Oct 312011
Oct 312011
As the OWS protests continue to grow, those that have the most to lose, the 1% and their Republican lackeys, are becoming more and more desperate to quash this movement. They had not anticipated the staying power that the anger of the 99% has inspired. The more desperate the 1% become, the more likely it is that their minions will strike out even more violently against the demonstrators and that their saboteurs will commit false flag operations to make the demonstrators look bad. In the following article, Laurence Lewis explains why maintaining and enforcing nonviolence is imperative.
…As Hunter noted earlier this week, the powers that be seem to have assumed that after a while the Occupy movement would just go away. They got some attention. They blew off some steam. Now back to business as usual. But that’s beginning to change. The powers that be are beginning to realize that this movement is not going anywhere but forward. The demands are serious. The depth and breadth of change needed to satisfy those demands are paradigmatic. A bare awakening is only beginning. This is for real. There is no going back. And the response has begun to get nasty. It will get nasty. Sadly, that is one measure of the Occupy movement’s initial success. But the Occupy movement’s success thus far is but initial. The continuing path forward will grow more difficult and more complicated. And the Occupy movement needs to be prepared. And given that the Occupy movement has no leadership or hierarchy, is spontaneous and organic, and is both diverse and diffuse, that means that every single person involved with or supportive of the Occupy movement needs to be prepared.
Non-cooperation is not a movement of brag, bluster and bluff. It is a test of our sincerity. It requires solid and silent self-sacrifice. It challenges our honesty and our capacity for national work. It is a movement that aims at translating ideas into action. The more we do, the more we find that much more must be done than we had expected. The thought of our imperfection must make us humble.”
A non-cooperationist strives to compel attention and to set an example by his unobtrusive humility. He allows his actions to speak for his creed. Neither in the Koran nor in the Mahabharata was there any sanction for and approval of violence. If the science of war leads to dictatorship, the science of non-violence leads to democracy. Today, more than ever before, there is a need to practice non-violent conflict resolution skills. Hence, at an individual and at a collective level, we have to seek viable alternatives to violence before we make our world an extremely hostile and unfriendly place.
Those who would destroy the Occupy movement will attempt many means, but one of the most obvious will be to attempt to marginalize the movement as extreme and irrelevant. Given that the economic issues driving the Occupy movement enjoy wide popular support, these attempts to marginalize will not focus on the issues, the facts or the goals. It will be an effort to undermine the movement as a movement, regardless of what it is about. What it is about seems too threatening to name. Therefore the attempts to destroy it will be about behavior. They will include attempts to provoke and to publicize any acts that can be construed as vandalism or violence perpetrated by anyone who can be construed as a member of the Occupy movement. And if history is precedent, that also will include such acts perpetrated by infiltrators. But whatever happens, the Occupy activists can only be responsible for their own behavior. And that not only must include refraining from any acts of vandalism or violence, no matter how abusive the tactics of authorities; it also must include attempts to condemn every possible such act as it happens. Even and especially when resisting new laws passed specifically to suppress the Occupy Movement… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Daily Kos>
I strongly believe that, if the peace movement of the 1960s had not turned violent, prompted by the police riot in Chicago 1968, we could have ended that war years before we did. That violence turned off most of America, and the war faded as a mainstream issue. If the 1% can provoke us to repeat that mistake, we will lose the moral high ground we now hold. We are the 99%, only because most of America sees this protest as commitment in the face of violence. If the movement turns violent, we will cease to be the 99%.
This is why the media are claiming that violence by demonstrators is what brought on the injuries to Scott Olsen. Here is definitive proof that these claims are lies.
Footage of Scott Olsen being shot by Police at Occupy Oakland from Raleigh Latham on Vimeo.
Oct 312011
When 1 was 16 in 1964, a schoolmate told me the US, not the Viet Cong, was the power preventing a democratic outcome in Vietnam. I could not dispute his facts and felt frustrated at my own ignorance. I determined to study Vietnam and learn the truth, so the next time some damn commie lied about my country, I’d know how to answer and put him in his place! I studied, and what I learned turned me against the war. It appears that a scientist, formerly a climate change denier, experienced similar paradigm shift, while studying to disprove climate change. And the beauty of this is that the Koch Brothers funded the study!
A prominent physicist and skeptic of global warming spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong. In the end, he determined they were right: Temperatures really are rising rapidly.
The study of the world’s surface temperatures by Richard Muller was partially bankrolled by a foundation connected to global warming deniers. He pursued long-held skeptic theories in analyzing the data. He was spurred to action because of "Climategate," a British scandal involving hacked emails of scientists.
Yet he found that the land is 1.6 degrees warmer than in the 1950s. Those numbers from Muller, who works at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, match those by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.
He said he went even further back, studying readings from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. His ultimate finding of a warming world, to be presented at a conference Monday, is no different from what mainstream climate scientists have been saying for decades.
