (2007), the second (th)ink collection.  Sadly, I lost touch with him and had not thought of him until I heard about his Hulu TV series, “Woke,” last year.  I recently reconnected with him to request a copy-for-review of Good on Both Sides.  On the back cover of this book is a quote from Dawn Tol, part of which reads, “Keith Knight has never been more overtly Black.”

That is what makes Knight different from other political cartoonists.  He is Black.  Yes, there are other African-American political cartoonists (Walt Carr, David G. Brown), but for now, we are talking about Keith Knight, who is from a particular tradition.  That tradition involves Coloreds, Negroes, Afro-Americans, African-American, etc. who do not bite their tongues, metaphorically or otherwise, for the sake of propriety and for the feelings of good White folk and cautious, fretting Black folk.

I had forgotten just how screwed up the first half of Trump's occupation was … because the second half turned into … well,you know.  Knight's commentary via political cartoons is both incisive and relentless.  I won't say that he is “unapologetic” because apologizing is irrelevant in the context of what Knight does.  It isn't just Trump that is wrong with this country; it is also the rotten culture and society.  Honestly, much of that rot comes from White racism, supremacy, and privilege:  those that perpetuate it; those that enjoy the advantages while letting someone else do the dirty work; and those who benefit and give nominal lip service in criticizing it.

In Good on Both Sides, nothing and no one is spared.  Warts and all, Klan robes and hoods:  Knight reveals the stains without a thought for decorum.  Political commentary, words, pictures, or cartoons need that, especially when so many commentators want us to “turn down the temperature.”  Knight is the triple truth, Ruth.

Good on Both Sides isn't all about Trump.  As I said, there were plenty of awful people during that time who deserve Knight's punches.  Knight also offers several nice memorials and tributes to such luminaries as W.E.B. Du Bois, Dick Gregory, and Josephine Baker, to name a few.  I am not crazy about everything in Good on Both Sides, but it's close.  I could have read another hundred pages just to see what Knight has to say about the time period this collection covers.

Keith Knight's political cartoons are timely, and many are timeless.  The timeless ones will always have bite, but the timely will cut like a knife for years to come.  And Good on Both Sides is just plain funny.  I laughed a lot, and I practically always need that from political cartoons.  I encourage you, dear readers, to get a copy of Good on Both Sides.  Maybe if enough of you read it, someone will get the notion to shortlist Mr. Knight for a Pulitzer Prize.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of great political cartoons and of Keith Knight's work will want to read Good on Both Sides.

A

★★★★+ out of 4 stars

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


You can buy copies of Good on Both Sides at indie book stores or at the following online shops: here or https://keithknight.bigcartel.com/product/pre-order-good-on-both-sides-the-new-th-ink-collection and here or https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/1446.


Find Keith Knight on the Internet:
https://keithknightart.com/
https://kchronicles.com/
https://twitter.com/KeefKnight
https://www.patreon.com/keefknight
https://www.instagram.com/iamkeithknight/?hl=en
https://keithknight.bigcartel.com/
https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/1446
https://www.facebook.com/keithknightcartoonist/
https://www.gocomics.com/thekchronicles


The text is copyright © 2022 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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#IReadsYou Review: ARE WE FEELING SAFER YET? - A (th)ink Anthology

ARE WE FEELING SAFER YET? A (TH)INK ANTHOLOGY #2
KEITH KNIGHT PRESS/Top Shelf Productions

CARTOONIST: Keith Knight
ISBN-13: 978-0-9788053-0-2; paperback; (January 2007)
128pp, B&W, $12.95 U.S., $16.95 CAN

Keith Knight is a cartoonist, musician, and television creator and executive producer (Hulu's “Woke”).  Knight also produces a weekly multi-panel strip, The K Chronicles, and he has previously contributed to MAD Magazine and ESPN The Magazine.

One of Knight's other comics is (th)ink, a socio-political (mostly) single-panel cartoon.  It began life in 2000 as a digital comic on the now defunct website, Africana.com.  Over the years, (th)ink has appeared on numerous websites and has been published in daily and alternative newspapers (including the San Francisco Chronicle, The Rocky Mountain Chronicle, and the Haight Ashbury Beat).  It currently appears in the Nib, Daily KOS, Antigravity, and The Funny Times, to name a few.

Published in 2007, Are We Feeling Safer Yet? was the second paperback collection of Knight's (th)ink cartoons.  What follows is the edited and revised text of a review of Are We Feeling Safer Yet? that I wrote for another website in late 2006:

THE LOWDOWN:  Although Knight probably calls (th)ink a comic strip, it's more like an ongoing editorial cartoon.  Knight's work is certainly related in terms of comic strips to work of cartoonist, Garry Trudeau, who is best known for his award-winning newspaper comic, Doonesbury.  As an African-American cartoonist, Knight's work is similar in tone to Aaron McGruder newspaper comic strip, The Boondocks.  However, while, Trudeau and McGruder deal with a cast of continuing characters and use them to comment on politics, society, and culture, Knight's cast is America itself.  Essentially, that is what an editorial cartoonist generally uses as his cast – our nation, even if, as a group, editorial cartoonists seemed fixated on politicians and in particular, the sitting President (in this case George W. Bush).

Knight is sharp and clever, and his humor and commentary are even sharper.  He is, though, not mean-spirited, and he only draws blood when he has to do so - such as when he uses a guy discovering that his color and white laundry have been mixed to comment on integration (p. 46).  Sometimes he cuts a subject because they handed him the blade, as in a cartoon featuring Snoop Dogg which comments on the rapper-actor's behavior on stage (p.78).

Knight is probably often compared to McGruder because both are Black cartoonists/commentators and both take the Bush Administration to the shed, but there, the similarity ends.  Knight belongs on the editorial page.  Because he uses Black characters and often deals with African-American or Hip-Hop culture doesn't make him different from white cartoonists and commentators who ply their trade on our nation's newspaper editorial sections.

Keith Knight is a funny guy, but he is astute like the good editorial cartoonist should be.  What Knight says with pen and ink makes sense, and he's ready for the big time. [End of text of original review.]

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of Keith Knight and (th)ink will want Are We Feeling Safer Yet?

A
★★★★+ out of 4 stars

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


Readers can buy copies of Are We Feeling Safer Yet here or at https://keithknight.bigcartel.com/product/are-we-feeling-safer-yet-th-ink-book-2 or https://lastgasp.com/products/are-we-feeling-safer-yet-a-think-anthology?_pos=1&_sid=19da0e2ca&_ss=r.


Find Keith Knight on the Internet:
https://keithknightart.com/
https://kchronicles.com/
https://twitter.com/KeefKnight
https://www.patreon.com/keefknight
https://www.instagram.com/iamkeithknight/?hl=en
https://keithknight.bigcartel.com/
https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/1446
https://www.facebook.com/keithknightcartoonist/
https://www.gocomics.com/thekchronicles


The text is copyright © 2022 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Book Review: SH*T MY PRESIDENT SAYS: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump

SH*T MY PRESIDENT SAYS: THE ILLUSTRATED TWEETS OF DONALD J. TRUMP
IDW PUBLISHING/Top Shelf Productions – @IDWPublishing @topshelfcomix

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

WRITERS:  Shannon Wheeler, Donald Trump
ARTIST: Shannon Wheeler
EDITORS: Chris Staros, Greg Goldstein, Leigh Walton
ISBN: 978-1-60309-410-8; hardcover – 5” x 6.5” (August 2017)
120pp, B&W, $14.99 U.S., $19.99 CAN

Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump is a 2017 book of cartoons from award-winning cartoonist, Shannon Wheeler (Too Much Coffee Man).  The book collects a selection of President Donald J. Trump's tweets of which Wheeler provided an accompanying illustration for context, illumination, or otherwise.

Before he (tragically) became President of the United States, Donald Trump was a real estate “mogul,” controversial figure, media personality, and anti-African-American bigot who once demanded the summary execution of five young men of color who were accused of a crime they did not commit.  Trump joined social media site, Twitter, in 2009 and began tweeting, first to promote himself, his appearances, and his business interests.

Trump's Twitter account turned tragic, probably after about a year, when he began fancying a run for president and also decided that the way to establish himself was to criticize President Barack Obama.  Soon, many of tweets began to make it obvious to the people who acted as if they never noticed what an incorrigible bigot, racist, sexist, and xenophobe Trump was and still is.  His pettiness and petulance is frankly stunning.  Imagine reading those tweets with cartoons that brutally accurately illustrate what a really bigly sad person Donald Trump is.

