James Petras: the operation and strategy of our growing police state

yes, it's growing as we watch...

james petras via information clearing house...

The key to the police state operations of the US in the 21st century is to repress pro-democracy citizens and pre-empt any mass movement without undermining the electoral system, which provides political theater and legitimacy. A police state ‘boundary’ is constructed to ensure that citizens will have little option but to vote for the two pro-police state parties, legislatures and executives without reference to the conduct, conditions and demands of the core, inner and outer circle of victims, critics and activists. Frequent raids, harsh public ‘exemplary’ punishment and mass media stigmatization transmit a message to the passive mass of voters and non-voters that the victims of repression ‘must have been doing something wrong’ or else they would not be under police state repression.

The key to the police state strategy is to not allow its critics to gain a mass base, popular legitimacy or public acceptance. The state and the media constantly drum the message that the activists’ ‘causes’ are not our (American, patriotic) ‘causes’; that ‘their’ pro-democracy activities impede ‘our’ electoral activities; their lives, wisdom and experiences do not touch our workplaces, neighborhoods, sports, religious and civic associations. To the degree that the police-state has ‘fenced in’ the inner circles of the pro-democracy activists, they have attained a free hand and uncontested reach in deepening and extending the boundaries of the authoritarian state. To the degree that the police state rationale or presence has penetrated the consciousness of the mass of the US population, it has created a mighty barrier to the linking of private discontent with public action.

[...]

Ideologically, the police state depends on identifying the expansion of police powers with ‘national security’ of the passive ‘silent’ majority, even as it creates profound insecurity for an active, critical minority. The self-serving identification of the ‘nation’ and the ‘flag’ with the police state apparatus is especially prominent during ‘mass spectacles’ where ‘rock’, schlock and ‘sports’ infuse mass entertainment with solemn Pledges of Allegiance to uphold and respect the police state and busty be-wigged young women wail nasally versions of the national anthem to thunderous applause. Wounded ‘warriors’ are trotted out and soldiers rigid in their dress uniforms salute enormous flags, while the message transmitted is that police state at home works hand in hand with our ‘men and women in uniform’ abroad. The police state is presented as a patriotic extension of the wars abroad and as such both impose ‘necessary’ constraints on citizen opposition, public criticism and any real forthright defense of freedom.

open your eyes... it's all around you...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Glenn: Why is the unprecedented increase in domestic surveillance and a corresponding increase in prosecuting whistleblowers not a campaign issue?

yes... why indeed...

glenn greenwald...

[I]ssuing subpoenas to journalists to force them to reveal their sources is now obsolete — unnecessary — because the U.S. Government’s Surveillance State is so vast, so comprehensive, that it already knows who is talking to whom. It now subpoenas and harasses reporters simply to force them to confirm in court what they have already learned through surveillance, but the limitless Surveillance State it has created has rendered undetected whistleblowing — or undetected anything — virtually impossible.

[...]

[I]t’s just as necessary for a government to shield its own actions from any transparency and scrutiny as it is to know everything which citizens are doing and saying. That’s the one-way mirror which all authoritarian regimes attempt to construct: those in power know everything about the conduct of those who are ruled, while those who are ruled know nothing about the conduct of those in power. That’s what keeps the power dynamic so imbalanced in one direction. But this unprecedented attack on whistleblowers, as obviously significant as it is, also enjoys full bipartisan support (as well as the indifference of a supremely passive media), and so it, too, will be completely ignored by the grand Election-Year clash of America’s two great and oh-so-fundamentally-different political parties.

here's glenn's take on how all this plays out in our election year politics...

Even for those issues that are actually significant and receive election-year attention — such as, say, America’s oligarchy and the economic policies that sustain it — the differences are largely symbolic, just substantive enough to keep tribal loyalties high and to maintain the illusion of real choices (watch how often Obama supporters defend him from GOP attacks not by rejecting their premises but by insisting that he’s adopting conservative policies). The differences which are genuinely stark — Supreme Court choices, reproductive rights, marriage equality — are relegated to mere sideshows, exploited as tactics for maintaining acute cultural divisions and keeping certain base factions loyal, invested, and energized.

i can't count how many emails i receive each day imploring me to reject the evil republicans and to loosen my purse strings and toss a few dollars to white hat democrats... yeah, right...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

A modest proposal for a Voters' Rights Amendment that brings Occupy and the Tea Party together

i'm inclined to believe we're ready for this... my gut has told me for a long time that the ptb have worked tirelessly to keep us off balance and fighting each other and the tea party vs. the occupy movement is just one more instance of this as is the bogus two-party system, socialism vs. capitalism, war vs. peace, and all the other false dichotomies that are shoved down our throats on a daily basis...

apologies to truthout for exceeding the fair use standard but this deserves a full treatment...

