When you get a chance, watch as President Obama schools Republicans in an English Parlimentary style back-and-forth question period. Finally, a Democrat taking the fight to the Right!

SCOTUS decided today that corporations are free to spend as much money as they want on political campaigns. Say goodbye to Democracy. And something else we should say goodbye to is the pointless blame game that seems to be burning up the blogoshpere in the shadow of the new America established by the Supreme Court today.

Stop blaming Nader, and Gore, and Bush, the Repukes, the Dems.

THIS IS OUR FUCKING FAULT.

We are too lazy, too committed to our own personal selfishness, to have stopped things from ending up where we are.

We are - collectively - unwilling to RISK our OWN PERSONAL SITUATION.

So what the fuck did you expect, then? Did you expect Obama to come along and snap his fingers and turn back the flood of corporate power?

Or was it the Dem Congress you pinned your hopes on? That they would have Obama in the White House, and with a wave of their magical pens, stop the power from flowing to where the capital pools?

WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN WHEN YOU REFUSED TO COMMIT YOUR OWN LIFE TO THE PURSUIT OF LIBERTY?????

The Founders risked a hell of a lot more than we might have risked by going on a national strike, or stopping to pay our bills to the corporations, or refusing to participate in elections. There are MILLIONS OF WAYS to stop corporations - but they all involve PERSONAL RISK.

So go ahead - blame EVERYONE else. Don't look in the mirror and hold yourself accountable.

I'm not simply pontificating here - I've been advocating such anti-corporate actions for YEARS - and have been, for the most part, ridiculed and ignored.

So it disappoints me to hear people crying about how fucked we are, how its everyone else's fault, and how if so-and-so would have just done something - anything - we would not be in the very real danger we are now in of losing our country to corporate power.

It's not too late to turn back the tide. And until you are finally ready, to paraphrase our Founding Fathers, to risk your life, your fortune, and your sacred honor, it is disingenuous of you to bitch.

THANK YOU VETERANS

I keep waiting for change. Waiting for things to get better for my family, for my neighbors, for our country.

But, it doesn't.

A woman came into my wife's store today. She was completely bald, and she was wearing a wig that kept slipping off her head because it was not a real wig (she could not afford one), but one from an old Halloween costume. She had just finished up chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. She had been given - get this - a ONE MONTH health card by the State, as she had no insurance from her minimum wage job as a BANK TELLER, to pay for her chemo and time away from her job while she was too ill to continue working her wonderful minimum wage job.

One freaking month. That's it.

When my wife told me this today, I had to ask myself: How can our country treat people like this? And then it hit me - because we're disposable.

It explains a lot.

Big companies are not worried about us boycotting their goods or services. Why? Because consumers are disposable. If a boycott actually grabs hold, they don't have to care - just make a few extra currency trades, and they get those losses right back. So why should they care about a consumer boycott? Consumers are disposable, they can take us or leave us at this point.

Why do our Congressmen vote, so often, against our best interests? Why do they side with big business almost constantly? Why is it that big business has a seat at the table, a voice in the room, and we, the electorate, have only sound bites and promises? Because the voters are disposable. All a Congressman has to do is go to their big business patrons, who will promptly create a 527 group. They play the public like a musical instrument, hitting just the right notes of fear, hatred, intolerance, and prejudice, to sway the needed numbers back in their favor. And presto-chango! New disposable voters appear.

How can it be, that a CEO can make 400 times what the average employee makes at their business? How can that same CEO cut benefits, but not executive bonuses? How can these mega-wealthy CEO's pay their employees minimum wage that is taxed at a higher rate than most large corporations pay after they find every loophole possible to avoid paying even their fair share of the tax burden? Because employees are disposable - there are always desperate, disposable people willing to fill the ranks of their companies - they've seen to it.

Don't you get it? WE. ARE. NOT. WORTH. IT. Individually, or collectively.

In the eyes of those who hold the wealth and the power of this nation, WE ARE DISPOSABLE.

We're of no more worth to them than the bag that lines their garbage can.

There's 300,000,000 million people in this country - and maybe only 5,000 of that number, are not disposable.

They are our elected officials, and their wealthy/corporate masters.

EVERYTHING - and I do mean everything - our government is doing today, ultimately works exclusively towards the interests of these few. While some actions of the government actually do good for the people, they are more the byproduct of the need for good marketing OF the government - good PR, as it were.

IF THIS WERE NOT TRUE, the health care debate, would sound quite different. Our leaders would be abhorred.

But are they abhorred? Or are they debating, and stalling, and endlessly discussing? Are they hedging, and pontificating, and making excuses? Are they bolstering, or compromising/watering down/eliminating? What will we eventually see out of all of this sound, and fury?

A watered down bill, that has an impressive sounding name - but that ultimately, will signify NOTHING to that poor woman who came into my wife's store this day. It will mean nothing to her. And it will mean nothing to millions of our neighbors, families, and friends, who continue to suffer under the status quo. We'll continue to be...disposable.

But not everyone will go away unhappy - those few, those powerful, those wealthy indispensables - well, they'll be happy...be sure of that.

As long as our politicians - our LEADERS - are wholly owned tools of the wealthy/corporations, NOTHING is going to change for the better.

We are on a downhill slide; a slide that began decades ago, but was accelerated a hundred fold by Bush.

The very people who are empowered to change things, all find that actually changing things, runs contrary to their own PERSONAL interests.

What are these personal interests? Maintaining, and if possible, vastly improving, their political career.

THEY WILL DO ANYTHING TO KEEP THEIR POWER.