Back in 2008, Top Shelf Productions published Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance by Bill Kelter and Wayne Shellabarger.  It was an illustrated history, survey, and list of the first 46 Vice-Presidents of the United States, from the first, John Adams, to the forty-sixth, Dick Cheney.  Over the past few decades many people have proclaimed many titles from comic book publishers as worthy of being placed in secondary and college education classrooms.

Many of those comic books and books are subject to debate as to whether they should be in classrooms; some clearly should not be in classrooms.  Veeps should be on high school history and social studies reading lists.  I think Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump is another Top Shelf book that belongs in classrooms and also in waiting rooms, public libraries, and in the offices of the leaders of every country of Earth.

Sh*t My President Says takes its title from Justin Halpern's “Shit My Dad Says” Twitter account which spawned a book and a short-lived CBS television series.  Although I have heard of Halpern's social media feed and even watched the first episode of the TV series, I have never read any of Halpern's tweets.  Quite frankly, I don't particularly care about the statements or opinions of white men who are of middle age and older.  The exceptions are some white men and older who are artists, writers, journalists, publishers, comic book creators, filmmakers, recording artists, performers, public figures, thinkers, and scientists – you know, creative types.  I don't care for the opinions of old white men who were once professional athletes even if I liked them in their athletic prime because, for the most part, many of them resent young African-American athletes (Terry Bradshaw, Mike Ditka, Boomer Esiason, to name a few).  So I don't give a shit about the shit Halpern's dad says.

I also ignore Donald Trump's Twitter account.  However, I am interested in what Shannon Wheeler has to say, especially via his pen.  Calling this a book of illustrated tweets is not quite accurate because it makes it sounds as if Wheeler has merely drawn cartoons to go with the tweets.  He does so much more than that, to the point that these cartoons sometime defies description.

Some of Wheeler's cartoons mock the tweets they accompany, such as the August 6, 2012 tweet about Barack Obama's birth certificate.  Sometimes, these cartoons illustrate Trump's authoritarian leanings in a way that is not funny, but poignant (July 18, 2013, which is essentially Trump's complaint about regular people criticizing famous people).  Many of the cartoons are prescient because I think many of us are just now understanding that Trump is not self-aware.  For instance, I don't think he understands how callous he often comes across to people.  There is a tweet from September 11, 2013 related to 9/11, and Wheeler's simple, but evocative cartoon is like a warning, sent from the day he drew it to every day of the future.  It is as if Wheeler is saying that we should beware this man's vanity and ego, and man who does not recognize sanctity and sacredness outside himself.

Make no mistake, however; much of this book is funny.  Yes, this sh*t will tickle your funny bone as much as it tackles ye olde thinking side.  Every single person who buys books about politics and all those who read political cartoons must have a copy of Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump.  Honestly, in a better world, this book would sell millions.

A+
10 out of 10

www.sh-tmypresidentsays.com
www.topshelfcomix.com

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


The text is copyright © 2017 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (OGN)

HUNTER S. THOMPSON'S FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
TOP SHELF PRODUCTIONS – @topshelfcomix

CARTOONIST: Troy Little – @meanwhilestudio
STORY: Hunters S. Thompson (his novel)
EDITORS: Ted Adams and Denton J. Tipton
ISBN: 978-1-60309-375-0; hardcover (October 2015)
176pp, Color, $24.99 U.S.

Mature readers (16+)

Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream first saw life as a two-art series for Rolling Stone magazine in 1971.  It was published as a book  (with illustrations by Ralph Steadman)  in 1972 and has gone onto be considered one of the most important American novels ever published.

Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a full-color graphic novel adaptation of Thompson's novel.  The graphic novel is the creation of Eisner-nominated comic book creator and writer-artist, Troy Little (Chiaroscuro).  The original novel is influential; its adaptation by Troy Little is a masterwork.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream follows its protagonist, Raoul Duke (Hunter S. Thompson's alter ego), and Duke's attorney, Dr. Gonzo, as they travel to Las Vegas.  This story is based on two actual trips to Las Vegas that Thompson took with his attorney, the Chicano activist, Oscar Zeta Acosta, who becomes Dr. Gonzo in the story.

In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Duke and Gonzo are initially in Las Vegas to cover “The Mint 400,” an off-road race for motorcycles and dune buggies that apparently offers the richest prize or purse for the winners.  The second Las Vegas assignment is a request by Rolling Stone for Duke to write a 50 thousand word piece about a four-day seminar by the National Conference of District Attorneys.

Along the way, Duke and Gonzo descend into a haze from their drug and alcohol-fueled bender.  Duke searches for the American dream and ruminates on the failure of the 1960s counter-culture movement.  After crashing a drug-enforcement conference, racking-up large room-service bills, and wrecking two hotel rooms, however, both men will discover that it is difficult to leave Las Vegas.

As a former journalism student, I have heard of Hunter S. Thompson, of course.  He was the gold-standard and a legend to fellow students, but to me, he was just another famous White journalist upon whose altar I was supposed to worship.  I have never read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, although I have had vague plans to do so for over two decades.  I had seen him on television several times before he died, and I have read at least one piece written by him.  Perhaps, I have read more, but I don't remember any of it.

I know Thompson best by the most famous parody of him, “Uncle Duke,” the character in Doonesbury, Gary Trudeau's long-running satirical daily newspaper comic strip.  I am familiar with the movie adaptations of Thompson's work, but have not seen those films.  So, when Top Shelf Productions sent me a copy of their graphic novel adaptation, Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I did not know what I was going to do.  I considered ignoring it and not reading it, but Top Shelf has always been cool with recognizing me as someone they want to review their books.

Of course, I should have had more faith in them.  This book is an absolute blast to read.  It is one of the best comic books of 2015, and I consider it a tremendous achievement on writer-artist Troy Little's part.  Readers who admire comic books as more than just escapist entertainment, and thus, are always on the lookout for standout material, should read Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The graphical storytelling, in particularly the art and illustrations of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas the comic book, focuses on Duke and Gonzo's supernatural consumption of drugs, alcohol, and an amazing array of mind-altering substances.  Little's cartoon recreation of Duke and Gonzo's mother-of-all-Vegas-benders is the most beautiful depiction of debauched substance abuse that I have seen since I first watched director Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream (2000).

The vivid and spectacular colors bring the hallucinations and the claustrophobic cafes, conference rooms, and hotel rooms to life.  Little's drawing style for this graphic novel is similar to the kind of drawing styles used by political cartoonists, which works quite well when the story engages the characters.  The political styling connects Raoul Duke's political and social examinations to the main body of the narrative, which is about Duke and Dr. Gonzo's madness.

I think that if the book has a fault, it is that the political and social ruminations are relegated to exposition in caption boxes.  The art mainly focuses on the insanity of and the savage humor in Duke and Gonzo's interactions with drugs and with other people.  Because I loved the glorious madness of Duke and Gonzo's demented Vegas adventures, I really don't want to find fault with anything, so if you want to believe that this graphic novel is not perfect, there you go...  I was genuinely sad when I got to the last page of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  I guess I'll have to start reading it again.

A+

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

Carl Gibson's Open Letter to Democrats

Get Left or Be Left
By Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News

09 June 12

Reader Supported News Perspective

An open letter to Democratic Party leaders.

Dear Democratic Party leaders,

Your lackluster 2012 recall performance in Wisconsin reminded me of another lackluster performance I saw in Mississippi in 2010.

At a local bar's karaoke night in downtown Jackson, a dopey-looking middle-aged man in a jet-black toupee sang "Gimme All Your Lovin" by ZZ Top, drunkenly and off-key, to a group of young women at a nearby table. He was really getting into it until he stumbled off of the stage, knocked over their drinks, and spilled beer all over himself. The music stopped, and the women started laughing at him instead of with him. He sat by himself in the back of the room for the rest of the night. That was the second most painful thing I've ever watched.

The most painful thing I ever watched was when Tom Barrett got his ass handed to him by a proto-fascist governor who ran on punishing working families to reward his wealthy campaign donors with the salaries of public servants. This happened despite massive populist protests in Madison, an army of volunteers getting 1,000,000 recall signatures in the dead of winter and tirelessly knocking on over 1,000,000 doors leading up to the election, and his opponent's brand being associated with corruption. Despite what should have been a slam-dunk at a time when the far right is losing the battle of public opinion, Barrett's recall attempt fell flat on its face.

The Dems lost to Walker but took back the Senate, so I don't blame the unions or the volunteers. I don't even fully blame Wisconsin's shameless corporate-owned media, Super PACs, Citizens United, or Scott Walker's campaign war chest. Rather, Democratic Party leaders simply ignored and dismissed the powerful economic populist narrative that united the world around the Wisconsin State Capitol and Wall Street Occupations of 2011, and proved how out of touch they are with the 99 percent.