A Voters' Rights Amendment as a Focus for Dissent

Unification of the Tea Party and Occupy movements for a common goal - a Voters' Rights Amendment - will re-establish the United States as a democratic republic and will restore control of its government to the voters. The sort of cooperation I will suggest here is possible only to the extent that there is not more opinion-manufacturing or co-optation by political parties or private interests.

Although the corporate and wealthy elite is doing everything in its power - primarily through its mouthpiece, the mainstream media - to convince Occupiers and Tea Partiers that each is an enemy of the other, it is becoming increasingly clear that the two groups have much in common.

Not only do both groups march under the "Don't Tread on Me" flag, they both very strongly believe that corporations should not enjoy the constitutional rights of individuals, regardless of what the US Supreme Court may have ruled. Moreover, both groups believe that their government ignores their most critical concerns, including jobs, personal freedom, and the health, nutrition and well-being of their families, as their elected representatives feed at the trough slopped by the corporate and wealthy elite.

The time is ripe for an open consideration of unity between the two groups. The extensive media coverage amounting to the propaganda-style coverage and pandering of the Tea Party's far smaller demonstrations has given way to acknowledgment of the Occupy movement in the face of police brutality and that movement's staying power.

Support for the Tea Party is lagging with the nonaligned public, as it is increasingly evident that the populist movement has been and is being manipulated by Republican operatives. At the same time, the Occupiers are fighting off attempts by establishment progressives to co-opt their movement.

It is essential that both groups identify their common interests and take collective actions to unify their efforts, instead of attacking each other over other issues about which they may have an honest difference of opinion. Uniting with the increasingly large block of independent voters, Tea Partiers and Occupiers will organize a more effective defense of both of their basic principles, rather than those offered by either the Republican or Democratic party, both of which subvert the rights and interests of workers and small-business owners in favor of wealthy donors and corporate supporters.

The most basic issue that Occupiers and Tea Partiers may perhaps readily agree upon is a Voters' Rights Amendment to the Constitution that ensures that the future of the United States is decided by its voters rather than by the corporate and wealthy elite, which currently manipulates and controls the voters' representatives. The Voters' Rights Amendment provides that only natural persons are protected by the Constitution, establishes a national paid voters' holiday and calls for a national paper ballot, which includes a national policy referendum on critical policy questions and an alternative write-in vote.

The Voters' Rights Amendment
to the Constitution of the United States of America

Section 1

Only natural persons shall be protected by this Constitution and entitled to the rights and freedoms it guarantees, including the freedoms of religion, speech, assembly, petition and privacy.

Section 2

Prior to the end of the calendar year preceding a presidential election, Congress shall adopt a joint resolution setting forth the 12 most critical policy questions that should be addressed by the next president and Congress.

Failure of Congress to adopt a joint resolution prior to the end of the calendar year shall result in the disqualification of all sitting members of Congress to be eligible for re-election.

Section 3

Federal elections conducted every second year for senators and representatives shall be held on a national voters' holiday, with full pay for all voters who cast a ballot.

Federal elections shall be conducted on uniform, hand-countable paper ballots and, for the presidential election, ballots shall include the 12 most critical policy questions identified by Congress, each to be answered yes or no by voters.

Paper ballots shall provide space for voters to handwrite in their choice for all elective federal offices, if they choose, and all such votes shall be counted.

Section 4

In balancing the public benefit of maximum voter participation with the prevention of voting fraud, Congress and the states shall not impose any restriction on voting by citizens except for the most compelling reasons.

The intentional suppression of voting in national elections is hereby prohibited and, in addition to any other penalty imposed by law, any person convicted of the intentional suppression of voting shall be ineligible for federal office for a period of five years.

Section 5

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 6

This article shall become operative once it has been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several states as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the states by the Congress.

definitely worth considering...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Both parties need to be driven into the wilderness of history and the rule of law has to be rescued from the oblivion they sent it to

james howard kunstler blogging in clusterfuck nation...

