Reading Between The Lines

2012: Apocalypse or Beginning of a Better World?

2012-01-14T10:31:00.003-05:00

By Anna Manzo

(Blogger's note: Our program's executive producer, Scott Harris, posted a hopeful blog entry on Dec. 30 about the possibility of a new chapter in human history. Turns out, he wrote the day before President Obama quietly – secretively – signed into law the controversial, but little-known National Defense Authorization Act.)

I've been watching for some hopeful signs since the turn of the new year to "2012", that oft-cited end of the Mayan calendar and prophesied "end times" linked to apocalyptic doom or positive transformation.

According to a Wikipedia entry:

The 2012 phenomenon comprises a range of eschatological beliefs according to which cataclysmic or transformative events will occur on December 21, 2012.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] This date is regarded as the end-date of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Various astronomical alignments and numerological formulae have been proposed as pertaining to this date, though none have been accepted by mainstream scholarship.

While astronomical events may not align in the heavens precisely on December 21, 2012, one thing is certain: transformative events are aligning on the earth.

During this 5,125-year cycle of the Mayan calendar, humanity has never been as interconnected as it is today – and certainly not since the beginning of our collective human history some 100,000 years ago with the evolution of Homo Sapiens.

I purposely use the word "humanity" because I am referring to the totality of our human experience and spirit, the common denominator of what unites us throughout the world despite language, religious and cultural differences.

Our basic human needs have not changed: the need for clean air, water/sanitation, healthful food, shelter, education, healthcare, and the means to support ourselves and our loved ones while making positive contributions to our communities and the world at large.

We all have the ability to recognize a wide range of emotions: love and hate, fear and joy, vengeance and compassion since the day an early hominid first felt sorrow and guilt over killing one of its own.

What has changed is our technological ability not only to meet those needs and avert the worst scenarios of scarcity, but to recognize the potential to improve our collective human experience on a much grander scale – by embracing a world that values allowing all to reach our truest human potential.

In short, we have the technology now not just to survive on this planet, but to allow our collective human spirit and ingenuity to thrive and truly create the safer, more peaceful world our ancestors have never had.

This past year, because of handheld cellphones, computers and the Internet, we saw an Arab Spring/Jasmine revolution where repressive dictatorships were toppled in the name of human rights and the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness – in essence, democracy. In western democracies, we saw indignados and occupiers protesting against injustice in a globalized economy, where wealth has become concentrated in a very small portion of the population.

A better world is within our grasp.

Yet, in the country that inspired an American Revolution for democracy, a country that should be a positive role model for all, we now see our leaders taking profound steps backward, assaulting basic constitutional rights and civil liberties with President Obama's almost secretive signing of the National Defense Authorization Act on New Year's Eve, an act that was passed by most members in the House of Representatives, and nearly unanimously by the Senate.

The law has a provision which allows the military to indefinitely detain, without due process, American citizens suspected of terrorism. Some activists, journalists and researchers have expressed concern that this law could be used in the Occupy movement against economic injustice, as a growing number of Americans become more aware of the depth of the conflict between rich and poor.

Hardly a great start to 2012.

Civil liberties advocate and columnist Naomi Wolff finds the NDAA more extreme than the Patriot Act, putting even elected officials at risk, as history has done in the past.

Giving several examples in history where the military turned on unions, journalists and editors, she also states that elected officials had given too much power to the military:

"US Congresspeople and Senators may think that their power protects them from the treacherous wording of Amendments 1031 and 1032: but their arrogance is leading them to a blindness that is suicidal. The moment they sign this NDAA into law, history shows that they themselves and their staff are the most physically endangered by it. They will immediately become, not the masters of the great might of the United States military, but its subjects and even, if history is any guide — and every single outcome of ramping up police state powers, unfortunately, that I have warned for years that history points to, has come to pass — sadly but inevitably, its very first targets."

The new law also imposes new economic sanctions on Iran, increasing the possibilities of yet another war.

Here are the interviews for this week's Between The Lines' program on challenges to our constitutional rights and grassroots organizing around protecting those rights: overturning the NDAA, national protests on the second anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling on "corporate personhood," and an update on the lawsuit over warrantless surveillance.

Yes, 2012 will be a decisive period, marking apocalypse or positive transformation.

It's all up to the people now.

More forthcoming in "Solutions" of our Between The Lines Occupy Resources page.

Let's get to work.

Obama's Assault on the Constitution

2012-01-08T19:28:00.004-05:00

By Reginald Johnson

Like a lot of writers, I often feel torn about how to approach sensitive issues. I’ll get worked up about a certain subject and just want to ‘let it rip’ and write with passion about how I feel. But more often than not, I take a step back and say, ‘I better be discreet here, and write a little more cautiously. It might come out wrong.’

This time, I haven’t lapsed into a discreet mood yet. I’m going to write what I feel.

Barack Obama is a fraud and should be impeached.

On Dec. 31, 2011 --- as most people were distracted and celebrating the onset of the new year --- President Obama signed into law one of the most disgraceful and damaging pieces of legislation to ever cross a president’s desk.

The bill was the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which was the outline of the military spending plan for the coming year. What was shocking about this bill was not the size of the defense spending plan (everybody knows it’s excessive). It was the inclusion in the measure wording that will allow the military to scoop up American citizens, throw them in jail and hold them there indefinitely without charge or trial, just on the suspicion of terrorism.

Allegedly this provision was put in to help prosecute the supposed still-vital ‘War on Terror,’ and is aimed at getting after al-Qaeda sympathizers, who might happen to be American citizens. The new statute will give the military the flexibility to get after foreign terrorists or their supporters at home as well as abroad.

I don’t believe this was the reason for the bill, but more about that in a minute.

This provision, developed in secret in the U.S. Senate with the backing of the White House, makes a mockery of the most fundamental provisions of our Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The arbitrary detention law violates the Fifth Amendment’s provision that people can’t be locked up without due process; the Sixth Amendment’s right of all people facing incarceration to know the charges they face and have a speedy and public trial; and the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee that people be free from unreasonable seizure.

There’s serious question also as to whether the right of habeas corpus will apply to those citizens picked up and jailed. Habeas corpus, a fundamental right in American law that traces its origins back 800 years in England, allows a person detained to ask a judge or magistrate to review their case and determine if there are legal grounds for their detention.

Habeas corpus is enshrined in Section 9, Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion, the public Safety may require it.”

It is incredible that a person who is both a lawyer and a former professor of constitutional law, would sign onto this bill, but Obama did. The President maintained that he was concerned about the law’s wording on detention, and added a signing statement.

“I want to clarify, my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens…My administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war and all other applicable law.

This statement (which actually sounds rather contradictory) was done purely for public relations. Obama knows that signing statements don’t have the force of law ---- statutes do. The new law clearly says the military can now lock up American citizens indefinitely, and Obama signed on.

If he was truly concerned about the legality of this provision, he could have easily vetoed the bill, or sent it back to Congress saying that ‘I’m ready to approve a defense authorization bill, but not with language allowing the military to arbitrarily arrest people. Drop this wording.’

If he had done that, he would have gotten solid support from the American people.

The truth is, the White House wanted this bill and was dishonest in its public statements. After it came out publicly that the detention provision was being discussed in the Senate as part of the defense bill, many liberals and even a few conservatives protested.

Obama came out and said he too, was concerned, and might veto the bill. Subsequently, there was debate over wording and a possible softening of the language on detention of citizens was considered. But it was a charade. U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who worked on the bill with Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, disclosed on the floor of the Senate that the White House specifically said that language exempting American citizens from possible indefinite detention should not be removed.
The new law gives official legitimacy to military arrests and detention of citizens, something which the Bush administration had previously carried out after 911 and was roundly criticized for.

The statute allowing the military to take action domestically in the U.S is a sharp departure from standing U.S. law. The Posse Comitatus Act, passed in 1878, prohibits the use of the military domestically.

I don’t agree with some who’ve said that politics was the chief reason for the detention bill --- you know, the idea that Republicans and Democrats and the President are trying to look ‘tough on terror.’ This is more than ten years after 911, al-Qaeda is decimated and the Taliban is talking peace in Afghanistan. Where are the terrorists? Yes, there are some isolated acts of terrorism --- usually perpetrated by someone psychologically disturbed --- but this is really a law enforcement and intelligence issue. The idea that we have to give the military sweeping new powers to pick up U.S. citizens to stop terrorism is wholly unwarranted.

Unless, of course you’re worried about something else --- problems at home. There is ferment at home --- economic ferment --- and I believe the elites are worried about this.

When you look at how fast the Occupy Wall Street movement swept the nation as well as the Tea Party protests before that, it’s clear there’s a tremendous amount of discontent in our country. People see their standard of living slipping away, foreclosures are everywhere, layoffs abound and quality jobs are increasingly hard to find.

Meanwhile people look around, and they see a small group of the population living very well with huge incomes. Many of these people are at the top of big banks and investment firms that caused the economic problems that we are now in. And they see a morally corrupt Congress and Executive branch doing the bidding of the financial elites, providing massive taxpayer-funded bailouts, tax giveaways for the rich while at the same time slashing social benefit programs in the name of cutting the national debt.

So yes, there is anger in the land, and I believe people at the top in the business world, Congress, the White House and the Pentagon see this unrest as a threat. The detention law is aimed at scaring people and blunting a genuine populist movement.

Kevin Zeese, an attorney and activist with the Occupy Wall Street movement, said that the wording of the detention amendment may provide a legal basis for rounding up protesters. While the law says people, including American citizens linked to al-Qaeda or the Taliban can be picked up, it also says targets could be “associated forces” or people “engaged in hostilities” “in aid of a …organization or person.”

“There is a lot of flexibility in those words and when they apply --- no need for probable cause, a trial, jury verdict or sentencing --- just on suspicion, you get indefinite military detention,” Zeese wrote in a piece for Global Research (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28188)

Already, Homeland Security had established that certain activists could be classed as terrorists. In 2004 Homeland Security had “defined several categories of potential ‘conspirators’ or ‘suspected terrorists’ including ‘foreign (Islamic) terrorists,’ ‘domestic radical groups,’ (anti-war and civil rights groups) and disgruntled employees’ (labor and union activists)….,” wrote Professor Michel Chossudovsky, also in a piece in Global Research about the detention law entitled, “The Inauguration of Police State USA, 2012,” (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28441)

The signing of the detention bill is the latest assault on the Constitution and international law by the Obama administration. Previous to this, you had the administration fighting legal challenges to the government’s use of warrantless wiretapping, which began under Bush and clearly violates the Fourth Amendment.

The President has allowed for extra-judicial killings of Americans suspected of terrorism abroad, in violation of due process guarantees and the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Obama has authorized bombing attacks on sovereign countries that have not attacked the U.S., including Libya and Pakistan. These attacks constitute war crimes under international law.

When you look at the last three years, Obama’s record on the Constitution and international law has been --- astoundingly --- no better than George W. Bush’s record. A number of liberals and progressive groups, such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, called for Bush’s impeachment citing, in part, his backing for illegal wiretapping and use of indefinite detentions.

Where’s the accounting for Obama?

When taking the oath of office every President swears to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Obama has not done that.

Although there has been harsh criticism of the detention law by progressives in blogs and on radio shows, most liberal pundits in the mainstream media, both in print and on television, have been silent on this issue. They seem to be more interested in covering the Republican Party nomination circus than covering the loss of fundamental rights for all Americans --- rights established more than 200 years ago by the nation’s founders. If they were doing their jobs as journalists, they’d be waking people up about what’s going on.

Military detention of citizens without charge or trial is the hallmark of dictatorships, not democracies.

Are we sleepwalking our way to fascism? It seems so.

As David Gespass, president of the National Lawyers Guild put it, “For a very long time the U.S. has been moving towards what I personally think of as fascist --- the integration of monopoly capital with state power, that’s combined with an increased repression at home and greater aggression around the world. I don’t think we’re there yet, but I do see that we’re going in that direction.” He added, “I think the (detention) act is a significant step in that direction.” (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/30-8)

At Year's End, is It the End of the World as We Know It?

2011-12-30T09:03:00.004-05:00

By Scott Harris
of Between The Lines

As 2011 draws to a close, we've all been inundated with an endless number ofblogs and articles assessing events of the past year -- and predictions for theyear ahead.

In that vein, I've been thinking about the significance of 2011, with an eye onthe fascination of many with Dec. 21, 2012, the date when the Mayancivilization's "Long Count" calendar comes to the end of a 5,126-yearera.

Of course, many of the dozens of bookswritten on the subject attempt to profit by sowing fear, with dark predictionsthat the end of the Mayan calendar will coincide with catastrophic natural disasters,possibly destroying humankind and the earth.

Apart from the over-hyped fear-mongering,most likely calculated to sell books and movies, the Dec. 21st date isinterpreted by other more sober-minded folks as simply the end of an era inearth's history. They put forward the hope that 2012 will mark a change inhuman consciousness necessary to re-balance our technology and civilization inorder to save our species and the planet from our current, certain trajectorytoward ecological suicide.

Whatever the interpretation about theMayan calendar, I take hope from the fact that the multiple uprisings occurringin 2011 against Western-supported dictators in the Middle East and NorthAfrica, resistance to harsh austerity measures in Europe and the Occupy WallStreet movement in the U.S. and across the globe challenging the "by therich for the rich" status quo, offer concrete evidence that human beingsacting in concert with one another can still change the course of ourcollective future.

Human history is replete with movementslarge and small that changed the world, sometimes for good and sometimes forill. But the fact that people acting together can effect change, counters theepidemic fatalistic notion that we are all helpless cogs in an insane machinethat is headed toward the edge of a final cliff.

In the realm of politics and economics,we were told by Francis Fukuyama, author of the 1992 book, "The End ofHistory and the Last Man," that the fall of Soviet Communism signaled "theend point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization ofWestern liberal democracy as the final form of human government."

This view was echoed by many on the rightincluding former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who coined theacronym, "TINA," which stood for "There is No Alternative” (toneo-liberal capitalist dogma).

As much of the world continues to sufferthe consequences of the latest and deepest economic meltdown since the GreatDepression, it's obvious that humankind has not yet reached Fukuyama’s imaginedend of ideological evolution. People across the globe are clamoring for newforms of political and economic organization that won't sacrifice the interestsof the majority 99 percent to preserve the status of the elite 1 percent.

While the old Cold War paradigms are intatters, it's interesting to note that a poll conducted by the Pew ResearchCenter for the People & the Press in April 2010 found "young peopleare more positive about 'socialism' – and more negative about 'capitalism' –than are older Americans. Among those younger than 30, identical percentagesreact positively to 'socialism' and 'capitalism' (43 percent each)." Whilethis, and similar survey results on this topic may not speak to any eagernessfor off-the-shelf solutions from a bygone era, it does indicate a refreshingopenness to reconsider ideas once forbidden and systematically demonized overmany decades.

As the new year dawns, my hope is that2012 will witness a second stage of the global revolutions already underway,that go beyond simply identifying the destructive course humankind is obviouslyheaded, but rather focus serious attention on the hard work of making real theslogan made popular at the World Social Forum, "Another World isPossible," an irrepressible rejoinder tothe brittle thinking of Fukuyama and Thatcher.

The World Social Forum, born in Brazil in2001, is an obvious vehicle for new and older social justice movements togather and accelerate the momentum of the revolutionary moment that sprang tolife in 2011. There, work can continue with renewed purpose on refining adecade of conceptualizing practical alternatives to vertical politics andeconomics benefiting the 1 percent.

The World Social Forum Charter maintainsthat civil society groups that gather annually at the Forum, "are committedto building a planetary society directed towards fruitful relationships amongMankind and between it and the Earth."

That's a convictionI would like to believe the ancient Mayan people would find appropriate to markthe end of their civilization's calendar, and the beginning of a new andhopeful chapter in human history.

Scott Harris is executive producer of Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine, a weekly, syndicated public affairs program. http://btlonline.org email: betweenthelines@snet.net

In Case You Missed Some of Between The Lines' Most Memorable Interviews of 2011: Ralph Nader, Cindy Sheehan, Chris Hedges

2011-12-29T09:11:00.002-05:00

Dear Between The Lines Friend:

2011 was an amazing year filled with danger and seeds of genuine change for the future. From the devastation of Japan's tsunami and accident at the Fukushima nuclear power complex, to the Arab Spring revolts across the Middle East and Northern Africa, the grassroots rebellion against anti-labor laws in Wisconsin, the "official" end of the U.S. war in Iraq, to the birth of Occupy Wall Street, one of the most important breakthroughs in the U.S. social justice movement in decades.

In case you've missed some of Between The Lines'most memorable interviews of 2011, here are links to our conversations with regular guests such as Ralph Nader, Chris Hedges, Medea Benjamin, Cindy Sheehan, Chuck Collins, Richard D. Wolff and many others. Feel free to browse our archives at http://btlonline.org/btlarchives.html.

RALPH NADER: The Threat Posed by Occupy Wall Street to the U.S. Political and Economic Status Quo
http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/111118af-btl-nader.html

CINDY SHEEHAN: The Cost and Legacy of the Iraq War
http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/111230cf-btl-sheehan.html
ELLEN MILLER: Demands for Transparency Target Money Flowing to Members of Congressional Deficit Super Committee
http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/111118bf-btl-miller.html
TOM HAYDEN: The Power of the Occupy Wall Street Movement
http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/111104cf-btl-hayden.html
ELLEN BROWN: North Dakota's State-Owned Bank a Viable Alternative Model to For-profit Banking System
http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/111028cf-btl-brown.html
CHRIS HEDGES: Is the Wall Street Occupation a Spark that Can Ignite a New U.S. Economic Justice Movement?
http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/111007af-btl-hedges.html
RICHARD WOLFF: GOP and Big Winners of Trickle-Down Policies Now Charge They are Victims of "Class Warfare"
http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/111007bf-btl-wolff.html
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Occupy Wall Street Movement Expands Exponentially Across the U.S.
http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/111021af-btl-benjamin.html
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Palestinians Vow to Test Bid for Statehood at United Nations
http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/110930af-btl-bennis.html
SARAH VAN GELDER: Communities Adopt New Cooperative Models to Cope with High Unemployment
http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/110923bf-btl-vangelder.html
VINCE WARREN: Legacy of Fear: 9/11 and the Erosion of Civil Liberties
http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/110916af-btl-warren.html
MATTHEW ROTHSCHILD: After Court Reinstates Wisconsin Anti-Union Law, Activists Organize for Summer State Senate Recall Elections
http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/110701bf-btl-rothschild.html
CHUCK COLLINS: Ending Tax Giveaways to the Rich is Key to Reducing U.S. Deficit
http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/110422af-btl-collins.html
MICHAEL ALBERT: Widespread Protests Challenge Spain's Political and Economic Status Quo
http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/110617cf-btl-albert.html
BEN MANSKI: Although National Media Spotlight is Gone, Progressive Mobilization Against Wis. Gov. Walker’s Conservative, Anti-union Agenda Continues
http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/110520cf-btl-manski.html

If you believe it's vital to keep their voices on the air, please consider sending us a donation.

Make your checkpayable to our tax-exempt fiscal sponsor, "The Global Center" andmail to:

Between The Lines

c/o Squeaky Wheel Productions Inc.

P.O. Box 110176

Trumbull, CT 06611

Toward a More Peaceful New Year,

Scott, Melinda, Bob, Denise, Anna, Hank, Jeff, Gary, Elaine, Richard, Liz, Reggie, Prue and Ruben

Melinda Tuhus' Highlights of 2011

2011-12-29T00:01:00.000-05:00

By Melinda Tuhus
Producer
Between The Lines

Three trips were my highlights of the year.

The first, to West Virginia in June, where I marched alongside locals and their outside supporters who were demanding that Blair Mountain be preserved as a national historic site, not blown up as a mountaintop removal site. It was where a 1921 labor battle took place that pitted thousands of miners seeking the right to unionize against the coal companies, local law enforcement and the U.S. Army. I met a young man -- tenth generation West Virginian -- who had to organize a group of like-minded families just to be able to visit their families' graves, which were being threatened by mountaintop removal. Still awaiting a decision from the designating body...

You can read or listen to my reports on Blair Mountain:

• West Virginia Protest March Will Link Campaign to Stop Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining and Labor Solidarity
• Unions and Environmentalists March to Protect Historic Blair Mountain from Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
• Recent March to Protect Blair Mountain in West Virginia Brought Coal Miners and Environmentalists Together

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The second, over Labor Day weekend, to Washington, D.C., to participate in the last day of a two-week civil disobedience action outside the White House to try to convince President Obama to reject the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, which would bring dirty, climate changing oil sands across the country from Canada to Texas. Sat in the police wagon next to a woman from Nebraska -- ground zero of the protest movement -- who'd never been arrested before and was a little scared but defiant, too. After more than 1,200 men and women were arrested and after a follow-up action where 12,000 people encircled the White House, Obama delayed a decision for a year, and ordered a more inclusive environmental study of the project. Jury's still out on this one. (Correction below due to a prior web editing error. Because of equipment security concerns, Melinda did not file a BTL report for this trip. )

Related links:

Between The Lines' executive producer Scott Harris' follow up on the Keystone XL Pipeline:
Protests Pressure Obama to Reject Proposed Alberta-to-Texas Tar Sands Oil Pipeline
Followup by Scott Harris:
Environmental Opponents Take Credit for Obama Administration's Delaying Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline Decision

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In November, I made my second trip to the West Bank and Palestine, meeting Israelis and Palestinians from many walks of life with many perspectives on the seemingly intractable problem of justice in the Middle East. It was inspiring to meet both Israelis and Palestinians who are working toward a just resolution, including Jews involved with Boycott from Within and Palestinians defending their land and their olive trees from destruction by Israeli soldiers and settlers determined to extend the "separation barrier" deep into Palestinian land.

My report on the trip to the Palestinian occupied territories:

Although Violence Captures Most Attention, Palestinians Carry on with Nonviolent Resistance

All these trips yielded many voices which have made their way onto the airwaves and web-waves through Between the Lines.

John Lennon's "Happy Christmas"

2011-12-25T14:55:00.000-05:00

http://youtu.be/yN4Uu0OlmTg

A special message just as true in his day as today: "War is Over if You Want It Now"

Happy Christmas to All and a more Peaceful New Year.

From the Between The Lines Crew

How to Help The Women of Egypt, Part 2

2011-12-23T12:29:00.000-05:00

I previously wrote of the need for women to help restore balance.

By that, I mean a paradigm shift in our value system, which underlies all world politics and our global economic system.

The Egyptian military abuse of women protesting in the streets is a symptom of repression. A previous blog post discussed the repression in the U.S., as seen in the dismantling of the Occupy Wall Street encampments in often brutal police raids. One incident that particularly struck me was an NYPD cop who kicked a bishop's wife in the chest at a recent rally to reclaim public space for organizing OWS general assemblies. She was kicked not just once, but three times before he threw her into a crowd of protesters.

These are not isolated incidents in the world.

Think of this repression in symbolic terms, as the psychologist Carl Jung would have: the masculine vs. the feminine. Within a healthy individual, these traits are balanced: the masculine enterprising, aggressive, territorial and self-protectionist vs. those of the feminine -- the nurturing, compassionate, artistic, spiritual. The "strong" vs. the "weak."

All of these traits exist within each and every one of us, but according to Jung, there are degrees to which the masculine or feminine traits are disowned, which can lead to dysfunctional behavior.

A male-dominated society -- a patriarchy -- fearful of weakening its strength, may perceive the feminine principles as undermining that strength. Therefore, patriarchal societies have the potential to become overly rigid, cracking down against "weakness" with the only way it has learned to ensure the survival of its people throughout the centuries: by sheer strength, power and repression.

We see this subjugation in governments where policies place high priorities on the military, either by way of enforcing dictatorial rule, or covertly, by selling armaments to other governments. Both types of governments engross their citizens in an economy that requires them to sacrifice food, shelter, clothing and education, health care, and security for the most vulnerable in order to support what is essentially a war economy, not a sustainable "peace" economy.

Many of us know that the Arab protests against the military are fighting for democracy, for a symbolic "Lady Liberty." But how many Americans realize that the scenario I have just described is one in the U.S. as well?

If you are suspecting that I am referring to the U.S. military budget, which is half of the federal budget and is nearly half of the entire world's defense spending, you are right!

Does this include weapons and supplies to support dictatorships, many of whom are in the throes of Arab Spring uprising? Hmmm...

Our greatest export, according to consumer activist Ralph Nader, is death. "We are exporting death," he told us at our 20th anniversary forum.

Should we be proud that our greatest export, our true "Made in America" products may be the very supplies and weapons that are being used against the freedom fighters in Egypt?

What can you do restore not just democracy, not just social justice -- but also plain common sense and health for our families, our communities, our societies?

What can you do to restore true values and priorities that will help us not just to survive in the 21st century where technological resources abound to help one another instantly, anywhere, but to thrive?

As I had asked before, what can we do to help restore balance and help our men heal and enjoy what they have truly wanted throughout the history of mankind?

How can we help our men from the top echelons of society to the lowest being in overdrive and help them learn to enjoy raising our families in healthy productive ways?

A corporate titan who has cheated millions of their pensions is no different that of the street criminal. Both are still in "survival" mode -- and while they may have their physical health, they have lost their emotional, spiritual and moral health.

How can we stop the "raise to the bottom?" Even a recent Forbes magazine is changing its tune and looking at Germany's avoidance of American competitive "dog-eat-dog race to the bottom" in this recent article: "How Germany Builds Twice as Many Cars as the U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice as Much."

How can we help create a new economy that will take us from a war economy to a peace economy that is sustainable?

Please join the discussion at http://www.facebook.com/ForEgyptianWomenandEverywhere.

Occupy Wall Street's Origins & the Subsequent Police Repression/Crackdown

2011-12-23T11:51:00.002-05:00

Dear Reading Between The Lines Friends,

Below are two sets of articles re: Occupy Wall Street itsorigins and the subsequent/ongoing police crackdown, as well as related Between TheLines/Counterpoint interviews by Scott Harris.