President Obama and DNC leadership treated the Wisconsin recall like a statewide race that didn't have national significance and put it on the backburner while the president campaigned for himself in neighboring states. But the RNC and their fascist wing, the Tea Party, outsmarted you in Wisconsin, so their multi-state class war will continue unabated, and perhaps even exacerbated. You'll continue to get pounded until you nominate and fundraise for candidates that are as far to the left as Scott Walker is to the right. I'm talking the kind of candidates who make stump speeches in the same vein of anti-robber-baron populism as FDR in 1934, or Martin Luther King in 1968.

Even British media smelled the stink of your failure in Wisconsin, calling out Clinton and Barrett for their milquetoast, plain-vanilla pitch to crucial voters at a crucial campaign stop. When your opponents actively seek to crush working families and the institutions that protect them, you don't energize those workers by telling them you'll work hand-in-hand with their oppressors. Wisconsin voters didn't force a recall to seek consensus with Republicans. They forced a recall to make a statement against a corrupt Republican regime that cares more about punishing its political enemies than serving the public interest.

Even though Blue Dog Democrat Tom Barrett lost handily to Scott Walker in 2010, establishment leaders still tapped him as the nominee for the recall election. Answer this: Why would the same guy, saying the same things, somehow have a different result against the same opponent he already lost to not even two years beforehand? Would it have killed you to nominate a woman, a person of color, someone younger than sixty, or at the very least, someone who doesn't wear the same color tie as his opponent? Why did you have to pick a boring white male career politician to challenge another boring white male career politician in a historic recall attempt?

Scott Walker made a mockery of the Badger State by ruling as the manager of the Midwest subsidiary for Koch Industries instead of serving as the Governor of Wisconsin. He proudly replaced union workers with prison labor, and oversaw the loss of over 30,000 jobs while middle class wages decreased and corporate profits have never been higher. Democrats chose instead to play defense to Walker's lies.

Even though corporate tax collections in Wisconsin are lower than the national average, Democratic Party leaders never forced the conversation about all the millions of dollars wasted on corporate tax breaks and subsidies that only exacerbated the jobs crisis in Wisconsin, growing wealth inequality, or the troublesome Orwellian police state Wisconsin Republicans gleefully brought about by arresting silent protesters in the Assembly gallery. In a state as polarized as Wisconsin, that type of rhetoric is exactly what was needed to motivate and energize the base. President Obama polled better than Barrett in Wisconsin: if he made good on his promise to put on his walking shoes and march like he said he would when collective bargaining was under attack, or if he used his presidential bully pulpit to oppose Walker's class war, if he did anything more than tweet for Barrett on election day, it may have made the difference.

People like those who run the DNC are the same reason my generation hates Democrats just as much as we hate Republicans, and why we're so turned off by the electoral process. You want votes from young, energetic 21st-century citizens? Stop running old and tired 20th-century candidates and 20th-century messaging. Leave the leadership up to the young leaders who haven't forgotten how to organize for meaningful change.

In the meantime, labor leaders should defy the outdated Taft-Hartley law and call for a nationwide general strike in the wake of the Democrats' recall flop. If the 1 percent is determined to wage class war, let's fight back. It's time to lead the Democrats where we want to go, instead of waiting for them to lead us.

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Carl Gibson, 25, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary "We're Not Broke," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Old Lyme, Connecticut. You can contact Carl at carl@rsnorg.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and listen to his online radio talk show, Swag The Dog, at blogtalkradio.com/swag-the-dog.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

George Lucas: Billionaire Philanthropist

Going Where No Billionaire Has Gone Before
By Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News
15 May 12

Reader Supported News Perspective

The world needs more billionaires like George Lucas.

George Lucas, worth $3.2 billion as of 2011, may have ruined his reputation with his fans by creating Jar Jar Binks and making a travesty of a film like Episode 1, but his latest move may be the finest moment of his career.

At first, Lucas intended to use his property at Old Grady Ranch in Marin County, California, to build a 300,000 square-foot movie studio. The plan, according to Lucas, would generate $300 million in economic activity for the area. His neighbors resisted him every step of the way, insisting that the constant construction and extra traffic would be a blight to the community.

Now, the filmmaker has abandoned his efforts, and instead will build affordable housing for low-income families and elderly people living on fixed incomes. Here's an excerpt from his official statement:

"We plan to sell the Grady property expecting that the land will revert back to its original use for residential housing. We hope we will be able to find a developer who will be interested in low-income housing since it is scarce in Marin. If everyone feels that housing is less impactful on the land, then we are hoping that the people who need it most will benefit."

There are literally five vacant buildings for every homeless person in America. And the latest US Census data shows that half of America is either poor or low-income. After the housing bubble burst and the recession hit, homelessness jumped 32% between April 2008 and April 2009, undoubtedly exacerbated by all the new foreclosures. And, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, 40% of those facing eviction from foreclosures are renters. An additional seven million low-income households are at risk of foreclosure. Despite all this, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, whose bank has been accused of fraudulently foreclosing on thousands of veterans, haughtily defended his bank's practice of risky Wall Street speculative trading that sent a whopping $2 billion down the drain.

If anything has changed in the last ten years since the first Star Wars prequel was made and today, it's been a greater redistribution of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 0.1% like Lucas. And while the billionaires at Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Chase are fraudulently foreclosing on needy families, one billionaire filmmaker is making housing more accessible for people who need it the most.

While Lucas' gesture is a good one, it shows the complete lack of attention being paid to low-income families by elected officials, whose job is supposedly to uphold the rights of their constituents when they're being victimized by predatory banking, lending, and deceptively fraudulent mortgages. If President Obama was bold enough to stand up to the Jamie Dimons of the world, he would declare housing to be a human right, make more low-income housing a national priority, and give every American adult who owns a mortgage a $100,000 principal reduction to keep mortgages more in line with the actual value of their home.

Poverty has gone up just as dramatically as the wealth amassed by the 1% and the .01% like George Lucas. And the amount of available low-income housing for needy families has gone down just as dramatically as the value of millions of homes owned by those victimized by the reckless greed of Wall Street executives like Jamie Dimon.

Until George Lucas and his fellow multi-billionaires find it in their hearts to build affordable housing for everyone who needs it, we must hold our elected officials accountable if they continue to side with their Wall Street campaign donors over the 99%.

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Carl Gibson, 25, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary "We're Not Broke," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Old Lyme, Connecticut. You can contact Carl at carl@rsnorg.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and listen to his online radio talk show, Swag The Dog, at blogtalkradio.com/swag-the-dog.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

Stephen King: Tax Me, for F_ _ k's Sake!

Stephen King at The Daily Beast:

Tough shit for you guys, because I'm not tired of talking about it. I've known rich people, and why not, since I'm one of them? The majority would rather douse their dicks with lighter fluid, strike a match, and dance around singing "Disco Inferno" than pay one more cent in taxes to Uncle Sugar. It's true that some rich folks put at least some of their tax savings into charitable contributions. My wife and I give away roughly $4 million a year to libraries, local fire departments that need updated lifesaving equipment (Jaws of Life tools are always a popular request), schools, and a scattering of organizations that underwrite the arts. Warren Buffett does the same; so does Bill Gates; so does Steven Spielberg; so do the Koch brothers; so did the late Steve Jobs. All fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough.

Read more here.

Bill Maher: Republican Debate Review

Republican Debate Review
Bill Maher, Reader Supported News
26 February 12

The Republicans sure have the right symbol with the elephant. Republican debates are nothing but elephants in the room.

The biggest of which must be: to someone out there who's hurting, they spend the whole two hours yammering away about earmarks and illegal immigrants and contraception and every other peripheral, wish-I-had-the-time-to-worry-about-it issue they can think of.

Then there is the elephant of how they all - with the sometime exception of Ron Paul - nod along to insane statements just because they don't want to ever look like they're to the left of anybody, on anything, especially the evilness of Barack Obama. So Wednesday night when Newt said the president of the United States had a history of practicing infanticide... yep, yep, yessir, that's what he does all right. Clubs infants like baby seals in his spare time. Ike played golf, Kennedy liked boating...

Ron Paul said foreign aid just helps our enemies. Which, I believe, would make Israel and Egypt our two biggest enemies. Yup, yup, hate foreign aid. A meaningless percentage of the budget, btw.

Newt said where government becomes the central provider of services, it's a move towards tyranny - yeah, except in all the countries where it isn't, like all of Scandanavia and much of Europe. Today a barium enema paid for by medicare, tomorrow Poland.