Occupy Wall Street will seem like a mere harvest dance when we look back from the uproars later in 2012. Both organized parties have managed to banish the rule of law in America. Both parties need to be driven ihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifnto the wilderness of history and the rule of law has to be rescued from the oblivion they sent it to. What group of clear-thinking adults can get behind that simple project? What voices will resolve out of the phenomenal noise of gadget America, with its deafening tweets, incessant advertising, instant messaging, idiotic robo-calling, and ever-present flat-screen assault on the senses?

I discern the distant sound of rebellion, a spirit that won't be appeased by bytes of Disney-babble from the pandering snouts of Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul or Obama. They are interested only in keeping a set of suicidal rackets going. All the yammer about "freedom" and "liberty" is hollow when the rule of law is AWOL. This ripe time is the natural moment for a true opposition to rise. A few months from now neither major party will have a credible candidate or a plausible platform of ideas. This will be painfully obvious. What angels and demons will rush into that awful vacuum?

truly, we are watching a horror show...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

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...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

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...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Rocky Anderson and the Justice Party

when this story first surfaced yesterday, i read it and shrugged... today, i took a closer look...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

here's what the justice party says it's all about...

The Justice Party seeks governing authority at the local, state, Congressional and national levels, beginning in the 2012 election cycle. The Justice Party is being created as a new 21st -century political vehicle to allow all citizens to work together to bring innovative results-oriented, justice-based solutions to the political debate as soon as possible.

Rocky Anderson, the former Mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah, delivered an address explaining why the Justice Party is needed at this critical juncture in U.S. history to rapidly achieve economic, social, and environmental justice.

and more...

Courageous Americans are joining together to create the Justice Party. Our intention is for the Justice Party to serve as a major new political party that will shape American politics in the public interest for decades to come. We seek governing authority at the local, state, Congressional, and national levels, starting in 2012 Election. We believe in the following core principles, namely:

• We are patriots. We believe in the greatness of America’s national ideals. We believe America has an indispensable purpose in the World: to demonstrate, by example, the power of peace, freedom, equal opportunity, and justice for all;
  
• We are dedicated to bringing integrity to the intentions of founding documents of our nation: including the Declaration of Independence, The U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. We are dedicated to advancing justice, peace, and freedom. America was founded in freedom—freedom to speak, to worship, to choose whatever path to happiness suits us best—but that freedom comes an equal responsibility to country, community, family, and the World.
  
• We believe that justice-based values are what enable a free and just society to regain its strength. These values are: pragmatism tied to principle, honest and integrity, hard work and personal initiative, self-sacrifice and self-discipline, fairness and compassion, competitive striving and fair play, and a desire to serve the nation and advance justice in solidarity with the rest of the World.
  
• We believe that we should measure the nation’s progress by whether every citizen has a fair shot. We believe that all citizens should have the opportunity to advance on the basis of talent and merit, and by the degree to which we promote the common success of all of our citizens. Additionally, we believe that we should measure the nation’s progress towards addressing complex global challenges, including disease, illiteracy, climate change, poverty, and strategic insecurities as central priorities towards advancing America’s moral leadership.
  
• We believe that we should measure a citizen’s worth by contribution to country and community, not by wealth or power—that those whom America has benefited most should contribute in proportion to their good fortune—and that serving others should be esteemed more highly than serving self.

i have to confess... even the mere hint of a viable alternative to our present completely corrupted, dysfunctional two-party system captures my attention...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Why Occupy Wall Street and its offspring should stay away from electoral politics

glenn...

[T]he reason this is a street protest movement (rather than, say, a voter-registration crusade or an OFA project) is precisely because the protesters concluded that dedicating themselves to the President’s re-election and/or the Democratic Party is hardly a means for combating Wall Street’s influence, rising wealth inequality or corporatist control of the political process.

[...]

[T]he unique value and promise of these protests is that they are independent of prevailing political institutions, and it’s difficult to see how these protests can simultaneously be fully integrated into those institutions while preserving that value.

[...]