We also wanted to let you know that the year comes to an end, the year 2011 Between The Lines RadioNewsmagazine's 20th Year of Broadcasting and an Idea Whose Time Has Come:The Occupy Wall Street / 99% Movement
http://btlonline.org

See our special Occupy Wall Street Coverage and Resource page:
http://btlonline.org/occupy

(Scott Harris and a small group of concerned producers began the program in 1991 at WPKN Radio 89.5 FM, in response to the start of the first Persian Gulf War by former President George H.W. Bush.)
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Here is the first of two sets of articles re: Occupy Wall Street aswell as Between The Lines/Counterpoint interviews by Scott Harris on itsorigins and police crackdowns which still continue away from national media spotlight.

You may have already seen David Graeber's excellent piecediscussing his firsthand account of how the original OWS encampment came to beorganized in NYC's Zuccotti Park on Sept. 17th. If you haven't seen this yet,it's a must read!

The second piece is by Bloomberg News, owned by NYC MayorMichael Bloomberg, who ordered the eviction of OWS activists from Zuccotti Park.The article is interesting for some fascinating background about Graeber, andthe corporate media's urgent search for some "mastermind" behind themovement that they otherwise can't explain....

On Playing by the Rules: The Strange Success of#OccupyWallStreet

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/20/1028539/-On-Playing-by-the-Rules:-The-Strange-Success-of-OccupyWallStreet?via=history

David Graeber, the Anti-Leader of Occupy Wall Street

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/david-graeber-the-antileader-of-occupy-wall-street-10262011.html

Justin Molito, an co-founding organizer with the OccupyWall Street http://btlonline.org/2011/CTPT/mp3/111205d-ctpt-molito.mp3

Interview conducted by Scott Harris, Dec. 5, 2011, onfuture organizing projects, protest actions/events, and the general mood andmomentum of the 99% movement.

"Joe Hill," co-founding organizer with OccupyWall Street

http://www.btlonline.org/2011/seg/111014af-btl-hill.html

Interview conducted by Scott Harris, Oct. 1, 2011, onearly days of organizing Occupy Wall Street, and hopes to inspire non-violentaction for social justice.

This interview was conducted shortly before the march,where a police escort led protesters onto the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridgeand 700 people were arrested.

************

The second set of articles and an interview deals with adebate between Naomi Wolff, author of "The Beauty Myth" and "TheEnd of America," Joshua Holland, editor and senior writer at AlterNet, SDSfounder and former California state legislator Tom Hayden -- and a BTLinterview with Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the National LawyersGuild about the extent to which federal authorities, the FBI and Dept. ofHomeland Security, had helped to coordinate local police evictions at OWS encampmentsand arrests of hundreds or activists in cities across the U.S.

The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/25/shocking-truth-about-crackdown-occupy

Naomi Wolf's 'Shocking Truth' About the 'OccupyCrackdowns'Offers Anything but the Truth

http://www.alternet.org/story/153222/naomi_wolf%E2%80%99s_%E2%80%98shocking_truth%E2%80%99_about_the_%E2%80%98occupy_crackdowns%E2%80%99_offers_anything_but_the_truth/

Why Naomi Wolf's Occupy Conspiracy Theory Can't ExplainOccupy LA by Tom Hayden

http://www.thenation.com/article/164851/why-naomi-wolfs-occupy-conspiracy-theory-cant-explain-occupy-la

Naomi Wolf Versus Joshua Holland: Was There a CoordinatedFederal Crackdown on Occupy Wall Street?

http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst/153296/naomi_wolf_versus_joshua_holland%3A_was_there_a_coordinated_federal_crackdown_on_occupy_wall_street/

Occupy Crackdowns: Naomi Wolf's Response to My CritiqueLargely Evades the Issue at Hand

http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst/153300/occupy_crackdowns:_naomi_wolf%27s_response_to_my_critique_largely_evades_the_issue_at_hand/?page=entire

National Lawyers Guild Seeks Files on Federal Role inPolice Suppression of Occupy Wall Street Movement Interview with HeidiBoghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, conducted by ScottHarris

http://www.btlonline.org/2011/seg/111209cf-btl-boghosian.html

How to Help the Women of Egypt? Part 1

2011-12-23T11:42:00.004-05:00

Two days ago, I saw a few of these images on the Twitter feed of a young woman in Egypt. She was posting many videos of the memorialized blood trails of the "martyrs" -- the protesters -- near Tahrir Square, the center of their clashes with the military. This is just one.

These are videos the young women of Egypt are seeing. For example, "Martyrs of the Egyptian Revolution," video with English subtitles, includes one scene with blood emanating from their friend's throat as he falls to the floor after they have been standing at a balcony where they had gone after hearing shots on the street below. (Warning: Graphic images not usually seen by Americans.)

Today, I awoke with two thoughts on my mind: how to help the women protesters of Egypt and how to get through that unique American consumer experience, the last day of Christmas shopping.

The women and men protesting in Egypt are fighting for food, shelter -- the basic means to feed their families and to install a more democratic government still in the hands of the military after its U.S.- supported dictator, Hosni Mubarak was ousted by continued rebellion in the streets.

My struggle is of a different kind. Before heading to work, I've got to "fight" for parking in an overcrowded mall just to get a few small items I've forgotten. Today, I will have to "stalk" a shopper leaving the entrance to the mall and follow him or her to a parking spot, just to find a place to park.

And much as I would like to support American economy and workers by buying items labeled "Made in America," I'm sure it will be especially tough. A coworker of mine has told me he hasn't had any luck with his shopping. Hmmm.

Two pretty disparate issues, right? There's a wide gulf between Arab and American culture.

Well, no.

There is a connection. We all want the same things, water, food, shelter, the means to raise our families. This is a universal need in all living beings, ever since the inklings of life on our planet.

But meeting those needs in way that is cooperative and where no one is threatened -- that's where we need to connect the dots.

Have you tried looking for "Made in America" in our stores this Christmas? What exactly is America's largest exported product? What are we exporting around the world?

Is it cars? You would think so, as the auto industry helped create the American middle-class standard of living after World War II.

Here's an article from Forbes magazine to get you thinking: "How Germany Builds Twice as Many Cars as the U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice as Much."

And as you shop for the latest video/electronic game for that special young one this Christmas -- videos where no real blood is ever shed -- just recall the videos with real bloodshed that are being shared by the women of Egypt.

I'd like to know what you think.

Please join the Facebook discussion at For Egypt's Women and Everywhere at http://www.facebook.com/ForEgyptianWomenandEverywhere.

From Cairo: The Time Has Come for Women to Unite Around the World

2011-12-21T11:10:00.003-05:00

By Anna Manzo

Since the scenes of the Egyptian woman's beating and the march of thousands gripped me, I continue to look for ways to help. In my last blog, I came to the realization that it was time for women to restore balance on this earth.

Above is a video memorializing, with small pebbles, the bloodied trail left by a protester, an Egyptian engineering student in his 20s ... at the bottom of the blog is another video, one memorialized with brick...

The only way I can think of how is to find out how to share their stories....I care about our humanity. Their stories are our stories, they are every one's stories.

This connection, at the heart of my soul, is one I have come to realize is the only reason that gets me up in the mornings when I cannot sleep. That heals me when I feel sick. That gives reason for the tears I used to cry, alone in the night, the tears that we all cry silently inside, but which we may refuse to acknowledge because it was beaten out at an early age. That gives me joy when I find there are indeed millions who remember we are all human and we are united by a love that extends around the world, because this love is ONE AND THE SAME.

Some people have given up on the state of humanity, believing that people are inherently evil, and therefore, those they disagree with deserve to die or fester in their own communities, rather than receive the healing of altruism, of giving, of doing for the greater good.

Some people believe that money or power matters more, because it protects one from the suffering at the hands of evil. That wrapping themselves in weapons, bullets, batons and armaments of violence matter more than finding their way out of the blindness, the darkness of evil, to the true essence of our humanity, our compassion, our ability to love.

Those people are not evil, they have lost their way. They come from a time when our ancestors had no way to protect themselves or their loved ones, needed ever more superior weapons, and armies. But at the same time, there are those who focused on developing the technology to instantly communicate and share resources in peace, with the dream and hope that one day, we can all put down our weapons and no longer live in fear.

There are still those who live in fear, and those are the ones with the biggest weapons and armies.

I say we are not evil. That we can love, shows our humanity is still alive. And we can evolve and bring about a better world.

This is the only reason for living, for our collective ancestors from all around the world...from the plains of the Kilimanjaro mountains of East Africa, down the Nile Valley into Egypt, the Tigris, Euphrates and the Indus valleys, into the Caucasus mountains, across the Bering Strait ... Our collective ancestors all over the world -- separated by culture, by language, belief system -- all knew they were unstoppable, another world was possible!

Below is another video memorializing with brick other Egyptian protesters -- martyrs -- their blood on their shirts carried aloft so others can see ... They are brothers, they are sons, they are fathers, they have people who love them.

Are not we all people who are loved? When will the fighting (in the world) stop?

... it is time for women to help our men heal, for us to restore the balance of the planet. For centuries, our men have done the bloody work of uniting us to this point in history where we can finally communicate everywhere, instantly!

It is time for men all over the world to heal. It is time for them to put down their weapons. It is time for them to enjoy what they have been fighting for all their lives, and their ancestors' lives!

How can we do it?

From Cairo: "The Girls Are Protecting our Revolution! The Men Are Asleep!"

2011-12-21T09:51:00.002-05:00

By Anna Manzo

In my last blog post, I had tears reading and seeing the Mail UK's report of one woman's savage beating by the Egyptian military that was recorded on video and seen by millions around the world.

Hers was just one against many female protesters who had been involved in the days-long protests to oust the military from power and install a more democratic government.

Today I have different tears; it is so moving to see the power of tens of thousands of women unafraid, out protesting on the streets of Cairo.

One of their chants: "The full name of the girl who was dragged and humiliated has been identified: It's Arab Republic of Egypt!"

And another by an old man: "The girls are protecting our revolution! The men are asleep!"

It is time for women around the world -- the nurturers, the caregivers, the matriarchs of hunter-gathering tribes since ancient times, the mothers and the creators of life to restore the balance of this earth!

For Egypt's Women and Women Everywhere: Where is the Love?

2011-12-20T12:42:00.004-05:00

By Anna Manzo
(Photo by Reuters)

Yesterday morning, I had written in shock of a police officer kicking Bishop George Packard's wife, Brook. She had been video recording his civil disobedience arrest on Trinity Church property Saturday, Dec. 17.

Bishop Packard had written:

"Here's a question I have for anyone so free with advice on what conduct OWS should employ at a protest--please answer it honestly. "What would you have done if it was your loved one who had gotten beaten after you had behaved so decorously, and nonviolently, in the course of your arrest?"

That afternoon, I noticed that the newsroom TV where I work had images of a woman being beaten at Tahrir Square. Here's the story as reported by The Daily Mail UK.

And another, "Egypt’s military discredits women protesters as immoral."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iboFV-yeTE&feature=player_embedded

The images so move me that I must do something, but what can I do in this small town where I live in the U.S., where it seems on the surface that no one cares openly about the world as a whole? We work day in and day out, rarely talking about what is affects us all, no matter where we live. It's only since the Sept. 17 Occupy Wall Street movement started that I can see there are people who do care about the state of humanity.

All I can think of is to continue what I have been doing, to keep on writing, try to keep up with those who care. I have been covering issues of social and economic justice with my husband for years now, but mostly taking a back seat to his work. But I have long wanted to do more.

Perhaps all I can do is start up a new Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/ForEgyptianWomenandEverywhere
and a Twitter page: http://twitter.com/bluebrarevolt

A few days ago, I posted my tribute to "The Protester," Time magazine's Person of the Year.

Today, on the new Facebook page, my first words are:

"I am not Egyptian, but I am a Woman. I do not know who she is, but she is my sister, she is my mother, she is my daughter, she has someone who loves her. She is a Woman. She is Love. Men and women around the world, I ask, how can we help to remember what Love is? Where is the Love in Egypt?"

I hope someone in the highest levels of the Egyptian military can tell me, can tell all the men, woman and children who are watching, waiting: "Where is the Love?!"

Arrest of "The Occupied Bishop" Part 2: The Alleged Police Beating of his Wife

2011-12-19T12:05:00.016-05:00

By Anna Manzo
(Photo by Stephanie Keith/AP)

Just before Bishop George Packard was arrested, my husband Scott and I had pushed backward from our front position away from the fence, having watched a few protesters inside pull up the bottom of the fence and urge others to come in and join them.

Of course, I knew what it would mean; we would be crossing the line... Scott, another colleague and I had to make a similar decision on Oct. 1, 2011, to move around and ahead of the crowd onto the pedestrian walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge; at the end of the day, we eventually learned 700 people had been arrested.

Scott and I backed away, and others in the crowd pushed in front of us. Shortly afterwards, there was a sudden push from the front, and all of us were pushed backwards. All the cheering had stopped, and it was strangely silent, similar to the experience on the Brooklyn Bridge, when the riot police with their plastic cuffs arrived in formation.

I began to get concerned about staying in such a crowd, first from fear of falling and getting crushed, but also because I'd heard similar stories about police "kettling" with orange nets for big crowds, and also the pushing from the front and the back that happens when police start divide up the crowds to make their arrests. I yelled out, "what's happening." Someone said, "They're fishing." The fellow behind me said, "What does that mean?" and I muttered, it must be they're making arrests.

Scott and I decided to leave because we were closed in and if we didn't leave at that moment, we might no longer have the choice to leave this crowd. From our days covering the anti-globalization protests, a familiar sign of impending arrest would be a crowd penned in one place for a lengthy period. But unfortunately, by leaving that precarious situation, it that also meant we would miss witnessing close up any police activity (ie. brutality) which would occur.

We regrouped slightly away from the police perimeter. A lot did happen that we couldn't see or hear. Here's the bishop's account of what happened and what his wife experienced.

Bishop Packard's:

"The cop who kneed my wife in the chest three times and threw her into other demonstrators was the same Officer who walked me harmlessly to the paddy wagon."

Brook Packard's:

"I stood there in my orange LL Bean jacket, a post-middle aged mom from the suburbs, trying to film my husband. First a line of police started to push the fence on all of us and they were determined. We sat watching the 10-foot chain link fence fall and descend closer and closer to our noses. All coming down on our sitting bodies. At this point, I think I stood up. I was forced close to the fence and turned to face Officer Teague. His knee came up and hit me in the chest. I was grateful for the chained fence – the barrier softened the jolt. I looked him in the eye saying "Please don't knee me." He looked back at me and did again. Did he smile? Then he did it again. I fell backward into the crowd below me feeling the crush behind, in front, and from the fence which the NYPD was still single-mindedly trying to push onto those outside the fence. Then I felt someone pick me up and throw me onto a pile of people. I looked up and it was a police officer; using my own body as a weapon against other peaceful protesters. Who knew the NYPD could be so clever."

For those who are reading these past few blog posts as part of my "Occupy Mainstream Media" series, the experience of the bishop and his wife are just small examples of what straight mainstream media news reports can't capture...the human experience.

And this is why citizen reporting does play a role in covering today's news.

Bishop Packard admits:

"The big show started with uncovering a collapsible staircase carried surreptitiously in the midst of the crowd. I was just stupidly first in line; I've learned when catching transportation in the military not to dilly-dally. Shuffle to the door, exit a chopper, humvee, or troop carrier quickly."

And then he asks:

"Here's a question I have for anyone so free with advice on what conduct OWS should employ at a protest--please answer it honestly. "What would you have done if it was your loved one who had gotten beaten after you had behaved so decorously, and nonviolently, in the course of your arrest?"

When I saw he was the first to climb up that ladder in his purple robe, I thought he was a hero for what he had done, making a statement with his arrest. He had changed my impression of this latest symbolic struggle. (More later.) But now I see that he, like me, had been drawn in reluctantly to his role, that day. (I had not even wanted to be there on the square that day, was even at a conference, if not for my husband's tugging at me to come along here!)

One never knows which side of history one will find oneself.

I also agree with the bishop's conclusion at the end of his blog...this movement isn't going away any time soon.

Those of us already in the movement knows deep in their heart that unspoken truth which every person on earth shares: We all want to live a life and raise our children in a world that is more loving, that nurtures the essence of our human being, that values each and every one's human potential and allows it to thrive and contribute productively to a better world.

There is no other reason for our collective existence on this planet, in this universe.

A better world is possible.

Arrest of The "Occupied Bishop" Part One: Bishop George Packard

2011-12-18T16:25:00.011-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0sgcenX4ys&feature=player_embedded
(video by Josh Harkinson, Mother Jones)

After I saw him fall to the ground from the top of a chain-link fence in the Trinity Church-owned vacant lot behind Duarte Square, I couldn't stop wondering who he was. "He" was a man dressed in bishop's purple robe, a cross on his chest. It's his action that helped change my view about what the symbolic "re-occupy" effort was intending to accomplish. (I would've been at a conference if not for my partner.)

The several hundred Occupy Wall Street marchers had snaked around the blocks near Duarte Square and hidden a ladder within their ranks as several dozen police surrounded them.

For weeks after their Zuccotti Park encampment was dismantled, it was known they would try to reoccupy on their third month anniversary, which also coincided with the one-year anniversary of the self-immolation of fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia.

It seems that the man who was the first to climb that ladder in an act of civil disobedience was, Bishop George Packard, the retired Episcopal Bishop to the Armed Forces and Chaplaincies. According to Episcopalian Cafe:

"(Packard) has apparently been trying to sort out the situation that exists between leadership of Trinity Wall Street and the Occupy Wall Street protestors who are intent on using property that Trinity owns. We've covered that story here."

Bishop Packard also has a blog, "Occupied Bishop," which chronicles his most recent transformation in supporting the occupy movement and act of civil disobedience on Dec. 17, 2011.

In one of his blogs, he wrote, "I have this great worry that this venerable parish will be on the wrong side of history in a few weeks."

Perhaps a more complete picture of the bishop's transformation from soldier to Army chaplain to civil disobedience comes from this 2002 New York Times article, "Ex-Soldier, Now a Bishop, Deals with Blood on his Hands," written by Chris Hedges, who was on a team of reporters covering global terrorism, who later won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of global terrorism. Hedges, himself was arrested in an act of civil disobedience at a Goldman Sachs protest a few weeks ago.

In this story, the bishop tells of how he had unending nightmares of his days in Vietnam:

"A few years ago I could not have spoken about it," he said. "I needed to cough up the bile. My deepest sentiments were blocked by anger. I needed to integrate it all, to let it out, to learn to think and feel another way. I needed to understand what happened to me."

and he said,

"When my life is all over," he said, "when in these last 30 seconds that I am fighting for breath in some room, I will make a plea to God. I will say that I did the best I could in the oddities life gave me. I will ask to be forgiven."

I think that he is indeed doing his best to achieve peace of mind, heart and soul.

When it comes to trying to make a difference in improving the lives of others for all, I know he won't be on the wrong side of history.

Occupy Everything, Part 3: A Bishop's Civil Disobedience Arrest Shows Why You Need to Be Involved

2011-12-18T15:32:00.018-05:00

By Anna Manzo
(All photos by Scott Harris)

Who was this man being arrested in New York City?

Throughout the remainder of that day, Dec. 17, 2011, and into the next morning, that question still hounded me when I awoke.

In my last blog, I described how the media profession is beset with the same issues of downsizing as any other industry, and how the majority of journalists in newsrooms are often underpaid and cannot cover important socioeconomic issues with the ideal attention and care they desire.

Today, this tough working environment is further compounded by a short news cycle. In this digital age with cellphones, webcams, search engines and social media, even seasoned media professionals can't always capture the complete story of a compelling issue.

It's up to concerned citizens to help fill out those stories and improve public discourse.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is a perfect example of the widespread need for improved public discussion on the country's economic woes that were exacerbated by the financial crisis, and political climate after the 2010 elections. Throughout the movement's explosive growth, average citizens have been taking their own photos and videos and telling their own stories, while also sharing news reports from various media outlets and nonprofits through social media.

Dec. 17, 2011 was the third month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, a movement still active despite the dozens of encampment evictions throughout the country. It turns out that day was also the first year anniversary of the day a fruit cart vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire in a public square in Tunisia after years of police harassment. How many could have predicted that moment of anguish would have sparked a global uprising for economic justice?

It was also the day I knew there was an Occupy Wall Street march to try to occupy a vacant, fenced in lot owned by Trinity Church, behind Duarte Square on Sixth Avenue and Canal Street. The occupiers had wanted to re-establish a new site there, but the church board rejected the request. even though they had had a working relationship prior with the occupiers.

Even though I've been rather "pre-occupied" with the movement overall and like to think that I've been trying to stay on top of this ever-growing, expansive movement (for which other well-funded organizations have assigned reporters or bloggers full time), but I can't, because other issues often get in the way. That day, I also had to choose between a Netroots NY conference that offered sorely needed workshops on online advertising, website development, fundraising, social media and other networking. There's also the problem of fatigue, trying to keep up with all the issues in what's supposed to be your time off from work.

So, when my husband, Scott Harris, Between The Lines' producer urged me to divide my time between both OWS and the conference, I was skeptical of leaving the conference. After all, I had read the New York Times article about the church's decision, and had felt that it wasn't right for the occupiers to "re-occupy" and start a new encampment on that site. But I left with the intention of coming back...

When we arrived, at 12 noon, nothing much was happening other than a CNN truck for aerial camera shots, about a dozen police covering a crowd of about 200 (with proportionately more media than protesters) and a street theater group performing "A Christmas Story" with a character named "Bloomscrooge" and the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future visiting him.

After about three hours, the square had been filling up with more street theater, musicians, tabling for literature and books sales, peanut butter or tuna fish sandwiches being given out for free. We realized something was happening in a corner at the street; people were walking quickly to one side of the square. We had been tipped off that the marchers were probably going to create a diversion while trying to occupy the Trinity Church's vacant lot on the other side of the building, behind Juan Pablo Duarte Square. It seemed they were ready to start a march, and a colleague reminded me that if I didn't want to get arrested, we would need to be cautious at all times about where we walk, due to the heavy police presence. (A group of people had just asked me to join them; they were concealing what turned out to be a large ladder under a banner.)

The march went up the street, and then turned around, making a detour around a few blocks and to the vacant lot behind the building as our tipster had said. A ladder went up...

... and the first one to climb was someone who appeared to be a bishop! Who was he?

He climbed over, and from what I could see there was no other way down... it was at least a 10-foot drop. That worried me; I certainly wouldn't have wanted to do that, much as I think action was an important symbolic gesture. I looked behind the fence and could see that he was on his back; he rolled to get up off the ground. He could've gotten hurt, especially at his age, I feared. But, he got up on his feet and was joined by many more.

After a few moments, protesters then began to pull up the fence to let others in from underneath. But then the police moved in to make arrests.

The more I watched his movements and his demeanor, I felt he was someone who was of stature, and was not some "hippie" dressed up for the sake of street theater, which I am sure critics would have surmised. I tweeted his arrest cautiously after trying to get more information from other OWS volunteers and a National Lawyers Guild legal observer.

That night, at an Occupy Wall Street filmfest, an Occupy Wall Street library team member announced to the crowd what had happened, confirming that a bishop and other clergy affiliated with the church had been arrested.

Earlier, after my reading of one New York Times article, I had thought that if the church didn't want the occupiers to set up an encampment there, it wasn't necessarily right for them to be forcing the issue. But then, my question became, "Why was this bishop willing to take a chance of getting hurt and also engaging in civil disobedience by getting arrested?" When I asked the OWS library member this question, he told me that there had been a division in the church, from a real estate perspective.

On the train in, I remembered reading about the size of the real estate holdings the church owned as well as the corporate representatives on the board ... which I have to confirm ... but that information missing from the New York Time article was enough to change my view, and pique my curiosity.

It also made me me see how important it is for citizens to be willing to seek out information and get a more complete picture of the issues.

See this video by MotherJones, which this afternoon, was updated from an earlier report this morning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=b714AL8wEWo

See MotherJones.com's report.

See this report by the Episcopal News Service.

More to come in my next blog.

Occupy Mainstream Media

2011-12-18T12:45:00.006-05:00

By Anna Manzo
(photo: Scott Harris)

Last week, I ended a blog post with the thought about how it was time to occupy mainstream media.

By that, I mean people who are concerned about issues that directly affect their lives -- politics, economics, social issues -- should pay attention to what is being presented in the media, whether the news is reported by large multinational corporations, independent media, nonprofit organizations or citizen bloggers. It's ever more important, given the state of our intertwined global economy.

Average citizens must look at how the news is being presented with a critical eye, to try to connect the dots with reliable sources in a time of economic globalization and crisis.

Journalists are ordinary people who must make a living in a "downsized/rightsized" work environment just like everyone else. As ad revenues have declined with the growth of the Internet, the news industry has seen mass layoffs. In the newsroom where I work, I've seen how the workload has resulted in smaller staffs with photographers and reporters often covering two or three stories a day as multimedia producers, while editing staff is transitioned to new digital duties, leaving behind an even smaller staff to further edit and lay out copy.

All this means that stories that require in-depth analysis of socioeconomic issues are getting short shrift.

Often, in many newsrooms in across America these days, journalists are grossly underpaid to do their work. Those who stay in this profession, I feel are those who fall into the category of a public servant, providing a public service to their communities. Even before the recent changes, it's always been a hushed secret in our own newsroom that some of the most hard-working news staff had second jobs -- freelancing, waitressing, painting, cleaning offices and even sports team mascot -- to make ends meet for themselves and their families.

Many reporters are well intentioned, like those who work in nonprofits, but it's difficult for these individuals to do their jobs with ideal care and compassion when their energy and attention is divided on so many issues.

Which leads me to the next blog, further explaining my belief that citizens need not only to pay attention to the media, but they must take action on their own to inform themselves and help maintain an informed, participatory democracy. By doing so, they ensure that our societies value the ability for all to reach their true human potential, for the benefit of our collective humanity and a safer planet on which we all live.

For You, 'The Protester', Time's Person of the Year

2011-12-14T19:26:00.008-05:00

You know who you are. You are someone who cares and who is willing to join those who care not just about their own selves, those whom they love, their relatives and close-knit clans, but others, whether near or far.

"You" are the people, the next generation making history because you care about the state of our humanity. You care about our ability to love, having time to express that love and give our lives joy. You care about each and every one of us thriving because of this love – families and communities – reaching their highest human potential in the short time each of us, as individuals, exist in the universe.