What’s different, and why everyone from opinion columnists to "The Daily Show" is paying attention is who is behind the study.
One-quarter of the $600,000 to do the research came from the Charles Koch Foundation, whose founder is a major funder of skeptic groups and the tea party. The Koch brothers, Charles and David, run a large privately held company involved in oil and other industries, producing sizable greenhouse gas emissions… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Huffington Post>
Now, I know that Charles and David Koch have so much money that $600,000 is chump change to them, but its still poetic justice that they helped pay for this.
I have been boycotting a long list of Koch Brothers products for some time now. I encourage you to do so too.
Oct 312011
Yesterday I spent most of the day resting meditating upon the Ellipsoid Orb that was not kind to me. I caught up on replies and am current. Today I will be out running errands that must be completed in October.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 3:54 (average 5:26). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Religious Agony:
Short Takes:
From McClatchy DC: Growing numbers of protesters are being arrested for trespassing, failure to disperse and disobeying a lawful order, as city after city confronts the question of whether individual rights to free speech and assembly include the right to camp out on public property.
The resulting legal skirmishes have spurred the largest mobilization of pro bono protest attorneys since the anti-war movement of the 1960s and ’70s.
Kudos to those lawyers! During the 1960s, I rarely knew their names, but I was surely thankful for their representation.
From Huffington Post: The nation’s ongoing economic downturn has sparked an odd response from a growing number of conservative and Republican leaders: a desire to blame the unfortunate and a demand for the poor to pay more.
No new taxes only applies to the 1%, although Republicans continually lie that Democrats will raise YOUR taxes.
From Crooks and Liars: OWS is Working When Even Republicans Have to Start Talking About Redistribution
The level of GOP BS had reached desperation.
Cartoon:
Oct 302011
Yesterday, a week in which I bit off more than I could chew caught up with me, My COPD flared severely when I was trying to unpack and stow groceries, and a process that normally takes 2 – 3 hours took 6. When done, I felt completely exhausted, went to sleep, and slept through my research time, Fortunately I did the cartoon in the morning and collected a little materiel before the groceries arrived, because I feel much too weak and groggy to do more than this one item. I have not replied to comments. Today is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 5:47 (average 5:09). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Reuters: President Barack Obama, seizing on a report that showed America’s rich getting richer while the rest of the country struggled to get ahead, said on Saturday that Republicans were thwarting a fairer approach.
Better late than never, but he should have announced and acted on that two years ago.
From Think Progress: Republicans accuse the left or using the politics of division.
How do you spell H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E-S?
From Raw Story: California Democratic Congresswoman Jackie Speier has announced that for a week, she will attempt to live on the same amount of money allotted to recipients of SNAP, the California food stamp program. San Francisco’s Channel 7 news reports that SNAP (which stands for Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) provided $136.75 per person each month during fiscal year 2010, which breaks down to a food budget of $4.50 per day.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Ryan and Cantor counter this by trying to squeak by on a mere $million a day to show how the 1% suffer.
Cartoon:
Oct 292011
One of the firs complaints I heard from Republicans about Barack Obama and the Democratic Party is that they would try to redistribute the wealth, taking it from the people who earned it and giving it to freeloaders. Of course, this is just another Republican lie. Republicans have been redistributing the wealth since Reagan took office, if not before. Now we have proof from the CBO,m as this article by Eugene Robinson demonstrates.
The hard-right conservatives who dominate the Republican Party claim to despise the redistribution of wealth, but secretly they love it — as long as the process involves depriving the poor and middle class to benefit the rich, not the other way around.
That is precisely what has been happening, as a jaw-dropping new report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office demonstrates. Three decades of trickle-down economic theory, see-no-evil deregulation and tax-cutting fervor have led to massive redistribution. Another word for what’s been happening might be theft.
The gist of the CBO study, titled “Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007,” is that while we’ve become wealthier overall, these new riches have largely bypassed many Americans and instead flowed mostly to the affluent. Perhaps my memory is faulty, but I don’t remember voting to turn the United States into a nation starkly divided between haves and have-nots. Yet that’s where we’ve been led.
Overall, in inflation-adjusted dollars, average after-tax household income grew by 62 percent during the period under study, according to the CBO. This sounds great — but only until you look a little closer.
For those at the bottom — the one-fifth of households with the lowest incomes — the increase was just 18 percent. For the middle three-fifths, the average increase was 40 percent. Spread over nearly 30 years, these gains are modest, not meteoric.
By contrast, look at the top 1 percent of earners. Their after-tax household income increased by an astonishing 275 percent. For those keeping track, this means it nearly quadrupled. Nice work, if you can get it.
This is not what Republicans want you to think of when you hear the word redistribution. You’re supposed to imagine the evil masterminds as Bolsheviks, not bankers. You’re supposed to envision the lazy free-riders who benefit from redistribution as the “poor,” and the industrious job-creators who get robbed as the “wealthy” — not the other way around… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Washington Post>
The above graph is from the CBO study itself.