Dedicating oneself principally to the Democratic Party’s electoral prospects or Barack Obama’s re-election campaign would seem a glaring non sequitur to those concerns.

i am in total agreement... our electoral process is so seriously broken and so fundamentally compromised by the vast amounts of money thrown at it by our super-rich elites who are hell-bent on vacuuming up every last scrap of money and power on the planet, it's pure idiocy to waste time on it unless and until it's fixed...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

A call for participative democracy

yesterday, i listened in on a webinar offered by the good folks at firedoglake... the purpose was to educate members and stir up some enthusiasm for the october 6 people's assembly in d.c... the education part, at least for me, was redundant since i follow all the income inequality, bankster and motu stuff very closely... what i did find interesting was the rejection of any focus on electoral politics, a direct acknowledgement that our electoral, two-party system is seriously broken and an emphasis on the need for aligning ourselves behind a demand for a move (return?) to participative democracy...

i'm all one for working to put together critical mass... we've stood by long enough watching our super-rich elites methodically destroy any semblance of a social contract with their ugly devotion to ayn rand and social darwinism... but i confess to being utterly dismayed at the incredible splintering i witness on the so-called liberal, progressive left... everybody's out there chasing their own special set of issues, whether it's polar bears, mountain-top removal, act blue as the vehicle to fund progressive office-seekers, or ridiculing the latest atrocities to issue from the mouth-breathers that are attempting to pass for serious presidential candidates...

i found it refreshing to see the statement of seven principles the webinar presenters shared with the participants... this is something i can get behind...


(click on image for larger version)

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

A short analysis of the global protest movement with a special focus on Wall Street

the nyt is sitting up and taking note...

Their complaints range from corruption to lack of affordable housing and joblessness, common grievances the world over. But from South Asia to the heartland of Europe and now even to Wall Street, these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over.

They are taking to the streets, in part, because they have little faith in the ballot box.

“Our parents are grateful because they’re voting,” said Marta Solanas, 27, referring to older Spaniards’ decades spent under the Franco dictatorship. “We’re the first generation to say that voting is worthless.”

Economics have been one driving force, with growing income inequality, high unemployment and recession-driven cuts in social spending breeding widespread malaise. Alienation runs especially deep in Europe, with boycotts and strikes that, in London and Athens, erupted into violence.

But even in India and Israel, where growth remains robust, protesters say they so distrust their country’s political class and its pandering to established interest groups that they feel only an assault on the system itself can bring about real change.

Young Israeli organizers repeatedly turned out gigantic crowds insisting that their political leaders, regardless of party, had been so thoroughly captured by security concerns, ultra-Orthodox groups and other special interests that they could no longer respond to the country’s middle class.

[...]

Increasingly, citizens of all ages, but particularly the young, are rejecting conventional structures like parties and trade unions in favor of a less hierarchical, more participatory system modeled in many ways on the culture of the Web.

In that sense, the protest movements in democracies are not altogether unlike those that have rocked authoritarian governments this year, toppling longtime leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Protesters have created their own political space online that is chilly, sometimes openly hostile, toward traditional institutions of the elite.

The critical mass of wiki and mapping tools, video and social networking sites, the communal news wire of Twitter and the ease of donations afforded by sites like PayPal makes coalitions of like-minded individuals instantly viable.

the money quote, imho, is what i've highlighted in bold above - "We’re the first generation to say that voting is worthless"... that statement perfectly captures my own feelings... it's also nice to see the reference to "citizens of all ages"... i turn 64 in december and there's no question in my mind that i feel a great deal more affinity with those, young or old, who seek "a less hierarchical, more participatory system"...

turning to what's happening on wall street (and seems to be spreading across the country), glenn, as always, offers trenchant commentary on the "condescending, dismissive and scornful" coverage reflected in the news media some of which, not surprisingly, comes from our so-called "liberals," "progressives," and "democrats"...

A significant aspect of this progressive disdain is grounded in the belief that the only valid form of political activism is support for Democratic Party candidates, and a corresponding desire to undermine anything that distracts from that goal. Indeed, the loyalists of both parties have an interest in marginalizing anything that might serve as a vehicle for activism outside of fealty to one of the two parties (Fox News' firing of Glenn Beck was almost certainly motivated by his frequent deviation from the GOP party-line orthodoxy which Fox exists to foster.

The very idea that the one can effectively battle Wall Street's corruption and control by working for the Democratic Party is absurd on its face: Wall Street's favorite candidate in 2008 was Barack Obama, whose administration -- led by a Wall Street White House Chief of Staff and Wall-Street-subservient Treasury Secretary and filled to the brim with Goldman Sachs officials -- is now working hard to protect bankers from meaningful accountability (and though he's behind Wall Street's own Mitt Romney in the Wall Street cash sweepstakes this year, Obama is still doing well); one of Wall Street's most faithful servants is Chuck Schumer, the money man of the Democratic Party; and the second-ranking Senate Democrat acknowledged -- when Democrats controlled the Congress -- that the owners of Congress are bankers. There are individuals who impressively rail against the crony capitalism and corporatism that sustains Wall Street's power, but they're no match for the party apparatus that remains fully owned and controlled by it.

