An American Immortal

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is the greatest man America ever produced.  You can disagree with that if you like, but I see it that way.  It's purely subjective, but he's at the top of my list of heroes, and one of the reasons is the speech he gave at NYC's Riverside Church on April 04, 1967, a year to the day before he was assassinated.

Most people have neither heard nor read this speech, which was denounced from every quarter at the time it was given.  King told the truth about what was going on in America in 1967, and most people simply could not stomach it.  Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence is strong stuff indeed, but if you love America and you understand that the way to improve her is to criticize her constructively, then you'll find much to like in King's Beyond Vietnam speech.  Click here to read the full test at American Rhetoric.  You can also listen to the speech there.


Some excerpts that show King's clarity of thought and innate greatness, ideas as valid today as when first spoken:

"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

"A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies."

"We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood -- it ebbs."

There is much more in the speech itself.  Go read it, take its wisdom into your mind and ruminate on it.

Obama for President in 2012? Five good reasons.

I have been wrong about not supporting Obama.  In spite of all he's done wrong, he'll get my vote, and here's why:

1)  The Republican opponent, whoever that person may be, will be infinitely worse.  The Republicans are all, "I've got mine, so screw you" me-firsters of such low moral character that no feeling human being could ever vote for any of them.

2)  The courts, which are already packed with right-wing hacks, will get immeasurably worse under any Republican Administration, especially the Supreme Court.

3)  The Occupy movement will thrive better under an Obama Administration than under a Republican one.  (Sam Seder convinced me of this.)

4)  Obama inspires many people in the world because of his race.  I'm not being racist or racial here in spite of how the statement may seem at first glance.  I am stating a simple fact.  I am one of the people who, rightly or wrongly, felt that Obama's race was a positive factor.  If you believe as I do in equality across the board for all human beings of every category and distinction, then you might think, as I do, that a change from the "old white man" category to anyone of any other category is a good thing.  Look at the record:  43 old white men, one black man.  Kind of imbalanced, isn't it?  If this makes me a racist, so be it.  Obama inspires many people of all races because he's a black man, and that is indeed a good reason to support him.  (Blue Gal, you helped open my eyes to this, thank you very much.)

5)  Telling all those liars on the right to go to hell by voting Obama is a good thing.  Every time I hear a lie about Obama I feel more sympathetic about him.

So I am going to give the man my vote.  I am going to vote for him, and I may even do other things.

If this were a better world we'd have better choices.  We must, however, face reality.  There are only two possible outcomes in the presidential contest this year, Obama or the Republican.

OBAMA 2012!

Mr. Obama Continues to Dismay.

Last year at about this same time President Obama replaced White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who was horrible in many ways, with William Daley, a banker/lobbyist/hedge fund/one-tenth-of-one-percenter.  Over time we saw that while Rahm was bad, Daley was far worse.

And now he’s done it again: Daley's out, but Director of the Office of Management and Budget Jacob (Jack) Lew is in.  Out goes one conservative bankster one-tenth-of-one-percenter, and in comes another.  Remember that the Chief of Staff to the President is a cabinet-level post that is arguably one of the most important positions in Washington, since the Chief of Staff controls access to the President.

The only people who will like this choice are other one-tenth-of-one-percenters, banksters, and Republicans.

2012 begins.

The only bright spot I see as 2012 begins is the heroic  Occupy Wall Street movement.

The middle class and the working poor are getting squeezed to death by depression conditions.  They are confronted with prospects of less employment, government austerity and erosion of social programs, endless war, and curtailment and eventual elimination of civil liberties.

Both of the political parties, Republican and Democratic, have sold themselves to the rich and corporate interests; Congressmen will do anything to get re-elected so they sell out the citizenry on every issue.

The Supreme Court is packed with unscrupulous pro-corporate ideologues eager help the venal bankers and CEOs take complete control of the country.  Sure there are four “Liberals” on the court, and Kennedy votes with them most of the time.  Keep thinking that as you look for a bright spot in the court’s present configuration.

The President is either weak and afraid, or he is complicit.  I think he is complicit, because otherwise one cannot explain his constant capitulations and lack of initiative.  But even if we ignore his motives and examine his actions we see a President who is no leader and who has betrayed the voters' trust.

