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.
Showing posts with label Reader Supported News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reader Supported News. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
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.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
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-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
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-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
Monday, March 7, 2011
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
Friday, January 21, 2011
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.
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-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
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