But much of this progressive criticism consists of relatively (ostensibly) well-intentioned tactical and organizational critiques of the protests: there wasn't a clear unified message; it lacked a coherent media strategy; the neo-hippie participants were too off-putting to Middle America; the resulting police brutality overwhelmed the message, etc. etc. That's the high-minded form which most progressive scorn for the protests took: it's just not professionally organized or effective.

Some of these critiques are ludicrous. Does anyone really not know what the basic message is of this protest: that Wall Street is oozing corruption and criminality and its unrestrained political power -- in the form of crony capitalism and ownership of political institutions -- is destroying financial security for everyone else? Beyond that, criticizing protesters for the prominence of police brutality stories is pure victim-blaming (and, independently, having police brutality highlighted is its own benefit).

[...]

[T]here is a sprawling apparatus of federal and local militarized police forces and private corporate security designed to send this message: if you participate in protests or other forms of dissent outside of harmless approved channels, you're going to be harmed in numerous ways. As Yves Smith put it this week:

I’m beginning to wonder whether the right to assemble is effectively dead in the US. No one who is a wage slave (which is the overwhelming majority of the population) can afford to have an arrest record, even a misdemeanor, in this age of short job tenures and rising use of background checks.

This is all designed to deter any meaningful challenges to the government and corporate institutions which are suffocating them, to bully those who consider such challenges into accepting its futility. And it works.

[...]

Given the costs and risks one incurs from participating in protests like this -- to say nothing of the widespread mockery one receives -- it's natural that most of the participants will be young and not yet desperate to cling to institutional stability. It's also natural that this cohort won't be well-versed (or even interested) in the high arts of media messaging and leadership structures. Democratic Party precinct captains, MBA students in management theory and corporate communications, and campaign media strategists aren't the ones who will fuel protests like this; it takes a mindset of passionate dissent and a willingness to remove oneself from the safe confines of institutional respectability.

with that last thought of glenn's in mind, here's an excerpt from today's alternet, calling for the rest of us to join in...

It's astonishing that this self-organized festival of democracy has sprouted on the turf of the masters of the universe, the men who play the tune that both political parties and the media dance to. The New York Police Department, which has deployed hundreds of officers at a time to surround and intimidate protesters, is capable of arresting everyone and clearing Liberty Plaza in minutes. But they haven't, which is also astonishing.

[...]

Yet while many people support the occupation, they hesitate to fully join in and are quick to offer criticism. It's clear that the biggest obstacles to building a powerful movement are not the police or capital -- it's our own cynicism and despair.

Now, there are endless objections one can make. But if we focus on the possibilities, and shed our despair, our hesitancy and our cynicism, and collectively come to Wall Street with critical thinking, ideas and solidarity we can change the world.

How many times in your life do you get a chance to watch history unfold, to actively participate in building a better society, to come together with thousands of people where genuine democracy is the reality and not a fantasy?

For too long our minds have been chained by fear, by division, by impotence. The one thing the elite fear most is a great awakening. That day is here. Together we can seize it.

i've been cheerleading for this kind of thing for many, many years, and, yes, i know i've quietly been waiting for the apocalypse... maybe, just maybe, my waiting is coming to an end...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

This is a bribe-based system—an oligarchy all the way to the core

mark sumner posting on daily kos...

The greatest pretense in American politics is this: that our politicians can be utterly dependent on money given to them by contributors, but not be influenced by the source of those funds. It's not true. It's never been true. Now that the judicial takeover of our electoral system is complete, there's not even any reason to hide it. This is a bribe-based system—an oligarchy all the way to the core. Getting it back isn't going to be easy, and probably can't be done with dollars. It's going to take something far more dear.

it's about time that we woke up and smelled that fabled coffee... there is zero daylight between the repubs and the dems... they're both bought and paid for puppets totally beholden to their super-rich, elite handlers... as long as the principle driver is money, we're going to continue to get what we've been getting - governance at all levels singularly focused on the needs of those who pay to have people elected who will serve their needs and their needs alone, the common good be damned...

meanwhile, we, the peasants, are continually exhorted (by democrat-dedicated sites such as daily kos, among others) to toss our pathetic and scarce dollars into the hat to try to outspend those who can contribute millions without breaking a sweat... tell me how THAT'S going to work...