And isn't a highlight of every debate when Mitt Romney takes umbrage at being accused of the best thing he ever did in his life - Romneycare? Something he should be proud of? Last night he took out his dueling glove and declared that when he was governor, he made sure there was NO requirement from the church to provide morning after pills for rape victims. They will be punished with a baby, as Jesus would want. Mitt's attitude is always, "How dare you accuse me of helping people or being compassionate! Why, I'll have you know I'm every bit as much of a cold hearted bastard as any of these other pricks up here with me!"

"But Mitt, we have a picture of you giving money to a homeless person."

"I did NOT give a bum money! I was paying him to blow me!"

This Republican field over the last year has been such a comedy gold mine - which I have compacted into a stand-up special I'm doing Thursday night, February 23, called #CrazyStupidPolitics - it's free, and it's live-streamed on Yahoo! 10:30 Eastern (with a mindblowing announcement at the end). I apologize for the shameful plug, but I just want you to have a good laugh! Thank you Arianna, you're the best... and now back to our blog.

The biggest elephant in the room tonight for me was Satan. All day, TV news was talking about Satan because of Rick Santorum's dug-up (but, no doubt still accurate) comments about Satan from 2008. It just shows you how when someone is a nobody politically speaking - as Santorum was in 2008 - you can say any kind of crazy shit and it's not newsworthy. But when you are seeking the highest office in the land... in the world - it really worries me that you believe in demons and a personified creature named Satan.

People get mad at me for using the phrase "this stupid country", which I sometimes do - but, I'm sorry - Satan? In 2012? This elephant is not only in the room at the debates, but everywhere on TV today where people were talking about this and not breaking down in the middle and screaming, Wait a minute - We're modern people, surely we don't give any credence to this comic book character that was created in the bronze age!! It's barely worthy of a children's story, and people take it to the Oval Office - Bush did - and it affects their thinking and our lives. Why is Santorum so against contraception? Because there's a line in Genesis about not spilling your seed. A random brainfart from some desert dweller 3,000 years ago, before people knew about germs or atoms or round planets, and it gets written down and passed down and in 2012 people like Rick Santorum are still too R-word to see that, and that's why some woman in Akron, Ohio might not get birth control.

And as far as Rick's claim tonight that even though he holds these beliefs, he wouldn't legislate them? Bullshit - he said states absolutely had the right to outlaw contraception. That's the same thing - as an officer of the government, he should take the opposite position. Ron Paul would.

My favorite moment of the debate was the last question, when they all were asked to summarize themselves in one word: Ron Paul said "consistency," and you know what? I have no argument with that. It's true, and he's earned it.

The other ones however, I think I could find a more honest word. Mitt Romney said "resolute." I would have gone with "shapeshifter." Or perhaps "irresolute." Rick Santorum said "courage" , whereas I would have said "Bellevue." And Newt Gingrich said "cheerful." I was thinking "pus."

One other thing: in the overtime, I heard Ron Paul make the point to John King that his foreign policy was similar to Eisenhower's, how Ike avoided getting militarily involved in Vietnam or the Suez Canal and got out of Korea. Because he was a military man. Ron Paul served, also - the other three not so much. I know it will never become law, because it would require a constitutional amendment, but I don't think it would be such a bad thing if you had to have served in the military if you wanted to be president. Kennedy also avoided war where many would not have. After him, though, we got into the era of non-servers and draft-dodgers, and used the military like a toy. Ex-soldiers understand it's not. And the president is Commander-in-Chief - shouldn't you have served some time in an organization you're the head of?

I hope this was the last Republican debate. Well, I say that, but I'll need the material after I use up an hour of good jokes tomorrow night, so, fuck it, keep going.

Last bullshit call: In his closing statement, Rick Santorum said that in the race against the Evil One (no, not that Evil One, he was talking about Obama), the president would have the media in his pocket (yeah, except Fox News, lots of newspapers, all of radio... ), and way more money. Huh? Sheldon Adelson this week said he might give $100 million to Newt Gingrich! If he'd give that to Newt who has no chance, he might give more to Romney. And he's just one old cranky billionaire who hates Obama, there's a whole gaggle of them.

And Sheldon, if you want to blow money so bad, just walk into one of your hotels in Vegas and go to the Roulette table.

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Stephen Eric Bronner: At Home With the Bigot

At Home With the Bigot
By Stephen Eric Bronner, Reader Supported News
14 February 12

Reader Supported News Perspective

Republicans and their conservative allies insist that racism is a thing of the past. But their party still serves as the bastion of anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-black, and anti-feminist activism. Not since the Great Depression has its lower-middle class base experienced such disorientation and disruption. President George W. Bush left them with two failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the bursting of the sub-prime housing bubble and the crashing of the derivates market in 2007. And then, on top of it, came the electoral defeat in 2008 that produced the first black president of the United States. Military miscalculation abroad, economic collapse at home, and burning political humiliation fueled the stubborn radicalism and small-minded resentment of what would become the Tea Party. Coming from non-urban areas mostly in the South and the Mid-West, but also from white immigrant enclaves in some big cities, its members have their own forms of moral cognition. They have little use for globalization, the welfare state, new social movements or the "adversary culture" inherited from the 1960s. Wearing revolutionary garb and tricorn hats, disrupting town meetings devoted to healthcare and other social issues, bullying progressive congressional representatives and holding rallies of their own, they constitute a new generation of reactionary activists calling for "revolution" - though, naturally, only one that will protect their privileges and interests.

The Tea Party meshes libertarian capitalists preaching the gospel of the free market and reactionary populists intent upon rehabilitating "family values," rehabilitating religion, and a parochial vision of community. Over the last century, for the most part, these trends were diametrically at odds with one another: Libertarians had little use for rabble-rousing bigots, religious fanatics or the like, while populists hated big business, open markets, and the scientific culture of modernity. Ronald Reagan initially brought these contradictory trends together. He blended the anti-union and de-regulating interests of elites committed to the classical principles of the free market with the cultural conservatism and hyper-nationalism of the old "moral" majority and burgeoning religious movements. George W. Bush built on that coalition. But there was new urgency for an organizational alliance between liberations and populists following the economic collapse of 2008 and subsequent presidential victory of Barack Obama. Fears of dramatic state intervention into the economy blended with horror over the symbolic implications of having a black president for the image of community associated with old television shows like Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver, and Happy Days. Out of this alliance and these anxieties, indeed, the Tea Party was born in 2009.

The GOP was quick to recognize its importance. Seasoned operatives of the Republican Party were soon offering their advice and leadership. They originally thought the Tea Party might be manipulated. But the opposite took place: the tail wound up wagging the dog. There is an old saying: styles make fights. The new rhetoric was supplied by Fox News and a score of feral media demagogues, among whom Glenn Beck and Michael Savage were merely the most venal. Evangelicals and far-right groups associated with them and others like them, and the Tea Party routinely began referring to President Obama as the Anti-Christ and as an Imam. The bigot applauded. Advertisements compared him and his family to chimpanzees, portrayed the White House with rows of watermelons on the lawn, and implied that the president is a crack addict. But the problem apparently was not the bigot's friends who supposedly hate blacks: it was rather Obama who clearly hates whites. The new president was seen as the advocate of the (black) welfare cheat, the (Latino) immigrant, the anti-Christian (Arab) terrorist, the supposedly overpaid (lazy and shiftless) union worker, and anti-family (feminist and gay) forces. The Tea Party channeled the bigot's prejudices. It would become easy for him to identify with the (white) business elite whose (seemingly color-blind) policies attacking the bureaucratic welfare state appeared intent upon recreating a patriarchal world of white privilege.

Lingering economic recession, fear of radical social and economic reform, and fanatical mobilization (coupled with disillusionment of those expecting yet more radical changes by the new regime) brought about the sweeping victory of the far right in the Congressional elections of 2010. Now it was the Republicans' turn to applaud. The Tea Party was not simply nuts. Challenging the seemingly sacrosanct image of FDR and the New Deal, whatever its racist and intolerant elements, the Tea Party had become the agent of what might be termed capitalist fundamentalism. This meant highlighting the "invisible hand" of the market and the individual (not the accumulation process and class) as the units of social analysis. The state budget could now be equated with a household budget and everyone would now echo the mantra of Margaret Thatcher: "There is no society, there are only individuals." The welfare state would now be condemned (once again) not merely as wasteful - but immoral. Hard work brings rewards. Individuals are responsible for themselves, not others. Lack of ambition and foresight by individuals are the causes of unemployment and poverty. No free rides! Evangelicals know the "truth": no abortions, no condoms, and no gay marriage - women back to the kitchen and gays to the closet.