The media has completely sold out and has betrayed the public trust.  At the level of the individual media employee, very few will dare risk their jobs by clearly stating the truth if the report is not approved by the corporate management.  At the macro level we see consolidation of the media such as we have never seen before in the United States.  Corporations bought the influence they needed in order to cause the government to allow this media consolidation, and now that the media are in the hands of these corporations, the media is used to gain further power over the system by the propagation of endless lies and propaganda in an endless positive feedback loop.  ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, FOX, PBS—all to some extent liars, all more or less corrupted.

What do you do when the public institutions you have trusted betray you?

Phillip Berrigan said that if voting could change anything it would be illegal.  It’s hard to argue with that sentiment  when contemplating the way that money has bought our government.   It’s a totally rigged system in which voting certainly won’t change much.  That said, I still must say we should always vote for the lesser of the two evils, on the off-chance that your vote might do some good.  I keep coming back to that thought when I contemplate what Obama has done, and what Romney, Gingrich. Perry, Bachmann, Santorum, Paul, or Huntsman (the seven dwarfs?) would certainly do were they to gain the presidency.  It’s kind of like deciding between a poke in the eye and a knife in the liver; there is only one real choice, and even that choice is quite unpleasant.

Since voting won’t change the  way things are done in government, the citizens have only one peaceful avenue for change left to them, and that’s protest.

That’s where the heroes of Occupy Wall Street come in.  I am sure they don’t see themselves as heroes, but I certainly see them that way.  The state has responded to the Occupy movement with brutal repression, propaganda and lies.  The occupiers persist, and bow their heads as they are being gassed, beaten, and dragged off to jail.  Every American owes the Occupy Wall Street movement a great debt of thanks for what they have done so far, and for what they will certainly do in the future.

But what have they done, you ask. 

Occupy Wall Street has changed the debate.  They have focused the discussion on what really matters, which is the vast disparity of means between the 1% and the 99%.  They have focused the eye of the public upon the truth that our government is corrupt and must be changed for the good all citizens.  Even the very rich now must see that their own vital interests are intimately bound with the interests of the great mass of citizens.

Occupy Wall Street has shown the way forward—they have shown clearly that persistent protest works.  In recent times nothing else has made such an impression upon the government and the public debate as they have done.  The huge (and virtually unreported) anti-war rallies came and went without causing a moment’s worry to the powerful interests.  The Occupy Movement bothers the establishment intensely—if you don’t believe it, just look at the level of violence used by government to crush the Occupiers.

The rest of us must join the protesters.  If you can’t physically be there as an occupier, you can support in other ways, such as by donating useful items or money, by visiting and expressing support, and by communicating that support to the government at all levels—local, state, and federal.

Another thing you can do is to be skeptical of things you see on the U.S. media.  These people are proven liars, and they play the same tricks over and over again, hoodwinking the public consistently.  A perfect example is what is going on now with Iran.  This scenario is a virtual replay of what went on before the Iraq war, and it’s going to work unless people wake up and stop it somehow.

To sum up:  In 2012, let’s vote, yes, but first and foremost let’s all protest.  I intend to do so, and I hope you will too.

You are being fed a pack of stinking lies. What will you do about it?

It seems to me that all crimes are justified by lies and liars, if not immediately, then soon thereafter.  Some crimes grow out of lies, and couldn’t exist without their root lie.  Arguably the worst crimes happen when persons of power who are trusted by their listeners betray that trust and lie systematically.  When trusted leaders lie, they can cause death and destruction far and wide, witness the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

People who propagate the systematic lies we are fed by persons in power, the pundits and talking heads in our so-called main-stream media, earn great fame and fortune by deceiving the public.  They are almost as reprehensible and blameworthy as the originators of the lies in the first place.  But who are the originators of the lies?  Certainly lies often come from the politicians themselves, but sometimes lies come from beyond the apparent leadership, from powerful persons who can buy influence with their wealth. These biggest and worst liars are from the richest strata of American society, and the politicians are just doing the bidding of those who have bought them.  Let these truths be self evident for now, because a digression into naming of names and citing of deeds would easily fill very many blog posts.

The point is that we as a society have got to get money and lies out of the political sphere of our society, and we have to do it now, because it will soon be too late to do anything about it if we don’t get going.

So we should all rejoice that the Occupy Wall Street protest is spreading across the country.  The corporate controlled media liars are doing their level best to destroy this movement in any and every way that they know.  Expect any kind of lie and propaganda technique from them—they are truly expert liars and are going to do the bidding of their masters.