You care about social injustices to others no matter where in the world they are, because you know that our lives now in the 21st century are all globally intertwined – an injustice anywhere is an injustice against everyone, everywhere.

And you are willing to speak up, march in protest when the powers that be frown upon you and it seems the majority don't understand, even belittle or ridicule you. You are willing to risk the elements, arrest, police brutality, your belongings taken from you, because you know that they cannot take way your dream of a better, more peaceful, sustainable world for every one's children -- our children's children.

Time magazine said it is recognizing protesters because they are “redefining people power” around the world and are changing global politics.

You are the people that love life deeply and know when there is a calling in your soul you must heed.

Your dream is one our collective ancestors around the world have had, but could never accomplish as we all can in the 21st century, where we now have the technology and resources to help one another, instantly anywhere in the world.

Bless you all for keeping the dream alive, and thank you for working to make that dream come true.

Just because you believe, dream and dare to love, a better world is possible.

-- Anna Manzo

Occupy Everything, Part Two

2011-12-09T14:09:00.018-05:00

http://youtu.be/Ovs0fpFgeqw

I love Miley Cyrus' video, "Don't Give Up-It's a Liberty Walk," which she released on Thanksgiving.

At first glance, I thought, "Oh, I've seen a lot of this footage before, not another video of mass protests and an upbeat soundtrack." But I really appreciated seeing footage of events I had covered with fellow Between The Lines' crew – from the Oct. 1 Brooklyn Bridge arrests to the Oct. 15 Global Day of Action at Times Square – and other "viral videos" I had been posting on our Facebook page from Occupations around the world these past few months.

For the thousands who've been working quietly, out of the public eye, on socioeconomic issues for years – and even those who have taken part in this movement more recently – the video is a nice affirmation that after months or years of frustration, we're not alone!

However, one of my colleagues suggests that unless Miley Cyrus takes to the streets, she is exploiting the Occupy movement. She had not written her song to fit the movement, but rather, had remixed her "Liberty Walk" music video from an earlier release.

Whether or not she actually takes that "liberty walk" herself is not as important as the fact that her celebrity status raises awareness for a whole new generation that just may not pay attention to the likes of Michael Moore, Ralph Nader, Cornel West, Naomi Klein, Chris Hedges, Jackson Browne and others, all of whom have actually spent an hour or more with Occupy Wall Street groups around the country. (Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges even got arrested at a march and rally in front of the Goldman Sachs building.)

Anything that keeps the dialogue and awareness of what the movement is trying to do has got to be good in counteracting the unproductive stereotyping of "dirty hippies that should get a job and are defecating in public, leaving behind disgusting (you know what) when police clean up their encampments." (Many daily newspaper sites' comment boards are rife with such negative, persistent viewpoints from whom I think also need to get a useful job... how do they have so much time to waste and what problems are they trying not to solve? That in itself speaks volumes.)

I've been wondering why none of the highly paid pundits in commercial broadcast media, nor the relentless "trolls" in online message boards and chatrooms will use the words "income inequality" or even acknowledge the many studies by credible sources. Are they simply not thinking? Or are they deliberately trying to keep people distracted from thinking about the true issues, such as the economic displacement of a vast number of middle-class workers who are losing or have lost jobs to technology, as well as those aspiring to be middle class – including those among the student population who may not have an economic future and standard of living as their parents?

It's just common sense to realize that advancing technology over the past 30 years alone is displacing millions of jobs that once supported local communities, and though productivity is soaring and profits are up, those funds are accumulating somewhere – at the very top of the wealthiest in the nation. (Millionaires don't make $20,000 a week one year just once; those salaries accumulating every year and their numbers are growing. The U.S. has the highest number of millionaires and billionaires.) People with a conscience ought to take these naysayers on: " What jobs did your parents have? What do you think about advancing technology replacing people's jobs? Are products getting cheaper? Is the cost of living going down? Are people working less because they 'want' to? Or are they actually working two low wage jobs? If someone's making more than a million or two a year, are they actually contributing products and services that cause dollars to circulate many times over in communities or are they just making money out of money and these dollars are being stashed away from others who can actually recirculate it for basic food, shelter and education? What do you think about income inequality?"

When I heard about how Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said to avoid legitimizing the Wall Street protests, and conservative pollster Frank Luntz, speaking at a recent Republican Governors Association conference, described how to talk about the protests, it all made sense.

Despite efforts to repress the Occupy/99 percent movement, and GOP House focus on austerity measures to reduce the deficit at a time when a job stimulus is sorely needed, I'm glad there's a whole lot of "Occupy Everything" ... not only from the many encampments, but from "occupy colleges" over crushing student loan debt; "occupying banks" and promoting bank account transfers to nonprofit credit unions or trying to establish public credit unions in their communities; "occupy our homes" for those helping communities stricken by mass foreclosures; to those occupying economics, such as 300 economists who made a statement in favor of sustainable economies "for the people, for the planet and for the future."

Nexis' database shows that the movement has influenced public discourse; about income inequality has been increased in from some 91 mentions in public media since Occupy Wall Street set up its encampment on Sept. 17, to over 500 by Nov. 11.

However, as the movement devolves into a "occupiers vs. police" polarization over dismantling encampments – there's still not enough media coverage and public awareness about the extreme level of corruption that went on about the banks that got bailed out; ie, repeat offender Citigroup, and the $7.7 trillion secret Federal Reserve Loan that Bloomberg News reported. Former attorney general Eliot Spitzer says there should be a congressional hearing with the bankers "about the actual negotiations, or lack thereof, that led to these loans; about the actual condition of each of the borrowing banks and whether that condition differed from the public statements made by the banks at the time."

And, there still needs to be a wider discussion about what people really want, which is I believe is a globally sustainable economy with an economic bill of rights. It's very important to try to move the dialogue into this discussion. And "sustainability" is not just about environment and renewable energy, but also ensuring the accessibility for everyone to meet basic human developmental needs: clean water, food, shelter, education, health care, as well as being able to contribute meaningfully to society: jobs to support one's self, family and community, and to secure one's retirement in dignity.

But the most important of all are the things that make participatory democracy possible, such as a free, independent press which can make public discourse more substantive, and protect civil liberties and the right to dissent.

It's time to occupy mainstream media and begin making sure the discussion is focused on what makes a truly globally sustainable economy, and life of peace and security, the kind we and our collective ancestors have longed for.

For the first time in our collective history, we finally have the technology to make it happen.

Occupy Everything, Part One

2011-12-04T11:55:00.008-05:00

http://youtu.be/W1BP4e4GOm0

by Anna Manzo

As municipalities across the nation dismantle occupy encampments throughout the nation, some in brutal police raids, the Occupy/99 Percent movement has gotten more creative and is certainly not going away anytime soon.

It's about to pervade just about every aspect of society.

Why?

I have written about highly paid corporate journalists ridiculing the movement, and the immediate, pressing needs in previous blogs. And every day, I hear more stories of economic troubles or studies of income inequality.

But I also hear of creative efforts that show other ways people are doing what they can to make a difference.

Trade unions already have spoken up and marched with Occupy Wall Street. College students have begun to feel the brunt of brute police force. Communities are organizing to save houses from foreclosure.

And when the professional class, such as economists like Robert Reich begin to support Occupy Wall Street very eloquently, as in the above video, it's definitely a sign that the movement has not been cowed into silence, but rather continues to evolve.

A serious look at the current social paradigm is truly needed. For example, 300 economists also recently recorded this video, which starts out with "Occupy Economics" below:

http://vimeo.com/32597394

Furthermore, I am impressed by the values expressed on their website Econ4.org, "Econ4: Economics 4 the People, 4 the Planet, and 4 the Future."

I eagerly look forward to more of their work!

A recent New York Times op-ed, "Wanted: Worldly Philosophers," opined "that the (economics) profession has been so preoccupied with the trees that it lost sight of the forest."

I am no economist. But like many people in the Occupy/99 percent movement, I care about fixing a broken economic and political system that seems totally out of touch with the 21st century.

Each of us has a unique and important role to play for our future. So many have joined so quickly because we know that what we do now is history in the making.

So many also know that we now live in a technologically globally connected world -- a generation which can see possibilities for a future, a safer, more sane world which our collective ancestors never had, and could only dream of.

Throughout our human history, our ancestors never had the technological means to communicate instantly anywhere in the world, at the rate that we now can, to help solve problems of scarcity, of man-made or natural disaster. We and our ancestors, for millennia, have always longed for a world that was safer, more peaceful for ourselves and our loved ones, for which we all can thrive and attain our god-given potential and talent, and contribute productively to society.

What will you do?

To be Thankful for this Thanksgiving Weekend: People Who Truly Care

2011-11-25T09:21:00.005-05:00

youtu.be/tqtNvgzWsis

From Pink Floyd's Roger Waters - "The Tide is Turning"
This video produced shortly after the Occupy Wall Street movement went global on Oct. 15, 2011 expresses my sentiments.

I am forever grateful to people all around the world who truly care ... those who believe a better world is possible, and try in whatever ways they can to make that vision, that dream come true.

Bless you and I love you all!!!

Anna Manzo
Between The Lines crew

Extending thanks

2011-11-23T23:32:00.002-05:00

by Reginald Johnson

I got a note in my email box this week from the fine group “Strengthen Social Security” enititled ‘Something to be thankful for.’

In it they extend their thanks to the many people who worked hard to send letters, made phone calls, held rallies and signed petitions when the call went out to tell Congress not to make cuts to the bedrock safety net programs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Everytime Congress threatened these programs, the letter said, “you were there, pushing back. And you were successful.”

While noting that the battle to save the “Big Three” programs isn’t over, there was a major victory this week, with the announcement by the so-called congressional super committee it couldn’t reach agreement on the drive to cut the U.S. debt. The committee at one point had been considering major cuts in the social programs.

“Many people will call this a failure,” the letter said. “But make no mistake, this is a victory for the 99 percent and democracy, and it’s due to your hard work.”

I’d like to second their thoughts. But I also want to say another group should be thanked for thwarting the drive to undermine public assistance programs: all those who are participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Thousands of people, many young, are encamping around the country and rallying everyday to demand accountability from the banks and the financial elite while insisting on a fairer shake for working people. They deserve so much credit. Their persistence has forced a change in the national discussion, from talking about the so-called problems of the budget deficit and the need to cut programs, to talking about income inequality and the needs of “the 99 percent.”

What Occupy Wall Street has already accomplished is amazing --- in just two months. Despite the vicious actions of city leaders like New York’s billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg to break up the movement by destroying encampments, I think this drive for national economic justice is only going to get stronger. It has the makings of the strongest social change movement in generations.

On this Thanksgiving Day, I tip my hat to all the participants in Occupy Wall Street. Thank you.

OWS: It just keeps on coming...

2011-11-21T13:15:00.002-05:00

By Richard Hill

I made my second pilgrimage to OWS on Saturday (11/19) with Scott Harris and Hank Hoffman. After the momentous developments of Tuesday and Thursday, we weren't expecting a whole lot to go down. We were wrong. Horizontal direct action democracy is a spontaneous, ever-evolving process that doesn't require a pre-planned and agreed-upon agenda. It just keeps on coming.

We got to Zuccotti Park around 2 PM and found our way into the space through one of the two narrow well-guarded "security entrances". Scott had lined up an interview with Mark Bray and Senia Barragan, from the OWS press team and was in the process of calling them when we saw a boisterous chain of people snaking through the park chanting, "Whose food? Our food!" They mounted the park steps and called for a mic check..

Their group is called Occupy Big Food and their presentation was informative and inspiring and included talks by local food service workers, academics and slow food activists about the need to fight back against the corporate domination of the food production and distribution system in the US and globally. The group joined forces with Unite/Here Local 100 representing 6000 service workers in restaurants, cafeterias and bars in the New York area, in an effort to include the issue of the detrimental effects of Big Food on both the working conditions and diets of low income workers in the food industry.

Without being aware of it, I found myself participating in the human mic process -- repeating the short chunks from each speaker. I was moved and exhilarated as I joined in with the group responses. This is what democracy FEELS like! A process driven by human energy, participation and consensus.

After recording an interview with Kristin Wartman, an organizer of Occupy Big Food (listen to the audio), I made my way to the Atrium at Deutsche Bank on Wall Street (affording me a look at the barricaded roadway riddled with piles of horse dung from the mounted police action this past Thursday). This "privately-owned public space" (only in the USA!) is cavernous and surreal with elaborate bas-reliefs, live palm trees and enough tables and chairs for OWS working groups to sit in relative comfort and plan the next steps of the occupation. I found Scott, Hank and our OWS press contacts at one such table and joined the interview in progress.

Walking back up Wall Street on our way back to the park, we heard loud chanting coming from a few blocks further on. We approached and found police massing in front of a column of chanting demonstrators who had apparently spontaneously marched from Zuccotti Park to Wall Street to decry the total blockade of the roadway still in place after Thursday's occupation. One older guy with an incredible set of pipes boomed: "Mr. Bloomberg: Tear down these barricades!"

At first the cops blocked the protestors from proceeding down the sidewalk but soon realized that this presented the risk of injury as more and more people pressed forward from the rear. Finally, one police supervisor gave the signal to open the barricade, allowing 1000 or more people to stream forward. It was amazing to witness this apparently unplanned march as well as some good flexible police work which went with the flow rather than gratuitously resisting it.

Back at the park we witnessed the only arrest of the day. As I stood on a granite table, I watched a group of eight cops throw a man to the ground and then close over him like a black widow spider on its prey. OWS-ers surrounded the police and began pressing in chanting "Shame!" until another man called "Mic Check! We don't want any violence here!" A tense situation quickly diffused as word went around that the arrested man had been attempting to cut the wires to the white holiday lights mounted on park pillars.

Just as we were about to head for the subway uptown, Hank came over and said, "You know that retired police captain who joined the OWS movement this week? He's standing right over there." Sure enough, we found him speaking to a group of young folks a few yards away and promptly invited him to record a short interview. (Listen to the audio here). Standing with us was an NYU Theater major and member of the OWS direct action working group whom we also interviewed.

He told me that he was completely consumed with the Occupy movement. "I'm an NYU student -- but this is what I really do." I asked him what it was that had so completely captured his focus. "I can't explain it -- there is a power here that I feel every time I come...a connection to people and a feeling that we might actually make something happen in our lifetimes."

I know what he means, even after two relatively brief visits -- the energy of this kind of communal democratic process is hard to put into words -- but you sure as hell know it when it happens!

--Richard Hill, BTL Crew

Nov. 17 Day of Action: "We Are Unstoppable, Another World is Possible" (Updated)

2011-11-18T14:48:00.006-05:00

http://youtu.be/CxG4g62rnd8

Last month, I blogged about what's at the heart of the Occupy movement.

After watching weeks of growing police brutality and crackdowns on Occupy encampments worldwide, especially after the recent week's horrific pepper-spraying incident at University of California Davis, it was rather heartening to see how creative this movement gets with each act of unjustified repression.

I especially like their new slogan in the video above: "We Are Unstoppable, Another World is Possible."

OccupyWallSt.org has released a video from the perspective of the Occupiers.

http://youtu.be/n2-T6ox_tgM

Their innovation, optimism, dedication, and discipline to remain nonviolent gives me hope that indeed another world is possible. These kids are simply amazing.

This is the next generation and I love them all.

Going after the banks

2011-11-06T22:18:00.003-05:00

To Tiffany Mellers, big banks are doing the American people an injustice.

They’re charging high credit card rates, making it difficult to get mortgages and hitting people with excessive fees. They’re also not investing in the local communities like Bridgeport, said Mellers, herself a city resident.

At the same time, large banks are pulling in record profits and rewarding their top officers with hefty bonuses. In many cases, they’re paying little or no taxes.

Like thousands of others around the country, Mellers has decided that the people have to fight back. One way they’re doing that is by encouraging everyone to move their money from banks like Bank of America, Chase and Wells Fargo into small banks and credit unions.

On Saturday, Mellers took part in “Bank Transfer Day” --- a nationwide action where people were urged to withdraw their money from large banks and shift the funds to smaller institutions.

Mellers joined several other protestors in Bridgeport, standing outside the Bank of America branch on Middle Street and then on Main Street and Capital Avenue, to urge people to drop business with the bank.

“This is about holding banks like this accountable,” said Mellers, as she handed out flyers near the branch on Main Street.

By investing money in credit unions and community banks, she said, people will better insure their money will be invested locally.

“These banks aren’t recycling the money locally,” said Mellers, pointing back at the Bank of America sign.

The nationwide protest, also called “Move Your Money Day,” was organized by Moveon.org and a number of other progressive organizations. Since September, there’s been increasing calls for consumers to move their money out of mega banks. Part of the drive has emanated from the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is aimed at making corporations, including large banks, pay their fair share in taxes and act more responsibly in terms of credit card rates, foreclosure procedures and fees.

Just since Sept. 29, credit unions have pulled in some 650,000 new customers, according to an industry trade group. That influx took place after Bank of America announced they were hitting customers with a new $5-a-month debit card fee. (The bank has rescinded its decision, and other banks dropped similar plans).

Credit unions are not-for-profit cooperatives owned by their members. They generally charge less fees than banks and offer credit cards with lower rates of interest.

Mellers is an organizer with Moveon.org and a member of the “American Dream Movement.”

In the Saturday protest, Mellers was dressed up in a colorful red, white and blue costume. Calling herself the “American Dream Girl,” she held up a sign saying “Save the American Dream.”

When she wasn’t chatting with people who slowed for the stoplight, she sometimes broke out in song. One ditty went:

“The banks have tanked, We bailed them out, It’s time to take your money out, Move your money!”

Heading for general strikes?

2011-11-01T18:54:00.006-04:00

When I hear the words “general strike,” it’s music to my ears.

This is an event where everyone in a city or country decide they’ve had enough of being exploited and they want a fairer shake from their government, their employer or prevailing economic system. Often general strikes have been made in support of a group of workers who are being abused by a company.

The general strike sees workers, students and regular citizens en masse stop their normal routines that day. They don't go to work, don't patronize businesses, don't go to school. The system comes to a halt for that day, or days.

A general strike can send a powerful message to the powers that be that the people are really serious, and they’re willing to make major sacrifices to bring about a fairer political system and wider economic rights.

Huge general strikes took place in Egypt earlier this year, which led to the ouster of long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak. General strikes have also rocked Spain and Greece, where millions of people chafe under the brutal austerity demands of governments and corporate elites.

The U.S. --- where some historic general strikes took place back in the turbulent 1930s --- has not seen much in recent years.

But things are changing now, as the Occupy Wall Street movement sweeps the country.

On Wednesday, Occupy Oakland plans a general strike aimed at shutting down the Bay Area city.

Members of the Oakland movement are furious over their treatment by city authorities. Police evicted them from their encampment at a plaza near City Hall last week and 85 people were arrested. Then when the group tried to retake the plaza, police beat them back using stun grenades and tear gas. During the melee, a 24-year-old Iraq War veteran, Scott Olsen, was hit in the head by a tear gas canister, leaving him seriously injured.

News of the injury created a wave of anger among the protesters and Olsen became a rallying cry for the Occupy Wall Street movement nationwide.

The movement, which began with an encampment at a park near the financial district in lower Manhattan in September, is aimed at fighting economic inequality and corporate greed. Occupiers say there's something very wrong with a society that allows 1 percent of the population to enjoy so much wealth and power while everyone else --- the 99 percent --- struggle with unemployment, declining incomes and escalating costs.

An estimated 200 "occupy" protests have sprung up across the country.

Of the general strike in Oakland, organizer Cat Brooks said, “We mean nobody goes to work, nobody goes to school, we shut the city down.”

He added, “The only thing they seem to care about is money and they don’t understand that it’s our money they need. We don’t need them, they need us.”

It’s not clear how successful the Oakland strike will be, which was hastily organized.

Protests will be held Wednesday at banks and corporations that refuse to shut down. Demonstrators will then march to the Port of Oakland to try to shut down the night shift.

It’s interesting to note that one of the most famous general strikes in U.S. history took place in 1934 in San Francisco, when thousands of both union and non-union workers walked off their jobs to show support for striking longshoremen and protest violence by police.

Even if the Oakland action is not totally successful, I think a spark has been lit, and there’s likely to be more general strikes in other areas and possibly a nationwide general strike down the road.

Let’s hope so.

Maybe Occupy Wall Street's "Unclear Message" is Because So Much is Wrong with the System

2011-10-27T14:23:00.028-04:00

The media and critics have described the Occupy Wall Street movement as lacking a clear, unified message.

Perhaps it's because there is so much that's wrong with the current economic system. Perhaps the current economic system is not just simply broken.

Perhaps it's "UNSUSTAINABLE".

Here's a laundry list of Occupy Wall Street complaints:

• accelerating automation and outsourcing that's replacing human labor, while the cost of living continues to increase
• loss of manufacturing and construction sector jobs that supported the middle class, lack of job creation, high unemployment

• productivity has increased while real wages have remained flat for workers but risen dramatically for CEOS

• 30 years of flat wages for the middle class, while the top 1% share of wealth has grown exponentially
• high college, consumer and homeowner debt to maintain the same standard of living prior to 30 years ago

• global economic crash for which no perpetrators have been prosecuted, but continue the same reckless behavior

• 1 percent of the population controls a disproportionate amount of the country’s wealth, due to 30 years of "trickle-down economics" and tax code that benefits the wealthy, due to corporate tax loopholes as well as lack of adequate financial sector regulation

• money in politics; congressional focus on deficit reduction rather than job stimulus, a strong social safety net and sustainable economies

• proposed austerity budget cuts that focus on weakening the social safety net rather than on military spending that's not only half the U.S. budget; but, at $707 billion in 2010 was also more than the next top 10 military budgets combined, making the U.S. the world's largest exporter of weapons of mass destruction

• health care system that is now for-profit, leaving 45 million uninsured; health care costs are the No. 1 reason for bankruptcy

• unsustainable, polluting extraction of natural resources that degrades the environment and affects health

A system is unsustainable when technology and automation has steadily been replacing human labor, thus depriving ordinary people of the means to earn a liveable wage for themselves, raise a family and take care of their health.

A system is unsustainable when enormous cost-savings/profit-taking has also fueled the growth of ever larger multinational corporations, which eliminate family-owned businesses that were the fabric of local communities; outsource jobs to low-wage countries with minimal workers' rights; and create jobs without health care benefits or livable wages in the communities they serve.

A system is unsustainable when middle-income wages have remained flat for 30 years, yet the tax code redistributes wealth so that billions of dollars are hoarded by a small percentage of the population – money that would otherwise be circulated many times over in local communities to exchange the basic amenities of living: access to clean water, proper sanitation, healthy food, affordable housing, health care, education, safe transportation infrastructure and a secure retirement.

A system is unsustainable when its tax dollars are invested in a fossil-fuel economy that pollutes our natural resources; damages our health; and, rather than investing in a peace/renewable energy economy pays our young people to risk life and limb in wars overseas to protect those fossil fuel supplies, stockpile weapons of mass destruction and create more enemies vis-a-vis a military budget which demands half our federal funds, while social safety net spending is cut in the name of deficit reduction.

We finally have the technological means to end the worst aspects of scarcity that our collective ancestors have always known. We can communicate globally and instantly, and send resources anywhere in the world to help one another.

The demand is very clear: It is time for a globally sustainable economy that is right for humanity in the 21st century.

The Executioners

2011-10-26T10:12:00.003-04:00

A lot of people are cheering the fact that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has been killed. Good riddance to a brutal despot, they say, the world is better without him.

I’m not cheering. It’s not that I think Gadhafi was some kind of nice guy. He clearly was not. He was a brutal tyrant. It’s just that I am getting sick and tired of how the United States thinks that it has the right to essentially rub out any person it deems to be acting against its interest, and to do so irrespective of U.S. law and international law.

As Noam Chomsky would say, we act like a Mafia don on the world stage --- using force and violence to get our way. Look at the godfather cross-eyed, and you’re history.

The so-called Libyan rebels reportedly killed Gadhafi, after a protracted battle for the dictator 's hometown of Sirte. But the reality is, the Americans and their fellow partners in crime, France, Britain and Italy, killed Gadhafi.

While there was a genuine uprising in Libya’s east in February against the dictatorship, and Western countries entered the conflict supposedly on humanitarian grounds --- to protect rebel areas and civilians from a massacre by Gadhafi forces --- the intervention soon became an all-out assault on the entire country. The action against Libya --- in the form of NATO planes attacking pro-Gadhafi areas --- constituted an illegal invasion that went far beyond the terms of the UN resolution passed in March allowing for military action to protect civilians.

The U.S. and their allies wanted Gadhafi out. Getting rid of the eccentric and independent-minded Libyan leader was seen as a means to install a more pliant government, which would surely grant unconditional access to the Libya’s massive amounts of high quality oil and water. A more obedient government in Tripoli also means the U.S. can build military bases in the country giving America a springboard for further interventions in the rest of resource-rich Africa.

The U.S., Britain and France saw the Benghazi uprising as providing a pretext for making their move on Gadhafi. The intervention had nothing to do with helping the Libyans achieve democracy, or promote the Arab Spring --- an idea advanced by some people on the left who really should know better.

After months of NATO bombing runs --- with many civilians killed and civilian infrastructure destroyed ---- the rag tag rebel army caught up with Gadhafi and shot him. The exact circumstances of Gadhafi’s death are not clear, but this fact is: the rebel army never could have won this war without NATO assistance, and if the word had come down during the battle for Sirte, ‘capture, don’t kill Gadhafi,’ the dictator would have been taken alive. He was not --- this was an execution.

The annoying and nationalist-minded Col. Gadhafi was out of the way.

But had Libya attacked the United States, France or Britain? No. There was no legal basis under international law for the all-out assault that took place on this sovereign country. Nor did President Barack Obama get congressional approval for the attack in which the United States was so centrally involved. In so doing, Obama trampled on the constitution and the War Powers Act.

The elimination of Gadhafi was the third time this year that the U.S. carried out extra-judicial killings of heads of state or alleged terrorist leaders.

In September, a CIA drone in Yemen killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Muslim cleric with alleged al-Qaeda ties. He had been implicated in plots to harm the United States, but was never indicted. Nonetheless, he was put on a “kill list” set up by a secret panel in the White House’s National Security Council.

