John Pilger: Obama is as reactionary and violent as George W. Bush, and in some ways he is worse

john pilger is right up there with chris hedges in his unvarnished critique of the crap that is piled on our heads daily by our handlers...

The width of a cigarette paper separates the Democratic and Republican parties on economic and foreign policies. Both represent the super rich and the impoverishment of a nation from which trillions of tax dollars have been transferred to a permanent war industry and banks that are little more than criminal enterprises. Obama is as reactionary and violent as George W. Bush, and in some ways he is worse. His personal speciality is the use of Hellfire missile-armed drones against defenceless people. Under cover of a partial withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, he has sent US special forces to 120 countries where death squads are trained. He has revived the old cold war on two fronts: against China in Asia and with a "shield" of missiles aimed at Russia. The first black president has presided over the incarceration and surveillance of greater numbers of  black people than were enslaved in 1850. He has prosecuted more whistleblowers - truth-tellers - than any of his predecessors.  His vice-president, Joe Biden, a zealous warmonger, has called WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange a "hi-tech terrorist".  Biden has also converted to the cause of gay marriage.

One of America's true heroes is the gay soldier Bradley Manning, the whistleblower alleged to have provided WikiLeaks with the epic evidence of American carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was the Obama administration that smeared his homosexuality as weird, and it was Obama himself who declared a man convicted of no crime to be guilty.

[...]

The truth is that what matters to those who aspire to control our lives is not skin pigment or gender, or whether or not we are gay, but the class we serve. The goals are to ensure that we look inward on ourselves, not outward to others and never comprehend the sheer scale of undemocratic power, and to that we collaborate in isolating those who resist. This attrition of criminalising, brutalising and banning protest can too easily turn western democracies into states of fear.

[...]

That is why the people of Greece ought to be our inspiration. By their own painful experience they know their freedom can only be regained by standing up to the German Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and their own quislings in Athens. People across Latin America have achieved this: the indignados of Bolivia who saw off the water privateers and the Argentinians who told the IMF what to do with their debt. The courage of disobedience was their weapon. Remember Bradley Manning.

greece is offering us a model and a template for what we should be opting for in the way of resistance to the inexorable takeover by our super-rich elites... i am reasonably sure spain will be next up...

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Occupy Wall Street gets to stay in Zucotti Park - for at least a while longer

this morning...

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Chris Hedges: Civil Disobedience is the only tool we have left

sure looks that way...

chris hedges...

The phrase consent of the governed has been turned into a cruel joke. There is no way to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs. Civil disobedience is the only tool we have left.

We will not halt the laying off of teachers and other public employees, the slashing of unemployment benefits, the closing of public libraries, the reduction of student loans, the foreclosures, the gutting of public education and early childhood programs or the dismantling of basic social services such as heating assistance for the elderly until we start to carry out sustained acts of civil disobedience against the financial institutions responsible for our debacle. The banks and Wall Street, which have erected the corporate state to serve their interests at our expense, caused the financial crisis. The bankers and their lobbyists crafted tax havens that account for up to $1 trillion in tax revenue lost every decade. They rewrote tax laws so the nation’s most profitable corporations, including Bank of America, could avoid paying any federal taxes. They engaged in massive fraud and deception that wiped out an estimated $40 trillion in global wealth. The banks are the ones that should be made to pay for the financial collapse. Not us.

sitting here in kabul and looking out on the havoc we continue to wreak on this poor country, it's hard not to feel a rush of intense anger at all those sitting there in their mansions who continue to profit from war and destruction...

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Locals resist irresponsible gold mining in Honduras

i've posted a couple of times about the doe run la oroya operation in peru (here and here)... there seems to be a lot of movement in the grassroots in latin america about many things, and mining activities are a big one... here's an excerpt from a story about community resistance to gold mining in honduras...

On January 9, 2007, representatives from the Mam-Mayan villages that neighbor the "Marlin mine" in San Miguel Ixtahuacan, San Marcos, Guatemala, operated by Goldcorp Inc's wholly owned subsidiary Montana Exploradora, visited the mining company office. They presented a petition to Goldorp Inc. requesting a resolution to a number of problems suffered due to mining operations.

[...]

