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And, yes, I DO take it personally: 01/01/2012 - 01/08/2012
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"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it."
- Noam Chomsky
Send tips and other comments to: profmarcus2010@yahoo.com

And, yes, I DO take it personally

Saturday, January 07, 2012

Walkers and oxygen tanks shut down B of A

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"a slow-moving group"... i love it...!

Occupy Geriatrics: Seniors in Walkers Shut Down Local Bank of America

What some healthy and spry Occupy Movements across the nation couldn't quite accomplish, San Francisco geriatrics have!

KCBS reports that a small group of senior citizens between the ages of 69 and 82 successfully shut down a Bank of America in Bernal Heights on Thursday with nothing more than walkers and oxygen tanks. That's right: No shouting, chanting, tear gas, or window-smashing.

The group, which dubbed itself "Wild Old Women" set up camp right outside the BofA, holding signs in what they were calling "a run on the bank."

While the protesters said they had no intention (or oxygen) of storming the bank, as occupiers in other communities have done, officials at Bank of America shut the doors and locked them as they spotted the slow-moving group make its way to the front of the bank.

So the seniors took a seat outside the bank where they explained their demands, which were no different than every other occupiers: They want lower fees, and they want the bank to pay higher taxes and stop the foreclosures.

this made my morning...!

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I went into journalism to do journalism, not advertising

glenn reviews michael hastings' book, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan and, as usual, provides a razor-sharp perspective on the bought-and-paid-for crowd of puppets that pass themselves off as exemplars of news journalism...

(note: the post title is a quote from hastings' book...)

[T]here is a perverse, inverse relationship between the amount of power someone wields in Washington and the willingness of most establishment journalists to engage in reporting that exposes or embarrasses them. These journalists love to swarm with contempt on the marginalized and powerless in their world (people and groups like Julian Assange, Occupy Wall Street, Christine O’Donnell, Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, etc.), but when it comes to those who exercise real power and are members in good standing of the Washington establishment — war Generals, senior White House officials, corporate officials and lobbyists — they tread with extreme caution when they do anything other than obediently convey messages.

reading glenn gives me some hope that my own grip on reality is maybe not as tenuous as i sometimes get to thinking it is... as most of us know all too well, when the prevailing societal norm is insanity, it's hard to keep believing in oneself...

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Friday, January 06, 2012

Wow...! It's getting really hard to post...

damn... i spent the entire week between christmas and new years without posting... then i come back and do a few days and i'm already burned out... this is going to be one hell of a year...

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Thursday, January 05, 2012

The U.S. doesn't want democracy for the Arab countries or for the U.S. either

here's more glenn, this time talking with rt's alyona minkovski...
Remember coverage of the Arab Spring, of Tahrir Square, and you'd get the impression that there's nothing they want more than for all peoples' of the world to live in freedom and equality. Only problem is no matter how the media tries to spin it, Democracy in the Arab world is the last thing that our foreign policy establishment wants.



as i said in the previous post, staying in touch isn't necessarily conducive to either serenity or sanity...

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Supporting one of the two major-party candidates in the 2012 presidential campaign offers no solution for anything

glenn...
For those who are extremely dissatisfied with the status quo in American political life and are seeking ways to change it, supporting one of the two major-party candidates in the 2012 presidential campaign as the principal form of activism offers no solution. That’s not an endorsement for resignation, apathy, non-voting, voting for a third party, or anything else. It’s just a simple statement of fact: on many issues that progressives themselves have long claimed are of critical, overarching importance (not all, but many), there will be virtually no debate in the election because there are virtually no differences between the two candidates and the two parties on those questions. In the face of that fact, there are two choices: (1) simply accept it (and thus bolster it) on the basis that the only political priority that matters is keeping the Democratic Party and Barack Obama empowered; or (2) searching for ways to change the terms of the debate so that critical views that are now excluded by bipartisan consensus instead end up being heard.

[...]