First the media ignored the protests, as they often do.  There was a very large protest against Wall Street’s many crimes not long ago in New York that involved thousands of people, but you didn’t hear about it.  The corporate media ignored it and covered much less important issues instead.  This is a key technique, the lie by omission.  Other recent examples include the lack of coverage of the Verizon strike, the protest against the Tar Sands Oil Pipeline, the Wisconsin protests against Scott Walker’s attempts to crush the public sector unions, the anti-war protests at the White House, etc.

Next the media tried to belittle the Occupy Wall Street protest.  They send a few reporters to write hit pieces against the protesters.  The media talked about how bad the protesters smell, and how badly they are dressed, and how they are dirty hippies, and how they have no coherent message, nor do they have leaders—just a filthy crowd of unorganized riffraff, to hear the media tell it.  This is a more direct kind of lying, more easily seen, but at the same time it is effective because the public is barraged with reports of this type, and the tendency is to believe it, because after all, everybody in the media is saying it so it must be true, right?

We can’t make lying illegal, although perhaps we should invest serious time and effort into finding a way to make it less profitable for liars.  The media is supposed to tell us who is lying.  But what happens when the liars buy the media?

If you think the corporate media is telling you the truth, you are fooling yourself.  If you’re hooked on Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC CNN, you are going to have to go cold turkey.   There is an alternative:  INDEPENDENT NEWS, unsupported by corporate dollars.  Whether or not a source is independently funded should be the criterion by which you initially judge a news source.  Then fact check the source consistently and make your own decision about the validity and fidelity of the source.

Here are some reliable news shows, blogs and websites that I follow:  Democracy Now!, The Nation, The Majority Report, The Young Turks, Common Dreams, TruthDig, and Countdown.  Until we can make lying illegal (and it probably can never be done) you have to use your brain and your powers of critical analysis to separate bullshit and lies from the truth, but you can use these shows to begin your search for truth in the media.  Your future may depend upon whether you are truthfully informed.  Don’t fall for liars.

Chomsky was absolutely right, as he usually is.

Here it is September 11, 2011, the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers and on the Pentagon.

I spent my morning re-reading Noam Chomsky's 9-11, and I recommend you read this little book, if you haven't read it before. The book is an easy read; you can get through it in just a few hours. It is a collection of interviews, in question and answer format, with some editing for the sake of clarity and brevity. The interviews were done in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, with the latest interview dated 5 October 2001. In those days right after the attacks, most people, myself included, had no clear idea about what to think about the events of 9/11, but Chomsky's early analysis of the situation was absolutely spot on. He told us clearly why the attacks had occurred, and he told us how to best proceed in order to punish the wrongdoers in the most just way with the least number of negative consequences for all.

If only people in power in the U.S. had read his comments and had applied his wisdom, the world would have been spared the horrors of the Afghanistan, Iraq, and worldwide anti-terror wars.

Chomsky said we should search for the perpetrator/s, bring them to court, and if warranted, sentence them according to law. He said we should make an effort to understand the grievances that lie behind such crimes and that we should address the problems. "There are proper and lawful ways to proceed in the case of crimes, whatever their scale. And there are precedents."

He also said "That is the course one follows if the intention is to reduce the probability of further atrocities. There is another course: react with extreme violence, and expect to escalate the cycle of violence, leading to still further atrocities such as the one that is inciting the call for revenge. The dynamic is very familiar."

Absolutely correct.

The new edition of Noam Chomsky's 9-11 also includes an essay written in mid-June of this year which discusses the question of whether or not there was an alternative to what we have done since September 11, 2001. That essay was also published online and can be read here.  You may find it to be the clearest, most intelligent writing anyone has recently done about 9/11, as do I.  Even if you are a die-hard fan of all that the U.S. government has done since that fateful day, I believe you'll be challenged and engaged.

Public Enemies.

In cheap crime novels persons who cause danger to the public at large are called public enemies.   I say the characters in the White House, The Congress, and the Supreme Court are public enemies (with a few exceptions—too few to make any difference, sorry Bernie, sorry Sherrod, sorry Dennis, and sorry Congressional Progressive Caucus ).  These people, the vast majority of the persons in all three branches of our federal government, are the enemies of the common American citizen and the allies of the amoral rich and powerful who have purchased them.

You working people, you middle class people, you poor people, I ask you:  Democrats/Republicans, what’s the difference when both are against you?  It’s good Democrat cop and bad Republican cop teamed up, both out to get you.  Don’t fall for the trap the Democrats set for you, they are out to screw you just as much as the Republicans.

