We are protesting not only on behalf of the 99% left behind, but on behalf of the 1% as well. We have no enemies.

a message from the heart...

Occupy Wall Street has been criticized for its lack of clear demands, but how do we issue demands, when what we really want is nothing less than the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible? No demand is big enough. We could make lists of demands for new public policies: tax the wealthy, raise the minimum wage, protect the environment, end the wars, regulate the banks. While we know these are positive steps, they aren't quite what motivated people to occupy Wall Street. What needs attention is something deeper: the power structures, ideologies, and institutions that prevented these steps from being taken years ago; indeed, that made these steps even necessary. Our leaders are beholden to impersonal forces, such as that of money, that compel them to do what no sane human being would choose. Disconnected from the actual effects of their policies, they live in a world of insincerity and pretense. It is time to bring a countervailing force to bear, and not just a force but a call. Our message is, "Stop pretending. You know what to do. Start doing it." Occupy Wall Street is about exposing the truth. We can trust its power. When a policeman pepper sprays helpless women, we don't beat him up and scare him into not doing it again; we show the world. Much worse than pepper spray is being perpetrated on our planet in service of money. Let us allow nothing happening on earth to be hidden.

[...]

Occupy Wall Street should not be content with half-measures, even as it encourages and applauds the tiny hundredth-measures that might come first. It should not let such concessions sap the strength of the movement or seduce it into neglecting to foster its organizational network. Occupy Wall Street is the first manifestation in a long time of "people power" in America. For too long, democracy has, for most people, meant meaningless choices in a box. The Wall Street occupation is stepping out of the box.

again, a beautiful message from the heart...

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Julian Assange takes a stand

good for him...

from raw story...



our so-called news media, ever alert for scandal and generally asleep at the wheel when anything of real substance is afoot, deserves precisely the kind of treatment they got at mr. assange's hands...

meanwhile, daniel ellsberg, now almost 80 years old, displays the courage of his convictions as well as his past by standing shoulder-to-shoulder with julian assange in denouncing the obama administration's obsession with whistleblowers...

Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks website, and Daniel Ellsberg, the former Pentagon analyst famed for leaking the Pentagon Papers, lashed out Saturday at what they described as the Obama administration's aggressive pursuit of whistle-blowers.

Assange, speaking at a news conference in London, was joined by Ellsberg, 79, who leaked the 1,000-page secret history of the Vietnam War in 1971.

Ellsberg said the administration's response to whistle-blowers put the United States on a path to the kind of repressive legal framework that Britain has under its broad Official Secrets Act.

He said criminal probes of three Americans linked to government leaks under Obama — including Pfc. Bradley Manning, suspected of providing the documents on Afghanistan and Iraq to WikiLeaks — were a new low.

Ellsberg said the Pentagon's demand that Assange "return" any classified materials in his possession was carefully couched in language similar to that used after the Pentagon Papers' release, when he was threatened with criminal prosecution for espionage.

it isn't about julian assange... it isn't about wikileaks... it isn't about ellsberg... it's about exposing the truth... it's about opening a window on what our leaders don't want us to see... why is that so hard to fathom...?

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Abu Ghraib - truth-telling and its consequences

courtesy of consortium news...

Editor’s Note: On Thursday night, former Army Sgt. Sam Provance received a letter of commendation from Common Cause – signed by former President Jimmy Carter and 15,000 others – for his “uncommon courage in defending the rule of law and standing up against torture.”

In 2004, Provance was the only uniformed military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib who broke the code of silence and challenged the Bush administration’s insistence that the grotesque prison abuses were simply the work of a few “bad apples.”

After military policeman Joseph Darby turned over the infamous Abu Ghraib photographs to investigators, Provance spoke out about the role of intelligence officers and other higher-ups in encouraging the humiliation and torture of prisoners. He gave statements to the Army’s internal investigation, at a congressional hearing and to the press.

For his brave integrity, Provance was punished, threatened with a court martial and pushed out of the military. Since then, Provance has faced severe financial and family pressures, struggling to find work that pays enough for him to meet child support obligations and other basic needs.