as long as we continue to support the myth that we can somehow make our completely broken two-party system work, we only continue to enable the oligarchs to run our lives and subvert any semblance of the principles the united states was founded on... whenever we attempt to make a stand for the common good, we will find it being attacked with the kind of vigor and unlimited resources that will only succeed in stomping it out... the welfare of senior citizens...? education for our national treasure, the young...? the fate of the unemployed...? the disadvantaged...? the working poor...? fuhgeddaboudit... anyone who doesn't have the advantage of money is, by definition, powerless, so, screw 'em...

where does this leave us...? i wish i knew... what i do know is that what we've been doing isn't working and i, for one, simply can't face the prospect of another repeat of our every four year reality show...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

So, I'm a Republican...?

because of my deep disillusionment with obama and the democratic party, my oldest and bestest friend in the world is accusing me of "going republican"...

Please stop sounding more Republican all the time!

it is to laugh...

here's the response i sent off a couple of hours ago...

got nothin' to do with "republican," my friend... i'm just wising up to the fact that there's no daylight between dems and repubs... our 2-party system is completely bogus... i consider myself a liberal but i can no longer in good conscience call myself a democrat (and would certainly never dream of calling myself a republican)...

i'm for a return to the notion that the country was supposedly founded on - the common good - a notion that seems to have completely disappeared in the national discourse... both dems and repubs are completely in thrall - and have been for years - to our military-government-corporate revolving-door system, the profiteering of endless war, the fear-mongering industry, and the politics of global hegemony, and are cravenly beholden to the super-rich elites who pull the strings behind the scenes... obama, geithner, bernanke, boehner, reid, mcconnell et al. are all bought-and-paid-for tools and whether they're repubs or dems is a distinction without a difference... the notion that any elected official in this country is even remotely accountable to the so-called constituency that elected them is pure crap... the ones who shoveled the most money to get them elected are their only real constituency... for obama, that's wall street, period... the koch bros, rupert, lloyd blankfein, jamie dimon, and their ilk, hold all the cards and won't rest until they have vacuumed up every last scrap of global money and power... then they will ensconce themselves in their guarded, gated, well-provisioned communities while the rest of us grovel outside for a crust of bread...

the current "debt crisis" is nothing more than the usual kabuki theater, entertainment for the masses, manufactured to erase any remaining vestiges of a social contract and all traces of the "new deal," something our super-rich elites have been having wet dreams over since the days of fdr... the stage is being set for what's currently happening in greece - and will soon hit italy, spain, portugal and ireland - namely the wholesale divestiture of public assets into private, super-rich elite hands... it's the final chapter in the greatest money and power transfer the world has ever seen... if the u.s. moves into default, it will happen quickly... if the default is averted, it will just take a bit longer... either way, the outcome is assured...

maybe obama is being held hostage or maybe he's only following his own natural inclinations... no matter... i voted for him out of a belief that there was some hope... sadly, i was blinded by my own desperate desire to see meaningful change and a return to things that mattered... now, however, even obama's own most trusted former colleague and mentor, cornel west, has abandoned him... i'm not defending cornel west or his world view, but i do find it telling that a very liberal, very intelligent, highly respected black colleague of obama's has jumped ship...

speaking for myself, i believe that any president who can stand behind a policy calling for the extra-judicial assassination of anyone, including american citizens, is morally bankrupt and in direct violation of both international law and the united states constitution...

with all that said, i would be deliriously happy to be proven wrong...

happy to be wrong... definitely...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 3 comments

When Obama looks in the mirror in the morning, I don't think he sees a reflection

there's no reflection because there's nobody there...

glenn in the guardian...

Barack Obama is gutting the core principles of the Democratic party

[...]

[I]t is now beyond dispute that President Obama not only favours, but is the leading force in Washington pushing for, serious benefit cuts to both social security and Medicare.

This week, even as GOP leaders offered schemes to raise the debt ceiling with no cuts, the White House expressed support for the Senate's so-called "gang of six" plan that includes substantial cuts in those programmes.

The same Democratic president who supported the transfer of $700bn to bail out Wall Street banks, who earlier this year signed an extension of Bush's massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and who has escalated America's bankruptcy-inducing posture of Endless War, is now trying to reduce the debt by cutting benefits for America's most vulnerable – at the exact time that economic insecurity and income inequality are at all-time highs.