On January 10, community representatives returned to the Goldcorp offices for the response to their petition. According to testimonies, company representatives not only denied all responsibility for the problems, but also insulted them.

Upon leaving the companies installations, the community representatives met up with some community members and began walking to their homes. About two kilometers from the mine entrance, members of Goldcorp's private security company attacked the campesinos throwing rocks at them and firing guns, and attempted to force one man into a company car.

[...]

On January 22, the company initiated penal charges against 22 residents of communities neighboring the mine. Arrest warrants were issued for 7 of the 22.

[...]

On September 11, the trial was officially opened and on September 26 the trial began. The next phase, the presentation of evidence is scheduled for October 8, 2007.

The communities continue to seek remedy for the damages they are suffering. The communities are extremely concerned about information disseminated by Goldcorp Inc's public relations department in which they announce plans to release water with residues from processing gold, a process in which cyanide, arsenic and other toxic chemicals are used, into the Tzalem river, a tributary of the Cuilco river.

a little bit about goldcorp, a canadian company based in vancouver, b.c... (note: the company DOUBLED its reserves in 2006... add that to the soaring price of gold - $741.20 per ounce as i write this, up from $530 in january 2006 - and you can see that goldcorp is drowning in profit... also note that 70% of the company operations are in nafta countries...)

Goldcorp is a leading gold producer engaged in gold mining and related activities including exploration, extraction, processing and reclamation. The Company’s assets are comprised of 11 operations and 7 development projects throughout the Americas. Over 70% of Goldcorp’s reserves are situated in NAFTA countries.

Goldcorp is one of the world’s largest gold mining companies and in 2006 the Company doubled its reserves and resources from 5 million to 10 million ounces through the acquisition of assets from Barrick (Placer Dome) and Glamis Gold Ltd. Gold production is forecast to increase by over 50% in the next five years.

and like doe run in la oroya, goldcorp touts its civic activities...

Goldcorp has created a number of programs that provide communities with economic and technical means to achieve sustainability. One of the health programs, initiated by the San Martin foundation, and together with the Spanish NGO Dentistas Sin Fronteras, worked to bring a dental brigade to Valle de Siria, Honduras.

from goldcorp's website information about the honduras marlin mine... (note: also like doe run, goldcorp runs its operations through wholly owned subsidiaries to better protect the parent company from financial risk...)

The Marlin mine is 100% owned by Montana Explorada de Guatemala, S.A., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Goldcorp. The Marlin Mine is a conventional milling operation with a combination of open pit and underground mining which began commercial production in Dec 2005.

Marlin Mine is in the western highlands of Guatemala, 48 kilometers southwest of the city of Huehuetenango, approximately 300 kilometers northwest Guatemala City. The project lies within a highly prospective land package of approximately 100,000 hectares that encompasses the main Marlin deposit and other important mineralized zones.

Commercial production commenced in the forth quarter of 2005 and in its first full year of production Marlin achieved 161,000 ounces of gold and 1.6 million ounces of silver in 2006. Production from the Marlin mine is expected through to 2015.

we need to keep things like this visible... you have to ask yourself WHY the goldcorp would have 70% of its operations outside the u.s. in lesser-developed countries... you also have to ask yourself WHY the locals are upset, in spite of the fact that the company provides jobs and sponsors civic health projects for the community...

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Read Or Die

the anime music video. (Just something whimsical.)

However bad you think things are, they are so much worse.

As far as option 6 in jburke6000's "Response to ProfMarcus: What To Do Next?", no doubt the administration is counting on it.

As far as a previous comment I made, "what Posse Comitatus Act?", here's more:

Meanwhile, last October Bush and Cheney, with the help of a compliant Congress, put in place some key elements needed for a military putsch. There was the overturning of the venerable Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which barred the use of active duty military inside the United States for police-type functions, and the revision of the Insurrection Act, so as to empower the president to take control of National Guard units in the 50 states even over the objections of the governors of those states."

That entire article, "Martial Law is Now a Real Threat - Declaring the US a Battlefield", By Dave Lindorff (7/27/07),is well worth reading.

I notice that when I went to read a new article at the New York Times, about Bush challenges critics of new spy laws, it runs sponsored propaganda first about "Anti-Drugs", which has a message that pedophiles are not the only people our kids are meeting online.