So, when Provance accepted Common Cause’s commendation, it was a bittersweet moment that illuminated the grim reality of trying to tell important truths in this American era:

I wish I could share with you a “success” story as a result of my being a “whistle-blower,” but the reality of things simply do not presently allow it.

I admit to you that at one time I did believe that my life would eventually turn for the better, in spite of it all, especially fighting under the banners of “doing right,” “standing up for others” and “speaking the truth.”

But it has been a very long and arduous path I have found myself upon with no end in sight. Rather than a karmic “good” winning in the end over “the forces of evil,” I have experienced what I feel like is a slow and intimate wrath in response to my actions.

However, I have sometimes thought perhaps it has been best. Perhaps I might have grown enthralled with the ensuing drama or seduced by the attention garnered. But I have been humbled many times and kept humble nonetheless.

Others I have seen in this and other scandals took the bribes of some media or gave in to others' insinuations that they embellish their testimony for a better “copy.” Still others got lost in drugs or, more tragically, had mental breakdowns under the unique stress.

Their efforts in this regard were effectively sabotaged, losing their credibility, if not their lives.

Perhaps I could have much to gain from indulging in the spotlight or kill a lot of the pain in the fantasies of inebriation, but I know that if what I have said or done is to maintain its meaning – what I have been sacrificing so much for – I have to stay true. I have to stay the course.

I realized that one cannot allow others to take away their credibility or the integrity of the act itself, otherwise, all will be for naught. Sometimes, as in my case, my credibility is all I have left.

i don't think it takes being a whistleblower to fully appreciate what provance is experiencing... a lot of us have been working for many years to tell the truth - at least the truth as we see it - and have felt like voices crying in the wilderness... all we can do is keep on keepin' on...

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Robert Parry - "The overriding question has become whether the United States ... is on the verge of losing its sanity"

it's been way, way too long since i have posted something from robert parry and that's not because i don't hold his reporting in high regard... it's simply because so much of what he has to say is an affirmation of or an expansion on what i already know... (yeah, i know, that's a lame excuse since most of the stuff i post on falls into that category anyway...)

anyway, here's mr. parry deploring our national laissez-faire approach to insisting on the truth...

When a supposedly “moderate” Republican like Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa endorses the crazed view of the “deathers” who claim that President Barack Obama’s health-care plan would promote euthanasia, it is clear that the nation’s problem is bigger than any one legislative battle, even one as big as health reform.

The overriding question has become whether the United States – as a representative democracy – is on the verge of losing its sanity.

[...]

Some rational Americans, it seems, have their own erroneous beliefs that justify inaction. Over the years, I’ve often heard the hopeful slogans that “the truth will out” or that “the pendulum will swing back,” when the reality is that there are no automatic mechanisms for stopping lies and distortions.

Truth is a battle, much as democracy is. Bringing truth to light requires resources and infrastructure, as well as personal honesty and courage. That is especially true when the other side in the battle has opted for a strategy of falsehoods and exaggerations – and has assembled both powerful artillery and well-trained mercenaries to carry out what it calls “information warfare.”

In such a conflict, there is no guarantee or even a likelihood that the “truth will out,” at least not on its own. Nor is there any reason to believe some mythical pendulum will restore a normal order.

What I have seen during more than three decades in Washington is that many truths remain effectively hidden, even if technically they have been revealed. A rare moment of truth-telling can be easily overwhelmed by a steady barrage of falsehoods and an infusion of well-calibrated doubts.

as i commented on mr. parry's blog, i am of the opinion that the u.s. has already lost its sanity...

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What goes into the making of a contemporary American revolutionary?

a question for all of us to ponder, particularly with the chaos and borderline violence erupting daily in townhall meetings...

So what goes into the making of a contemporary American revolutionary? What turns an ordinary law abiding, relatively sedate and insular, American Idol watching couch potato into an informed and committed citizen prepared to incur risk and make meaningful prolonged personal sacrifice aimed at reclaiming our country? Two things: truth and suffering.