With the increasing influence of the Tea Party upon the Republican Party, indeed, the once modest home afforded the bigot turned into a mansion. Rooms would prove available especially for someone who is neither white nor male and who seemingly represents the less privileged. Women like former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin or Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (R-Minnesota) reaffirm the house-wife or the "soccer mom" in the face of an economy in which the single breadwinner has become an anachronism. A gay couple (two male earners) is trotted out occasionally to congratulate the Tea Party for its libertarian values. There is the Latino Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla), who is apparently terrified by the immigrant mob threatening to invade from South of the border. The bigot has also made friends with an African-American or two. Hermann Cain received his applause for insisting that Blacks were "brain-washed" into supporting the Democratic Party, thereby confirming the bigot's old belief that they are too stupid to favor egalitarian and redistributive policies on their own. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas champions tough love while his (white) wife champions the Tea Party. Then there is Congressman Allen West (R-Fla), whose idea of tolerance is to tell liberals "to get the hell out of the United States" and then identify the Democratic Party with the Nazi propaganda machine. This cast of characters, it should be noted, is not simply useful for propagandizing the undecided: it also reinforces the bigot's idea of what makes a real person of color or a real woman. These political figures validate the benevolent image of a bygone America in which taxes were low, government was small, women were in the kitchen, and the only important color was white.

The clock has already been turned back. A study released on October 29, 2011, by the Bertelsmann Stiftung showed that the United States has plummeted into the bottom five among the thirty nations comprising the industrial world in "Overall Social Justice Rating," "Overall Poverty Prevention Rating," Overall Poverty Rate," "Child Poverty," and "Income Inequality." Libertarian economic policies championed by the Tea Party endanger democratic deliberation, diversity, and cosmopolitan ideals. New socio-economic burdens and constraints also threaten disadvantaged groups. People of color will disproportionately suffer from a flat tax as well as other regressive attempts to shrink the tax base and, subsequently, bankrupt the welfare state. African-Americans and Latinos will be disproportionately impacted by attempts to demand photo-ID, literacy tests, and the like in order to vote. Redistricting and racist zoning regulations are recreating segregation while the uncurbed use of private money in election campaigns is disenfranchising the working people and the poor. Privatizing the prison system has sharply increased incarceration, especially among minority groups: people of color constitute 70% of inmates, nationally, and one in three African-American males is currently either awaiting trial, in jail, or on parole. Since convicts cannot vote, hundred of thousands of primarily African-Americans and people of color are currently being disenfranchised by what has been called the "new Jim Crow."

There is hardly a policy proposal forwarded by the GOP that does not disadvantage people of color, women, and working people - and, worse, there is hardly a single major Republican politician willing to publicly challenge the rhetoric or the proposals of the far right and the Tea Party. The mainstream has justified the extreme. All candidates for the Republican presidential nomination of 2012 seem to worry about a "disappearing white majority" as they take turns in attacking the Civil Rights Act of 1964, "food stamp presidents," and critics of religious dogmatism (as well as the Crusades). White supremacists of varying shades try to recruit and mix with luminaries of the Republican Party at conferences like that hosted by the American Conservative Union. Fragments of half-baked conspiracy theories float around in the minds of many grassroots activists in the Tea Party. Obama may look like he is in charge but (especially since he is black) the more paranoid insist that he is being controlled by more powerful interests and organizations like the Bilderberg banking group, the Trilateral Commission, Freemasons, Islamic terrorists, or Jews - or all of them working in concert. Conspiracy theory is common currency in the Tea Party and, again, there is hardly a single Republican willing to condemn it. Such talk makes no sense and thus frustration grows, resentment increases, and rage intensifies. It is taken out not merely on African-Americans but on other outsiders as well: gays, immigrants, Arabs, and Jews. Bigotry has become a commonplace of political life in the United States. The jargon of prejudice, sometimes veiled and sometimes not, is now so prevalent that most people simply shrug their shoulders. And the Tea Party has been in the vanguard. The influence of their words on action may be indirect: but it is, nonetheless, palpable.

Everyday violence (that mostly goes unreported) against homosexuals, immigrants, and minorities is simply a routine fact of American life. Doctors performing abortions outside the larger cities do so at their own risk. The virtual obsession of the Tea Party with the right to own firearms (including AK-47s) does not merely express a desire to hunt ducks. Mainstream politicians of the Republican Party again fall into line. Sure: explicit calls for the use of violence come only from the margins. Just as the conservative mainstream has helped legitimate the Tea Party, however, the Tea Party is giving new hope to fanatics who stand even further on the right. The Republican Party has lacked the courage to take on the bigots in its own ranks - and its toleration of the Tea Party validates precisely what its ideologues wish to deny: racism is alive and well in the United States. And, all the while, the bigot is smiling. The approving winks that he gets are evident everywhere. What one reaps is what one sows. The prejudices of times past have not disappeared. One just needs to know where to look. Talk about the "end of racism" has become a bad joke. Conservative politics attests to its continuation. The Tea Party will probably find itself in the trashcan of history once Republicans suffer some serious electoral defeats. But its mass base will undoubtedly survive and take new organizational forms as it always has in the past - from the "Know-Nothings" to the KKK to McCarthy to the "Silent Majority" and the "Moral Majority" and God knows what other fringe groups. For the foreseeable future, however, the bigot has no need to worry. With the Republican Party, indeed, he has once again found himself a happy home.

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Stephen Eric Bronner is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Director of Global Relations at the Center for the Study of Genocide, Conflict Resolution, and Human Rights: Rutgers University. The Senior Editor of Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture, he is currently working on a manuscript entitled The Bigot for Yale University Press.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

Matt Taibbi on the Great Corporate Tax Holiday/Scam

The great Matt Taibbi. Go. Read.

Imagine the uproar if Barack Obama, in the middle of this historic revenue crunch and "We're so broke the world is going to end tomorrow!" debt-ceiling hystgeria, decided to declare a second “one-time tax holiday” for, say, unwed single mothers, or recipients of public assistance? Middle America would be running through the streets, firing shotguns out its truck window, waving chainsaws in mall lobbies, etc.

Carl Gibson on ALEC

ALEC: Democracy's Arch-Nemesis
By Carl Gibson, Reader Supported News
18 July 11

Reader Supported News Perspective

In an 1864 letter to Col. William F. Elkins, Abraham Lincoln warned, "... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

In the buildup to the bloodiest war of the 20th century, Benito Mussolini said, "Fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power." He is one of history's most reviled characters for good reason.

Now, corporations like Koch Industries are funneling money into the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a shadowy partnership between Republican legislators and corporate lobbyists. Essentially, ALEC's purpose is to pass laws that enrich corporate profits and investor returns by starving the government of revenue, rigging elections and union-busting.

Unlike the strictly bipartisan National Council of State Legislatures, ALEC's membership is rabidly partisan, with 103 Republicans and 1 Democrat. 98% of ALEC's funding comes from corporations, whereas NCSL is funded almost entirely through legislative dues. And though NCSL shares its views and advice on certain policy, it doesn't write legislation and forbids corporate influence on its activities.

ALEC provides "model bills" to state legislatures, all of which are previously seen by ALEC's corporate board. These model bills are aimed at taking the teeth out of government regulation, giving lavish tax breaks to the wealthy, and using the resulting budget deficits to privatize institutions like schools and prisons. These bills are introduced in multiple statehouses with no required disclosure about an outside group of corporate lobbyists originally crafting the legislation. Some of ALEC's notable alumni include Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Governor Scott Walker.

Some of ALEC's model budget bills would repeal capital gains taxes and estate taxes, fattening the pockets of millionaire hedge-fund managers and trust-fund brats while putting public goods and services under the knife. ALEC's 1995 "Sound Federal Fiscal Policy Resolution" falsely antagonizes higher taxes as the source of higher deficits (instead of the aforementioned tax breaks for the wealthy). This would steer lawmakers toward needless budget cuts that systematically starve the states of jobs and tax dollars, blow massive holes in the budget and create whopping revenue shortfalls.

ALEC's "Legislative Budget Audit Commission Act" would establish a panel in the event of one of these pre-packaged revenue shortfalls, tasked with specifically recommend privatizing or eliminating state agencies, and to present these proposals on January 15. Effectively, this bill would steer all initial legislative business, using revenue shortages as an excuse to eliminate public programs and public workers' rights to organize under the guise of "government efficiency."

By creating a unique legal grey area between lobbying for laws and writing laws, ALEC has enabled the plundering of our state coffers, leaving our tax dollars and public services at the mercy of corporate executives who aren't held accountable by the democratic process. ALEC is big business' tool to circumvent democracy, letting those with the most money write their own laws.