We know that mainstream media shills for the government. The preferred order of alliance among states and in fact, probably true with the media, is:

1. To remain neutral
2. To join the side of the strongest
3. To join whichever side one must

many Right Wing apologists scoffed at the notion that when Bush and Putin met last, they may have discussed staying late at the party.

Now Pravda has this.

Many Right Wing apologists now scoff, in much the same way, at comparisons of present America to Nazi Germany.

uh, hello?

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Response to ProfMarcus: What To Do Next?

I was going to post this as a comment to ProfMarcus last post, but it got kinda long, so I thought I should actually post it.
Yes, this has been my same question for some time now. What to do next?
It just seems that most ordinary Americans are satisfied with looking the other way as long as it doesn't directly affect them. What they don't realize, and what you and others have been trying to illuminate, is that it has been affecting us for a long time.
People know there is something terribly wrong with our gov't, but the kids, the mortgage, the boss, that herniated disk, etc. keep their head in the sand. Additionally, why should they risk what they have? After all, they have a car, house, job. Things are good, aren't they?
If we allow our trusted leaders, who are the experts, protect us and guide us, everything will be fine.
A lot of loud nuts on the Internet might just spoil it and we might wind up living like those other people in the world. I'll just donate and extra few dollars to the United Way to help them. So ignore what those bloggers say and the problems will go away.
It's a cage, but the gold veneer is beginning to wear thin.

In answer to the original question, I think there are several options. I will leave it to all of you to discuss the pros and cons.
1)Do nothing. Bury your head in the sand.
2)Continue blogging.
3)Become active in one of the existing parties and try to change our gov't from within.
4)Try to start a new party.
5)Organize civil disobedience.
6)Coordinate with domestic extremists and engage in open revolt.
7)Emigrate to somewhere else.
I am certain I have missed at least one option. Each of these I have listed comes with a boatload of potential "issues".
Certain options above will certainly lead to, any who participate in it, winding up in a cell. Possibly for the rest of their life.
I just want to list all I can think of and talk about what might work.
One thing I will say, option #1 isn't an option for me. I do have my favorites, but I don't want to influence your thoughts, yet.
What do you think?

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Throw the bums out!

if you never do another thing to help your country the rest of your life, do this...



(thanks to the unknown candidate...)

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Ed and Elaine Brown, tax protestors

i've been following this story off and on for some weeks, both out of my own curiosity and also since it relates to the aaron russo film i watched recently, America from Freedom to Fascism... casey's blog, open your mind's eye, is what keep me up-to-date... over the past week, there's been some interesting developments that now seem to be catching the attention of the more traditional media...

this from the concord (new hampshire) monitor thanks to casey......

A day after federal and state officers swarmed near the hilltop home of tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown, the couple thanked a supporter from upstate New York, Danny Riley, for saving their lives.

Riley, who posted a video account of his experience on the internet, said he was walking the Browns' dog early Thursday when he discovered a large group of U.S marshals hiding in the woods near the Brown's Plainfield house. The marshals, he said, shot at him and shocked him with a Taser. If not for that encounter, Ed Brown said yesterday, he and his wife might be dead.

"If it wasn't for Danny Riley taking that walk yesterday morning with the dog the way he did," Brown said yesterday on his daily radio show, Ed Brown Under Siege. "The fact that he did probably saved our lives."

[...]

U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier said that the officers were near the fortified concrete home Thursday to watch the Browns and their supporters while marshals and IRS agents acted on a warrant to seize a commercial property owned by the couple in West Lebanon. He said his officers had never intended to arrest the Browns but wanted to monitor them in case they retaliated in response to the seizure.

[...]

Ed Brown told his radio audience that the marshals' actions suggested that they intended to kill him and his wife.

"If they were willing to shoot an unarmed guest of ours," Brown said, "then their intention was to come down and kill us."

[...]

Riley ... gives a detailed description of his experience. After walking down the Browns' long, wooded driveway, he came face to face with a man in camouflage. When Riley asked the man if he was a turkey hunter, he initially got no reaction.

"Then all of the sudden, the guy stood right up in front of me," Riley said. "And with a full camouflage suit on and yelled, 'Freeze.' At that point I turned around and ran, ran for my life."