Awlaki’s killing violated the U.S. Constitution. The Fifth Amendment says no American citizen shall be “deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

What due process was given al-Awlaki? None. Just put on a kill list, and boom! -- taken out.

How different is this from what Stalin and Hitler did to opponents of their regimes, or those who they considered terrorists?

Al-Awlaki should have been captured and put on trial. Why wasn’t he? Maybe because the case against him wouldn’t have stood up in court?

Osama Bin-Laden, the reputed author of the 911 attacks (though no conclusive evidence has ever been presented to verify his role) was executed by U.S. commandoes in May. The raid on Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan was done unilaterally by the U.S. without consultation with Pakistan.

Bin Laden was unarmed at the time of the raid, and could have been taken alive. Like al-Awlaki, he should have been captured, and brought to trial for his alleged crimes. He had been indicted for his role in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000.

But he was executed, possibly on orders of President Obama, who watched the raid in real time with his White House team.

His body was then dumped at sea.

What has our nation come to? Is this the America of 2011 --- one whose government has secret kill lists, execution teams and a population (at least many) who cheer when designated “bad guys” are killed in a lawless manner? Apparently so.

What is the organizing model that captivates the people of Occupy Wall Street?

2011-10-22T12:25:00.000-04:00

After years of organizing huge anti-globalization and anti-war rallies large and small that seemed to go nowhere since Seattle's 1999 World Trade Organization and September 11, it seems that Occupy Wall Street has finally hit upon an organizing model that has the power to captivate and motivate around the world -- despite major corporate media ridicule, police intimidation and brutality.

David Graebar, is currently a reader in Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London, was one of the initial organizers responding to the Adbusters' Sept. 17 call to Occupy Wall Street.

Prior to that, he was an associate professor of anthropology at Yale University. He is the author of ‘Debt: The First 5,000 Years’ which is available from Amazon.

Here, Graebar writes an excellent in-depth analysis on Daily Kos of the mechanics of how Occupy Wall Street started.

And in case you missed it: Here's Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz's article "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%."

The Occupy Movement and the World: Trusting when "It's Just Not Right"

2011-10-17T15:03:00.005-04:00

Whew! What an amazing Occupy Global Day of Action.

These two signs captured my attention. This blog relates to the one on the right:
"Stop Asking Me Why I'm Here and Start Asking Yourself Why You're Not."

If there's one thing the Occupy Movement has done, it's started people talking, thinking and trying to connect the dots about how our lives have come to this fractious point. I almost blew off coming down to New York today with excuses of too much to do, but I figured that I could at least begin my intellectual quest for a sustainable global economy, which I mentioned in my last blog.

Amid all the amazing, intense sights, sounds, chants, conversations and emotions of the day in Zuccotti Park, Times Square and Washington Square, there was one small phrase that stood out in my mind when I awoke the next day.

"It's just not right."

I had started the day in Zuccotti Park, which has become ground zero for bringing an open discussion to a whole host of issues that are not getting enough public debate in the media or even among friends and family. I could hear one discussion getting fairly heated, something I didn't see two weeks ago, but perhaps a discussion that needed to be started.

One person spoke to me about changing the system so that the banks were nationalized, and to bring back the Glass-Steagall Act, so that speculative investments were separated from the money belonging to depositors. A lot of people would lose a lot of money, he said.

Including the extremely wealthy? I asked.

Yes, that's why they're so against it, he said. They would have nothing.

That didn't sound right to me.

Another who disagreed with the protesters told me that the top one percent had earned that money and they should be allowed to keep it. But what about the stagnation of the economy, the flat real wages for the middle class and loss of jobs to outsourcing and the technology? (I wish I'd mentioned the austerity measures of deficit cutting and the rich not paying their fair share of taxes, but I didn't.) And I said, not everyone could go to college, and if they did, they're socked with a lot of debt. He said, "They should look for jobs elsewhere, in China. I would never allow myself to get stuck with that much debt." But what about his parents' generation, when the middle-class used to buy homes and raise a family with just a high school education with jobs from the manufacturing sector? Most of the jobs now are service jobs, where you make minimum wage. "They should go learn a trade, not go to college," he said.

Those ideas didn't sound quite right to me, either.

Another older gentleman, well into his 70s, said he believes in business, but what needs to happen is to have a connectedness to our humanity, to create a society that's fair and realistic, not one with such a schism of power in a "trickle-down" economic system.

That sounded about right to me.

At the end of the evening, two young women walked out of Washington Square where thousands in an Occupy Wall Street General Assembly had been discussing whether or not to occupy the square. An NYPD supervisor with a bullhorn had warned the Occupy Wall Street General Assembly 45 minutes before. Two contingents of riot police entered the park a half-hour early; two other contingents lined both sides of the arch, and mounted police on horseback stood in the street in formation to keep watch from front and behind.

Hundreds had gathered outside the arches as the clock ticked closer to midnight, when the young women arrived. Seeing the police standoff and the crowds, one of the worried, college-age women, called out, "Kalen!"

And when Kalen called back to them from across the street, the woman said, grabbing her friend's hand, "We're going to stand in front of the horses! It's just not right."

"It's just not right."

Her tone seemed a bit naive, but earnest, matter-of-fact. It drew small chuckles from crowd. What was she going to do in the face of such "might?"

It also reminded me of my Midwestern upbringing, those words were the same phrase I'd hear from a friend from Fort Wayne, Ind. who spent one summer as a resident advisor in a summer college Upward Bound program for inner-city students entering their freshman year. She knew how to turn a tense moment between ego-sensitive kids into something positive with a few words: "C'mon guys. It's just not right." (I still remember that summer group as turning into a uniquely talented, creative and genuinely fun.)

Several minutes later, the crowd started chanting, "Set the horses free! Set the horses free!" bringing some relief into the situation.

I didn't get to find out what happened to them, because we had to catch a train back home, but I did hear that only about 10 people who stayed behind in the park were arrested in an act of civil disobedience that night.

According to a tweet I later saw while on the train, the last crowd of marchers from Washington Square arrived with a police escort back to Zuccotti Park, where there were cheers upon their safe return.

I was glad to hear it went "all right."

If only we all knew how to listen to that little voice inside that says, "It's just not right," and have compassion towards one another during these tense moments.

Hmmm. That's maybe that's one starting point in the quest for a sustainable global economy.

#GlobalChange is Not just a Hashtag

2011-10-14T15:41:00.017-04:00

I hope that Nathan Schneider will forgive my play on his article's title, "#OccupyWallSt is More than a Hashtag" on WagingNonviolence.org, but his piece and those Twitter hashtags first introduced me to happenings "trending" under the radar of mainstream media, about the most important topics at the top of my list: today's economy, the state of the world and our human condition.

Oct. 15 is a date I've been hearing buzzed around, but, like "Occupy Wall Street," I was not sure whether to take it seriously.

In the Twitter world, the group Unite for #GlobalChange at 15october.net opened up my awareness of a global sit-in on Oct. 15. Today as I write, the site was sluggish, and I wasn't sure if it was legit until I saw a few tweets about the amount of traffic slowing down the exact page I wanted to see: the Maps page. Then I saw from tweets on the Twitter feed from people that I respect, such as Sarah van Gelder, editor of "Yes!" magazine who has been covering the topic of sustainability. There are also other tweets from those at other Occupy sites, as well as other people's thoughts and information on events in many languages about what's happening to people all over the world who, like me, want "change".

The site has a flashy video which draws attention to the commonalities of mass demonstrations in Tunisia, Egypt, Spain, Greece, Israel, India, Chile and the USA.

It ends with: "IT'S TIME FOR US TO UNITE. IT'S TIME FOR THEM TO LISTEN. PEOPLE OF THE WORLD RISE UP!"

The Oct. 15 United for Global Change groups have been organizing for months around the world, and it turns out that Occupy Wall Street is indeed part of this worldwide movement...and I'm embarrassed to say as in my first blog on Occupy Wall Street, that's it had fallen under my radar, because, like most other people these days, again I preoccupied with the daily issues of making a living.

Reuters and CommonDreams.org have reported there will be sit-ins and demonstrations tomorrow, Saturday, Oct. 15. In the Agence France Presse story, titled, "'Indignant' Protests to Sweep Across World,"

"The organizers, relying heavily on Facebook and Twitter, say street protests will be held October 15 in 719 cities across 71 countries in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia and Africa."

The Facebook page for "OccupyWallSt" lists a full day of activities, and marches, including an "Occupation Party" at Times Square in New York City, 5 p.m. Saturday. (See more information on this Facebook page.)

If you can't make it to New York City, you might want to look up an Occupy group near you. Generally, each group also can also be found on Facebook; some also have Twitter feeds, and some have livestreams for video.

In my last blog a few days ago, I wrote that I would keep an eye out for ideas for sustainable global economy. This idea has been percolating the more I look at what everyone has been saying on the left, and hear the critics who say the movement has too many issues. I have yet to hear the words "sustainable global economy" used by anyone involved in this movement, but I think that it's a concept that sums up what they're all looking for. What we have now in the financial system is not sustainable, nor is a war economy.

Often the word "sustainable" has been concentrated mainly on environmentalism and renewable energy, cooperatives, bartering, timesharing, and the like, in relation to human consumption and its effects on the resources of the planet.

But now I feel a sustainable global economy encompasses more than just those aspects. I think a sustainable global economy should also encompass every aspect of our collective basic human needs for clean air; water; food; shelter; education; healthcare; jobs to contribute productively to our communities; workers' rights; human rights; sexual preference, racial and religious tolerance, and the means to retire in dignity in our old age. Issues such safety and peace, free from worries of violence, crime war and terrorist acts are part of the equation as well: whenever there is scarcity or poverty, the risk of violence, or crime or war increases because the human instinct for survival takes hold.

But I feel that in the 21st century, with all the technological advances that we have, these issues can be solved if we concentrate on them collectively instead of being obstructed by a mindset grounded in social Darwinism, exploitation of scarce resources, survival of the fittest, and reliance on evermore superior weapons of mass destruction. I much prefer our more advanced attributes of our evolution that was involved collectivism and cooperation. I believe that what lies at the heart of our human existence are our basic needs for compassion, connection and love.

All of these benefited our collective ancestors and caused the human race to advance to the point where we are now. We are on the cusp of a new stage in our collective human existence.

Just think how much better the world would be if we could all focus on this stage of our human evolution. The future is in our hands.

Saturday, October 15, where will you be in the fight for a sustainable global economy?

Getting to the "Heart" of the Occupy Wall Street Movement

2011-10-12T09:36:00.017-04:00

This young woman's sign, in Sunday's march from Zuccotti Park to Washington Square, is what I love about the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the reason the movement is spreading so fast to other cities and towns all over the world.

The sign sums up my personal motto: "One Earth, One Humanity, One Love". (Until it wore out, the bumpersticker on my car was "One People, One Planet, One Future.")

I strongly feel that the reason anybody is involved in this movement -- or any movement dealing with the environment, ending war or ending corporate dominance and greed -- is for one basic reason only: Love. Love is the unspoken word at the heart of this movement -- why ordinary, everyday people are willing to take nonviolent action to peaceably occupy a public space for weeks on end, to risk police brutality, and experience public ridicule led by highly-paid, irresponsible corporate journalists.

Love is the basic motivator for the whole of our being, for even existing in the universe. We all want a better world for our own lives and for those whom we love -- our families, our children, our friends, our neighbors and communities. And above all, we want time to love life, to enjoy the richness of its natural resources and beauty. We want time to spend with the man or woman who is everything to us, to watch our children grow up, and to live to our full human potential and contribute productively to society and the lives of others in a world that is peaceful, loving and free from harm.

These are our deepest desires; these are the deepest wishes our collective ancestors have wanted since the beginning of our humanity. Why is it that in the 21st century, with all the technological advances in computers, robotics and telecommunications, people are working longer hours and for less pay, with insecurities of hunger, homelessness, in a war economy based on ever more superior weapons of mass destruction -- issues that have plagued generation after generation of our collective ancestors?

Why is it that the powers that be fail to recognize how "trickle-down" tax breaks for the rich and a war economy, combined with outsourcing and technology advances that replace human labor/jobs are destroying the middle class and self-sustaining communities that once were the social fabric of our parents' generation?

In the 21st century, we have the technology to communicate with anyone anywhere instantly, to share and ship resources anywhere in the world overnight. We are on the cusp of a new world where everyone has the potential for living our lives to our greatest human potential -- full of abundance, love, sharing and caring, rather than in needless scarcity, suffering and exploitation. We have the human ingenuity to make the world a better, more safer place for all; I believe there are more people who care about others and would rather live healthy lives of love than ones of fear, misery and degradation of those who are more weak, sick or vulnerable.

I believe we can do it together. Love is our only reason for living.

I crave a sustainable economy in which to live in; I crave human ingenuity and open dialogue about creating such a world. I can only surmise that these feelings are shared by many, and I will be looking for under-reported news stories, the voices of the people and a growing sustainable global economy movement.

(I realize that the top 1 percent are also driven by the same basic human needs, but more on that topic later.)

In my last blog, I wrote about the irresponsibility of highly-paid corporate "journalists" such as Erin Burnett and Bill O'Reilly, whose Occupy Wall Street coverage and commentary are not serving the public: Burnett and O'Reilly didn't do proper research, and they intended to mislead and ridicule.

And, in the case of Patrick Howley, American Spectator assistant editor, he not only didn't do proper research, but actively intended to "mock and undermine" the actual message of the group he is supposed to be covering. Some Occupy Wall Street activists have even called his actions "criminal" because he attempted to start a riot.

But enough of those sorry examples of "journalists" who do not serve the public good. Here's an example of fine journalism by CNN reporter Susan Candiotti who spent the time trying to report on what's at the "heart" of the movement.

As Heshi Gorewitz, a community college business professor who started a farm co-op in upstate New York, said: "Let's focus on what unites us, not what divides us."

What are highly-paid, corporate journalists' responsibilities to the public?

2011-10-11T13:56:00.009-04:00

After watching some highly-paid, broadcast "journalists" cover the Occupy Wall Street protests, I have this question: Just what is their responsibility to help the American public with issues that affect their everyday lives, help solve their problems and thus achieve a more equitable, sustainable society?

CNN recently launched a new show, "OutFront" by Erin Burnett, who previously worked for Goldman Sachs and CNBC, and is now engaged to marry a Citigroup executive. (Don't forget, Citigroup is one of the top 4 of 10 major banks that now control 54 percent of all assets).

CNN's Erin Burnett "took a look" at the protest movement on Wall Street, didn't do any research, didn't interview any of the organizers, talked to a few uninformed people there and said, "Seriously?":

Even The Hollywood Reporter and Forbes' Eric Jackson took her to task for her snarky, condescending attitude.

Besides ridiculing them, there's also the example of the American Spectator editor who creepily admits to wanting to discredit the Occupy Wall Street's otherwise nonviolent mass movement. He led a small group of protesters in a confrontation that turned into a pepper-spraying melee at the D.C. Air and Space Museum, not at all what was intended (in audio) by the organizers.

Burnett and others such as Bill O'Reilly, not only claim they don't understand what Occupy Wall Street is about, but in fact, ridicule and turn the blame on the masses themselves, a distraction from the real issues that contribute to their economic suffering.

It's as if they want the public to forget that this global economic crash of 2008 was caused by reckless, speculative, unregulated financial capers on Wall Street, which has steadily been deregulated since the Glass Steagall Act was repealed in 1999. Glass Steagall had been enacted in 1933, during the Great Depression, mandating separation between speculative investment firms and commercial banks, which are backed by depositors.

And, none of those responsible for the economic crash of 2008 have yet gone to prison. During the Savings and Loan scandal of 1980s and 1990s, thousands of bankers went to jail. The fact is, the crash of 2008 also exacerbated an underlying, growing stagnation of real wages and job creation for American citizens. Due to outsourcing, technology gains, tax cuts for the rich and corporate tax loopholes over the past 30 years, the top 1 percent got exponentially richer to the point where they have as much wealth as the bottom 250 million.

And it's not enough that these highly-paid journalists aren't doing their duty of helping ordinary American connect the dots. Why does it take Jon Stewart's "spoofing" of news journalism, the only way to effectively get important points across? Remember Stewart's piece with CNBC's Jim Kramer about its role in cheerleading the financial escapades of a high-stakes Wall Street casino gone amok?

Thank God, for MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell, Ed Schultz and Chris Matthews for taking a much more responsible role of informing the public, counterbalancing the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Erin Burnett. But there aren't enough of those MSNBC hosts; and they don't dominate print and radio like O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity, and until recently -- Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh -- as well as a whole host of "dittoheads" across of hundreds of smaller radio stations owned by ClearChannel.

So many of my colleagues in the local news business are grossly underpaid to do their jobs. In my 12 years of working for the daily newspaper I work for, many reporters coming out of journalism school have often had to take second jobs just to keep on providing important news in their communities. Many of them leave to join corporate public relations for higher pay.

Journalists are public servants -- undergoing the rigors of bringing news that affects their communities, for such little pay. Thankfully, there are also nonprofit news organizations, which don't rely on advertising for their survival, and can thus focus on longer-range, more complex socioeconomic issues. But there aren't enough nonprofit news sites, either.

However, it is enthralling for me to see people who have done enough thinking and researching of their own respond intelligently when one of those would-be journalists comes around. Here's a Fox reporter with OWS supporter Jesse LaGreca, in an interview that apparently has never seen the light of day on the Fox News channel:

.

It took the Occupy Wall Street's media team to capture this episode and make it public.

Why is the Occupy Wall Street Protest Movement Growing so Fast?

2011-10-04T12:34:00.014-04:00

On Sept. 23, six days after Occupy Wall Street protesters settled in at privately-owned Zuccotti Park, Occupy Together set up their website, Twitter feed and a Facebook page, which grew to 400 followers in 24 hours.

As of this writing, there are over 47,000 Facebook fans, and 150 Occupy groups organizing from New York to Hawaii, Scotland, England and Australia. Some major cities have already had their marches; Boston's had 24 civil disobedience arrests at Bank of America.

Why is the Occupy Wall Street protest movement growing so fast?

It's simple:

• a stagnant economy, unemployment and crushing debt
• the speed at which people can network through today's social media
• the need to do something when the political and economic powers that be don't care about the plight of ordinary people

THE SPARK

Hey, wait a minute, this sounds a lot like what sparked the political unrest that's happened in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and other North African nations. Spain and Greece, too.

In Tunisia, the self-immolation of a poor, young street vendor who had been harassed regularly by police touched off "Arab Spring."

In the U.S., for the Facebook demographic, that moment probably came on Saturday, Sept. 24, with a police supervisor's pepper-spraying of innocent women already penned in by officers at an Occupy Wall Street march. (Within 24 hours, USLaw.com's video went viral, and other photographers helped identify the supervisor as NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, later spoofed as "Tony Baloney" by Comedy Central's Jon Stewart, and chastised by MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell.)

There are plenty of video and photos to capture the essence of the movement. But the one I find perhaps the most moving, is by a law student in a perfect example of civil disobedience, which I have yet to see in mainstream media.

In the days following, luminaries such as Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Cornell West and Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter, have publicly supported Occupation Wall Street.

Hardball police tactics didn't deter the public; instead, the numbers have grown. On Oct. 1, 700 people were arrested as they marched across the Brooklyn Bridge.

THE SIMMERING RAGE

When it comes to long simmering economic injustice, it doesn't matter where you live to touch off a public nerve. People will say, "Enough is enough"

The "Arab Spring" demonstrators seeking democracy are suffering from decades of dictatorships that were either U.S.-supported, or repressive, reactionary theocracies against U.S. intervention in their politics or economy. The dictators (some lived handsomely off U.S. taxpayer funds) didn't care about the plight of their own people.

The European democracies -- after the global economic crash of 2008, which caused massive layoffs -- are now facing austerity measures: cutting social services such as education, health care and infrastructure, in order to balance their budgets and pay down debt, similar to the kind of structural adjustment programs imposed by the International Monetary Fund or World Bank on Third World nations since the 1960s.

Here in the U.S., we are also facing the prospect of similar austerity measures/"deficit reduction" in the aftermath of reckless speculation and deregulation over the years, on Wall Street. After the crash, troubled banks received a $700 billion bailout, but no bankers have gone to jail and banks have even recovered and grown bigger, offering multi-million dollar bonuses, to their CEOs. The top six banks now own 60 percent of the nation's financial assets.

Despite the pain of 9 percent unemployment; 1 in 5 children living in poverty, and concerns of a Great Depression, the Tea Party-backed, Republican-controlled House also decided it was time for deficit reduction despite these 3 things:
• deficit spending for two wars has cost the American people a total of $1.2 trillion
• the military budget is nearly half the federal budget
• U.S. defense spending in 2010 is nearly as much as all other nations' defense spending combined ...

...neither political party has dared to bring up this topic.

The GOP's focus on austerity measures/"deficit reduction" ignores this economic imbalance:

• over three decades of outsourcing and technology have caused the loss of hundreds of millions of American jobs;
• less wealth created by production and service sector
• Reagan-era tax cuts for the rich (changing the top tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent, today it's 35 percent; 90 percent in Eisenhower's time) and corporate loopholes have resulted in flat real wages for the middle class, while CEOs now make 300 times that of the average worker (up from 30 times in 1940)
• the top 1 percent of the population owns as much as the bottom 250 million; the other 99 percent is getting the shaft in a broken economic system that some economists say is on the verge of a Great Depression

WHERE ARE THE SOLUTIONS?

Instead of cutting the military budget or taxing the rich, Congress' focus has been on cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. State governments are slashing public education, police and fire budgets, and closing libraries. States like Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan have begun to end labor unions' ability to collectively bargain as well.

Instead of a job-starting stimulus to transition to a renewable energy infrastructure, away from fossil fuels and endless war, Congress decided to continue subsidizing the fossil fuel industry and sending our soldiers to military conflicts protecting those interests.

Longtime activists such as Mike Toto, Veterans for Peace, Fairfield County organizer, believe sustained nonviolent protest is in order. For the past five years, he had been holding weekly protests on a Danbury, CT street corner against the size of the military budget and has seen one-day massive protests in major cities come and go with little impact.

An Occupy Wall Street organizer going by the pseudonym "Joe Hill" has been working on social and economic justice for 20 years. He worked with Connecticut college students in anti-globalization protests after the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, 1999 and said, "Most of those involved have read about a lot of other movements including those in Egypt, Spain, Greece and North Africa and are actually employing those tactics and strategies so that we can build a kind of movement that's going to take the country back. What we need to do is have a sustained resistance. I don't think it's going to end any time soon."

And in the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges: "Now is not the time to be complacent."

The NYPD led protesters onto the Brooklyn Bridge roadway

2011-10-02T13:05:00.011-04:00

by Hank Hoffman

Some 700 people were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday, participants in a march related to the ongoing #Occupy Wall Street protest. Their mistake? Trusting the police.

The crowd did not break through police lines to get on the roadway--as opposed to the pedestrian walkway--of the bridge. Rather, they followed police personnel up the road. They probably assumed, naively, that the police had decided for whatever reason, to permit the large march to cross the bridge via that route. Instead, the police led them into a trap, kettling them front and back and then arresting hundreds.

This is my sequence of photographs documenting the fact that the police led the marchers onto the bridge. I have included the whole sequence even though one is out of focus and one has some information obscured by a protester's sign.

The large crowd had become bottlenecked at the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. Before I began walking up the pedestrian walkway with friends, I saw no evidence of the NYPD attempting to manage the crowd or keep us out of the road. This is in contrast to their behavior on the march from the park along Broadway and Vesey Street where they politely but insistently kept demonstrators on the sidewalk (with which demonstrators politely complied).

Plainclothes and uniformed police begin walking up the roadway, followed by the demonstrators.

Two officers walked backwards, behind the other police, videotaping the marchers following them.

Following the NYPD police officials, a line of the protest begins moving up the Brooklyn-bound road portion of the Brooklyn Bridge.

With the police leading the march on the road,protesters who were safely on the pedestrian walkway climb over the fence to join the marchers following the police.

Time to Take a Stand

2011-09-30T20:19:00.009-04:00

The Occupy Wall Street protests are not only continuing, they’re getting bigger.

As the old saying goes, this is just what the doctor ordered.

I think that at long last, a large number of people (including young people --- thank you!) are waking up to the fact that they’ve been fed a line of bull that our system will work for them. They see that contrary to myth, the American economy is totally controlled by the power of big corporations --- particularly the big financial institutions like banks and investment firms. In turn, the corporate behemoths control the politicians and the legal apparatus. Our society is effectively in a straitjacket. Creating real change and bringing about social and economic equality is impossible through traditional channels, because corporate power will block such drives every time.

The only way to break this stranglehold is through a mass movement, where so many people are involved, so many people are willing to be arrested, that political and business leaders have to accept change, otherwise, they’re gone.

The Occupy Wall Street movement and similar uprisings in other cities, are capturing the attention of the nation. People have had it. They’re tired of the lies from Wall Street stooges like Obama, tired of being told they have to sacrifice to keep our country afloat, while big banks and the people that run them, escape any requirement to sacrifice. It is infuriating to people that as their wealth declines through job loss and sinking house values, guys at the top of banks like J.P. Morgan rake in $30 million a year. This, after the same banks nearly collapsed our economy through reckless investment schemes, such as mortgage-backed securities, and had to be bailed out with trillions of dollars in government money.

So the beginnings of a mass resistance is underway, and it’s critical to get on board. The movement must succeed. The alternative is a rapidly declining level of political democracy and an increasing level of economic injustice.

It’s wise to remember the words of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass:

“Those who profess to favor freedom, but deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

*****************************************************************************

One other note. As the participants in Occupy Wall Street work hard to build their movement for greater economic justice --- and at real risk --- some people tied to the wealthy financial institutions in lower Manhattan apparently find the protests amusing. Check out this video from Global Research TV, http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2011/09/wall-street-mocks-protesters-drinking-champagne showing a group of financial types standing on a balcony last week sipping champagne and laughing at demonstrators. They appear totally oblivious and insensitive to the problems of working people. It brought to mind the famous comment by 18th century French royalist Marie Antoinette, after she was asked how to help hungry peasants. “Let them eat cake,” she said.