We should heed both Lincoln's and Mussolini's words, and not be afraid to point out fascism when we see it. ALEC's work is an affront to democracy, and its legislation must be soundly rejected in all statehouses if Lincoln's vision of the Republic is to prevail.

Carl Gibson, 24, of Lexington, Kentucky, is a spokesman and organizer for US Uncut, a nonviolent, creative direct-action movement to stop budget cuts by getting corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. He graduated from Morehead State University in 2009 with a B.A. in Journalism before starting the first US Uncut group in Jackson, Mississippi, in February of 2011. Since then, over 20,000 US Uncut activists have carried out more than 300 actions in over 100 cities nationwide.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

John Cory Says "A Sad Day for America" on Birther Victory

A Sad Day for America
By John Cory, Reader Supported News
28 April 11

Reader Supported News Perspective

It is a sorry and sad day for America.

Yesterday, Obama released his long-form birth certificate to cheers and applause and "about time" comments across the great media landscape and inter-tubes.

The Villagers are busy pontificating and examining and thumping their own chests in victory. Everyone is smiling and clapping and proud.

Not me.

What does it say about our "media" that they have spent so much time and so much effort promoting crazy over reality? That our "media" relishes circus clowns jumping out of their clown-cars and spraying clown-seltzer everywhere and then giddily covers the wet and stained audience reaction while ignoring the burning of fact?

And what is the result of today's release by President Obama?

Donald Trump nearly lost his hair-pet as he jumped up and down, shouting: "I'm Superman! I'm Superman! I did what no one else has been able to do. I AM the great black Kryptonite!" NBC must be Soooooooo Verrrrrry Proud!

This should never have been an issue worthy of discussion, let alone news coverage.

The mainstream media has a long history of making the incredible seem credible. If enough crazy people shout loud enough to be overheard at the Villager's cocktail parties - and especially if there is money, ratings and celebrity status to be gained - then the media will make it "news."

Remember the Clinton run for office? The great NY Times witch-hunt for Whitewater? Vince Foster? Jerry Falwell videos of murder and drug-dealing lies? The birth of Fox News, where no slander was too offensive to air?

How about Chris Matthews' constant attacks on Al Gore for being a "serial exaggerator" and a boring wonk? The NY Times and Washington Post constantly questioning Gore's manliness? Remember? Maureen Dowd and Tim Russert, pointing out he wasn't like the macho W. who had nicknames for the press on the airplane and a beer for all.

In 2004 there were outrageous and despicable attacks on John Kerry and Max Cleland's Vietnam service, challenges to combat medals and wounds and smears against the very nature of their service to their country.

Where was the media?

Parroting and promoting the vile and vicious likes of Ann Coulter and John Corsi, and others. No lie too evil or malicious not to be printed or smeared across the airwaves. ABC's Nightline undertook an "investigation" of Kerry's war record by traveling to Vietnam to find someone - anyone - who could verify or confirm his "story," because the government records of the US Navy had become "suspect."

Why, the media had such a grand time questioning those troublesome war medals that at the GOP Convention, real American patriots sported band-aids with little Purple Hearts as they cheered their Vietnam-era AWOL candidate. Wasn't that funny?

President Obama finally put all this birth nonsense to rest. Right?

Do you think there will be questions about the font used on that document? Or the mysterious curls meant to infer an aging document? Or maybe, if we listen carefully, we'll hear the whispers about how it took this long because they had to forge that document, to make it look real when really - it is not. And what about the registration date? Four days after birth?

And what is the effect?

The next presidential candidate who is Black or Latino will have to provide all of his citizenship papers up front and have them certified by holier-than-thou real Americans.

If it is a woman, she will need to show medical records proving she is a natural female with a medical certificate of virginity at marriage. Or, if she is not married, god-forbid, she will require an Evangelical certification of non-Lesbian orientation.

If the candidate is Asian, well, let's just say they are too smart with computers to get caught forging birth certificates so we'll have to figure out a different test for them.

Obama gave in to insanity so the country could move on to important matters, but the truth is, there will be no movement. As Stuart Chase said: "For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible."

There is a stain now, a stain that will permeate future candidates who might be one of them. An outsider. A different one. In trying to satisfy the poisonous present, Mr. Obama ignored his duty to the future.

No, this is a sad day.

Yesterday morning, the media flexed its great star power and forced a president to jump through a flaming hoop to prove he was American. Viewership through venom is so much more profitable than truth or fact.

By the afternoon, they will weigh in on who the winners and losers are.

Last night, some families packed up their belongings because their home had been foreclosed on, or faced medical bankruptcy because their insurance carrier had denied treatment payments, or struggled with whether to pay their utility bill or buy a tank of gas to go looking for a job in the morning.

We know who lost.

And we didn't have to watch TV to know it.

Maybe it is time to turn off, tune out, and drop the news media altogether.

Original link.

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John Cory on the L Word - Liberal

Love Me, I'm a Liberal
By John Cory, Reader Supported News
11 April 11
Reader Supported News
Perspective

"If God did not want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep." - Calvero from The Magnificent Seven

So, Mr. Obama saved us from a government shutdown. That's good, right?

I don't think so, but then, I'm not part of the hoi polloi that runs this joint.

Listen to the spin coming from the Democrats and Mr. Obama using their upside down language of "... reducing spending while still investing in the future is just common sense ..."

We are not investing in America by these spending cuts, but rather breaking the great Republic into more pieces for sale to the lowest corporate bidder. This is the privatization of America and the turning of citizens into sharecroppers.

Gore Vidal said it best:

"America has only one political party - the property party. It's the party of big corporations, the party of money. And it has two right wings, one is Democrat and the other is Republican."

Let's be honest here - Obama and Democrats may have dodged a shutdown but they joined the shakedown. And it is going to keep coming: the debt ceiling vote, 2012 budget vote, the GOP Medicare fraud of Paul Ryan and the selling off of our educational system to privateers who will and are turning colleges and public schools into corporate vocational-training centers. Training tomorrow's corporate citizens in conformity and consumerism. Digby posted this scene from Network a while back and it is worth watching again. Satire turned into reality.

Glenn Beck warned that we had elected Malcolm X, but it turns out we elected Malcolm-In-The-Middle. Wherever the "middle" is. And while Mr. Obama and the Democrats pat themselves on the back for "historic cuts" and keeping the corporation government open for business and tell us how compromise is necessary and how both sides came out a winner - I'd like to take this moment to say: Bullshit! This ain't T-Ball where everyone gets a trophy just for playing, Mr. President!

And the Democratic Party is flooding my inbox with pleas for money and support to fight the craven GOP and re-elect Mr. Obama for the sake of the country. Oh Please!

In the intro to his song, Love Me, I'm a Liberal, Phil Ochs said: "In every American community you have varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals ... Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally."

The last verse of Love Me, I'm a Liberal is particularly apropos:

"Once I was young and impulsive,
I wore every conceivable pin,
Even went to the socialist meetings,
Learned all the old union hymns.
But now I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in,
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal."

I miss Phil Ochs, and voices like his. We don't need more liberals in this country - we need more radicals.

The millionaires in Congress do not represent We, The People and the government is nothing more than a subsidiary of the corporate state. That is a fact we need to recognize and acknowledge and fight.

We voted for Obama to stop the wars, close Guantanamo, re-instate civil liberties, hold the wealthy accountable for their destructive greed, and to protect the everyday workers and the poor. The Democrats shouted how bad it would be if the Republicans and their Tea Party gained more power. Remember? How's that working out for you, America?

The Wall Street Wizards of Oz are making more money than ever while Democrats join Republicans in preaching sermons of restraint and sacrifice to those who are losing everything. Banks (Wachovia/Wells Fargo) profit from laundering Mexican drug money, foreclosing on homes, and charging fees to access your own money and still, they promote the gospel of greed and gluttony. The corporate personhood is indeed special because when they commit crimes, they simply use their ill-gotten gains to lobby for deregulation so that their crimes become un-crimes, more like "free market" faux pas. Pay the fine without admitting guilt and let's move on. I wonder if that would work for me if I robbed a bank?

And don't look to our modern media for elucidation or honesty. Those are commodities with no built-in profit margin. Sensationalism, snark and circus acts bring viewership to the business of covering politics. That's where the money is. There is only time for ads, egos and entertainment, not ethics or education.

In his 1958 speech on media and news in Chicago, Edward R. Murrow warned of the future:

"I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as we are, then history will take its revenge, and retribution will not limp in catching up with us ... This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box ..."

We stand on the edge of a cliff and Mr. Obama and the Democrats keep telling us to step right up, and we say, but it's a cliff, and they say, but it's the only way forward. They call it: Winning the future. I call it: Bullshit. Suicidal bullshit.