On the video, Riley describes hearing bullets whiz by him as he yelled to the marshals that he was unarmed. Brown said on the radio yesterday that he also heard gunfire Thursday morning from his house. But Monier said that marshals never shot at the dog walker.

[...]

Riley said, and the law enforcement source confirmed, that marshals shocked him with a Taser before handcuffing him and placing him in a vehicle. Riley said that marshals, whose badges identified them as "special operations unit," asked him about who was at the house, what weapons were there and whether the Browns had a bomb.

i'm going to keep my eye on this... it looks like it's starting to get interesting...

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"This thing that has happened to America was planned for a long time."

i remember back last september sharing a post that maccabee had put up on daily kos about a romanian immigrant he had a long conversation with... it was as chilling it its way as this one...

from joey picador at justice for none...

One of our neighbors is moving. I've been in this neighborhood for about six years now, but didn't really know them very well at all - just waves and nods, mostly.

So I heard the moving van pull up this morning. When I got home this evening I happened to spy my neighbor (he's like 85 years old - I don't know exactly, but he's old, talks and moves very slowly) standing on the sidewalk next to the van. I walked over and shook his hand, and we started talking. I asked him where he was moving, and he said, "Back to Germany."

I had been stationed in Germany for two years while in the military, so I lit up, and commented about how beautiful the country was, and inquired if he was going back because he missed it.

"No," he answered me. "I'm going back because I've seen this before." He then commenced to explain that when he was a kid, he watched with his family in fear as Hitler's government committed atrocity after atrocity, and no one was willing to say anything. He said the news refused to question the government, and the ones who did were not in the newspaper business much longer. He said good neighbors, people he had known all his life, turned against his family and other Jews, grabbing on to the hate and superiority "as if they were starved for it" (his words).

He said he was too old to see it happen right in front of his eyes again, and too old to do anything about it, so he was taking his family back to Europe on Thursday where they would be safe from George W. Bush and his neocons. He seemed resolute, but troubled, nonetheless, as if being too young on one end and too old on the other to fight what he saw happening was wearing on him.

I gotta tell you - it was chilling. I let him talk, and the whole time, my gut was churning, like I had mutated butterflies in my stomach. When he was finished, he shook my hand, gripping it really hard, until his knuckles turned white and he was shaking. He looked me in the eyes, hard, and said, "I will pray for your family and your country." He let go of my hand and hobbled away.

it sure reminds me of the bulgarian immigrant...

It starts with fixed elections. First the 2000 election was fixed and then the 2004 election was fixed. It happened in Communist elections just like it happened here. The people who count the votes are all in the government that's in power. And even when it seems like people have had enough, the tyrant will always somehow come out winning just enough to make your conspiracy theories seem ridiculous. Just like in Romania and Bulgaria of the sixties and seventies, the press may even report problems with elections, but Bush knows that Americans are lazy.

[...]

It may take about ten years. But it will be very much like the old Soviet Union. Incompetent government. Walls will appear around you. On the borders. Your internet sites will be scrubbed or monitored or may suddenly disappear. A government will control everything from one branch, businesses too will be in bed with the government. One day you will see your boss have the power to go through your bags. One day your corporation will have more rights than you have. Just like in Romania, we had conspiracy theories. One nuttier than the next. It turned out to be mostly true these things. This thing that has happened to America was planned for a long time.

yep, it's been a long time in the works... a long time... and we either put a halt to it soon or it will no longer be possible...

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"Today we lost. Tomorrow we will be back. Someday we will win."

brent budowsky in the huffpo...

Among many people, especially young people, there is sadness, outrage and anger that those they elected to Congress did not wage the fight and honor the election. There is a danger that young people conclude that elections don't matter.

[...]

I appeal to young people to keep the faith, make a stand, and continue the hard fight that we will ultimately win, because 70 percent of Americans are with us.

[...]

Today we lost.

Tomorrow we will be back.