This kabuki theater going on in Washington about the debt ceiling ought to make it clear to anyone that the Congress and the White House are out to get you.   This is a manufactured non-crisis crisis.  It is a big lie they are cramming down your throat.  They think they can get away with it because they think you are too busy, too uncaring, or too stupid to catch them.

If there were a debt crisis, why are interest rates on bonds so low?  Why is it that even with interest rates at historically low levels, there are no lack of buyers for U.S. Treasury bonds?  There’s no crisis.

When the media and the government are in cahoots in order to further the interests of the corporations and the plutocracy that owns them all, you have to search long and hard to find the truth.  You can’t find it on any of the major media outlets such as CNN, ABC, NBC, or CBS.  These outlets only publish things that are in the interest of those plutocrats.  The media wants to scare you into believing the lie about a debt crisis.  It’s Disaster Capitalism on the move, just as described in Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine.

Here’s some background:  The debt ceiling was first set in September 1917, almost 94 years ago.  This was done during WWI in order to avoid voting for a rise on the debt for every appropriation Congress made, and in order to calm public fears about impending war debts.  Since then it has been raised literally dozens of times.  It has been a routine thing that gets done when needed, and has generally been regarded as a matter of simple governmental housekeeping.  Reagan raised the debt ceiling 18 times in eight years, G.W.H. Bush raised it nine times in four, Clinton eight times, George W. Bush seven times, and Barack Obama three so far.  The debt is not the responsibility of any single president, they’ve all had a hand in it, although some have been worse spendthrifts than others  “Every President since Harry Truman has added to the National Debt expressed in absolute dollars.”  Since 1980, the increases have been spectacular, literally shooting up off the charts, as can be observed on this graph of the History of the U.S. Debt Limit.

In spite of the size of the debt and when the debt was contracted, the point is that the debt is money already owed.  It represents obligations incurred in the past.  By law we have to pay this money owed.  And it is not just any law, we are bound to pay by law enshrined in the United States Constitution.  The law is this, Amendment XIV, Section IV:

“The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.”

Italics in the citation are mine.

The size of the debt and our obligation to pay it are simple facts.  The idea that we would renege is illegal.  We must and will pay it.  Be aware that the debt we have has already been authorized by the Congress and thus is authorized by law.  Our public debt has to be paid because it is owed, and the law says we pay our debts.

A strong President (or a President without ulterior motives) would squash the present  moves to hold the public hostage to this false idea of a debt crisis in a New York second.  Clinton did it when Gingrich tried this stunt.  Clinton describes (at the link) how he would put a stop to this blackmail in this present instance.  Even Reagan stopped attempts to blackmail him over the debt ceiling, for pete’s sake.  Reagan told his congressional blackmailers he’d veto every single damned thing they sent to him unless they stopped their stupid shenanigans over the debt (or words to that effect, anyway).  Any President worth his paycheck would run John Boehner and Eric Cantor back to their offices in an eye blink.  What’s the matter with Obama?  I say he has ulterior motives.  He wants this crisis because he is just as much a tool of the plutocracy as any of the Republicans.  No Republican president, no matter how strong could cut Social Security.  G. W. Bush, a very strong president, say what you will about his level of intelligence, tried to cut Social Security and failed miserably.  It will take a Democrat (a corporatist in Democrat’s clothes) to get at Social Security.  And Obama wants to do it.  Look, I could give you quotes and clips quoting Obama saying we must all submit to “shared sacrifice,” those sound bites  are all over the web, dating back to before Obama was president.  For more and better writing on this, read Greenwald .  But to keep it simple,  I say just watch what he does, don’t pay so much attention to what he says.  He is good at oratory, but the truth will out in the actions.  Watch what he does.  He will ruin Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.  Watch him do it.

Obama, were he a strong President, could use his power to beat the the Republicans down and cause them to scream for relief.  I am so sick of Democrats saying, “Oh, what could we do? The republicans were too strong for us. We had to give in.”  I have infinite contempt for this kind of cowardice.  Let’s say they let this manufactured crisis boil over and become a real debt problem.  The President then would be able to decide which debts get paid out of all the many creditors who would come clamoring for payment.  Obama could say, well OK, you farmers out in Kansas and Indiana and all the other red states are just going to have to suck it up, we can’t pay for you.  Now, how long do you think it would take those blackhearted Senators and Representatives in those states to come howling for mercy?  Lyndon Johnson understood how to use power.  So did Richard Nixon.  Obama  could take a leaf from their book.  Instead, who does Obama threaten?  His administration expresses its worry that Social Security Checks and retiree and annuitant checks won’t go out on time.  That coward Obama threatens the weak!  Or is it his real, although hidden, desire to crush the weak in favor of the powerful?  I say that’s the answer.  Public enemy, tool of the plutocracy, liar, manipulator, just like the majority of the members of his cabinet and the majority of the members of Congress.