Where is the "epic shitstorm" from the left which Black predicted? With a few exceptions – the liberal blog FiredogLake has assembled 50,000 Obama supporters vowing to withhold re-election support if he follows through, and a few other groups have begun organising as well – it's nowhere to be found.

Therein lies one of the most enduring attributes of Obama's legacy: in many crucial areas, he has done more to subvert and weaken the left's political agenda than a GOP president could have dreamed of achieving. So potent, so overarching, are tribal loyalties in American politics that partisans will support, or at least tolerate, any and all policies their party's leader endorses – even if those policies are ones they long claimed to loathe.

This dynamic has repeatedly emerged in numerous contexts. Obama has continued Bush/Cheney terrorism policies – once viciously denounced by Democrats – of indefinite detention, renditions, secret prisons by proxy, and sweeping secrecy doctrines.

He has gone further than his predecessor by waging an unprecedented war on whistleblowers, seizing the power to assassinate U.S. citizens without due process far from any battlefield, massively escalating drone attacks in multiple nations, and asserting the authority to unilaterally prosecute a war (in Libya) even in defiance of a Congressional vote against authorising the war.

And now he is devoting all of his presidential power to cutting the entitlement programmes that have been the defining hallmark of the Democratic party since Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. The silence from progressive partisans is deafening – and depressing, though sadly predictable.

The nature of American politics is that once a policy is removed from the partisan wars – once it is adopted by the leadership of both parties – it is removed from mainstream debate and fortified as bipartisan consensus. That is why false claims in the run-up to the Iraq war, endorsed by both parties, received so little mainstream journalistic scrutiny. And it's why the former Bush lawyer and right-wing ideologue Jack Goldsmith – back in May 2009 – celebrated in The New Republic the fact that Obama was doing more to strengthen Bush/Cheney terrorism policies than his former bosses could have ever achieved: by embracing the very terrorism approach he once denounced, Obama was converting it from rightwing radicalism into into the official dogma of both parties, and forcing his supporters to defend what were, until 2009, the symbols of rightwing evil.

Identically, Obama is now on the verge of injecting what until recently was the politically toxic and unattainable dream of Wall Street and the American right – attacks on the nation's social safety net – into the heart and soul of the Democratic party's platform. Those progressives who are guided more by party loyalty than actual belief will seamlessly transform from virulent opponents of such cuts into their primary defenders.

And thus will Obama succeed – yet again – in gutting not only core Democratic policies, but also the identity and power of the American Left.

it's really astounding to me how this whole thing works...

watching this phenomenon called barack obama blatantly demonstrating that there is literally NO daylight between the two parties in our so-called two-party system, not only doggedly upholding but vigorously extending the worst excesses of the nightmarish years under dubya, determinedly selling out every principle i believe in, and then seeing almost NOBODY pushing back, is reducing me to abject despair...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Democrats "are perceived as -- and are -- beholden to Wall Street, special interests, and the corporations they vowed to confront"

i'm back in the saddle, in a manner of speaking... after a very long friday night and all day yesterday spent traveling, a full 10+ hours of which were spent in layover (which in itself can be very tiring), i've now re-charged with 10+ hours of sleep and two cups of brazilian segafredo coffee, all backed by jazz from the public radio station in sacramento (ain't the internet grand?)...

besides a good night's sleep and coffee, there's nothing like reading glenn greenwald to bring me back to earth big-time...

[T]he Democratic Party now reaps what it has sown. Its message and identity are profoundly muddled, incoherent, unclear, uninspiring, and self-negating. Worse, its policies are mishmashes of inept half-measures that, with a handful of exceptions, produce little good for anyone (other than Wall Street, the Pentagon and other corporate interests). They are perceived as -- and are -- beholden to Wall Street, special interests, and the corporations they vowed to confront. They are without any ability to confront the massive unemployment crisis and financial decline the country faces. And as a result of all of that, they lay in shambles. Anyone who can survey all of that and cheer for the strategy which Democrats have been pursuing -- let's build our majorities by relying on GOP-replicating corporatist Blue Dogs -- or who thinks that this election loss happened because "Democrats are too liberal," resides in a world that has very little to do with reality. And that's true no matter how many times they repeat the simplistic snippets of exit polls to which they've obsessively attached themselves.

just more justification - as if we needed any - as to why our country is so broken... we have a two-party system completely and totally allied with the super-rich elites, elites who are intent on doing nothing but enhancing their power to monopolize the world's resources for their own benefit and to hell with anybody who gets in their way...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

The dangerous myth that our two-party system gives us a choice

it hasn't been true for the majority of my lifetime (now going on 63 years) even though i spent an unfortunate amount of time believing that it does... not any more...

once again, glenn says it best...