I'm a radical - a poor radical - but if I had fifty bucks you can bet the Democrats wouldn't get a nickel. I'd donate ten bucks to Planned Parenthood so someone's sister or daughter could have health services, ten bucks to the neighborhood free health clinic so the poor and unemployed could get treatment for their family's illnesses, ten bucks for independent media like Link TV and NPR, ten bucks to self-help veteran organizations because the corporate government that profits so handsomely from war fails to care for soldiers and veterans, and finally, ten bucks for whatever organization distributes the works of Howard Zinn, Emma Goldman, Dr. King, and Molly Ivins and Naomi Klein and Thom Hartmann and Jim Hightower and Andrew Bacevich and Bill Moyers and scores of others.

Sound radical? It is. But that is exactly what the neo-conservative right wing has been doing for over twenty years. Where have the liberal Democrats been?

I read that Mr. Obama and the Democrats will raise $1 Billion Dollars for the 2012 re-election campaign. Wow. Just wow. In a struggling economy I wonder where they will find all that money?

Oh well, sing along with me everyone: "Love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal!"

-PEACE­-

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Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

Original article is here.

John Cory's Beautiful Wisconsin

Beautiful Wisconsin
By John Cory, Reader Supported News
28 February 11

Reader Supported News - Perspective

When he began the book, he wrote: "I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this."

It started three years earlier as a series of articles for the San Francisco News. He investigated camp life, and even drove Route 66 so he would know the terrain. He walked and talked with the people, capturing language and lives, and then put ink to paper.

The book was an immediate bestseller - revered and reviled - banned and bought. The corporate world denounced the author; the FBI compiled a file to track him, and radio and political pundits pummeled him. He was called a socialist, a communist, a propagandist, and for good measure, a socialistic communist propagandist agitator. One slur is never enough.

The book spent a year on the bestseller list and won a Pulitzer Prize. A year later it was turned into a movie. Twenty years after its publication, the author won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

John Steinbeck wrote "The Grapes of Wrath" to tell the story of the Great Depression. Of farmers turned into migrants, of every-day citizens turned into beggars, while the corporate owners grew fat and fierce and greedy for more. He wrote to give hope amidst the vicious and divisive tactics of corporations and to remind them and us: "... the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed."

At the end of the film version of "The Grapes of Wrath," Tom Joad lays it out: "... A fella ain't got a soul of his own - just a little piece of a big soul. The one big soul that belongs to everybody ..."

And there is the beauty of Wisconsin.

The big soul gathered together, just like the motto says, "From the many - one."

And that is the fear of the corporate sponsors of Gov. Walker and the would-be owners of America. The people. We, the people - coming together.

The facile mantra of "what's good for business is good for America" is nothing more than the promotion of indentured servitude. And if we accept it then we are truly lost.

The Wisconsin issue is not about politics, economics, or good governance. It is about stopping "we the people" from gathering together. It is about stirring envy and crisis in order to corporatize, consumerize, and conformitize the masses for the profit of the few, the rich - the privileged owners of America.

This is all about the separation of we, the people - divide and conquer - about turning neighbor against neighbor, scrabbling for crumbs while the corporation steals the loaf.

Where once we cheered 'united we stand, divided we fall,' we are now sold on 'looking out for #1.'

Steinbeck learned that those greedy bastards couldn't be shamed. They could be blocked if we banded together and supported one another in the battle for rights and equality and dignity.

What does it say about America when unions are more regulated, more controlled, and have more oversight than Wall Street, or corporations that profit from pollution and poison? What does it say about America that our Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are persons and money is free speech and therefore persons with lots of money have more free speech than persons without money?

The people of Wisconsin say different.

Wisconsin says that people matter, that we, the people matter, and that we, the people belong to one another and not the corporate states of America.

The banks and Wall Street profit from selling us a house and they profit from our mortgage debt by slicing it up in multiple slivers for investors to profit off our payments, and when our jobs go away, the banks and investors profit off foreclosure. Heads, they win. Tails, they win. And when we have nothing, they tell us we must sacrifice more in order to save The American Dream, Inc.

Tom Joad said: "They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If they don't get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat ... The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it."

Too big to fail. Too big to be managed. Too big to be held accountable.

The beauty of Wisconsin is that the people have no fear. The fear comes from the political puppets of corporate sponsorship. The people do not fear the power of the wealthy; the corporate lackeys fear the loss of power over we, the people.

Maybe it is true that the wealthy manipulators of the Tea Party and corporate conservatism of the modern GOP are taking America backwards, back to the Gilded Age of 1890. But we can only go backwards, even a single step, if we allow ourselves to be pushed without pushing back. And that is the beauty of Wisconsin.

"The great owner ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression ... For a man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, and emerges ahead of his accomplishments ... he may slip back, but only half a step, never a full step back ..."

That is what the barons of business fear most, and why they grab as much as they can, as fast as they can. They may not acknowledge that "little screaming fact" of history, but deep inside their soulless hearts and minds, they know it is coming. That is their fear - the fear of we, the people.

And that is the beauty of Wisconsin. Even in the snow, 70,000 - 100,000 people showed up this weekend. Thousands of people across the country did the same in their own communities in support of Wisconsin, regardless of whether the corporate media covered any of it.

The people know.

The people understand.

"... in the eyes of the people there is the failure: and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage."

Beautiful Wisconsin.

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Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

For the original, go here.

Top Shelf and Congressman John Lewis Enter Publishing Agreement

Rep. John Lewis and Top Shelf Productions Sign Historic Publishing Agreement

 

February 7, 2010 Atlanta, GA – Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Top Shelf Productions have signed a publishing agreement. Top Shelf Productions has agreed to publish the graphic novel March, coauthored by Rep. John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, tentatively scheduled for release in 2012.

“I am very pleased to be participating in this effort,” said Congressman John Lewis. “This is something I really wanted to do some years ago and there is no better time to do it than now. It is not just a story of struggle; it is a story of involvement. It shows the ups, the downs, the ins and the outs of a movement.

“It is my hope,” said Congressman Lewis, “that this work will be meaningful and helpful to future generations to give many people here in America and around the world the urge, the desire, to seek, to build, their own world, their own future.”

A meditation in the modern age on the distance traveled, both as a nation and as a people, since the days of Jim Crow and segregation, March tells the first hand account of John Lewis’ lifelong struggle for civil and human rights.

The publishing agreement is an historic first, both for the U.S. Congress and graphic novel publishing as a whole, marking the first time a sitting Member of Congress has authored a graphic novel. Top Shelf Productions is the first and only graphic novel publisher to be certified by the House Committee on Standards.

“As a proud resident of Georgia, and a long-time fan of the honorable Congressman,” adds publisher Chris Staros, “this is truly a deep honor. To bring, not only his life’s story, but that of the Civil Rights Movement to the comics medium is truly exciting. This will make this historical and timeless message accessible to an entirely new generation of readers.”

An artist has yet to be named for the project though candidates are being actively considered.

***

JOHN LEWIS, is Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District Representative and an American icon widely known for his role in the Civil Rights Movement.

As a student at American Baptist Theological Seminary in 1959, John Lewis organized sit-in demonstrations at segregated lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1961, he volunteered to participate in the Freedom Rides, which challenged segregation at interstate bus terminals across the South. He was beaten severely by angry mobs and arrested by police for challenging the injustice of Jim Crow segregation in the South.

From 1963 to 1966, Lewis was Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). As Chairman, John Lewis became a nationally recognized leader. Lewis was dubbed one of the Big Six leaders of the Civil Rights Movement and at the age of 23, he was an architect of and a keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963.

In 1964, John Lewis coordinated SNCC efforts to organize voter registration drives and community action programs during the Mississippi Freedom Summer. The following year, Lewis helped spearhead one of the most seminal moments of the Civil Rights Movement. Hosea Williams, another notable Civil Rights leader, and John Lewis led over 600 peaceful, orderly protestors across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965. They intended to march from Selma to Montgomery to demonstrate the need for voting rights in the state. The marchers were attacked by Alabama state troopers in a brutal confrontation that became known as "Bloody Sunday." News broadcasts and photographs revealing the senseless cruelty of the segregated South helped hasten the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Despite more than 40 arrests, physical attacks and serious injuries, John Lewis remained a devoted advocate of the philosophy of nonviolence. After leaving SNCC in 1966, he continued his commitment to the Civil Rights Movement as Associate Director of the Field Foundation and his participation in the Southern Regional Council's voter registration programs. Lewis went on to become the Director of the Voter Education Project (VEP). In 1977, John Lewis was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to direct more than 250,000 volunteers of ACTION, the federal volunteer agency.