As proof he intends to bring on this crisis, remember that Obama could have ended this charade long ago, but he insisted he wanted a “grand deal” and he wouldn’t stand down unless he got one.  So now he’s going to get one, and it is going to cost you.  They are talking cutting deductions like the mortgage deduction, which will disproportionately hurt the middle class, and they are talking lowering corporate income taxes.  You’ll see the rich get a sweet deal and the common guy will get screwed.  Watch what they do!

A default is serious business, and will cost billions and billions of dollars, and it will come out of your hide.  These people are playing chicken but the passengers that will get hurt are you and me, not the people in Congress and the White House.

Having a large debt is not a good thing, but most economists agree that during a recession/depression like our current one, the answer to our economic woes is not austerity measures but rather it is increased expenditures.  The government is the employer of last resort when business will not hire.  Hoover tried austerity.  It didn’t work.  More recently, the Brits have tried it, and it has been a resounding failure.

In order to reduce the deficit and positively affect the present employment crisis (which is our real crisis), we could adopt the The People’s Budget, the Budget of the Congressional Progressive Caucus for Fiscal Year 2012.  You can read the entire budget at this link, but for convenience, here’s the brief description of what is contained in it, quoted directly from the CPC’s own page:

The People’s Budget eliminates the deficit in 10 years, puts Americans back to work and restores our economic competitiveness. The People’s Budget recognizes that in order to compete, our nation needs every American to be productive, and in order to be productive we need to raise our skills to meet modern needs.

Our Budget Eliminates the Deficit and Raises a $31 Billion Surplus In Ten Years

Our budget protects Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and responsibly eliminates the deficit by targeting its main drivers: the Bush Tax Cuts, the wars overseas, and the causes and effects of the recent recession.

Our Budget Puts America Back to Work & Restores America’s Competitiveness

• Trains teachers and restores schools; rebuilds roads and bridges and ensures that users help pay for them

• Invests in job creation, clean energy and broadband infrastructure, housing and R&D programs

Our Budget Creates a Fairer Tax System

• Ends the recently passed upper-income tax cuts and lets Bush-era tax cuts expire at the end of 2012

• Extends tax credits for the middle class, families, and students

• Creates new tax brackets that range from 45% starting at $1 million to 49% for $1 billion or more

• Implements a progressive estate tax

• Eliminates corporate welfare for oil, gas, and coal companies; closes loopholes for multinational corporations

• Enacts a financial crisis responsibility fee and a financial speculation tax on derivatives and foreign exchange

Our Budget Protects Health

• Enacts a health care public option and negotiates prescription payments with pharmaceutical companies

• Prevents any cuts to Medicare physician payments for a decade

Our Budget Safeguards Social Security for the Next 75 Years

• Eliminates the individual Social Security payroll cap to make sure upper income earners pay their fair share

• Increases benefits based on higher contributions on the employee side

Our Budget Brings Our Troops Home

• Responsibly ends our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to leave America more secure both home and abroad

• Cuts defense spending by reducing conventional forces, procurement, and costly R&;D programs

Our Budget’s Bottom Line

• Deficit reduction of $5.6 trillion

• Spending cuts of $1.7 trillion

• Revenue increase of $3.9 trillion

• Public investment $1.7 trillion

Now, that’s real government.  That’s what we need, not the heartless and destructive proposals from our chief Public Enemies, Barack Obama and John Boehner.

My bottom line:  I will never, never, never support Barack Obama again in any shape or form whatsoever, I don’t care who his republican opponent may be.  Obama is poison.  To think I voted for this blackhearted liar!  To think I sent him money!  To think I wept with joy that he was elected!  It makes me want to tear my hair out in impotent rage.

People, we have got to get money out of our politics or the United States is doomed.  We will turn into a third world cesspool unless we get out collective shit together.

UPDATE 20110802 :  For even more more evidence of Obama's intentions read here, and here, Glenn Greenwald's column from yesterday with an accompanying e-mail—more great reporting from our best living journalist.