Ed Shultz has an excellent example of how Republicans help redistribute wealth at American workers’ expense, ties the story into the OWS movement, and interviews Bernie Sanders.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Ed only made one mistake here. He did not allow enough time for Bernie Sanders, who unequivocally stated that one party, not both, is standing in the way of recovery.
Oct 292011
Here is the US, our efforts at handling our financial crisis. We have made whole the people, whose criminal greed imposed the crisis upon us, given the political party most responsible for enabling it tremendous gains in the last election, and done virtually nothing for the millions if Main Street Americans harmed as a result. Kudos to the EU for finding a better way, at least in one aspect, as this article by William Greider demonstrates.
At the midnight hour, when financial-market wise guys were predicting disaster, Europe’s political leaders proved to be stronger and braver than America’s. The big nations of the EU worked out a deal to resolve their financial crisis that does what US politicians, including the president, lack the nerve to pursue. The Europeans are whacking the bankers big-time.
Yes, the sovereign governments of Europe have to put up more billions to rescue debt-soaked smaller nations like Greece. But the bankers who lent all that money will be compelled to share in the pain—a 50 percent write-down on the sovereign-nation bonds they are holding. Ouch.
This may be the beginning of wisdom—forgiving debts that in any case will never be repaid. That giant step should give Europe a clean start for economic recovery. It’s a much smarter alternative than imposing perpetual austerity on people who are already broke.
American politicians are not there yet, not even close. Republicans are manning the barricades to defend the bankers on everything, even the most modest reform measures. The Obama administration is tinkering around the edges with small-bore adjustments that won’t accomplish much.
Rhetoric notwithstanding, Obama is still shielding the largest banks—the Wall Street Six—from the consequences of their own recklessness. The biggest US banks are still holding a lot of debt paper, especially mortgage-backed securities, that has effectively failed but is still booked as okay assets. Federal regulators could pull the plug on these illusions and force an honest accounting but are afraid to hurt big guys who are already fragile. Until debt reduction is undertaken in a major way, especially for home mortgages, American recovery is going to be an on-and-off-again affair. (See my article, “It’s Time for Debt Forgiveness, American-Style,” in this week’s issue of The Nation.)… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <The Nation>
I readily admit that I’m basing the following statement on back channel buzz, so it is speculation that I cannot definitively support. I understand that, shortly after Obama’s election, the Clintons took Obama under their wing. If I am correct, that explains why Obama replaced the progressive economic team that helped him win the election with advisers from the Clinton camp, the worst of which is Timmy the Tool Geithner. I believe that they convinced Obama that he could give the banks a haircut without causing their collapse. He needs to realize that Too Big To Fail is Too Big to Exist. An excellent step would be to fire his economic team and bring in Robert Reich and Paul Krugman.
To make matters worse, Banksters are trying to move toxic derivatives into FDIC insured accounts to stick it to taxpayers again. That MUST be stopped.
Another necessary step is to reinstate Glass-Steagall, something Democrats passed in the House and attempted in the Senate, but were blocked by Republican filibuster.
Oct 292011
The Republican tactic of distraction through social issues is very effective, because they threaten real right of real people. Republicans are now adopting a concept they call “personhood”, which translates into an attempt to undo a women’s reproductive rights, not only outlawing abortion, but also many forms of birth control as well. On November 8, Mississippi voters will decide a personhood amendment.
A ballot measure going before voters in Mississippi on Nov. 8 would define the term “person” in the State Constitution to include fertilized human eggs and grant to fertilized eggs the legal rights and protections that apply to people. It is among the most extreme assaults in the push to end women’s reproductive rights.
The aim is to redefine abortion and some of the most widely used forms of contraception as murder, obliterating a woman’s right to make childbearing decisions under the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.
Besides outlawing all abortions, with no exceptions for rape or incest or when a woman’s life is in danger, and banning any contraception that may prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, including birth control pills, the amendment carries many implications, some quite serious.
It could curtail medical research involving embryos, shutter fertility clinics and put doctors in legal jeopardy for providing needed medical care that might endanger a pregnancy. Pregnant women also could become subject to criminal prosecution. A fertilized egg might be eligible to inherit money or be counted when drawing voting districts by population. Because a multitude of laws use the terms “person” or “people,” there would be no shortage of unintended consequences… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <NY Times>
Personally I oppose abortion, but I still fully support a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her own body, because I do not have the right to impose that on anyone else. In addition, I recognize that there are times, when a woman has no ideal choices available.
Rachel Maddow covered this story in depth and interviewed activist Cristin Hemmings.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Romney will probably switch positions back and forth several times, and where he might end up is anyone’s guess.
This is clearly unconstitutional, but that might not matter to the fascist five.
The bottom line is that Republicans have no respect for women’s rights. And for the Republican Party life is worthy of protection only from conception until birth.