Part 3: An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Occupy Wall Street Solidarity Growing

2011-09-30T12:46:00.015-04:00

Whew, what a week. I'll give a roundup of 5 notables at the grassroots level of OccupyWallStreet that I just have to share.

1)Here's perhaps the best example I've seen so far of an act of civil disobedience in this video that captures the essence of the message for thousands, perhaps millions, I'm sure could not be there.

2) A Declaration of the Occupation of New York City was released today by the NYC General Assembly of OccupyWallStreet.org, which is a statement of their agreed-upon principles.

3) These are the sites I know of that are keeping track of national Occupy events:

• OccupyTogether.com (set up on Sept. 23 and growing)
• OccupyTheNation.com -- has protester tips for those who want to engage the police... (not for the faint of heart, always be aware of the possibility of police action)

Both stress nonviolence, but above all, the point is to get your message across, and to educate the public about the real class warfare, the disparity in wealth, the need to reform Wall Street and the speculative practices that are endangering all but the top 1% of the U.S. population which have as much wealth as the bottom 250 million.

If you plan to attend any marches or are organizing, make sure you know your rights and whether your chosen area is permitted or not. Also contact your local National Lawyers Guild early on for legal advice in your area. OccupyPortland, for example, is holding a seminar with the National Lawyers Guild so that "we can become versed in the proper execution of a demonstration like this. They have confirmed that legal observers will be present during our demonstration. We are also planning to hold a meeting with them where we discuss the importance of nonviolence and the proper way to conduct oneself in civil disobedience."

If you cannot attend, but want to support them, visit their Facebook pages, websites, and/or Twitter feeds and share with others. If you want to send money, food or clothing to the main OccupyWallStreet group, send it to the General Assembly at http://nycga.cc/donate/

4) There are larger rallies and teach-ins planned in D.C. for legally permitted events that have been in the works for several months (there are others that I'll be adding here):

• Stop the Machine: Create a New World Freedom Plaza, Oct. 6
http://october2011.org
People's Assembly and Occupation sleep-ins at Freedom Plaza
Legally permitted rally marking 10th year of invasion of Afghanistan and the beginning of the 2012 federal austerity budget. Solidarity actions begin Oct. 1.

Calendar of Teach-ins:
http://october2011.org/calendar

• Take Back the American Dream Conference, Oct. 3-5. Sponsored by Campaign for America's Future at www.ourfuture.org. "Best of the Left" teach-ins for those looking for ways to educate

• 'Jobs, Not Cuts' Rally, Oct. 5 U.S. Capitol, D.C. Legally permitted rally after the Take Back the American Dream Conference.

• Can't make it to D.C. and the Take Back the American Dream Conference, Oct. 3-5? FreeSpeech TV will cover the conference live! Join the conversation on www.Facebook.com/FreeSpeechTV and follow on Twitter (@freespeechtv) via the conference hashtag #takeback11.

5) Let me end this blog today with one of the best artistic renditions of the video that captures the heart and soul of this movement:

I Am Not Moving from socially_awkwrd on Vimeo.

Part Two: An Idea Whose Time Has Finally Come: "And Occupy Wall Street Will Spread"

2011-09-27T13:34:00.006-04:00

Michael Moore recently told the Pierce Morgan's audience that the Occupy Wall Street movement is going to spread:

If so, it's important to remember what this generation of young activists is building on, as well as the basic tenet: In order to make sure the message is being heard, nonviolence is the first priority. These events are as much about educating the public as they are about vocalizing dissent when traditional methods aren't working.

Here's what I remember about past protests: If there had been an Occupy Wall Street 10 years ago, in the days just after the post-Seattle World Trade Organization protests, fellow journalists Scott Harris, Hank Hoffman and I would have been there. During the early part of the 2000, we covered as many weekend protests we could spare time for: Washington, D.C., New York, Philadelphia, Hartford, Quebec to cover the thousands-strong protests against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank's austerity measures that kept poverty in place; the Free Trade of the Americas pact that would allow further outsourcing of American jobs and degradation of workers' rights; and anti-war protests at the Republican National Convention and President Bush's inaugural. We've had our share of tear gas and rubber bullets, and long days and nights at temporary IndyMedia centers, and we know how, in the past to avoid the "trouble spots," if you will, by being aware of police presence at all times.

Tens of thousands of people of all ages and economic class would march and listen to great speakers in rallies and teach-ins that never got enough attention in the mainstream media. From 1999 to just around the time Obama began compaigning, a broad coalition of nonprofit organizations would stage huge one-day rallies with legal permits to march peacefully; it was known that other younger activists would also be involved in nonviolent civil disobedience afterwards, so people with children or who were elderly knew when it was time to head home.

I always left feeling that more needed to be done, but these were only one-weekend events. Something needed to change. (Arab Spring has since shown us that sustained protest is necessary. Egypt's revolution prevailed because it retained its nonviolent tenet as much as possible. Does anyone remember the People's Movement against U.S.-supported dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines?)

I remember realizing then that the austerity measures being wrought in the Third World, imposed by the IMF and World Bank -- represented the basic economic unfairness of a power structure intent on amassing wealth rather than for the good of societies as a whole. I feared then, that the austerity measures which focused on reduced social services and infrastructure, -- effectively killing a country's investment in public education, healthcare, sanitation/road projects and jobs in order to pay off debt -- could easily come to pass in the U.S.

Needless to say, the economic crash of 2008 was the perfect foil to impose such matters not just in the U.S., but among other developed nations, such as Greece, as well. It appears shocking, but is actually no wonder that several states are on the IMF/World Bank austerity track of gutting social services: cutting collective bargaining for teachers' unions, closing libraries, and the like while not wanting to raise taxes on the extremely wealthy or close tax loopholes on corporations. One percent of the U.S. population has as much as wealth as the bottom 250 million people.

People are people after all, and if bullies in the power structure can bully entire Third World countries by propping up dictators supported with US tax dollars, why would they just stop there? Bullying knows no ethnic or national boundaries. And economic bullying -- excessive greed -- is a dysfunction as bad as alcoholism and drug addiction, and that is one thing that needs to be recognized. It took public awareness efforts to make people recognize alcoholism for what it is -- a sickness, and if someone doesn't get help, there are often legal consequences.

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Today's Occupy Wall Street is brave and courageous...and it's growing. OccupyTogether's website was just started on Friday, Sept. 23, and the speed at which it's growing leaves a bit of concern for some observers like myself. OccupyWallStreet's organizer Alexa O'Brien, in a telephone conversation with (our producer) Scott Harris this morning urged that the basic nonviolent philosophy be maintained, no matter how the police react.

As in the past, many of the young organizers have tried to spread the message with nonviolent civil disobedience; the young activists then, as now were surprised when the police actions and arrests turned brutal upon those peacefully protesting. I remember the first protest I went to, interviewing several Wesleyan students for the newspaper for which I was on assignment. They were planning to lock hands together in a civil disobedience act at an intersection. What they were not prepared for was the police brutality after the press left; one fellow was knocked to the ground, face first, because his hands were locked with others in PCV pipe. Organizers now will tell people to sit quietly and go limp if the police try to move you.

The real concern now is whether the same nonprofit groups and ordinary people will come to the fore again to help the younger activists create a solid foundation for true economic fairness and equality. I hope they will not be dissuaded by corporate media focusing on images of "freaks" or "hippies" or "violent protests" (when actually it's police brutality upon what are peaceful protesters--so often done in the past). Anyone who saw this video can tell this group of young women did not need to be pepper sprayed. The cop involved in this has been accused of false arrest and civil rights violations in a claim brought by a protester involved in the 2004 demonstrations at the Republican National Convention.

It will be important to remember the importance of nonviolence, eloquently described in this man's message from OccupyChicago.

I was glad to hear that Occupy Chicago, which had spent the weekend overnight in the elements at the Federal Reserve Bank, when confronted by police to leave, decided that it was too early to be arrested.

They returned the next day with flyers. It's a good start.

Part One: An Idea Whose Time Has Finally Come: "Nobody Can Predict the Moment of Revolution"

2011-09-27T12:18:00.006-04:00

The above video was taken on Day 5 of the Occupy Wall Street protest, which started Sept. 17. It's a video which captures the very essence of what I feel in my heart.

I want to be there but, like many others in this digital era, hadn't realized I'd become the armchair activist who can only "share" or tweet.

Where was I on that first day when thousands of protesters were marching on Wall Street? That's the question being asked of mainstream media. We all know that the newspaper industry has suffered massive layoffs and no doubt, editors and reporters are playing it safe.

But moreover, where's the rest of America? Aren't they too, dealing with the job insecurities of mass layoffs, maintaining a home mortgage, debt, health care, family ... all issues that have grown more complicated since the economic crash of 2008?

Well, heck, shouldn't we all be there on Wall Street with the protesters to let the world know we want a more fair and equitable economic system?

Where have I been? Too preoccupied with my new weekend work schedule at a Journal Register Company newspaper. Every day, I go into a huge building that is now only one-fourth in use after layoffs and outsourcing of the majority of IT, business, advertising and circulation departments. Senior editors are gone, the pressroom and mail room will be dissolved in February, and the copy desk (my job) is also set for "rightsizing" as the new CEO's "Digital First" philosophy evolves further into "hyperlocal" reporting. All of us in the newsroom are buried under dizzying new responsibilities with our increased workload and job insecurity.

As if that's bad enough, I also had take care of a hard drive repair and other equipment and software upgrades for my husband's all-volunteer radio project and feeling my time squeezed in so many ways. (Now that I think of it, Between The Lines' audio came to fruition digitally for the Internet, the week after our first interview with Z Magazine's Michael Albert on the Seattle World Trace Organization protests of 1999, the precursor to an anti-globalization movement. We've managed to stay inspired by the viewpoints and passions of people who care about the well-being of humanity, and for which we try to give voice to in our reporting, but which so frequently are left out of commercial media. The program has grown with 50 radio station affiliates.)

There's a whole new generation that's bearing the brunt of the consequences of letting exceptional greed thrive; this generation must continue the work that began in the previous generation ... many who are now in their 30s-60s can't actively engage in protests and rallies while they are preoccupied with raising families, job insecurity, working longer hours amid fears of layoffs in a great recession and saddled with mortgage debt.

I wish I could be on the front lines, but believe me, just like thousands of others -- just because we are not visible, doesn't mean we aren't in solidarity with those on the frontline to make the change.

Seeing this new energy, I have more hope we have a younger generation that's ready to take up the torch and keep moving forward.

I'm sure to be out there soon. I wish I could be out there not just one day, but every day.

Last Call?

2011-09-02T22:09:00.003-04:00

It’s a stirring sight to see so many people engaging in acts of civil disobedience in the on-going protest outside the White House against the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the United States.

To date more than 1,000 people have gotten arrested by sitting in front of the White House and refusing to leave, in the largest environmental protest in a generation. The demonstrators are trying to pressure President Barack Obama into rejecting a permit for the 1,700-mile pipeline.

The pipeline will carry a million barrels of tar sands oil a day from Alberta to refineries in Texas. Tar sands oil is particularly heavy in greenhouse pollutants like carbon, and the refinement into petroleum will emit large amounts of carbon and other gases.

The earth’s atmosphere is already loaded with carbon, which is creating global warming and an increasing amount of extreme weather --- hurricanes, tornadoes, drought and wildfires.

The last thing the planet needs is for the U.S. to start tapping into this massive amount of tar sands and sending tons more carbon into the air.

This is a time when the U.S. and other countries have to sharply cut back on the use of fossil fuels in order to fight global warming --- not make the problem worse.

Don’t take my word for it. Take the word of Dr. James Hansen, the NASA scientist and leading climatologist who said recently that if the tar sands project goes through, “it’s essentially game over for the climate.”

In scientific terms, Hansen says that if we want to keep life sustainable on earth, there can be no more than 350 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere. Right now the atmosphere is at 392 parts per million.

Going ahead with the tar sands project and failing to take concerted steps to get off oil and coal, means there’s no hope. We’re hurtling towards 600 parts per million of carbon and doom for the planet.

Get involved in this battle. If you can’t make it to D.C. for the White House protest (Saturday is the last day for sit-ins at the White House, but another demonstration is planned in the city), go to www.tarsandsaction.org. Learn what’s happening and sign the petition asking President Obama to reject the tar sands pipeline.

Going Backwards

2011-08-04T10:52:00.004-04:00

You don’t get a good feeling about what’s happening in this country right now --- not after the events of the last week.

Not after a supposedly Democratic president and leaders in Congress agreed to the demands of a group of far-right-wing zealots in signing a debt-ceiling agreement which will inflict substantial harm to the citizens of this nation.

President Barack Obama, after garnering votes of approval in both chambers of Congress, signed the deal which will allow the government to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars needed to keep regular government operations going and avoid the U.S. going into default on its obligations.

The good part of this agreement is that the U.S. will not renege on its obligations, which would likely have made an ailing world economy even worse.

The bad part --- and it’s really bad --- is that Obama agreed to some $2.5 trillion in spending cuts here at home, which were insisted on by Republicans as a condition for their support for the debt increase.

The cuts will slash everything from education to environmental protection to housing and will eventually chip away at bedrock safety net programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which hundreds of millions of Americans rely on.

Though the aim of the deal was to reduce debt, the agreement calls for no revenue enhancements in the first phase of the deal. The wealthy and corporations, who already enjoy historically low tax rates, will see no increases right now.

The no taxes provision was another key part of the package that Obama and the Democrats conceded to the GOP, during weeks of negotiations with the Republicans over what it would take to pass a debt ceiling increase. Republicans, particularly the Tea party faction, had threatened to block the increase if they didn’t get their way.

The cuts in government programs will result in over 300,000 jobs lost, according to the Economic Policy Institute. These job losses will add to the total of 14 million people already out of work in the U.S.

It was an extremely high price to pay for winning the support of the GOP for the debt hike. Obama and the Democrats did not put up much of the fight in the face of the absurd demands by the Republicans.

This right-wing attack was basically an assault on the New Deal and the whole concept that government should play an important role in helping people in need and also act as a stimulant for the economy when times are tough.

New Deal programs like Social Security and others that came later in the 1960s like Medicare, have worked well for this country and been very popular. I believe Obama could have beaten back the attack by the right and really put the Republicans on the defensive if he had used his bully pulpit as president, gone to the people and spoke passionately in defense of government programs like Medicare. He also could easily have debunked the Republican mantra the simply cutting taxes for the rich rejuvenates a weak economy. Trickle-down economics has never worked, and the record is clear.

But Obama didn’t go to the people, and didn’t speak passionately in defense of government’s role in helping people. Instead he went along, at least in part, with the idea that government debt was out of control, and social spending was a key factor in that, not the lack of revenue from a depressed economy, excessive spending on wars and from a tax system skewed in favor of the rich and corporations.

Unbelievable as it may seem, Obama appears to agree with the view --- held by both the GOP and big business --- that debt is a huge problem and the nation's economic health depends on reducing it.

Maybe that's the reason why Obama didn't stop the whole charade about whether to raise the debt ceiling, by invoking his powers under the 14th amendment and unilaterally raising the limit. He wanted major spending reductions to go through, so there was no point in ending the debate and enacting a debt ceiling increase without conditions.

When the dust settled, the right-wingers had won big time. Tea Party darling Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin --- whose slash and burn budget proposal earlier this year set the tone for the debt ceiling talks --- said he got “two-thirds” of what he wanted.

So now comes the bitter fruit of this debt deal. The first part of the agreement calls for $1 trillion in discretionary spending cuts over 10 years, with no new taxes and safety net programs like Medicare and Medicaid left out. But in the second phase, a special “super committee” composed evenly of Republicans and Democrats will come up with another $1.5 trillion in deficit reductions, and those will take in cuts to entitlement programs and tax hikes. The committee will make a report to Congress by November, with legislative recommendations.

Should the committee deadlock or Congress fail to approve the proposals, automatic “trigger cuts” in spending will kick in.

While assurances are being made that the process will not entail cuts in Medicare and Medicaid benefits (nor Social Security), those programs are still likely to be hurt. The cost cutters reportedly will look to reduce reimbursement rates for providers enrolled in the programs. Doctors are already dropping out of Medicare due to low rates, and further rate cuts will drive out more. The elderly and poor will have a harder time finding doctors.

This becomes a back door way of undermining and eventually eliminating Medicare and Medicaid.

Speaking on WBAI the night after Obama signed the debt bill, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (who voted against the deal) summed up the significance of the agreement: “We’ve seen a turning of a chapter here in American history. A turning away from New Deal economics to a punitive approach, which in a sense denies the legitimacy of government itself by attacking public investment, public employees and public services.”

***********************************************************************************

One other point. Mainstream media coverage of the debt deal talks and battle in Congress was predictably weak and in some cases biased. Few reports got down to the nitty gritty and showed how the spending cuts would hurt people. And few media outlets really explored how the huge debt came about, i.e., the wars, low taxes on business and the wealthy, the housing slump, etc. Instead you heard a lot of cheerleading about the need to cut social spending and so-called entitlements.

Breaking with the Democrats?

2011-06-18T15:10:00.007-04:00

It was a hopeful sign the other day when AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the federation may drive a harder bargain with Democrats if they want labor’s backing.

Trumka took a militant tone when he addressed a convention of the United Nurses in Washington, saying that union members are tired of working hard to get Democrats elected every election cycle and then being disappointed in the results.

“For too long, we’ve been left after Election Day holding a canceled check, waving it about—‘Remember us? Remember us? Remember us?’—asking someone to pay a little attention to us,” said Trumka, according to an article by John Nichols in The Nation.

Trumka and other union leaders have been frustrated with the failure of the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (card check) and other needed labor law reforms as well as caving in to the GOP on tax issues.

“…I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a snootful of that shit!” Trumka shouted.

The AFL-CIO leader said the country needs an “independent labor movement strong enough to return balance to our economy, fairness to our tax system, security to our families and moral and economic standing to our nation.”

Nichols further wrote that Trumka has recently “been repositioning the AFL-CIO as a force that will hold Republicans and Democrats to what he describes as “a simple standard: ‘Are they helping or hurting working families?’ ”

It is very refreshing news indeed if the AFL-CIO --- which represents 13 million workers --- is going to take a more independent position on national political issues, and not just be a lapdog for the Democrats, as they have been for too long. The Democratic Party in recent years has been drifting to the right --- with President Barack Obama and leaders of the U.S. Senate taking centrist or even conservative postitions on key issues of government spending, taxes, social programs, labor needs, civil liberties and war policies. Caving in to the Republicans has become the norm for Democrats, not the exception.

You get the sense now that people in labor and many progressives have had it with the Democrats and are ready to make a move away from the party. This move could be to create a new umbrella organization that would work to achieve a clear set of progressive goals. In turn that group would in effect tell all political candidates seeking their support --- ‘endorse our goals or we don’t support you.’ Period, and no compromise. If no candidate meets the test, the group simply announces, ‘OK guys, we’re sitting out the election.’

Or there could be a move to form a third party altogether.

I know this has been talked about ad infinitum, the idea of breaking away and forming a new party. In the past progressives and people in labor have nearly always rejected this idea in the end, and stayed with the Democrats, seeing that, while not perfect, the Democratic candidate for president in any given national election was always more palatable than whoever the Republicans put up.

This syndrome was, as Ralph Nader puts it, opting for ‘the least worst.’

But has ‘least worst’ run its course?

Think about it. How much difference is there between Obama, and say, Mitt Romney? Obama has been lousy on labor, lousy on the environment, lousy on civil liberties, and a total sell-out on tax and spending issues. Where’s the big difference?

I think there’s wider recognition among people today that the leaders of both main political parties are really not interested in the welfare of workers and consumers and are just kow-towing to the interests of the corporate elite --- because in the end that helps them stay in power and maintain their privileged status.

I do hope that the stirrings of setting up new political formations will come to something. The country desperately needs it.

Democratic Sell-Out

2011-06-07T13:44:00.003-04:00

Get ready for another betrayal by the “party of the people.”

Despite overwhelming public opposition to Medicare cuts and the recent surprise victory of a pro-Medicare Democrat in New York’s 26th congressional district against a cost-cutting Republican, mainstream Democrats ---- led by President Barack Obama --- appear ready to make a deal with the GOP’s right-wing leaders to make significant cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs.

For weeks now, top Democrats have been in negotiations with GOP leaders over what cuts could be made to reduce the nation’s budget deficit. House Republicans have been insisting that unless the Democrats agree to massive reductions in spending --- including ax chopping Medicare --- they will vote to stop the government from raising the debt ceiling.

Without the debt ceiling being raised, the nation will be unable to borrow the money needed to fund basic government services --- including payments for Social Security, Medicare benefits and military salaries. Should the U.S. government default on payments, it could have a severe effect on bond markets, and set the country into an even deeper economic tailspin.

The Republicans in effect are holding the nation hostage. They’re saying ‘make massive cuts, or we’ll burn the house down.’

It should be noted that GOP leaders almost certainly would not in the end push the country into default. Even they know this would be a very dumb idea. So they’re posturing today, posturing for the far-right fringe and Tea Party yahoos who really do believe that wiping out all government programs, except the military, is a great idea.

But even if most Republicans don’t really mean their threats about blocking a debt ceiling increase, this is the public position they’re taking, and the Democratic response has been pathetic. The GOP’s wild demands for draconian cuts could be attacked, and fairly easily, if we had the right kind of Democrat at the top. Just think if Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman or Franklin Roosevelt were president --- given the public opposition to social cuts --- they’d rip the Republicans to shreds and turn the whole thing into a huge Democratic advantage.

I can just hear a speech attacking the Republicans from one of those Democrats from yesteryear. It might go like this:

‘They want to take away your Medicare and Social Security, and fund more tax breaks for the rich! They want to take away your benefits, but give more tax breaks to corporations who are already making hefty profits while paying little or no taxes. Just whose side are they on?’

But we don’t have a Truman, Johnson or Jack Kennedy leading this country. We have Barack Obama --- a conservative Democrat, and not a liberal as he led so many people to believe. Like Bill Clinton before him, he’s very mindful of what big business wants. The business elites don’t like spending on social programs, because they want government to spend less, so there will be more tax cuts for them. A reduced safety net also means more desperate workers, willing to work for less.

The Obama-Clinton type of Democrat is basically Republican-lite.

So Obama is not hitting the hustings and blasting away at the shameful Republican position on the budget. He’s not trying to rally the American people. He’s not trying to tell them how harmful it will be if the proposed cuts go through. No, he’s staying silent. He’s sent out his top lieutenants like Vice President Joe Biden (Grinnin’ Joe) and some top senators to ‘talk turkey’ with the GOP about how to reach a “compromise.”

Biden reported the meetings have been going well. “Our Republican friends and the Democrats think we’re making progress…I think we’re in a position where we’ll be able to get well above a trillion dollars pretty quick,” Biden said.

Only spending reductions are being talked about here as a way to eliminate the deficit. Tax increases on the wealthy and big business are off the table, at the Republicans’ insistence.

As the GOP postures, so too, do the Democrats. The Democrats staged a well-publicized vote in the Senate recently in which they voted down the much-criticized ‘Ryan budget,’ which would have voucherized Medicare, effectively ending the program.

The Democrats came out as the ‘defenders of Medicare,’ and that theme can be used effectively in next year’s congressional and presidential election races.

But quietly, behind closed doors, the Democrats are showing willingness to make significant cutbacks in Medicare and Medicaid and other vital programs. While these likely cuts would not wipe out the programs, they would further erode their strength. Increasing premiums for future enrollees and reducing payments to Medicare providers are some of the things being discussed. Also on the table are cuts to Medicaid, which 69 million poor people rely on, and cuts in federal pensions.

After a meeting with Obama recently at the White House, House Republican Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy told reporters that Obama agreed that spending cuts and “entitlement reform” will be addressed in any debt ceiling deal.

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, had it right in assessing what’s going on, and Obama’s willingness to let the Republicans set the table.

“The failure of President Obama to play any role in shaping this debate is so massive that it must be deliberate. They have all the cards, especially after NY-26, and are playing none of them,” Baker said in a recent interview published in The Nation. “I think it’s wrong to assume that Obama is pushing to defend programs like Social Security and Medicare here. All the evidence points in the other direction.”

As noted, I believe Obama thinks much like Bill Clinton ---- and that view is close to what Wall Street thinks. After the Senate voted down the Ryan plan on Medicare, Clinton made an interesting comment. He said the rejection should not mean that we should stop talking about controlling Medicare costs.

Clinton has been an avid fan of Peter G. Peterson, the one time head of the huge investment firm the Blackstone Group, and now a retired billionaire.

For years Peterson has been advocating reducing costs of entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, through his foundation the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Peterson maintains that unless entitlements are cut, federal deficits can’t be brought under control and the future of the country is threatened.

Clinton has spoken at conferences sponsored by the foundation.

So with the Wall Street view permeating the thinking of both Democratic leaders and Republicans, trouble lies ahead for the American people. The benefits they’ve worked hard for and come to expect, are under the knife.

Progressive Democrats (who are in a distinct minority) are criticizing the policy of making concessions, as are progressives outside the party like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Ralph Nader. But they need help.

The only way to stop the cave-in trend is for people en masse to speak out about it, denounce the sell-outs and demand that the rich and large corporations pay their fair share in creating a balanced budget, which addresses the needs of all Americans.

Connecticut Workers Fight Back

2011-05-09T12:15:00.006-04:00

Everywhere they look, union workers see their middle class lifestyle being threatened.

Quality jobs are lost as manufacturing firms send work overseas. Governors in several states try to cut the pay and pensions of unionized public employees and take their bargaining rights away. Members of Congress set their sights on Medicare and Social Security as a way of reducing federal spending.

Increasingly, at rallies and protests around the nation, union workers are expressing their anger over this turn of events and their determination to do something about it.

On May Day, Connecticut’s unions joined in the fightback. Several hundred union workers and union officials rallied at the state capital, where Gov. Dannel Malloy is trying to force state employee unions to give up $2 billion in concessions to close a budget gap.
Speaker after speaker denounced the greed of corporations and the wealthy, who they said, are not doing their fair share to pay for government operations. They also attacked politicians who are looking to cut social benefit programs --- directing most of their fire at Republicans and not specifically criticizing Malloy or other Democrats.