[I]t should be apparent to any rational observer that confining oneself to the two-party system -- meaning devoting oneself loyally to one of the two parties' establishments without regard to what it does -- is a ticket to inevitable irrelevance. The same factions rule Washington no matter which of the two parties control the various branches of government (see this excellent new article from Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson on the Obama administration's role in the BP oil spill, and specifically how virtually nothing changed in the oil-industry-controlled Interior Department once Ken Salazar took over [as was quite predictable and predicted]; Interior employees even refer to it as "the third Bush term"). There is clearly a need for new strategies and approaches that involve things other than unconditional fealty to the Democratic Party, which weigh not only the short-term political fears that are exploited to keep Democrats blindly loyal (hey, look over there! It's Sarah Palin!) but also longer-term considerations (the need to truly change the political process and the stranglehold the two parties exert).

i must admit that i was reluctantly won over to obama's campaign, a victim of my own belief that hope in the words that were coming out of obama's mouth was better than the despair that washed over me if i were to succumb to my darkest fears that mccain and obama were merely two sides of the same coin... it wasn't more than two months into obama's term of office that i realized that i, like so many other, had been had... i certainly won't say it couldn't happen to me again... after all, how am i - how are WE - to know what's really in someone's heart...? but i can say this... my cynicism and distrust of those in authority has deepened to an appalling extent...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

Cindy Sheehan throws in the towel

it looks like quite a few people besides me are fed up to the teeth with the crap on both sides of the fence... i have to say i didn't realize that cindy sheehan was being demonized by the left as well as the right...

from cindy sheehan at daily kos...

I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t find alternatives to this corrupt "two" party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don’t see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person’s heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?

[...]

This is my resignation letter as the "face" of the American anti-war movement. This is not my "Checkers" moment, because I will never give up trying to help people in the world who are harmed by the empire of the good old US of A, but I am finished working in, or outside of this system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up the people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally consumes me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my resources.

Good-bye America ...you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.

It’s up to you now.

i can't blame her in the least... the state our country is in now cannot be helped by party affiliation, left-right polarization, republicans, democrats, liberals, conservatives, progressives, libertarians, dominionists, christians, jews, or atheists... things will only change, as cindy so rightly points out, if we want them to, which, to me, means we have to come together around the only thing that makes this country a country, and that is our constitution... without that, we are nothing, and, if we wait, bush and his criminal compadres will continue to make hash out of the little that's left...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments

"We are, indeed, a one-party state"

i've been of this opinion for years, but i've tried nonetheless, very diligently, to convince myself that working through our two-party system was the only way to go... i agree with theyrereal at daily kos, the only ones we've been fooling is ourselves...

It's today that I realized that we are, indeed, a one-party state in this country. Oh, we have two official parties, but that's just for show. The reality is that they all work for the same people. Sure, there are different factions and personalities within this all-encompassing group, and granted there might be a few people here and there who doggedly fight the system and actually work for us, but they are VASTLY outnumbered, and more importantly, not taken seriously by the rest of the members of this theatrical group known as the U.S. two-party system.

[...]

I think the happenings of today will result in people finally escaping the fantasy of denial, and see the truth for what it is. That the Dems being an "opposition party" is as fictional as Santa Claus.

Our Democratic Party is a fraud. Our two-party system doesn't exist anymore. Oh, they'll try to tell you it does. Kerry will e-mail you a request to help end the war which links to his "donations" page. So will the others. They still want our money. It's all part of the smoke and mirrors.

[...]

The Democratic Party, by its actions today, has made it abundantly clear who is in charge of the Democratic Party: THE SAME PEOPLE WHO ARE IN CHARGE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

i do happen to believe that there are genuine, honest, authentic, principled people sprinkled in both parties, but that they are the great exception... and, even then, it's really hard to tell when you are seeing someone's true colors... all i know now is this, i don't trust a single goddam one of 'em... that doesn't mean i won't work for someone or something that i THINK may move us out of our morass, but i'm going to do it with my eyes wide open, prepared to bolt at the slightest hint of complicity and collusion... we've simply been burned too often...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet

[Permalink] 0 comments