How can you pretend to vehemently oppose the slaughter of foreign civilians, the deprivation of due process, a posture of Endless War, radical secrecy, etc., when the President behind whom you’re faithfully marching is an aggressive advocate and implementer of those very policies? It’s certainly possible — based on lesser-of-two-evils rationale — to vote for a President who does these things while simultaneously opposing those policies. But for those who insist that all political salvation lies exclusively within the Democratic Party: the only course of action to reconcile these conflicts is to de-prioritize them, to decide they no longer really matter, and thus remain content with a President and a Party who does these things with such abandon.

watching the 2012 presidential campaign go forward and knowing that the garbage that's been shoveled at us during 2011 is nothing compared to what's coming our way between now and november is, for me, one of the most depressing ways imaginable to start a new year...

if sticking my head in the sand could do anything other than foster delusion and denial, i'd do it... unfortunately, i believe that keeping my fingers on the pulse of what's happening is a good thing... i believe we all have an obligation to keep ourselves informed... it's part of what human beings are here for... how can we look out for each other and contribute to our common good if we deliberately choose to be ignorant...? equally unfortunately, staying in touch has consequences for fundamental serenity if not basic sanity... sigh...

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Wednesday, January 04, 2012

I'm not ready to deal with this amount of shit this early in the New Year...

just sayin'...

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Tuesday, January 03, 2012

The candidate who raises the most money wins an astonishing 94% of the time in America & the 1% donors are remarkably tolerant - within limits

yep... this matt taibbi piece pretty well captures it...
[T]his 2012 race may be the most meaningless national election campaign we’ve ever had. If the presidential race normally captivates the public as a dramatic and angry ideological battle pitting one impassioned half of society against the other, this year’s race feels like something else entirely.

In the wake of the Tea Party, the Occupy movement, and a dozen or more episodes of real rebellion on the streets, in the legislatures of cities and towns, and in state and federal courthouses, this presidential race now feels like a banal bureaucratic sideshow to the real event – the real event being a looming confrontation between huge masses of disaffected citizens on both sides of the aisle, and a corrupt and increasingly ideologically bankrupt political establishment, represented in large part by the two parties dominating this race.

[...]

[The Iowa] caucus, let’s face it, marks the beginning of a long, rigidly-controlled, carefully choreographed process that is really designed to do two things: weed out dangerous minority opinions, and award power to the candidate who least offends the public while he goes about his primary job of energetically representing establishment interests.

If that sounds like a glib take on a free election system that allows the public to choose whichever candidate it likes best without any censorship or overt state interference, so be it. But the ugly reality, as Dylan Ratigan continually points out, is that the candidate who raises the most money wins an astonishing 94% of the time in America.

That damning statistic just confirms what everyone who spends any time on the campaign trail knows, which is that the presidential race is not at all about ideas, but entirely about raising money.

The auctioned election process is designed to reduce the field to two candidates who will each receive hundreds of millions of dollars apiece from the same pool of donors.

[...]

The 1% donors are remarkably tolerant. They’ll give to just about anyone who polls well, provided they fall within certain parameters. What they won’t do is give to anyone who is even a remote threat to make significant structural changes, i.e. a Dennis Kucinich, an Elizabeth Warren, or a Ron Paul (hell will freeze over before Wall Street gives heavily to a candidate in favor of abolishing their piggy bank, the Fed). So basically what that means is that voters are free to choose anyone they want, provided it isn’t Dennis Kucinich, or Ron Paul, or some other such unacceptable personage.

If the voters insist on supporting such a person in defiance of these donors – this might even happen tonight, with a Paul win in Iowa – what you inevitably end up seeing is a monstrous amount of money quickly dumped into the cause of derailing that candidate. This takes overt forms, like giving heavily to his primary opponents, and more covert forms, like manufacturing opinions through donor-subsidized think tanks and the heavy use of lapdog media figures to push establishment complaints.

And what ends up happening there is that the candidate with the big stack of donor money always somehow manages to survive the inevitable scandals and tawdry revelations, while the one who’s depending on checks from grandma and $25 internet donations from college students always winds up mysteriously wiped out.


h/t to glenn greenwald...

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Occupy Boston changes course - "More hours, less pay"

gotta love it...
On December 17th, 2011, three months after the start of the #Occupy movement, Occupy Boston finally realized they had it all wrong. This is their march.



humor is powerful...