In 1981, he was elected to the Atlanta City Council. He was elected to Congress in November 1986 and has served as U.S. Representative of Georgia's Fifth Congressional District since then.

ANDREW AYDIN, an Atlanta native, currently serves in Rep. John Lewis’ Washington, D.C. office handling Telecommunications and Technology policy as well as New Media. Previously, Andrew served as Communications Director and Press Secretary during Rep. Lewis’ 2008 and 2010 re-election campaigns. Andrew is a graduate of the Lovett School in Atlanta and Trinity College in Hartford, and is currently pursuing a master’s degree at Georgetown University.

TOP SHELF PRODUCTIONS is the literary graphic novel and comics publisher best known for its ability to discover and showcase the vanguard of the comics scene. Founded by Co-Publisher Brett Warnock in 1995, and partnered by Co-Publisher Chris Staros in 1997, Top Shelf has produced over two hundred graphic novels and comics that have helped to revitalize interest in comics as a literary art form. Most notably, Alan Moore’s FROM HELL, LOST GIRLS, and THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN; Craig Thompson’s BLANKETS; Andy Runton's OWLY; Robert Venditti & Brett Weldele’s THE SURROGATES, Jeff Lemire’s ESSEX COUNTY, and Jeffrey Brown's CLUMSY & UNLIKELY, all of which have garnered critical accolades from the likes of Time Magazine, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, People Magazine, Publishers Weekly , The New Yorker, and the New York Times Book Review.

IN PHOTO (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT): Chris Staros, Congressman John Lewis & Andrew Aydin

John Cory's "A Liberal Dose or Reality"

I want to share this perspective/essay written by John Cory and published at the independent political website Reader Supported News.  Here is the link to the original post.

A Liberal Dose of Reality
By John Cory, Reader Supported News
16 January 11

Reader Supported News Perspective

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." - Samuel Adams

So far there is no direct factual connection between the violence in Tucson and the toxic GOP and its subsidiary Tea Party screaming mobs, or the despicable daily spewing of hate-radio or the crazy chalkboard diagrams of the coming end times.

The false equivalency by the right wing and corporate media that the left does it too is merely a deflection intended to distract and shift focus away from them and their tactics. You can't connect the dots, they say.

A drop of ink on porous paper slowly seeps across the sheet. Multiple drops in multiple locations eventually bleed together without any external help. No one has to connect the dots; they connect themselves.

Thirty years ago Ronald Reagan said, "... government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem."

Plop.

Over the next three decades, vilification of government became a self-replicating meme. Big government fed the cash-driven paranoia machines. Politics got religion with the Moral Majority, which was neither, and Jerry Falwell made a devilish new BFF in Ronald Reagan. The Christian Right was born.

Plop. Plop.

Bogus welfare queens were created from thin air. The dismantling of Unions and the Fairness Doctrine turned news into a product for the corporations, who insisted that they owned the airwaves, not the public. The public good was tossed aside in favor of free-market profiteering without protective regulation.

Money is free speech and some of us have more freedom than others.

Plop. Plop. Plop.

With all this madness came Iran-Contra, the Savings and Loan crisis, HUD grant-fixing scandal, the Lobbyist scandals, EPA scandals and more. An estimated 130 Reagan officials were indicted and/or convicted or investigated for misconduct and/or criminal violations. But Reagan was the best president ever says the GOP.

Big government is bad. Small government, small enough to fit in a President's zipper is good. God be praised.

Boom.

The Great Microphone of Anti-Democracy was created and funded under Reagan and allowed to grow and smear at will over the following decades.

Politics became reality television. The profits of fear made millionaires of the new hate-media puppets, supported extremist think tanks and generated a publishing industry dedicated to the propaganda of self-appointed "real" America; all in the name of the corporate owners of America.

And where has our liberal progressive movement been?

Pointing out their victimhood at the hands of the GOP and how the GOP is mean. Ignoring the elimination of investigative journalism. Scrambling for consultants and pundits to appear on the TV to provide "balance" while agreeing that both sides do it. Gently promoting "objective" media in a world rewarding biased punditry and outright lies.

Woe, is us! It is so unfair. Whatever can we do?

We need to get off our ass and quit pretending the bastardization of corporate media is something new, or that the hateful politics of the right wing cannot be defeated. We need to face reality and stop looking to billionaires and millionaires to fund us or rent us a megaphone to speak to the people.

We also need to disabuse ourselves of the illusion that the Democrats are on our side, or that they represent liberals and progressives let alone the concept that they represent everyday citizens. Modern Democrats are Mugwumps straddling the fence between self-enriching celebrity and GOP corporate compromise.

All of this is obviously more complicated than my simplistic presentation. But I'm a simple guy that believes in the KISS principle. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

And if we think MSBC is the anti-Fox or that it is the liberal platform needed today, then we are just dumb. Snark and shouting and satirical lists are not news reporting or analysis, just tribal entertainment for the converted and like-minded.

No, we need to walk our talk. The other side will call us names no matter what we do, so let us embrace their hatred, as FDR said. Let us be proud radicals and fierce promoters of the common good.

Unions and organizations like the NAACP and La Razza have money that could be used to invest in a non-profit internet/newspaper/broadcast network instead of being spent on lobbying politicians.

Think of it, our own news outlet that conducts investigative reporting and covers real issues. Public subscriptions for print editions and sales of apps for iPad and other devices would provide support money too. Media of, by, and for the people!

Think of putting Robert Parry, Chris Hedges, Sy Hersh, Amy Goodman, Laura Flanders, Glen Greenwald and so many other wonderful voices together in one powerful force of messaging.

We pick a half dozen or so prime issues to promote - issues that overlap compatible areas so as to serve multi-functional roles. Here's a short list off the top of my head:

1. End the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. War creates graves, not jobs.

2. Universal Healthcare - explain why the US spends $7500 per person on healthcare while most other countries spend $3500. Is it American exceptionalism, or just plain greed?

3. Promote government spending on infrastructure like roads, parks, schools and bridges and playgrounds. Immigrants can earn a living and progress toward citizenship by repairing and building infrastructure and paying taxes including Social Security taxes. Jobs, immigration and saving Social Security all rolled into one.

4. Taxes - progressive and enforceable on all persons including corporate persons. Taxes are not evil or onerous, they are the investment in America that sustains all of us.

5. Financial Reform regulation to protect the people. To paraphrase George Carlin, if we're concerned about street crime - that means Wall Street too.

6. Labor must be protected. The right to a living wage. The right to collective bargaining to protect the powerless from the powerful. Labor is not a product - it is not enslavement for corporate enrichment.

7. Bring back the Draft with some modifications that expand the age groups, limit exceptions, and include private contractors being converted to active duty and subject to military pay scales. Government contracts must be severely restricted. To profit from death and bombs cannot be a government function. Conservatives should love this because it is patriotic and confirms their mantra that government does not create any jobs. Right?

8. Support Marriage Equality. "If you're against Gay marriage - don't marry one!" (I saw that on a button.)

Impossible? Why?

In an interview on Democracy Now! Slavoj Zizek pointed out, "Did you notice how strange the word 'impossible' functions today? When you talk about private pleasures and technology, everything is possible. But the moment you go to social changes ... practically everything that disturbs the market is impossible ... we will live forever ... whatever you want ... we will travel to the moon - that's all possible. But a small social change of more healthcare is not possible."

Corporations don't see "impossible." Conservatives did not see "impossible." Fox News and talk-radio were not built in a day, but over years.

If we don't unite and combine our forces, progressives and liberals will drown in the coming corporate GOP takeover of democracy.

In the Pennsylvania coal strikes of 1902, miners wanted to cut their work week from 7 to 6 days and cut their work day from 10-12 hours a day to 9 hours a day and raise wages.

George Baer, president of Reading Railroad, spoke for the owners in what became known as the "divine right" letter when he wrote: "... the rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for - not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country."

When the letter became public, support shifted to the miners as the public saw what was headed their way. An informed citizenry is the greatest fear of every corporate driven government.

It took progressives years and years to bring change and enlightenment to workers and politicians alike. People like Ida Tarbell, Eugene Debs, Emma Goldman, Sinclair Lewis, W.E.B. DuBois and so many others all fought and organized and published their cause and the cause of the everyman and the poor and the sick. And it worked; not always in big events, but in small continuous determined steps.

To quote Edward R. Murrow: "We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late."

An ink drop on porous paper slowly seeps across the sheet. Add another and then another, until at last they bleed together to forge their own image and shape.

"Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts." - Edward R. Murrow

-PEACE-

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Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.