The theme of the rally, appropriately, was “Enough is Enough.”

“So far all the answers to our problems is we have to give back. Well, why do we have to give back? “ asked State AFL-CIO President John Olsen. “So that corporations don’t have to pay taxes and they can get rebates? So that the rich can take all the wealth and hoard it?”

Olsen went on, “You know we in labor are always accused of waging class war. Well, let me tell you something brothers and sisters. There is a class war going on and it’s against the middle class. They’re trying to exterminate us!”

Ed Reilly, business manager of Local 15 of the Ironworkers said union workers are tired of being pushed around by corporate owners and their right-wing allies and are ready to take a more militant approach.

“Today we say no. We’re going to fight you on every corner. We’ll fight you in the legislatures and we’ll fight you in Congress. If necessary, we’ll fight you in the streets!” Reilly thundered as the crowd cheered.

Reilly then said, referring to members of the state legislature, “We put you in those offices, and we’ll take you out if necessary!”

Many of those at the rally were in the construction trades, including sheet metal workers and ironworkers. Also present in large numbers were members of the Teamsters union, including truck drivers and employees of Sikorsky Aircraft in Stratford, which makes helicopters for the military.

State and municipal workers who are members of AFSCME were also on hand. Municipal workers around the state are under the gun as cities strapped for cash look at possible layoffs as a means of cutting costs.

Many of the protesters wore T-shirts saying “Stop War on Workers.”

Speakers at the event and those in the audience stayed away from criticizing Malloy, even though the concessions being demanded from unions are substantial. News reports indicate there is a possibility of 4,700 layoffs if an agreement is not reached between unions and state officials.

Even Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman got up to say a few words at the rally, assuring the crowd that the administration supports unions. “We’re not like Wisconsin or Massachusetts,” she said, referring to anti-union bills that passed under a Republican governor in Wisconsin and some surprisingly anti-union legislation that is now being considered in heavily-Democratic Massachusetts.

Luke J. Ford, a representative of the Sheet Metal Workers, Local 40, said the recession and bad government policies are really creating tough times for many members.

“There’s too much off-shoring going on. We’re losing jobs,” he said. “We need more manufacturing.”

Ford said companies should only be allowed to move operations overseas if they sell their products exclusively in those countries. He said firms are allowed to play a double game --- run away from the U.S. to benefit from cheap labor in China and other countries, and then turn around and sell their products back here, where consumers have more money.

Ford also called for more government funding to create jobs.

June Pinkin, a retired school teacher from Manchester, who wore a sign saying “Jobs Not War,” said the state needs a more progressive income tax so that wealthier citizens pay a greater amount.

“The U.S.A. and Connecticut cannot afford low taxes on the rich,” she said.

Turning the Page?

2011-05-03T10:13:00.005-04:00

So Osama Bin Laden is dead, reportedly killed by U.S. special forces in a commando raid on a compound in a city not far from Islamabad, Pakistan.

If this is true, that the alleged perpetrator of the 911 terror attacks on the U.S. is gone, then it is a time to breath a sigh of relief, close the chapter on this book and declare victory over al-Qaeda.

We can now say our mission in Afghanistan is over, we won, time to pack our bags. We can stop bombing the heck out of civilians, losing our own soldiers, and spending billions in the process. We can bring the troops home and start spending money not for war, but for addressing many domestic needs --- rebuilding our infrastructure, building new schools, building a better energy system, and widening health care opportunities.

I do hope the death of Bin Laden will be used by President Obama in a positive way to change American foreign policy and pull back from our massive involvement in both Afghanistan and Iraq. I think it would do our country --- and the world --- tremendous good.

But something tells me, it won’t happen that way. A couple of reasons for skepticism. First, history. Remember the “peace dividend?” That was the money that was supposed to be freed up when the old Soviet Union and communist countries in eastern Europe collapsed. That was the end of the Cold War, and the near elimination of communism --- after a 50-year struggle.

There was talk of substantial cutbacks in military spending and reducing our military presence around the globe. Not needed now.

Wrong. There were some modest cuts in defense spending, but nothing huge. In a few years, there was talk of new threats, this time from world-wide terrorism and new enemy states. By the end of the 1990s, we were hectoring Iraq over alleged weapons of mass destruction, expressing fear over Iran and sending missiles into Afghanistan to knock out a previous ally and now Islamic terrorist, Osama Bin Laden. And defense spending was back to the old clip.

Based on what happened then, you can expect right-wing politicians and many wormy Democrats to sound the alarm now that "the threat's not over" and "there's still enemies out there," and we can't pull back. These calls will create political pressure on Obama to "not pull out precipitously."

The other more subtle reason why the U.S. will remain parked in Afghanistan and Iraq --- albeit at a somewhat lower profile, but still with a substantial presence --- is oil. Iraq has lots of it, and Afghanistan is a key location for access to the vast oil and gas reserves of Central Asia. The U.S. does not want to lose out on its ability to tap this area and bring oil out via pipelines through Afghanistan. Chinese interests are involved in Central Asia to gain oil, and this is seen as a threat.

I never believed terrorism was the only reason for the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a lot about energy --- particularly in the case of Iraq --- and this fact has been covered up, even to this day. Revenge for 911 was the other part of it. There certainly was good reason to believe al-Qaeda and Bin Laden --- based in Afghanistan --- were the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, given previous terrorist incidents and public statements. American officials, including former President George W. Bush, claim they had enough information to justify the October 2001 attack on Afghanistan. ( It must be noted, however, that charges were never brought against Bin Laden, and the FBI said they had “no concrete evidence” linking him to 911).

I’m hoping against hope that there will be a page turning now. Let’s get back to focusing on our own country and providing jobs for everyone and rebuilding our economy.

Stop the Madness

2011-04-28T09:53:00.005-04:00

As the world marks the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident this week, you have to wonder whether our leaders have learned anything at all about the perils of nuclear power.

The Chernobyl disaster should have been enough to end the whole concept of developing energy through nuclear fission. The plant in the Ukraine exploded on April 26th, 1986, sending a cloud of radiation over much of the old Soviet Union and Europe. Dozens of firefighters died as a result of fighting the fire and getting acute radiation sickness.

Some 800,000 liquidators were brought in to clean up the wreckage and bury the radioactive waste at the plant and nearby towns. Thousands of them have died as a result of the radiation exposure. Children of liquidators have been born with deformities.

Some 150,000 to 200,000 people had to be permanently evacuated from the land around Chernobyl and huge areas are now uninhabitable because radioactivity remains in the soil.

Estimates range on how many people who lived in the area of the old Soviet Union and eastern Europe died as a result of radiation-induced cancers. Conservative estimates put the figure at 4500 while a Greenpeace study points to 200,000 deaths or expected deaths. But a more recent study by the New York Academy of Sciences said close to 1 million people have already died from the Chernobyl disaster.

Even in the early years after Chernobyl, it was clear the impact would be deadly and wide ranging. You would think government leaders in the U.S. and around the world might have paused and thought, ‘hey, maybe we better phase these nuclear plants out, or at least crack down on the facilities that have a history of safety problems.’ No, the nuclear industry was allowed to keep running their plants pretty much unfettered. This, despite the fact that some power stations had a pattern of safety violations while others sit precariously near earthquake fault lines.

It was just a matter of time before another disaster occurred, and so it did in Japan on March 11 of this year. A 9.0 earthquake hit the Asian nation and a resulting massive tsunami came crashing in on the Fukishima Daiichi power plant, which has six nuclear reactors. The cooling systems at the complex --- which are vital to prevent the radioactive fuel rods and spent fuel from overheating and exploding ---were knocked out with the loss of power. Hydrogen explosions then occurred, causing extensive damage.

A tremendous amount of water was dumped on the reactors to keep them cool. Eventually, power was restored, but due to the high level of radiation in the plant, workers have been unable to make the needed repairs to the cooling systems and the situation remains unstable.

Dr. Michio Kaku, a professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York called the situation at Fukishima a “ticking time bomb” in an interview with Amy Goodman on the show Democracy Now!

As workers try feverishly to clear up the problems, the plant is emitting radiation into the air and soil, and dumping thousands of tons of radioactive waste water into the ocean.

Strontium 90 and plutonium, both lethal elements, have been found in the soil outside the plant. The tap water in Tokyo, 136 miles away, is now contaminated.

Winds have now carried radioactive particles around the world. Elements such as Iodine 131 ---- which is linked to thyroid cancer --- has shown up in the U.S. in municipal drinking water in Los Angeles, Phoenix and other cities. Cesium 137 has shown up in milk samples in Vermont.

Government officials in Japan and in the U.S. maintain the radioactive pollution is “within allowable limits” and not hazardous to humans. But this claim is debunked by nuclear critics.

Harvey Wasserman, a long-time anti-nuclear activist and writer, said there is no “safe” level of radiation exposure. “Anyone who tells you otherwise is either ill-informed or deliberately deceiving you. If it’s detectable, it’s dangerous. If iodine shows up in any quantity in milk, it should not be drunk,” Wasserman said during an interview with Scott Harris on the Between the Lines radio show.

Leaders Oblivious to Hazards

Despite the horror of Chernobyl and the ongoing crisis in Japan, world leaders support the continuation of nuclear energy.

With the exception of Germany, which will now phase out atomic plants (thank you to them), other countries stubbornly stick with the nuclear program.

President Barack Obama recently restated his support, saying developing nuclear was one major step in avoiding the use of carbon-based fuels, which create global warming. He never mentioned that a crash program to develop renewables, such as wind and solar, would get us away from fossil fuels and also avoid the huge risks inherent in nuclear power.

And despite Chernobyl still fresh in the memory of so many who lived in the Soviet Union, Russian President Dmtry Medvedev continues to back nuclear power. The Russians plan to help Turkey build new plants.

I must be missing something. The logic escapes me. Here you have two terrible disasters connected with nuclear power plants, fatal cancers left and right, a pretty bad accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania in 1979, and national leaders still back nuclear power. Huh?

There are so many risks that go with running nuclear power plants --- so many chances for things to go wrong, and so much potential for the worst kind of health catastrophe.

Chernobyl showed what can happen when there is operator error; Fukishima is showing what can happen when a natural disaster strikes and cooling systems are knocked out.

Every nuke plant, as far as I am concerned, is fraught with danger. But I want to mention one in particular because it is near the nerve center of this country and the biggest population center of this country.

The Indian Point nuclear power station sits 19 miles from New York City --- with 7 million people, and millions more in the immediate environs. The plant also lies close to an earthquake fault! What happens if an earthquake knocks out power at the plant? Indian Point, like other U.S. plants, has no back-up power capability. You could have a partial meltdown or full meltdown and deadly radiation would shower the New York area.

Talk about an awful scenario.

It’s time to get real about nuclear power. It is simply not worth the risks.

We have alternatives.

Let’s move to close all these plants now and end nuclear power.

"You Americans are eating your country alive"

2011-04-10T13:25:00.008-04:00

"Unfortunately you Americans are eating your country alive from the inside. You can't smell your own demise. There is a new world order coming...but you are not a part of it."

It's Sunday morning, 8:30 a.m. and I just happened upon former labor secretary Robert Reich's editorial in my email from Reader Supported News: "Right-Wing Bullies Hold Nation Hostage: Why the Right-Wing Bullies Will Hold the Nation Hostage Again and Again."

I read many stories online, but I generally don't feel like putting in the time and energy to respond unless I feel no one else has said what resonates deep in my heart. Reich is right on the GOP's bullies, but I'll save that for another blog.

Reich's editorial eloquently expressed what I'd been feeling about President Obama's struggles with the leaders of Republican party since he was elected and is now fighting the most recent threat of government shutdown.

For brevity's sake, Reich did leave out the longer history of Democrats' repeated fights with bullies in the right-wing over past few decades, since Ronald Reagan.

And with each successive act of bullying they've become more emboldened. I won't go into the laundry list that I'm sure many progressives are very familiar with.

But when I looked to the comments to see what else had been written, the first viewpoint was from someone who is definitely not from the U.S. ... a viewpoint Americans so rarely hear in this insulated world we live in:

"Unfortunately you Americans are eating your country alive from the inside. You can't smell your own demise. There is a new world order coming...but you are not a part of it.

I haven't seen America this divided in decades...and its all about stupid ideology. Besides for a tiny (super-wealthy) percentage of your population, it isn't about the money - it's simply about who wants to be more right (no pun implied) than the other.

You used to be alternatively liked and hated but always envied. Now, the rest of the world looks at you with scorn. Truth."

That comment struck me. My first thoughts were: Well, yes, America has not been through two world wars on its homeland, experiencing firsthand total collapse and destruction as Europe has. And Americans in general seem to have forgotten the experiences of other countries that have been devastated by the effects of military conflict and colonialism. Perhaps too many generations have passed since the Civil War and Revolutionary War and today we can't fully fathom what happens when war comes to one's own neighborhood.

I'm Filipino-American, but I consider myself an American first since I was born here and have only been to the Philippines twice in my life. I would never have been born if not for World War II. My father had been in training for priesthood in a Jesuit seminary until the Japanese invaded and his beloved American Jesuit mentors were all killed. My father wanted to come to America, and he did, with only $300 in his pocket. He, like other immigrants, chose to leave their homelands for one that professed democracy -- where everyone had the opportunity to live to their full human potential.

Probably because of my father's experiences with war and its aftermath, which scars families for generations, I'm more attuned to wanting to get to the roots of a conflict -- instead of merely being part of polarizing debates. After all, all wars and genocides are waged over economic issues. When people's lives are profoundly affected and survival mode sets in, ending negative behaviors and words could stave off destruction. Address the fear first with compassion, not more fuel to fan the fire. (My question: Will this work on bullies? What IS their fear, that it causes such dysfunctional behavior?)

Americans growing up today have not suffered the same scale of trauma from the world wars, nor the healing that's been elicited in Europe to prevent collective catastrophes from happening again. Europe generally favors a strong social safety net (or "socialism", a much despised word in U.S.) and its economic policies seem to reflect this experience.

Universal health care in Europe, for example, was created in the aftermath of Europe's war-ravaged economy. Canada and European governments as well, spend $30 to $150 on average per person on public media, whereas the U.S. spends only a paltry $1.53 per person on National Public Radio -- the GOP-controlled House recently called an emergency session to defund it. Perhaps Europe's public media spending is a measure of prevention against unhealthy public discourse, seeing how the mentally ill Adolf Hitler used the media to manipulate the German people and scapegoat Jews, homosexuals, unions and Catholics for their country's economic woes.

Here are some issues widely unreported in today's mainstream, corporate media: The U.S. may be the richest nation in the world, but over the last 3 years, the rapid redistribution of income to the top percent of its population, now makes the U.S. economy probably the nation with the worst distribution of income among its citizens in the developed world.

Its military budget takes up nearly half of the federal budget, which is more than all other nations combined, including "The Axis of Evil."

It's also the only developed nation without universal health care and 46 million people are uninsured. And, overall, Europe has been restructuring its economy around sustainable energy and green jobs, whereas in the U.S. right-wing lawmakers are hesitant to shift resources from a fossil-fuel economy which relies on military expenditures to protect those resources.

And because the corporate media is in control, instead we are hearing of cuts to social services, public media, Medicare, and attempts to destabilize unions. Very little of fair sharing the tax burden from the wealthiest citizens (now at 35 percent for multibillionaires, as well as for those who only make $200,000 a year.)

What we truly need in public discourse is less heated debates and instead, attempts to reason with love and compassion. Many Americans are deeply afraid about the current fragility of the economy, but have not spent enough time deeply thinking about what is really happening in our tumultuous world. It's easy to scapegoat. That's what happened in Hitler's era.

What's been profoundly missing in all the American political debate is what we all have in common: the same basic needs for clean air, water, food, shelter, health care, and the opportunity to reach our fullest potential for ourselves and our loved ones. But above all, what we want at our most basic what everyone everywhere on this planet wants: a loving and more peaceful world.

That's what people need to stand up for all over this world, especially now in the 21st century, when we finally have have the technology to instantly communicate anywhere and help each other and thus rid the world of the worst aspects of scarcity that's controllable by mankind, and has haunted humanity since prehistoric times.

These are issues that affect people's lives profoundly and what we collectively have all sought throughout human history -- that's about peace and security for ourselves and our loved ones.

That's really all that everyone wants.

The progressive activist community that I know looks for these common denominators in everyone, and cares about the people and the world from a holistic level because we are indeed all connected, from our basic needs to stewardship of the earth and its enviroment.

I think in general, progressives are more aware of these issues and this is the message we need to be sharing more often, before it is too late.

Barack Obama explains it all

2011-04-09T13:41:00.002-04:00

Here is President Obama's weekly address wherein he addresses the budget deal that averted a government shutdown:

Last night, after weeks of long and difficult negotiations over our national budget, leaders of both parties came together to avert a government shutdown, cut spending, and invest in our future.

This is good news for the American people. It means that small businesses can get the loans they need, our families can get the mortgages they applied for, folks can visit our national parks and museums, and hundreds of thousands of Americans will get their paychecks on time – including our brave men and women in uniform.

This is an agreement to invest in our country’s future while making the largest annual spending cut in our history. Like any compromise, this required everyone to give ground on issues that were important to them. I certainly did. Some of the cuts we agreed to will be painful – programs people rely on will be cut back; needed infrastructure projects will be delayed. And I would not have made these cuts in better circumstances. But we also prevented this important debate from being overtaken by politics and unrelated disagreements on social issues. And beginning to live within our means is the only way to protect the investments that will help America compete for new jobs – investments in our kids’ education and student loans; in clean energy and life-saving medical research.

Reducing spending while still investing in the future is just common sense. That’s what families do in tough times. They sacrifice where they can, even if it’s hard, to afford what’s really important.

A few months ago, I was able to sign a tax cut for American families because both parties worked through their differences and found common ground. Now, the same cooperation has made it possible for us to move forward with the biggest annual spending cut in history. And it’s my sincere hope that we can continue to come together as we face the many difficult challenges that lie ahead – from creating jobs and growing our economy to educating our children and reducing our long-term deficits.

That’s our responsibility. That’s what the American people expect us to do. And it’s what the American people deserve.

Excuse me, but does he think we are idiots? Or does he really believe this nonsense?

He says, "But we also prevented this important debate from being overtaken by politics and unrelated disagreements on social issues."

If he really believes that, he is either stupid--and I don't think he is stupid--or crazy.

This was at its heart a political battle. The Republicans know that. Of course, it involves politics no matter how it was settled.

These are political choices.

He says, "Reducing spending while still investing in the future is just common sense. That’s what families do in tough times. They sacrifice where they can, even if it’s hard, to afford what’s really important."

The U.S. government is not a family. That's a right wing talking point. Further, as Alex Seitz-Wald at Think Progress notes, "Obama compared the compromise to the one he helped broker late last year on extending the Bush tax cuts for two years."

Seitz-Wald further writes:

But a look at those two deals suggests Republicans are not as interested in cutting the deficit as they claim. In both cases, Democrats made big concessions on key Republican agenda items — tax and spending cuts — in the face of intransigent opposition from the GOP. But while the appropriations deal from last night cuts $38.5 billion in spending over the next six months (through the end of the fiscal year in September), the tax cut deal deprives the government of roughly $150 billion in revenue over a similar period of time.

Extending the Bush tax cuts “would result in a $200 billion to $300 billion cost to the US Treasury compared to what had been expected” in one year — or $100 to $150 billion in six months. So while they very nearly shut down the government to extract painful spending cuts, Republicans had already wiped out those spending cuts many times over with the revenue lost from extending the Bush tax cuts.

Obama says, "A few months ago, I was able to sign a tax cut for American families because both parties worked through their differences and found common ground. Now, the same cooperation has made it possible for us to move forward with the biggest annual spending cut in history."

Common ground? Cooperation? That's crazy!

Common ground: Give this tax cut to the rich or we will shoot these unemployed people!

Cooperation: Slash the budget as much as we want or we will shoot these women!

Crazy.

Obama’s No Show

2011-03-16T11:29:00.004-04:00

At a rally last weekend in New York on behalf of the embattled public workers in Wisconsin, one of the most popular tunes sung by the protesters was “Which Side Are You On?”

It’s an old union song, made famous during a bitter strike by workers in the 1940s against coal mine operators in Harlan County, Kentucky.

Today, a lot of people have to be wondering which side President Obama is on --- the side of unions and workers, or big corporations and their right-wing allies.

You would think that a Democratic president who owes his election in good part to the hard work of union members and contributions by organized workers, would be out there fighting against blatant attempts to eviscerate public sector unions. But Obama has failed to do that.

While he’s made a couple of statements in support of unions under attack in Wisconsin and other states, they’ve been mild in tone --- not the firey, passionate speeches Obama is fully capable of making.

He’s also refused to allow any top people in his administration, such as Vice President Joe Biden, from going to Wisconsin to speak for the workers.

What’s happening?

Obama is showing once again he’s not very progressive, and really not much of a labor supporter either, despite the union support he’s gotten for his campaigns. Recall in his first year in office, he never really campaigned for the “card check” bill which would have aided union organizing and which the AFL-CIO so desperately wanted. Then last year he stunned the labor community when he praised school district officials in Rhode Island for firing all the union teachers at a low performing high school.

National politics is also at work. Obama seems to be playing a game of not being too spirited in supporting unions in Wisconsin and Ohio, lest he be open to a Republican charge of being a ‘tool of union bosses’ and blocking budget reform.

This is all very troubling. The labor movement’s very survival may be on the line right now as the right-wing attack on workers continues, and the leader of the Democratic Party doesn’t think it’s in his interest to get out and really fight for working people.

I can’t think of any Democratic president in the past who would have been this low-key when unions were under such a vicious attack.

In the meantime, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has gotten his way, at least for now, ramming through the bill that curbs bargaining rights for public workers. Other right-wing governors in Ohio, Idaho and Florida are also working to gut the power of public employee unions.

Obama, and many leading Democratic members of Congress as well, better realize that the progressive-liberal base has woken up during this Wisconsin-Ohio labor battle, and people are not in the mood for the usual political fence-sitting and game-playing. They want answers and they want leaders who will stand by them.

Hundreds of thousands of workers, activists and supporters have been rallying for weeks in Wisconsin and Ohio, refusing to cave in to the demand that public employees give up their rights.

Last weekend, over 100,000 people rallied in the Wisconsin capital of Madison to again protest Walker’s bill and voiced their support for a recall drive directed at all the Republican state senators who backed the measure. They also welcomed back like conquering heroes the 14 Democratic senators who had fled the state for weeks, to prevent the GOP from getting the quorum needed to act on the bill. The Republicans nonetheless staged a last minute legislative maneuver to get the bill through without the Democrats.

Other demonstrations broke out spontaneously around the country in support of the Wisconsin workers.

In Union Square in New York, about 70 people gathered in an impromptu rally, carrying signs denouncing Walker, singing along with a pick-up band and shouting pro-worker chants.

While the rally wasn’t big, it wasn’t bad for a protest thrown together on short notice, just a day after Walker signed the union-killing law.

Bill Linville, a Bronx school teacher who helped organize the protest, said it was important to show solidarity with workers in Wisconsin.

“What happened in Wisconsin could happen here,” said Linville, noting that New York leaders like Mayor Michael Bloomberg are threatening huge teacher layoffs, despite a budget surplus.

“This is our PATCO moment,” said Linville, referring to the time 30 years ago when then President Ronald Reagan fired members of the air traffic contollers union, when employees walked off the job in a dispute over working conditions.

Many observers feel that labor as a whole did too little to oppose the firings, and unions have been in retreat ever since.

“I’m behind the Wisconsin workers a kuzillion percent,” said Rosemarie, a retiree who was visiting New York from her home in Pennsylvania. She saw the rally and decided to jump in.

“If that kind of thing can be done out there to workers, it could happen all over, and our whole quality of life will be worse, she said.

Outrage in Wisconsin

2011-03-10T13:19:00.003-05:00

What can be said. Outrageous. Shameful. The Republicans continued their assault on the working people of this country and on labor unions, with GOP members of the Wisconsin state senate pulling a legislative trick Wednesday, ramming through a bill which strips public employees of their right to collectively bargain.

The state assembly is expected to approve the bill today and Gov. Scott Walker to sign it.

Hopefully the legality of the maneuver in the senate can be challenged. Some Democrats are charging that certain guidelines, such as open meeting laws, were violated along the way before the senate vote, and a court appeal could overturn the new bill. I’m really not clear about the details of what happened so I don’t know about the viability of any appeal.

But something tells me this will be like filing a challenge to an election after the votes are in. They usually don’t work. Sadly, Wisconsin’s Tea Party governor and his conservative cohorts may have won this battle.

And even worse, the right-wing blitzkrieg around the country against unions and the rights of working people appears to be succeeding. In Michigan, the state senate just passed a bill which will give emergency financial managers the power to break union contracts; in Ohio, a bill progresses that will limit public employee collective bargaining; and in Idaho, the legislature passed a bill which will curb the rights of teachers to negotiate contracts.

This thing is getting really big. It’s going to take a mass social movement complete with general strikes to stop it.

Get on board.

Obama Administration steps up psychological torture of Bradley Manning

2011-03-06T13:45:00.004-05:00

As reported in The New York Times and commented upon by blogger Glenn Greenwald (here and here), the Obama Administration has stepped up its psychological torture of alleged WikiLeaks leaker Bradley Manning.

According to New York Times reporter Charlie Savage:

Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, the Army intelligence analyst accused of leaking government files to WikiLeaks, will be stripped of his clothing every night as a “precautionary measure” to prevent him from injuring himself, an official at the Marine brig at Quantico, Va., said on Friday.

Private Manning will also be required to stand outside his cell naked during a morning inspection, after which his clothing will be returned to him, said a Marine spokesman, First Lt. Brian Villiard.

This follows quickly on the heels of the U.S. Army filing 22 additional charges on Manning. According to Greenwald:

Most of the charges add little to the ones already filed, but the most serious new charge is for "aiding the enemy," a capital offense under Article 104 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Although military prosecutors stated that they intend to seek life imprisonment rather than the death penalty for this alleged crime, the military tribunal is still empowered to sentence Manning to death if convicted.