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Belated Lake Tahoe photoblogging

i spent the christmas holidays with my family up at lake tahoe and managed to capture this truly spectacular lake tahoe sunset...

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Lake Tahoe Sunset
27 December 2011

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Welcome to 2012 and the dystopian world of the NDAA [UPDATE]

feel the hope...? feel the change...?

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from raw story...
Even though President Barack Obama made closing Guantanamo one of his core campaign promises in the lead-up to the presidential election in 2008, that promise now appears to be “nearly impossible” to fulfill thanks to provisions in the new laws, Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, explained.

[...]

“It has no real geographical limitation, it has no temporal limitation,” he said, summarizing key provisions in the NDAA. “It basically puts into law, into permanent law, the ability to indefinitely detain, outside of a constitutional justice system, individuals the president picks up anywhere in the world that the president thinks might have some connection to terrorism. The United States Congress, with the support of the president, has now put into law the possibility of indefinite detention, where the entire world, including the United States, is a battlefield.”

But more than just giving the presidency more power to imprison terror suspects, the NDAA also strikes at Obama’s promise to close Guantanamo by limiting the executive’s authority to transfer prisoners.

“[There are] really dangerous provisions here that would make it nearly impossible to close Guantanamo,” Azmy explained. “Congress has forbidden from transferring or releasing any detainees from Guantanamo to their home countries or third countries willing to take them as refugees unless the Defense Department can meet this exceedingly onerous certification requirement. Basically, before anyone can be released, the Defense Department has to certify that the individual will not engage in any hostile acts when they are returned — something that the Defense Department cannot certify, which is why the FBI and [Defense Secretary] Leon Panetta vigorously opposed these provisions.

“The effect of that will make it virtually impossible to move people out of Guantanamo. Congress is basically shutting all of the detainees in.”

Azmy added that while Obama did add a signing statement which promises not to indefinitely detain without charge any American citizen, nothing in the law would “prevent President Romney from doing precisely the opposite.”

“This legislation puts into law, into a legal architecture, authority for the president to do things that no president has ever been authorized to do before. It’s a scary day for civil liberties if we depend on the graces of the executive not to use power the Congress has given them.”

president romney... god almighty... kinds seems like that's where we're heading, doesn't it...? otoh, having obama re-elected for a second term doesn't sound much better...

[UPDATE]

occupy wall street is planning to protest the ndaa today in nyc...

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January 3rd will be a spontaneous show of people power in reaction to Obama’s treasonous signing of the National Defense Authorization Act. Not only does this act violate our first, third, fourth, fifth and sixth amendments, as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but this Act was signed quietly this past New Years Eve violating what little trust remained between the people and their established government. We see what’s happening here, and we will not stand for it.

Tentative Schedule for Day of Action:

7:30AM (All Day) – OWS solidarity with the New York State Nurses Association Strike at St. Lukes (1111 Amsterdam Ave and 112th Street) and Roosevelt Hospital (1000 10th Ave and 59th Street.)
12PM – Press Conference at NYPL (Bryant Park)
2PM – Office Demonstration at Senator Gillibrand’s office (780 3rd Ave.)
3PM – Office Demonstration at Senator Schumer’s office (757 3rd Ave.)
4PM – Rally at Rockefeller Plaza
5PM – Flash check about NDAA in Grand Central for commuters.

you go, ows...!

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Monday, January 02, 2012

A message from Anonymous to our handlers

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Attention Frequent Flyers...!

just for chuckles and grins, something different for the new year and because i tend to spend a great deal of time on airplanes, i added a flight stats widget to the blog on the right-hand column... yeah, ok... deal with it...!