Someday we will win.

brent... i turn 60 this december... i have been working, watching, and waiting my entire life for the kinds of major changes that we so desperately need in our system to come about... to be sure, the past 6 1/2 years have been particularly appalling as we watch the constitutional foundations of our republic under relentless assault, but it didn't begin with the 12 december 2000 scotus decision, not by a long shot...

sadness, outrage and anger don't begin to describe the intensity with which i view our current situation... the democratic performance on the war funding bill is only one in a long series of "last straws..." for quite some time, i have been avoiding the belief that the only way to accomplish needed change in this country was to take to the streets... now, i'm convinced it may indeed be the only way...

if a real leader stepped forward, one with access to a national platform, one with credibility, one untainted by the whirling cesspool that is our elected leadership today, who clearly identified the constitutional crisis we are experiencing and called us to action, my bags would be packed in a new york minute... while i have no intention whatsoever of giving up the fight, "someday we will win" is empty rhetoric that i have spent my life believing... i don't believe it any more... sorry...

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Dontcha think it's time to act?

is THIS what we want...?



cuz, like it or not, it's what we've GOT...

in an earlier post i said, "the pot is starting to boil and, when it does, look out..." a commenter responded with this...

Look out for friggin' WHAT, exactly?? We're all in our seperate little holes looking at our screens and bitching and moaning. Back in the 60's before people had individual and seperate access to information, they had to COME TOGETHER. It looked a lot more impressive than a zillion comments on a blog.

HERE'S what the pot starting to boil looks like...

from opol on daily kos...

• We snoozed when we should have been marching. We voted when we should have been screaming. We dropped the ball, we swallowed too much bullshit, we allowed people to tell us to be patient and accept that all we’d ever be offered is the choice between two evils – the greater and the lesser. And all the while our world has predictably grown more and more evil.
• We’ve listened raptly to insincere politicians who only sought to manipulate us in the course of playing their little power games. We’ve selflessly volunteered our money, our time, and our talents only to be promptly betrayed once the critter gets into office. They just lie their asses off to us while doing the bidding of their corporate masters. They scarcely even try to hide it anymore.
• We’ve all seen America’s considerable promise sucked out of her by the greedheads and criminals who have infiltrated our government and subverted the people’s will. This nation is at a moment of crisis unlike any it has ever seen. This is the moment when we will either save our country or watch it go down the drain.
• It’s time to organize in opposition to the government. It’s time for non-violent revolution. It’s time to take it to the streets – like we did back in the day.
• There’s no point in discussing abandoning the Democratic Party – they’ve abandoned us. They’ve done nothing but screw us at every turn ever since we helped put them in power back in November.
• Let’s get it going. Let’s get organized. It’s time to rise up and take our country back.

from jim burke, a contributor to this blog...

I think we need to start some targeted civil disobedience aimed at the wallets of the fat cats. I have proposed in the past that on a local level, we can all have a tremendous economic impact with very minimal effort.

Only a couple of dozen dedicated Americans can shut down an Intermodal Shipping Terminal by just gathering at the entrances.

These terminals transfer freight from around the world via truck, train, and ships.
They exist everywhere now. Some just do two forms, say truck and train at inland locations. I live in the N.E. My problem is which one to chose, there are so many.

What is the point, I hear you ask.

The point is this. By spending just a few hours on a Saturday afternoon preventing trucks from moving freely in and out of the terminal, it will cost the shippers and their customers several hundred thousand dollars per terminal!

If you do this all over the country, the business community will go nuts and start to complain to the Gov't they own.

When they ask why we are doing this, simply say that we want the war to end. Unconditional surrender of the Administration and Congress to our demands. Otherwise, the next Saturday, bring a chair and a bottle of water and pretend your a hunk of granite in the road.

Don't be suprised if some of us eventually wind up getting arrested.

A small price to pay, to save our tax money.

A very small price to pay to save our Nation.

A very, very small price to pay, to save the life of a Soldier.

THIS is what the pot starting to boil looks like...

if not us, who...? if not now, when...?

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Ok, I've put it off this recommendation long enough. Watch "America: Freedom to Fascism"

aaron russo's well-done, very powerful movie... whatever your political persuasion, it's worth your time... you may or may not agree, but it's still something you should see...



(The above is Aaron Russo's "Director's Authorized Version.")

from the movie...

Stop Being Good Democrats.

Stop Being Good Republicans.

Start Being Good Americans.

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