[...]

Well then, if we have these essential elements of truth and suffering, why is there still no large, forceful, coherent, and well organized body of popular grassroots resistance in the US? The main reason is simply that the requisite deep suffering and penetrating hard truths are not yet sufficiently widespread. Another reason is the extensive dumbing down of our society, along with the non-stop lies and propaganda spoon fed us daily by mainstream corporate media. Also there’s the ever present fear created by our government, using both rhetoric and legislation designed to consistently reinforce the clear threat so plainly put to us in the wake of 9-11 by George W. Bush: “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists.”

In any case, with our Bush initiated upward spiraling national debt, exploding unemployment, and massive war related economic hemorrhaging, all continuing unabated under Obama and our wholly owned Congress, the furtherance of expanded suffering is a foregone conclusion. It will be left to the small but growing numbers of would-be resisters and truth-tellers (citizens Big Brother will vilify as home-grown terrorists) to advance the spread of truth.

we placed so much hope with obama for meaningful change... now what...?

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Normalizing the unthinkable

do yourself a favor and go read the transcript, watch the video or listen to the mp3 of this john pilger speech during the Socialism 2007 conference in Chicago...

here's a teaser, thanks to democracy now via co-blogger tobymandrake...

John Pilger - the eminent investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker - is a harsh critic of the corporate media. Pilger began his career in journalism close to half a century ago. He has made over 50 documentaries and is the author of numerous books, his most recent is titled "Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire."

[M]edia clichéd language ... is designed to normalize the unthinkable; of the degradation of war, of severed limbs, of maimed children, all of which I've seen. One of my favorite stories about the Cold War concerns a group of Russian journalists who were touring the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by the host for their impressions. "I have to tell you," said the spokesman, "that we were astonished to find after reading all the newspapers and watching TV day after day that all the opinions on all the vital issues are the same. To get that result in our country we send journalists to the gulag. We even tear out their fingernails. Here you don't have to do any of that. What is the secret?"

What is the secret? It is a question seldom asked in newsrooms, in media colleges, in journalism journals, and yet the answer to that question is critical to the lives of millions of people. On August 24 last year the New York Times declared this in an editorial: "If we had known then what we know now the invasion if Iraq would have been stopped by a popular outcry." This amazing admission was saying, in effect, that journalists had betrayed the public by not doing their job and by accepting and amplifying and echoing the lies of Bush and his gang, instead of challenging them and exposing them. What the Times didn't say was that had that paper and the rest of the media exposed the lies, up to a million people might be alive today. That's the belief now of a number of senior establishment journalists. Few of them—they've spoken to me about it—few of them will say it in public.

there's plenty more, much of which confirms the complicity of our two political parties' and our media in keeping us from learning the truth...

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"Power has made reality its bitch."

what a quote... some way or another, those six words need to go down in history as perhaps the best one-line summation of the bush administration ever written...

from the la times...

Here is my favorite quotation about the Bush administration, a description of a conversation with the proverbial "unnamed administration official" by the fine journalist Ron Suskind in October 2004:

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.' "

I must admit to you that I love that quotation. The unnamed official, widely believed to be Karl Rove, sketches out with breathtaking frankness a radical view in which power frankly determines reality, and in which rhetoric — the science of flounces and folderols — follows meekly and subserviently in its train. Those in the "reality-based community" are figures a mite pathetic, for we have failed to realize the singular new principle of the new age: Power has made reality its bitch.

Given such sweeping claims for power, it is hard to expect much respect for truth; or perhaps it should be "truth" — in quotation marks — for, when you can alter reality at will, why pay much attention to the idea of fidelity in describing it?

i have no doubt those words were uttered by karl rove... everything i know and have read about karl rove positively oozes that kind of staggering arrogance... my fondest wish is that, some day, karl's headstone will read, "i TRIED to make reality my bitch, but reality had her way with me in the end..."

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