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Sunday, January 01, 2012

The candidate supported by progressives — President Obama — has done heinous things with the power he has been vested

glenn comments on the endless political survival reality show that is the presidential election 2012...
The candidate supported by progressives — President Obama — himself holds heinous views on a slew of critical issues and himself has done heinous things with the power he has been vested. He has slaughtered civilians — Muslim children by the dozens — not once or twice, but continuously in numerous nations with drones, cluster bombs and other forms of attack. He has sought to overturn a global ban on cluster bombs. He has institutionalized the power of Presidents — in secret and with no checks — to target American citizens for assassination-by-CIA, far from any battlefield. He has waged an unprecedented war against whistleblowers, the protection of which was once a liberal shibboleth. He rendered permanently irrelevant the War Powers Resolution, a crown jewel in the list of post-Vietnam liberal accomplishments, and thus enshrined the power of Presidents to wage war even in the face of a Congressional vote against it. His obsession with secrecy is so extreme that it has become darkly laughable in its manifestations, and he even worked to amend the Freedom of Information Act (another crown jewel of liberal legislative successes) when compliance became inconvenient.

He has entrenched for a generation the once-reviled, once-radical Bush/Cheney Terrorism powers of indefinite detention, military commissions, and the state secret privilege as a weapon to immunize political leaders from the rule of law. He has shielded Bush era criminals from every last form of accountability. He has vigorously prosecuted the cruel and supremely racist War on Drugs, including those parts he vowed during the campaign to relinquish — a war which devastates minority communities and encages and converts into felons huge numbers of minority youth for no good reason. He has empowered thieving bankers through the Wall Street bailout, Fed secrecy, efforts to shield mortgage defrauders from prosecution, and the appointment of an endless roster of former Goldman, Sachs executives and lobbyists. He’s brought the nation to a full-on Cold War and a covert hot war with Iran, on the brink of far greater hostilities. He has made the U.S. as subservient as ever to the destructive agenda of the right-wing Israeli government. His support for some of the Arab world’s most repressive regimes is as strong as ever.

Most of all, America’s National Security State, its Surveillance State, and its posture of endless war is more robust than ever before. The nation suffers from what National Journal‘s Michael Hirsh just christened “Obama’s Romance with the CIA.” He has created what The Washington Post just dubbed “ a vast drone/killing operation,” all behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy and without a shred of oversight. Obama’s steadfast devotion to what Dana Priest and William Arkin called “Top Secret America” has severe domestic repercussions as well, building up vast debt and deficits in the name of militarism that create the pretext for the “austerity” measures which the Washington class (including Obama) is plotting to impose on America’s middle and lower classes.

The simple fact is that progressives are supporting a candidate for President who has done all of that — things liberalism has long held to be pernicious. I know it’s annoying and miserable to hear. Progressives like to think of themselves as the faction that stands for peace, opposes wars, believes in due process and civil liberties, distrusts the military-industrial complex, supports candidates who are devoted to individual rights, transparency and economic equality. All of these facts — like the history laid out by Stoller in that essay — negate that desired self-perception. These facts demonstrate that the leader progressives have empowered and will empower again has worked in direct opposition to those values and engaged in conduct that is nothing short of horrific. So there is an eagerness to avoid hearing about them, to pretend they don’t exist. And there’s a corresponding hostility toward those who point them out, who insist that they not be ignored.

The parallel reality — the undeniable fact — is that all of these listed heinous views and actions from Barack Obama have been vehemently opposed and condemned by Ron Paul: and among the major GOP candidates, only by Ron Paul. For that reason, Paul’s candidacy forces progressives to face the hideous positions and actions of their candidate, of the person they want to empower for another four years. If Paul were not in the race or were not receiving attention, none of these issues would receive any attention because all the other major GOP candidates either agree with Obama on these matters or hold even worse views.


as usual, glenn exposes the unbelievable hypocrisy that passes for news and information in this run-up to the election of 2012...

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Octupied

be sure to tune in to tomorrow's rose parade...
Fat cats and greedy pigs make great symbols of corporate greed, but multi-armed octopi speak to the ways in which corporations operate. On 11/20/2011 at noon a 15 foot tall x 70 foot long octopus puppet manned by 40 puppeteers "Octupied" the steps of Los Angeles City Hall and visiblized the tentacular stranglehold of corporations on politics and government. For more info visit: performingpublicspace.org



more at firedoglake...

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Wow...! What a long break...!

this has been the longest time i've gone without making a post in the seven years i've been doing this blog... i've been devoting my time to family and the holidays...

HAPPY NEW YEAR...!

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