Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Handling the Mic Check

This snippet from the Rachel Maddow Show on Tuesday night is a dramatic demonstration of the political divide in our country. By simply pointing out how the different candidates handle the free speech activities pointed at them, the point is driven home very clearly. Who is for the status quo, preserving the biased economic system supporting the financial and politcal elite, and who is for the allowing the American dream to be preserved for everyone. Watch this and observe the reactions. As always, Rachel's analysis is insightful.

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Some of the candidates fought with the demonstrators, one candidate respected them. Some of them didn't really know how to handle the situation, one candidate called them by name and indicated that THEY were the reason he entered public service. Can any of the other candidates in the current lineup say the same thing?

More work to do...

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

The Contract on OWS. Hit job on the way.

Up with Chris Hayes

Last weekend Chris Hayes made this remarkable video [below] about the coming pushback from Wall Street against the burgeoning OWS movement.  His reporting about the coming "hit job" concerns the attempt by one lobbying firm in DC to sell its services to members of Congress and to the GOP generally. It turns out that many of the lobbyists are former congressional aides who brag that they have extraordinary influence on Capital Hill.  Mr. Hayes reports that this is a pretty dramatic representation of how Washington works these days.  The "craven, corrupt" system of revolving door lobbyists, heavily financed by allies of the corporate finance industry, who then sell their services to political elites is exposed in this one segment.

The real tragedy here is that the OWS movement is being attacked with impunity. At this point their is no political consequence for smashing the movement virtually or physically. The power elites will use their resources to attempt to cut off this popular uprising at its knees in order to preserve the status quo.

There is very little support so far, from any of the political power brokers in our government. The largest point of the entire #OWS movement is simply that. All the protections of government, the constitution, and the bill of rights are dedicated to preserving those rights and freedoms for the 1%. The 99% can claim no such protections. It's a chilling commentary. Must see.



More work to do...

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Of Revolutions and Pendulums.

A local pundit wrote in the opinion pages today,  "There’s nothing wrong with America that an unleashing of our creativity, our business acumen, our free-market, risk-taking ethos wouldn't cure."

The results of the past 40 years of "free market" ideology: A society where the elites have been exposed.  The free market that is being praised turns out to be not very free at all.  It is a rigged game that scoops up the wealth of the nation and deposits it in the accounts of the Wall Street elites. They call this "being successful."  Success in raising the unemployment number, success in casting the poor and the elderly farther into poverty, success in subverting public education, success in the dumbing down of America.

Washington intervention in our lives is what government does. It's what we as citizens in a free nation choose to do for our own general welfare. It includes everything from subsidizing school lunches to providing adequate infrastructure, to ensuring the national defense, to preserving the quality of life of all of it's citizens.

The Elite don't seem to mind government intervention after they've purchased to power to open the coffers of the national treasury for their own profit and plunder. Would they mind turning over all their government contracts?  Would they mind not using the roads, the public lands, their own government subsidized education, the homeland security forces?   Would the oil companies like to pay for their own safe passage over the seas or for their own security in foreign lands without the helpful support of the taxpayer funded Federal Government?  Government intervention seems to be just fine if it helps corporations find huge piles of money to be made.

Chris Hedges offers this:

"Welcome to the revolution. Our elites have exposed their hand. They have nothing to offer. They can destroy but they cannot build. They can repress but they cannot lead. They can steal but they cannot share. They can talk but they cannot speak. They are as dead and useless to us as the water-soaked books, tents, sleeping bags, suitcases, food boxes and clothes that were tossed by sanitation workers Tuesday morning into garbage trucks in New York City. They have no ideas, no plans and no vision for the future.

Our decaying corporate regime has strutted in Portland, Oakland and New York with their baton-wielding cops into a fool’s paradise. They think they can clean up “the mess”—always employing the language of personal hygiene and public security—by making us disappear. They think we will all go home and accept their corporate nation, a nation where crime and government policy have become indistinguishable, where nothing in America, including the ordinary citizen, is deemed by those in power worth protecting or preserving, where corporate oligarchs awash in hundreds of millions of dollars are permitted to loot and pillage the last shreds of collective wealth, human capital and natural resources, a nation where the poor do not eat and workers do not work, a nation where the sick die and children go hungry, a nation where the consent of the governed and the voice of the people is a cruel joke.

Get back into your cages, they are telling us. Return to watching the lies, absurdities, trivia and celebrity gossip we feed you in 24-hour cycles on television. Invest your emotional energy in the vast system of popular entertainment. Run up your credit card debt. Pay your loans. Be thankful for the scraps we toss. Chant back to us our phrases about democracy, greatness and freedom. Vote in our rigged political theater. Send your young men and women to fight and die in useless, unwinnable wars that provide corporations with huge profits.  Stand by mutely as our bipartisan congressional super committee, either through consensus or cynical dysfunction, plunges you into a society without basic social services including unemployment benefits. Pay for the crimes of Wall Street."

The revolution has begun.  40 years of steady erosion of the gains of the Great Society is over, the pendulum has swung, it's time....



More work to do...

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Buying a Presidential Nomination

The third Koch brother? - Salon.com

No question. None. Nada. Mr. Cain is the Koch's candidate. They are attempting to buy the nomination for President. Mr. Cain himself has confirmed it. No national organization, no ties to the Republican Party, no support from GOP politicos, all his money and all his staff coming from Americans for Prosperity...

This is a test. We know from the economic meltdown that our economic and political elites are now immune from prosecution for breaking laws. No bankers have even been investigated for wrong doing, no heads have rolled for the crimes of fraud and insider trading that tanked our financial system. The current system of legalized bribery brought about by the Citizens United decision has opened the floodgates and is washing away what remains of campaign finance law. These guys simply know that they'll get away with it. The media is covering the "sexy" story of harassment and Mr. Cain's numbers just improve with his bloodthirsty and misogynistic supporters. Talk about felonies and criminal behavior from Mr. Cain's campaigns and .... nothing. Joan Walsh talks about it, Rachel Maddow spends time on it, the rest of the media?

This is a test. Will Mr. Cain not only by absolved for his sexual exploits but will he be allowed to escape scrutiny for his campaign finance crimes? Will he be insulated by the Koch Brother's Cash? Can these two autocrats buy the Presidency of the United States for their "third brother?"

Mr. Cain's numbers are not tanking. He's enjoying his performance. He's a celebrity making headlines. It's a great American tradition in the entertainment industry, it's just never happened in a presidential election before.

More work to do.