Manning was arrested in Iraq last May and has been held in pretrial confinement under conditions termed punitive by civil libertarians. Since July, Manning has been confined at the Marine Corps Base at Quantico, Virginia. Manning has been held in virtual solitary confinement for months now, conditions that have long been known to cause serious, deleterious impacts on individual's mental health.

Greenwald describes the punishment regime being imposed on Manning, who is yet to have been convicted of any crime:

Let's review Manning's detention over the last nine straight months: 23-hour/day solitary confinement; barred even from exercising in his cell; one hour total outside his cell per day where he's allowed to walk around in circles in a room alone while shackled, and is returned to his cell the minute he stops walking; forced to respond to guards' inquiries literally every 5 minutes, all day, everyday; and awakened at night each time he is curled up in the corner of his bed or otherwise outside the guards' full view. Is there anyone who doubts that these measures -- and especially this prolonged forced nudity -- are punitive and designed to further erode his mental health, physical health and will? As The Guardian reported last year, forced nudity is almost certainly a breach of the Geneva Conventions; the Conventions do not technically apply to Manning, as he is not a prisoner of war, but they certainly establish the minimal protections to which all detainees -- let alone citizens convicted of nothing -- are entitled.

Running for President in 2008, Barack Obama said:

We have to be clear and unequivocal. We do not torture, period. Our government does not torture. That should be our position. That will be my position as president. That includes renditions. We don’t farm out torture. We don’t subcontract torture. Torture does not end up yielding good information--most intelligence officers agree with that--but it is also important for our long-term security to send a message to the world that we will lead not just with our military might but we are going to lead with our values and our ideals. That we are not a nation that gives away our civil liberties simply because we’re scared. We’re always at our worst when we’re fearful. Fear is a bad counsel and I want to operate out of hope and out of faith.

But, as Greenwald writes:

The entire Manning controversy has received substantial media attention. It's being carried out by the military of which Barack Obama is the Commander-in-Chief. Yes, the Greatest Moral Leader of Our Lifetime and Nobel Peace Prize winner is well aware of what's being done and obviously has been for quite some time. It is his administration which is obsessed with destroying and deterring any remnants of whistle-blowing and breaches of the secrecy regime behind which the National Security and Surveillance States function.

Unfortunately, those who supported Obama in hope of a restoration of decency and the rule of law have had their hope betrayed by his bad faith.

See also Robert Parry at Consortium News on the continuity between the Obama and Bush administrations in the use of forced nudity as a method of detainee abuse.

Rally for the Wisconsin Workers

2011-02-28T11:36:00.003-05:00

HARTFORD ---- More than 400 union members, retired state employees, activists and concerned citizens converged on the State Capitol Saturday to raise their voices on behalf of state workers in Wisconsin, whose bargaining rights, pensions and benefits are under attack by the state’s Republican’s governor, Scott Walker.

Normally it would be difficult to get a sizeable crowd of people out on a day with biting cold weather to rally in support of union workers locked in a struggle 1500 miles away.

But the Wisconsin battle is not your typical labor fight. The struggle in Madison has come to symbolize a wider attack by the right-wing and big corporations to tear down all unions and reduce the rights of American workers in general.

That attack, if successful, will further erode the power of the middle class and people’s ability to earn a decent living, those at the rally said.

“What we’re seeing in Wisconsin is the ultimate manifestation of corporate capitalism,” Edward Vargas, former president of the Hartford Federation of Teachers, told the crowd. “Corporate capitalism is trying not just to destroy the unions, but the very fabric of democracy. I have friends who are retired in Florida. Everytime I visit, I see the future of America. There are no 40-hour jobs anymore down there. You gotta work 20 hours for this guy, and then 20 hours for that guy, just to get by. And no benefits.”

Vargas thundered, “Is that the future we want for our children?”

“No!” the crowd roared back.

“Then we have to stand up and fight for Wisconsin,” he said, finishing his speech by shouting “Somos Uno!” (‘We are One’ in Spanish)

Speaker after speaker denounced the effort in Wisconsin as well as other states to weaken unions and demanded that the rich and big business pay their fair share in taxes and stop making workers shoulder the burden of funding government budgets. Speeches were often interrupted by chants like “Make the rich pay!” “Make the rich pay!” and “Fair Share! Fair Share!”

The Connecticut rally was one of dozens around the country on Saturday organized by Moveon.org and affiliated groups aimed at showing solidarity with the Wisconsin workers. State employee unions have been warring with Governor Walker for over two weeks over his demand that they not only agree to pay more for pensions and health benefits, but that they give up their power to negotiate collectively for contracts. Walker has maintained that the changes are needed to bring the state’s deficit under control.

The unions have agreed to kick in more for pensions and health care. But they have refused to budge on collective bargaining, seeing that as an existential issue. Thousands of workers have been sitting in at the Wisconsin state capital in protest.

Union supporters claim that the battle is not really over the deficit, otherwise Walker would accept the union concessions, settle the budget issue and go home. But they say the governor’s aim is more than that --- break the unions.

Republican governors in other states, such as Ohio and Indiana, are trying similar hardball tactics in dealing with public employees. And they sound a similar refrain: bring union costs under control, because they’re breaking the bank. No mention is ever made of tax cuts for the wealthy and big business as being a factor in the deficits.

Connecticut’s Gov. Dannel Malloy --- though elected with strong union support --- has also talked of “sacrifices” to erase a state budget gap. He says he needs $2 billion worth of concessions from unions, although no specifics have been laid out yet.

No one at the rally criticized Malloy, but the perceived double standard about who is being made to suffer through difficult economic times, was clearly on the minds of many.

David Burke, a member of the theatrical workers union, said that the middle class is being made to sacrifice a lot in today’s economy --- whether through contract concessions or in paying higher prices for goods and services ---- while big corporations raise prices without restraint and enjoy high profits.

“I demand to know why it’s easier to have us pay more for health insurance than it is for the legislature to regulate health insurance costs?” he said.

Some of the nation’s biggest insurance companies, like Aetna, are based in Hartford. Their rates in Connecticut are supposed to be controlled by the state.

“Aetna made $1.7 billion in profit in 2010. That was up from $1.5 billion in 2009. Where the hell is Aetna’s sacrifice?” Burke shouted.

Burke a moment later said “We will not bow to these corporate-sponsored political hacks. We will never let our rights be taken away easily. Let’s stop these bastards now!”

Union activist Deborah Ellerman also commented on the point that Republican policies, such as the Bush tax cuts, have created large deficits which working people are supposed to pay for. But at the same time, she noted, the many people in wealthy Connecticut who earn over $400,000 a year “will enjoy a 3.7 percent tax cut.”

Bob Kingsley, director of organizing for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE), said his union is fully behind the Wisconsin workers.

“The barons of big business have wrecked the economy and now they’re trying to blame us for it,” he said. “The folks who teach our kids and clean our streets are not to blame for the current crisis.”

He noted that the average public worker pension in the U.S. is only $20,000 a year.

Kingsley urged people to keep the battle going, either by sending financial support to the Wisconsin unions, getting their towns or cities to pass resolutions expressing support for the workers or “get on a bus and go to Wisconsin.”

The UE official said the union’s northeast council had just agreed to back the idea supported by some unions in Wisconsin for a nationwide general strike.

As the rally wound down, a chant erupted of “Obama show some guts! Obama show some guts!” There’s been disappointment on the part of progressives with President Obama, since he’s only spoken once on the Wisconsin battle, saying two weeks ago Governor Walker shouldn’t bust the unions.

Felipe Flores attended the rally with his wife, Suzanne. He is a retired community college teacher, while she is a retired high school teacher.

“What’s happening in Wisconsin is important. If they can take away union rights there, it will spread everywhere,” he said.

See the "We Are All Wisconsin, Standing Together," video archive from Moveon.org's 50-state capital rallies, Feb. 26, 2011

**************************************************

Despite the size of the rally, mainstream media coverage of the Hartford demonstration was poor. Channel 3 did cover the rally and ran a short report. But other TV channels like WTNH, sent no reporters. The Hartford Courant, supposedly the state's paper of record, didn't cover the rally in their backyard. The Courant did run an AP piece about the nationwide rallies, but failed to mention the Connecticut protest. The Courant ran a front-page story Sunday on what it means for Connecticut to be "business-friendly."

Go Wisconsin!

2011-02-20T10:44:00.004-05:00

Just a week ago, in my last blog, I lamented the fact that the American people seemed so unwilling to protest the many ills of our society --- the lack of jobs, a deplorable health care system, crumbling schools and government service cuts.

This was in sharp contrast, I said, to what we’ve seen in Egypt and across the Middle East, where thousands have taken to the streets to demand the removal of corrupt dictators and the establishment of fairer economic systems.

Well, maybe I spoke too soon. Maybe the sleeping giant in America is waking up.

In Wisconsin and now in Ohio, throngs of workers are out every day demonstrating against the outrageous moves by new Republican governors to reduce the benefits of public employees and strip their unions of bargaining rights.

In Wisconsin, tens of thousands of workers --- teachers, firefighters, sanitation empoyees and others, together with school students --- have rallied at the state capital in Madison against the plan by Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-dominated legislature. The governor says the public employees must pay substantially more for their pensions and health care, in order to erase a claimed $3.6 billion budget deficit and avoid layoffs.

But Walker and the Republicans are lying about the reason for the draconian measures: the deficit came about only after GOP lawmakers in January rammed through a series of costly tax giveaways for the rich and big corporations. Before that, according to the Wisconsin Fiscal Bureau, the budget was balanced.

What’s happening in Wisconsin is part of a broad, national effort by the right-wing to smash public employee unions --- a major source of strength for both the Democratic Party and progressives in general. Anti-union forces must also figure that if public worker unions are badly hurt, it would be a mortal blow for the labor movement in general, since private sector unions have been steadily declining in recent years.

The union workers and their allies don’t buy the blather about the budget and see what’s really going on. It’s been inspiring to see the size of the crowds and the spirit of the protesters, day after day, in Madison.

Maybe this is the start of something. As Noam Chomsky commented on “Democracy Now” this week, the Wisconsin protests may be heralding the beginning of a “democracy uprising” in America.

Let’s hope so.

******************************************************

MSNBC Commentator Ed Shultz has done a terrific job covering the protests. He devoted his show every night last week to the rallies, offering strong progressive commentary and getting good interviews with people like John Nichols of The Nation. I just hope his passionate pro-worker stance doesn’t ruffle too many feathers at management (the channel’s new owners are Comcast) and he’s shown the door the way Keith Olbermann and Phil Donahue were.

Fighting Back in America

2011-02-11T11:10:00.006-05:00

For nearly three weeks the Egyptian people put on an incredible display of courage. Despite attacks by pro-government thugs and police --- which resulted in over 300 deaths and widespread injuries --- they continued to demonstrate day after day by the hundreds of thousands, demanding a more just economic system, a more democratic government and the removal of long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak.

It appears now that the rebellion largely succeeded, with Mubarak agreeing to step down and ceding power to a military council and the vice president.

The Egyptian uprising followed the protests in January in Tunisia, where people rallied to demand the ouster of long-time despot, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Eventually, the massive protests forced Ben Ali to flee the country.

Last year millions demonstrated across Europe, protesting austerity plans calling for pay cuts and pension reductions. In Greece alone, two million workers ---- a full 20 percent of the nation’s population --- protested on one day alone.

I’m wondering. Just when are the American people going to rise up and demand changes from their government? When is there going to be a mass movement and fightback against the financial-military-media elite of this country to bring about a fairer economic system?

It just seems that as other countries boil over, it’s so quiet here. You would think people would be really angry over the worsening quality of life in the U.S, and that so little is being done to stop the decline.

What do we have? More than 9 percent unemployed ---- 22 million people looking for work; health care costs climbing steadily, eating away at family budgets and driving more people into bankruptcy; foreclosures still happening everywhere, with banks and the government doing little or nothing to stanch the flow; millions of Americans worried about their ability to retire, due to losses in retirement accounts in the stock market crash of two years ago as well as pension reductions.

But instead of taking the position that government should play an active role in helping people weather these difficult times, we have a President and a Congress who keep insisting on cutting safety net programs.

Despite the crisis in health care, proposals are being floated to slash Medicare and Medicaid. Many in Congress and people around President Barack Obama also think Social Security should be cut. Obama is also asking for a freeze on vital domestic programs such as education and housing.

Obama and other leaders say Americans have to sacrifice so the nation can pull itself out of massive debt --- a debt they didn’t create. The debt was created by the cost of bank bailouts, overseas wars and a recession triggered by Wall Street speculation.

But really, only working people are being told to sacrifice.

A bill signed by Obama in December gives tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations. This will just compound the debt burden on everyone else.

The wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan continue, siphoning money away from social programs.

So Americans are getting screwed. The middle class is being battered --- to the point where soon, there will be no middle class. Increasingly our society is becoming two strata --- the rich and the near rich, and everybody else.

You would think that this situation would get people fired up, fired up to the point where they want to get out and demonstrate, wave flags, hold signs, shout and demand better --- just like in the Middle East and Europe. But it’s not happening. There have been local protests, for instance, in California and New York, over budget cuts. That’s good. But where are the broad coalitions forming for a general fightback against what’s happening in Washington? I don’t see it.

I looked up some websites for different liberal and progressive groups to find out what’s going on. The AFL-CIO, Progressive Democrats for America, United for Peace and Justice, Moveon.org, etc. They’re all working on good things, economic issues, social issues, environmental issues. But I saw no signs of coalition building for a wider struggle.

There was nothing about big demonstrations planned, or rallies to fight the growing inequities in our society and the central problem of corporate power.

I don’t know what the reason for this is. Is it a weakened labor movement that no longer can lead the way? Is it that people and groups are being too insular, working on their own agendas, and refusing to join forces?

Or are people still clinging to the faint hope that Obama will change course and do something good? That he will suddenly adopt a progressive agenda? Fat chance. He keeps talking about working with business to get them to invest more, and boost the economy. Recently, he appointed former GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt as an advisor. Hey, that will help working people.

Then he visited the Chamber of Commerce, and said to the business leaders, ‘pretty please, can you invest some of the more than a trillion dollars you’re sitting on?’ He was met with stoney slience. Then he offered to soften some regulations to help them. This is the road to nowhere.

Forget about Obama. There has to be a strong, grassroots movement in this country to bring about change. This has to be hitched to issues, not a party or a candidate. Organizations of all stripes ---- labor, political, community, civil rights, religious and environmental --- have to come together for a wider fightback.

As evidenced by the accomplishments in the 1930s and 1960s --- it’s only through strong social movements that anything will be achieved.

Keith Olbermann's MSNBC Departure a Wake-up Call to Fix Broken U.S. Corporate Media System

2011-01-25T13:36:00.007-05:00

By Scott Harris

Like thousands of his fans around the country, I was shocked to hear the news that Keith Olbermann would no longer be hosting his weeknight "Countdown" show on MSNBC.

Olbermann's terse announcement, made at the end of his Friday, Jan. 21st show, came the same week that the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department approved the merger of cable giant Comcast and NBC, MSNBC's parent company. There was immediate speculation that Comcast's incoming management at MSNBC was a key factor in the decision to cancel Olbermann's show. We'll likely have to wait a little while to hear an honest account of the events which led to the program's end.

Because Olbermann was afforded time to say goodbye to his audience -- and did so with a stiff upper lip and little apparent anger -- many media insiders were guessing the decision to cut short his four-year contract with MSNBC by two years, was a decision in which Olbermann was a participant.

Regardless of the reasons, I, along with many progressives across the U.S., will miss Countdown and Olbermann's intelligent and passionate delivery of commentary mixed with a good dose of humor and smart-alecky personal asides. As a good friend told me at dinner the night after Countdown's cancellation, knowing Olbermann would be on the air to help us try to make sense of America's ever more insane political psycho-drama, was "very comforting."

For me and many others, Olbermann's finest hours came during the darkest days of the eight-year rein of the Bush-Cheney regime. And he established his integrity and principled nonpartisan belief system as he persistently harassed President Obama each time he broke his campaign promises to adopt odious Bush era policies. The nation's very bleak media landscape will indeed become a bit more bleaker without Olbermann on the air.

While I appreciated Olbermann's sincere and and sometimes cynical view of the "inside the beltway" politics he covered, I was most impressed with his daily effort to act as a truth detector holding Washington politicians accountable for their bald faced lies and blatant hypocrisy -- be they Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives.

The sobering thing about this element of Olbermann's show is that once upon a time in America, real journalists at real TV networks and real newspapers used to perform this same service as part of their normal, daily job description. In today's U.S. media system, it's been left to a unique cable TV talk show host like Olbermann or The Daily Show's Jon Stewart to speak truth to power -- and assist a population barraged by ceaseless and cleverly packaged propaganda to sort out truth from lies.

Olbermann's "harsh" style seemed to stick in the craw of Howard Kurtz, former Washington Post media columnist and host of CNN's "Reliable Sources," who now writes for the Daily Beast. Appearing on CNN's Anderson Cooper show the same night of Countdown's cancellation, Kurtz criticized Olbermann's "over the top" commentary the day of the Tucson massacre in which he attacked Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and other hate jockeys for their reckless use of gun metaphors and violent images to attack political opponents. Kurtz, like many other mainstream media critics, consistently declare that America's right and left punditocracy are equally irresponsible in their overheated political rhetoric -- practice that Olbermann regularly condemned, branding it as dishonest "false equivalence."

I know I'm not alone in hoping that Keith's hard-working progressive colleagues at MSNBC, Rachel Maddow and Ed Shultz, will be permitted to continue their good work under the shadow of the network's new Comcast owners. But hope alone, nor faith in giant corporations will ensure that a few honest progressive journalists and commentators will be allowed to slip in among the vast majority of corporate media's tepid "reporters," who behave like scribes to the rich and powerful, or frothing-at-the-mouth right-wing talk show hate-mongers.

Olbermann's departure from millions of television sets in this country should serve as another in a series of endless wake-up calls to progressives who have long understood the power of media to hypnotize a nation to war, re-elect war criminals as heads of state, or accept trickle-down economics and tax breaks for the rich as "good" for the average working stiff.

While there are justifiable complaints about today's "talking head" model of cable TV news, and we would all do well to demand that major newspapers and TV stations bring back hard-hitting investigative reporting like that of Seymour Hersh and Edward R. Murrow, it's shocking to realize that the apparently very fragile evening lineup on MSNBC is the nation's only major cable TV network that daily provides viewers with progressive points of view in prime time. There's simply no other game in town when it comes to corporate media.

As has been true for many years now, it's up to the progressive community -- and the independent journalists and media makers who keep them reliably informed -- to come together to strengthen individual alternative journalistic enterprises. But more importantly, we need to collectively brainstorm ways to create new venues for progressive ideas -- and raise the funds necessary -- to reach the millions of Americans who frighteningly rely on Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck for their world view.

I sincerely hope that wherever Keith Olbermann ends up -- as a broadcaster or full-time activist -- he can lend his considerable talent, energy and popularity to aid us in this important effort to re-energize the nation's media system and strengthen democracy.

Good night and good luck, Keith!

Turning Point

2011-01-23T10:21:00.004-05:00

By Reginald Johnson

The next few months may be a turning point for this country.

What’s at stake is whether America maintains a social compact between the government and the people or whether that compact is destroyed.

The compact is what was created in the New Deal in the 1930s --- in the form of Social Security ---- and in the 1960s in the form of Medicare and Medicaid. There’s other parts of the compact, such as the commitment to provide support for housing and education programs, but Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are the main ones.

These programs, while not perfect, have provided vital services and support for hundreds of millions of people. Social Security provides retirement income which many people would not otherwise have. Medicare and Medicaid provide health insurance coverage for millions of people who similarly would not have any coverage if these programs didn’t exist.

If you research back newspaper and magazine articles you would find horror stories about what old people in this country used to go through when there was no income support for the elderly, or government-funded medical services. Or what poor people endured without subsidized medical care.

A lot of folks suffered mightily and died early.

So these programs, such as Social Security, represented an advance for our society.

But now the social compact is under attack. Conservatives, who have never liked the New Deal and Kennedy-Johnson-era social programs and have tried to dismantle them before, are barking at the door again. The right --- backed by big business --- insists the programs cost too much and add to our debt. They also claim that the government shouldn’t be helping people; everything should be done by the private sector. This of course, is an absurd and backwards notion.

Unfortunately, the right wing has a chance to reach its goal this time. That’s because we have a weak president who --- despite his prior claims about wanting to defend Social Security and Medicare --- is willing to consider changes that will begin the process of undoing these programs. Proposed changes involve raising the retirement age and slashing cost of living increases in Social Security as well as cutting benefits in Medicare and Medicaid. This is all being contemplated in the name of reducing our national debt, which is up around $14 trillion or something.

Raising the retirement age to say, 70, (which is being talked about) would effectively put Social Security benefits out of reach for many, since a good number of the potential beneficiaries will die before being able to collect. Reducing benefits and funding for Medicare and Medicaid would also be disastrous, since these programs are already underfunded. Many doctors right now are rejecting Medicare because the reimbursement rates are too low.

Some of the cost-cutting proposals were discussed by Obama’s deficit reduction commission last fall. Though that commission failed to reach a consensus on recommendations for spending reductions, word is Obama will go ahead anyway and call for entitlement cuts in his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

After that, who knows?

Republicans control the House. Many in the GOP, along with centrist Democrats, might support Social Security/Medicare cuts, amid scare mongering in the media about how big deficits threaten the economy. Ditto for the Senate.

So there could be support for this. That is, unless there is a very strong public reaction against it. Here’s the good news: polls indicate that while people are concerned about deficit reduction, they really don’t want cuts in Social Security and Medicare.

A recent New York Times/CBS poll showed that a majority of Americans are against the program cuts, and instead would like to see rollbacks in the military budget. A poll of Democracy Corps/Campaign for America’s Future also showed that while there was some support for deficit reduction, people don’t like the social cuts and want more emphasis on job creation and economic growth.

In an article in the Huffington Post, RJ Eskow of The Campaign for America said if Obama tacks to the political right and stresses deficit reduction for the rest of his term, it will be both harmful for many Americans and politically damaging. “The president’s in danger of moving in a direction that will lose everybody he needs,” Eskow wrote, commenting on the poll. Pointing to a loss of support from youth and union households, among other groups, Eskow said that “Literally every demographic group he and his party needs will be alienated by a right-leaning set of policies.”

While the news is bleak on Obama’s apparent direction on safety net programs, there’s also a moment of opportunity for the left. This is a time when progressives can jump on this issue and rally not only many Democrats, but independents and even some Tea Party people ( I know that will require a lot of work, but it can be done) to a wider fightback. There’s potential for a broad new political coalition.

A key part of building that coalition will be to educate people as to the real causes of the deficit. It’s not spending on social programs like Medicare and certainly not Social Security, which is funded entirely by workers and employers. Instead the debt is driven by the trillions being spent on the military budget, wars overseas and Wall Street bailouts together with revenue shortfalls due to lavish tax breaks for the rich and big corporations.

Judy and Judi -- Two Environmental Heroines

2011-01-21T17:36:00.003-05:00

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency just vetoed the largest single mountaintop removal permit in West Virginia history. That's a fitting tribute to one of two Judy B's I knew who had a lot in common: their name, their fierce commitment to fighting environmentally and socially destructive industry practices around their homes, and their deaths from cancer at much too young an age.

Julia "Judy" Bonds was the daughter of a coal miner who was forced to flee her beloved home in the mountains of southern West Virginia, due to devastation caused by mountaintop removal -- literally blowing off the tops of mountains and sending tons of debris to bury valley streams below, which led to flooding and other calamities. She died Jan. 3 at the age of 58. Her parting advice to her friends and fellow activists: "Fight harder."

Bonds was a proud lifelong resident of West Virginia coal country. Her outspokenness in her fight against the death and destruction spewed by coal mining, coal refining, and coal burning -- and the threats she endured because of it -- earned her the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2003. I interviewed her by phone a couple of times before meeting her in the fall of 2009, when I spent a week in Rock Creek, WV -- the epicenter of the fight against mountaintop removal mining. She was adamant that coal had to go, and that the country must transition immediately to cleaner forms of energy. She constantly promoted a wind farm atop Coal River Mountain -- the last remaining undisturbed ridge in that part of the state high enough to make wind turbines economically viable. It's a race against Massey Energy's plans to blow the mountain up -- and Massey owns the rights to the land. Judy wanted Americans everywhere to know it's their fight too, since burning coal provides about half the electricity used in the U.S.

Another of Judy's dreams was to take mountaintop removal opponents to the seat of national power -- Washington, D.C. -- to make their demands directly to their elected officials, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency. By the time over a thousand people attended Appalachia Rising -- the conference and demonstration that took place in D.C. in September 2010 -- Judy was too sick to attend, but she was there in spirit as a larger-than-life portrait stood beside the registration table.

On January 13, the EPA revoked a mountaintop mining permit for Spruce Mine Number 1 in Logan County, West Virginia, on Jan. 13, on the eve of Judy Bond's memorial.

Judi Bari was another inspiration. Judi Bari died in 1997 at age 47. She was a leader of Earth First!, a feminist, a labor organizer and a musician who used all those perspectives, skills and passions to fight the clear-cutting of her beloved old-growth redwood forest in coastal northern California. She survived a bombing attack in 1990 that left her with permanent injuries but, if anything, steeled her determination to keep fighting.

I first met her at Yale University while she was on a campus tour after 1990's "Redwood Summer," a non-violent, direct action effort to stop clear-cutting in the redwoods, based on the principles of the civil rights organizing for Mississippi Freedom Summer in the early 1960s. She came to her opposition after some years working as a carpenter, building redwood homes, until she understood the damage that was causing to the coastal northern California ecosystem, and the majesty of the trees themselves, which can grow to hundreds of feet and live more than a thousand years. Earth First! was mostly a bunch of macho guys whose motto was "No compromise in defense of Mother Earth." She was one of those members of Earth First! who promoted a kinder, gentler -- and more effective -- way of stopping the chainsaws from cutting old growth redwoods, using yarn instead of spikes, which could injure or kill a logger who might hit one. Just try cutting through a web of yarn with a chainsaw -- it's nigh impossible. That was one way Judi made common cause with the woods workers against the multinational companies that owned vast tracts of redwoods.

Judi was also a wonderful singer/songwriter, who used her music as another organizing tool to unite opponents of clear-cutting. She played the fiddle, in an "old timey" style that could have come right out of the southern Appalachians.

Right up to her death in 1997 at age 47, she fought to preserve old growth forest, and succeeded posthumously when two large tracts were set aside, comprising 28,000 acres.

These two women -- Judi and Judy -- are the late 20th and early 21st century versions of the legendary organizer Mary "Mother" Jones, who advised those opposing injustice in the 19th to "Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living."

Uncivil Discourse

2011-01-21T12:50:00.003-05:00

Following the horrific shootings in Arizona of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and several others, there’s been calls that both the left and the right need to tamp down harsh and “extremist” rhetoric.

President Obama and others say that we need a more civil public discourse, and “make sure that we are talking to each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

Some have said the angry rhetoric from politicians and pundits in recent years has fueled an atmosphere of hate, and may have helped push unstable individuals, such as the accused Arizona gunman Jared Loughner, over the edge. Loughner had reportedly been targeting Giffords for political reasons, though it isn’t entirely clear.

I agree that extremist and hate-filled rhetoric has an effect on people, and has to be condemned.

But I reject the false equivalency of saying that both the left and right are equally to blame for today’s poisoned political atmosphere. Not so.

In recent years it’s clear politicians and pundits on the right have been engaging in hate speech --- through their demonizing and scapegoating of liberals, gays, immigrants, intellectuals and abortion doctors. In many instances, right-wingers have, either explicitly or implicitly, urged their followers to engage in acts of violence.

I haven’t seen anything from pundits or politicos on the left that compares with this pattern of irresponsible language and hate speech on the right.

Let’s look at just a few examples concerning actions or comments by right-wingers. Last year, Republican Sarah Palin had her website put up a map with gunsight crosshairs over the districts with congress members she wanted removed. One of those was that of Giffords, a Democratic congresswoman from the Tucson area of Arizona.

Moreover, on a Twitter posting last year, Palin had urged her followers, “Don’t retreat, Instead, RELOAD!”

Or consider Glenn Beck, the wild commentator of the right who has a nightly show on FOX network, a show which reaches millions of people. This man is truly scary. He spends his time every night demonizing people on the left --- “progressives” --- for being a threat to the nation. They’re evil and subversive, he says, and you gotta watch ‘em. He seems to be taking a playbook from the 1950s demagogue, Senator Joe McCarthy, who made a career of labeling anyone left of center a “communist,” and destroyed hundreds of lives in the process.

Recently, Beck has taken to accusing noted political science professor, Frances Fox Piven, of trying to bring down the American economic system through her writings about mobilizing the poor and strengthening welfare rights. He even held Piven in part responsible for the Arizona killings. Bizarre. But unfortunately, people listen to this junk or read it in Beck’s on-line column, “The Blaze.”

Beck’s rants usually stop short of openly advocating violence against opponents but his constant vilification of individuals clearly engenders anger and resentment among his followers, to the point where they threaten violence. Recently some readers writing comments in “The Blaze” said they would shoot Piven or blow up her house, according to a report on Democracy Now. The messages were not removed from the site.

In some cases, Beck himself has been explicit in calling for violence. “Drive a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers,” was one comment reported in a book by Dana Millbank of the Washington Post.

There’s many other examples of right-wing pundits and politicos, particularly on FOX, who use the language of violence and vilification. Bill O’Reilly recently said that Millbank should be “decapitated” due to the reporter’s criticism of FOX’s election night coverage. O’Reilly later said that he was, ha ha, only joking. But then he said Millbank should be beaten up anyway. Liberal-hating Ann Coulter a few years ago said she wouldn’t care if the New York Times building got blown up. Later she said that that too, was only a joke. Hilarious.

Right-wing shock jock Michael Savage, as well as other rightist commentators, have called for violence to deal with illegal immigrants. According to the media watch dog group FAIR, in 2008, Savage called for troops to be brought back from Iraq to protect Americans from “the scourge of illegal immigrants who are running rampant across America, killing police for sport, raping, murdering like a scythe across America.”

In one confirmed case, a man who said he was influenced by
Beck, set out to kill people at two liberal organizations in

San Francisco. Byron Williams, the man who plotted to assassinate people at the ACLU and the Tides Foundation and who was arrested by police before he got there --- following a shootout --- told an interviewer with Media Matters for America that he was inspired by Glenn Beck.

Those who charge that the left has used a similar language of violence and hate that the right has, have an obligation to provide the evidence. Yes, I’m sure you can find some anarchist somewhere who said we should “destroy the system.” But you’re not going to find much of anything among left pundits or politicians --- who have media stature --- who’ve engaged in a pattern of hate talk or used the language of violence.

FOX, owned by Rupert Murdoch, is heavily responsible for allowing the hate talk to go on. I’m with those who think it’s time to contemplate boycott actions against FOX and have regular protests.

The group Jewish Funds for Justice recently picketed FOX headquarters in New York and submitted a petition with 10,000 signatures of people demanding the cancellation of Beck’s show. They accused Beck of “unchecked hate mongering and public incitement.”

That’s a good start.

Chip Berlet, senior analyst with Political Research Associates, which tracks right-wing movements, told Scott Harris of the Between the Lines radio show that it was time for a campaign to get advertisers to drop their sponsorship of the Glenn Beck program. He said such a campaign had been successful in getting Lou Dobbs removed from CNN, in light of Dobb’s perpetual bashing and unfair portrayal of immigrants.

Video Made by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords's Alleged Arizona Would-be Assassin Gives Clues to his Motivation

2011-01-08T23:56:00.003-05:00

by Scott Harris, Between The Lines Executive Producer

The would-be assassin, Jared Lee Loughner, apparently uploaded a video to YouTube on Dec. 15, 2010. This is the first piece of information I've seen on the would-be assassin's possible motives. This video has not widely been circulated yet. The words on the screen are very strange -- often incomprehensible, with a mix of right-wing anti-government rhetoric. His words seem to indicate he was contemplating a "terrorist" act.

This link to Jared Lee Loughner's YouTube video was sent to me by a colleague at WPKN Radio in Bridgeport, CT.

According to a BBC report, former GOP Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin had placed Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on a "hit list" of 20 members of Congress targeted for defeat in the 2010 midterm election, complete with a graphic of "rifle-like telescopic sight" (pictured above from Sarah Palin's website).

I only hope that this senseless act of violence has the effect of waking America up to the inevitable consequences of extreme right-wing radio and TV commentators constantly labeling their political opponents as "traitors," "communists," "America haters," and all other manner of paranoid and irrational slurs.

As was the case with the right-wing inspired Oklahoma City bombing, the dozens of shootings of abortion providers and daily violence against gays and lesbians, we are reminded of the fact that the deliberate and irresponsible use of words sometimes has dire consequences.

Encouraging cannibalism

2011-01-02T13:48:00.010-05:00

Encouraged by politicians and their mouthpieces in the establishment press, expect working people or the middle class in the United States —however you want to conceptualize it—to be spurred into cannibalism at an accelerating rate in 2011. The New York Times hits the ground running on this trend with a front page article on the first day of the year headlined "Public Workers Facing Outrage as Budget Crises Grow." Michael Powell writes:

Across the nation, a rising irritation with public employee unions is palpable, as a wounded economy has blown gaping holes in state, city and town budgets, and revealed that some public pension funds dangle perilously close to bankruptcy. In California, New York, Michigan and New Jersey, states where public unions wield much power and the culture historically tends to be pro-labor, even longtime liberal political leaders have demanded concessions — wage freezes, benefit cuts and tougher work rules.

The article focuses on the budget struggles at the state and local level in New Jersey. But the key takeaways are these:

• A raft of recent studies found that public salaries, even with benefits included, are equivalent to or lag slightly behind those of private sector workers. The Manhattan Institute, which is not terribly sympathetic to unions, studied New Jersey and concluded that teachers earned wages roughly comparable to people in the private sector with a similar education.

• A new regime in state politics is venting frustration less at Goldman Sachs executives (Governor Christie vetoed a proposed “millionaire’s tax” this year) than at unions.

And sure enough, on day two of 2011, the Times reported that newly inaugurated Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York—following in the footsteps of President Barack "Unilateral Surrender to the Rich" Obama—"will seek a one-year salary freeze for state workers as part of an emergency financial plan." Reporter Nicholas Confessore writes that "The move will signal the opening of what is expected to be a grueling fight between the new governor and the public-sector unions that have traditionally dominated the state’s political establishment." As with Obama's two-year salary freeze of civilian federal workers' pay—budget constraints don't apply to the military in America—Cuomo's move is more class war symbolism than budget substance. According to Confessore, "While the immediate budget savings from the freeze would be relatively modest — between $200 million and $400 million against a projected deficit in excess of $9 billion — achieving it would be politically meaningful." Savor the term "politically meaningful." Such a sweet turn of phrase. It is indeed "politically meaningful" that once again a Democratic politician puts the shiv to one of his own constituencies.

According to the blogger Rotwang at Talking Points Memo, "Discussions dwell on lurid examples of spending excess and malfeasance, while acknowledging that the spur for the current discussion is not any particular blip in spending but in the revenue crash occasioned by the recession. Revenue is the elephant in the room, ignored out of base political motives or for the sake of journalistic sensationalism." As the recent Kabuki game in Washington over the Bush tax cuts shows, there is a powerful lobby at work to prevent the rich form shouldering a fair share of the social obligation. And Gov. Christie of New Jersey, true to this script, vetoed a proposed "millionaire's tax."

Rotwang writes:

I remind our dozen followers of the central fact of the U.S. public sector: the Federal government mails checks, the state and local governments provides services. The checks go to the elderly, health care providers, state and local governments. The big exception on the Federal side is defense, a service unto itself.
State and local governments ('SLGs') administer benefits for the poor financed by the Feds (Food Stamps, Medicaid, what remains of 'welfare'), but administration itself depends on state finances. Speaking very broadly, the states employ people (teachers in particular) and do most public infrastructure investment (roads and bridges in particular). In general SLG services make possible basic economic and social life. The rising attacks on these services threaten well-being at that same elemental level.

This bears repeating: The rich are being shielded from tax cuts that they could well afford. To do so, education and services for the most vulnerable populations are at risk of extreme cuts. The infrastructure will continue to decay. And the budget crisis provides yet another opportunity for the class warriors for the wealthy to target the one segment of the labor movement that is still relatively strong, the public sector unions.

According to an article by Gerald Friedman of UMass at Amherst on the Web site of the Economic History Association:

The quarter century after 1950 formed a ‘golden age' for American unions. Established unions found a secure place at the bargaining table with America's leading firms in such industries as autos, steel, trucking, and chemicals. Contracts were periodically negotiated providing for the exchange of good wages for cooperative workplace relations. Rules were negotiated providing a system of civil authority at work, with negotiated regulations for promotion and layoffs, and procedures giving workers opportunities to voice grievances before neutral arbitrators. Wages rose steadily, by over 2 percent per year and union workers earned a comfortable 20 percent more than nonunion workers of similar age, experience and education. Wages grew faster in Europe but American wages were higher and growth was rapid enough to narrow the gap between rich and poor, and between management salaries and worker wages.

But in the 1970's the power of organized wealth unilaterally abrogated the social contract that had been in effect since the early postwar years. It took the better part of the decade of the 1970's for the political forces championing plutocracy to marshal their ideological and political forces, expressed in proliferating "think" tanks funded by big corporations and right wing millionaires and a burgeoning army of lobbyists. With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, a decisive change of course was effected.

Ever since Ronald Reagan busted the air traffic controllers' union, PATCO, labor unions have been on the defensive in the United States. Attacks on labor unions have been central to the ongoing redistribution of wealth and power in the United States to the rich. Friedman writes on the Economic History Association Web site:

Union decline since World War II has brought the United States private-sector labor movement down to early twentieth century levels. As a share of the nonagricultural labor force, union membership fell from its 1945 peak of 35 percent down to under 30 percent in the early 1970s. From there, decline became a general rout. In the 1970s, rising unemployment, increasing international competition, and the movement of industry to the nonunion South and to rural areas undermined the bargaining position of many American unions leaving them vulnerable to a renewed management offensive. Returning to pre-New Deal practices, some employers established new welfare and employee representation programs, hoping to lure worker away from unions (Heckscher, 1987; Jacoby, 1997). Others returned to pre-New Deal repression. By the early 1980s, union avoidance had become an industry. Anti-union consultants and lawyers openly counseled employers how to use labor law to evade unions. Findings of employers' unfair labor practices in violation of the Wagner Act tripled in the 1970s; by the 1980s, the NLRB reinstated over 10,000 workers a year who were illegally discharged for union activity, nearly one for every twenty who voted for a union in an NLRB election (Weiler, 1983). By the 1990s, the unionization rate in the United States fell to under 14 percent, including only 9 percent of the private sector workers and 37 percent of those in the public sector. Unions now have minimal impact on wages or working conditions for most American workers.
Nowhere else have unions collapsed as in the United States. With a unionization rate dramatically below that of other countries, including Canada, the United States has achieved exceptional status (see Table 7). There remains great interest in unions among American workers; where employers do not resist, unions thrive. In the public sector and in some private employers where workers have free choice to join a union, they are as likely as they ever were, and as likely as workers anywhere. In the past, as after 1886 and in the 1920s, when American employers broke unions, they revived when a government committed to workplace democracy sheltered them from employer repression. If we see another such government, we may yet see another union revival.

Instead of seeing "another such government"—as American workers had the right to expect after the 2008 election—we continue to see politicians of all stripes, including "even longtime liberal political leaders" as indicated in the Times, continuing the class war.

This is the "race to the bottom" in action. Private sector unions have been decimated and now the plutocrats are amping up their war against public sector unions. This is a genuine two-fer in the class war: defunding and dismantling government services and further hobbling the labor movement. Just as employers have pitted race against race and ethnicity against ethnicity in order to keep working people divided, they are happy to stoke jealousy among taxpayers against workers who still have a modicum of job security and benefits.

It's cannibalism and it's going to be ugly.

Happy Holidays, it's Tax Cuts for Everybody! ... American Pie for Everyone?

2010-12-23T12:06:00.005-05:00

Just in time for the holidays, President Barack Obama seems to have turned the tide with his recent rash of legislative successes during a lameduck Congress and "the end of gridlock".

Yep, all it took was to come around and help the GOP keep the uber-rich happy and those campaign financiers intact ... especially most of those 403 multibillionaires worth $1.7 trillion. It's the thought that counts! Especially in hard times like these!

Oh, come now. It's not really Obama's fault if the GOP wanted to hold the middle-class tax cuts hostage to allow the wealthy to keep their thousand-dollar-a-minute income. It doesn't matter if the gays now serve in the military (more people to send off to war). It doesn't matter if there are now more food safety laws to inspect the giant agribusiness AND the small organic farmer (fairness for everybody, even if you can't afford the inspection standards). It doesn't matter if the first-responders had to wait this long (surely, they would've given up after all these years if not for Jon Stewart). And it especially doesn't matter if the Republicans, like Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl simply don't want Obama to "eat their lunch" by winning a New START treaty. (Heaven forbid, we just can't let this black man sit at the counter!)

But, at least, now we have "tax cuts for everybody!"

For heaven's sake, those multibillionaires each need much bigger pieces of the American pie...a few billion! No, wait, make that gadzillion, if there is such a word. There can never be too much pie!

And, just think what those tax cuts will do. Instead of the $700 billion the government won't have to pay back to China and other loans it took out, there will be more money for pies that are simply sitting around, truly going to waste. How much pie can they eat? Some people don't have any pie to eat at all. (Aw, "those people" don't really need pie, do they?)

But mind you, there are some 57 multibillionaires who are willing to part with half their wealth by giving to charitable causes.

At least some people know when they've simply had much more pie than they can ever eat in a lifetime. Or two. Or a hundred.

Happy Holidays!
(And don't forget to appreciate your piece of the American pie, if you have one or even a half. Just don't forget where that pie came from!)

An object lesson

2010-12-22T16:16:00.002-05:00

According to Brian Beutler at Talking Points Memo, the Senate has now overcome Republican obstruction and passed a bill that will provide $4.2 billion in assistance to 9/11 first responders:

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has dropped his objections to the 9/11 first responders bill, allowing Dems to circumvent procedural roadblocks and pass it quickly this afternoon.

Dems rounded up the votes they needed to break Coburn's filibuster earlier this week, and spent much of the morning and early afternoon negotiating with him to prevent him from delaying passage of the legislation by several days.

Coburn's price: a reduction of the price tag from $6.2 billion to $4.2 billion.

The legislation would provide first responders with five years of health care coverage and give them fresh access to a compensation fund for people who became ill because of exposure to harmful inhalants at ground zero.

Credit is due to the New York Congressional delegation for doggedly pursuing this issue. But the real turning point came when comedian/faux newsman Jon Stewart made the issue a focal point for segments on The Daily Show last week. In his Dec. 16 broadcast, Stewart hosted a panel of 9/11 first responders, all of whom are suffering health impacts most likely caused by toxins they were exposed to as they cleaned the site. Stewart shamed not only the hypocritical obstructionists of the GOP who love to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11 for political gain but also the television news media. From Colby Hall at Mediaite:

On The Daily Show’s last taping of the year before the holiday break, host Jon Stewart removed absolutely any doubt about which issue is his nearest and dearest by dedicating his entire show to the issue of funding of incremental health care for 9/11 First Responders. Stewart broke from his typical show’s outline, opening with an angry recap of the Senate GOP’s apparent refusal to support the aid bill, then targeting the American media outlets that oddly avoided coverage. The second segment featured a serious and moving round-table with affected responders.

Stewart pointed out that corporate television news had failed to cover the issue. And, lo and behold, the next night saw ABC and other networks prominently featuring the story.

This is an object lesson in the importance of honest, effective, direct communication having an impact in politics. Now what if President Barack Obama had tried using direct, emotional communication before crafting his tax cut "compromise?" Given what the polls showed, Obama could have done that in the tax fight—framed the clash as Republicans holding desperate unemployed folks hostage in order to reward the wealthiest. He could have invited a cross-section of unemployed folks to the White House and facilitated their stories being heard, as Stewart did with the first responders on his show. But he chose instead to assume Republican (and Blue Dog) intransigence was immovable and let that assumption box him in.

(Of course, that is giving Obama the benefit of the doubt that he really was opposed to the retention of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. And don't get me started on the cut in the payroll tax aka the choking of Social Security's financial lifeline.)

Pravda on the Potomac

2010-12-19T23:40:00.003-05:00

The "memory hole" is working quicker these days than in 1984, or 1948, when Orwell wrote his famous novel excoriating totalitarianism. Our lapdog press—like the Soviet media under Brezhnev that it so much resembles— just ignores news of protests (unless those protests, like those of the so-called Tea Party, dovetail with the corporate agenda).

Dave Lindorff captures this dynamic perfectly, noting in a post at This Can't Be Happening that the mainstream media completely blacked out reports of a Dec. 16 antiwar protest at the White house led by Veterans for Peace.

There was a black-out and a white-out Thursday and Friday as over a hundred US veterans opposed to US wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world, and their civilian supporters, chained and tied themselves to the White House fence during an early snowstorm to say enough is enough.

Washington Police arrested 135 of the protesters, in what is being called the largest mass detention in recent years. Among those arrested were Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst who used to provide the president’s daily briefings, Daniel Ellsberg, who released the government’s Pentagon Papers during the Nixon administration, and Chris Hedges, former war correspondent for the New York Times.

No major US news media reported on the demonstration or the arrests. It was blacked out of the New York Times, blacked out of the Philadelphia Inquirer, blacked out in the Los Angeles Times, blacked out of the Wall Street Journal, and even blacked out of the capital’s local daily, the Washington Post, which apparently didn't even think it was a local story worth publishing an article about (they simply ran a photo of Ellsberg with a short caption).

As Lindorff notes, the protest was not without links to other war-related news that day: an ABC/Washington Post poll showing "60% of Americans now feel that [Afghan] war has 'not been worth it'" and the release of a Pentagon report on "progress" in the Afghan War.

Joe Biden joins in on the "two minutes hate" of WikiLeaks

2010-12-19T22:51:00.004-05:00

We live in Orwellian times. Newspeak is rampant. The media and government collude in flushing inconvenient facts down the memory hole. And over the past several weeks, we have seen numerous media commissars and government officials indulge themselves in a frothing "two minutes hate" over the independent media organization and whistleblowers' clearinghouse WikiLeaks.

As civil liberties blogger and media critic Glenn Greenwald wrote early this month:

WikiLeaks has never been charged with a crime, let alone indicted for one or convicted of one. A consensus of legal experts agree that prosecuting the organization or Julian Assange for any of its leaks would be difficult in the extreme.

Yet despite this, as Greenwald and others have reported, WikiLeaks has been kicked off the cloud servers of Amazon.com (likely under the instigation of Sen. Joseph Lieberman, chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee), had their PayPal account frozen, had their domain name withdrawn and, within the past couple of days, Bank of America—that paragon of good corporate behavior—announced that it would no longer process payments to WikiLeaks.

Beyond the extra-legal attacks on the organization, political figures and pundits have indulged in an orgy of eliminationist rhetoric directed at Julian Assange, the public face of the organization, and Bradley Manning, the U.S. enlisted man presently held under conditions of psychological torture for allegedly leaking over 250,000 classified State department cables to WikiLeaks. (Less than 2,000 of those cables have been released so far, all of them in cooperation with and after redaction by newspapers such as The Guardian in the United Kingdom.)

And now Vice President Joseph Biden, on today's Meet the Press program on NBC, has joined the lynching chorus. According to a report by Agence France Presse:

When asked whether he thought Assange was a high-tech terrorist or a whistleblower akin to those who released the Pentagon Papers -- a series of top-secret documents revealing US military policy in Vietnam -- Biden was clear: "I would argue that it's closer to being high-tech terrorist."

Given that there have been no deaths or injuries linked to WikiLeaks' releases, this is an outrageous and irresponsible comment. According to the AFP report, "the vice president stopped short of elaborating on just how the administration could act against the head of the organization whose release of thousands of classified US diplomatic cables has enraged Washington." Setting aside AFP's erroneous repetition of the lie that WikiLeaks has released "thousands of cables" willy-nilly, Biden's caginess is particularly worrisome because he speaks for an administration that arrogates to itself the right to assassinate anyone it sees as a threat.

Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!

2010-12-12T11:44:00.005-05:00

[ See Sen. Bernie Sanders' 8 1/2 hour filibuster on President Obama's tax cut deal with the GOP to keep Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy.]

Hooray for Bernie Sanders! Hooray to a man who finally stood up and said it’s time to stop caving in to the Republicans and it’s time to start really fighting on behalf of America’s working class.

Bernie Sanders of course is the Independent/Socialist Senator from Vermont, who on Friday waged nearly a one-man war against President Barack Obama’s sell-out tax bill, which gives the middle class a tax break, but also doles out hundreds of billions in unneeded tax reductions to the rich and corporations. The proposed law will compound the nation’s already high deficit and threaten future funding for Social Security.

Sanders took to the floor of the Senate and in an historic address talked for more than eight hours --- eight hours!--- blasting the tax bill, which Obama and Vice President Joe Biden secretly negotiated with Senate Republican leader Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

“Whose brilliant idea was it that we drive up the national debt, ask our kids to pay higher taxes to pay off that debt, in order to give tax breaks to the rich?” Sanders asked.

The Vermont senator’s dramatic address captivated people not just in the U.S., but around the world. There were so many people watching the Senate’s live video feed, that the Senate’s computer server crashed at one point. Sander’s speech was the leading trend on Twitter nationally and the second leading trend worldwide.

Sanders also read letters from constituents, who are struggling economically at the same time the government ponders more giveaways for the wealthy. According to an account in the newspaper the Bennington Banner, Sanders read a letter from a woman who described trying to save money by buying food from a “dented can store.”

“Does anybody in Congress know what a dented can store is?” Sanders asked.

Sanders also laid out quite a history lesson, detailing all the factors that have gone into the decline of the middle class over the past 30 years and how the country now has a gaping disparity in incomes --- with an upper crust consisting of 5 percent of the population controlling more than 50 percent of the nation’s wealth. The bottom 20 percent have almost no wealth.

Sander’s marathon speech was not technically a filibuster, since no vote was being taken up. That won’t come until Monday. But Sanders wants to slow the process down, and force senate supporters of the bill to come up with a new measure that in his words “better reflects the needs of the middle class and working families of this country.”

And Sanders is getting some support. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and surprisingly, Louisiana’s conservative Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, both said they were against the bill and agreed to hold the floor for Sanders while he took breaks. More significantly, eight senate Democrats sent a letter Friday night to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid saying they had “grave misgivings” about the proposed bill and recommended changes before a vote.

They urged a plan which would restore tax rates on income over $1 million per year to the higher Clinton-era rates and to “dedicate the resulting revenues to shoring up the Social Security trust fund,” according to an article in The Nation by John Nichols.

Meanwhile dozens of Democrats in the House are refusing to back the Obama-McConnell plan and are also demanding changes.

Some Congressional Democrats and Social Security advocates are voicing concern over another aspect of the Obama measure, which calls for cutting the payroll tax by 2 percent to give employees a $1,000 tax break next year. It’s supposed to be a one-year tax cut on employees paying what is known as the “FICA” tax, as opposed to the income tax.

While the tax break seems to be nice on the face of it, and may act as an economic stimulus, the problem is the money is coming from a revenue stream that is supposed to be a dedicated fund only for the Social Security retirement fund.

The administration is pledging that Social Security won’t lose any money, that the Treasury Department will replenish the retirement program with other government funds. The lower tax is also supposed to end in one year.

But the fear is that in one year, a Congress more heavily dominated by Republicans will never approve a tax hike to restore the old rate, and money again will have to be borrowed from the general fund to make up the difference. In later years, the lower payroll tax rate may become permanent, putting Social Security in competition with other funding needs year to year.

With a tight general budget for the foreseeable future, and warnings about deficits, there inevitably will be calls for benefit cuts in Social Security.

“This 2 percent payroll tax cut is the beginning of the end of Social Security as we know it,” said the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, headed by former Rep. Barbara B. Kennelly, D-Conn. “Worker contributions have successfully funded the program for 75 years and that critical linkage between contributions and benefits is what keeps Social Security a self-funded program.”