Our political system has become so distorted, so...perverted, that we many find ourselves completely at the mercy of the comparatively few, and the very forces pledged to protect the many against the tyranny of the few - no matter the form that tyranny takes - are no longer acting on the People's behalf.

From our elected leaders to the press, from places where political neutrality is not only proper and expected, but illegal to break that neutrality, comes support for the few, for this plutocracy that mercilessly grips we many...by our collective throat...

As long as we continue to convince ourselves that eventually these same leaders will change things, so that their free lunch ends...as long as we collectively and individually continue to believe that someone else, will make sure things change...

NOTHING WILL CHANGE.

Get out of my country.
By Nuisance Industry

You heard me, get out.  You hate the people here enough that you want them to die.  You want the military to overthrow the government, and you don't want the government to offer basic human services, or even to function.  You express joy when jobs and opportunities are lost.

You are no patriots.  You are un-American.  Get out of my country. The un-American sentiment I refer to has been around for a while, and covered well around here.  Today it is easily crystallized by the reactions to the 2016 Summer Olympics selection.  Before I describe these reactions, I should note that there are certainly valid arguments for not wanting the Games; here in Chicago, local concern over the budget loomed large over the bid.

That's not what this is about.  Today, great joy and celebration greeted America losing the Olympics.  This joy was not in the streets of Rio (where celebrations certainly are underway), but in the offices and studios of people who facetiously claim to be patriotic Americans.  

It's happening in the offices of the Weekly Standard:

Standard blogger John McCormack published a celebratory post on the magazine’s blog, titled "Chicago Loses! Chicago Loses!." McCormack wrote that "Cheers erupt at WEEKLY STANDARD world headquarters

It's happening in Glenn Beck's studios, where Herr Beck declared the news is "so sweet."  In Herr Limbaugh's studio, the bloated junkie happily declared this "the worst day of Obama's presidency."

Newsmax, the fascist organization that earlier this week fantasized about a military coup against the president, happily tweeted "ChicagP//n3D!"

We get it.  You hate not just our president, but our country.  You hate us for our freedoms.  You'd rather have our people die that provide them health care that doesn't bankrupt them.  You'd rather risk catastrophic damage to the environment rather than doing something about greenhouse gases.  You actively fantasize about killing the president and hamstringing government from doing the work of government.  (I would have guessed that this Norquistian fantasy would have subsided after you so successfully drowned New Orleans, but that just whetted your appetite for more American blood.)  The United States loses the opportunity to host the Olympics, and you're thrilled, simply because you can't stand that the president is a Democrat?

Tell me this, why the fuck do you stay here?  

You made us pay for this giant embassy in Iraq.  How about we put that place to good use?  You all can move there instead of having to live in our country that you so obviously loathe.  Then we can complete the business of repairing this nation that you fucked up so badly, damaging our freedoms, our budget, our environment, our standing in the world, and our citizens' ability to keep health, homes, solvency, and jobs.  Honestly, it's as if you did it on purpose.  Given your hatred of the United States of America, maybe you did.

This isn't about ideology, this is about hate.  You are the opposite of patriots.  You are sad excuses for Americans, and idiots to boot.  If I hated this nation as much as you do, I would go live someplace that made me happier.  So I conclude with all due compassion: Get the fuck out of my country.

"It's Not About Race!" "It's Not Racism!!"
By TygrBright

Oh, yes it is.

They may not perceive it, it may not be conscious, but it's about race. And it's racism.

No, I'm not talking about any and all criticism of President Obama. It's perfectly legitimate to criticize the President, if you disagree with his actions or his expressed policies. And it's possible to do so with acerbic wit and biting satire and hyperbolic rhetoric and yes, even with anger and outrage, and not tread on the ground of race and racism.

But, by and large, that is not what is happening in America. That kind of criticism is not what we saw in the hysterical, hyperventilating flap over the President of the United States telling school children to work hard and stay in school and make us all proud. That kind of criticism is certainly not what motivated a man elected to the U.S. House of Representatives--an adult who should know better--to make a complete assclown of himself on national television. That kind of criticism is not what motivated most of those tens of thousands who showed up to scream and wave signs picturing the President with a Hitler moustache or as the psychopathic villain from the last Batman film.

No. THAT criticism is all about race. And yes, it's based in racism.

I am old enough to remember the Civil Rights movement. I am old enough to remember the efforts to drive a stake through the heart of Jim Crow, and to give people of color equal access to the ballot box and the levers of political and economic power in this nation. I was there. And the eerie thing about this current ruckus is the way it's echoing the very tapes that were recorded in my memory back then.

For those of you too young to remember or too young to have lived through it, it might seem ludicrously unbelievable when I assert that yes, those are exactly the same things white people who opposed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were saying back then. Yes, seriously. And, just as they do today, they honestly believed that they were not being racist.

Yes, there were hard-core racists back then who were perfectly willing to admit that yes, it was about race, and yes, they were discriminating, and trying to protect institutionalized discrimination, against persons of color because they believed persons of color were somehow inferior. There's still a few of that creepy breed around today as well. But the majority of these wackjobs are entirely sincere in their assertion that it's NOT ABOUT RACE and they are NOT RACISTS!

They aren't being disingenuous when they claim this --they really believe it!

Because their definition of racism is an extremely narrow one:

It's only racism if I do something to actively discriminate against someone, or say something nasty about someone, explicitly because I want them to experience pain or suffering because they are a different race, and only if I know that's why I'm acting that way. Otherwise, it's not racism, you see.

They have had to narrow the definition of racism to this extent, because it is the only way to protect themselves from having to acknowledge some very unpleasant, negative things about themselves. By defining racism that narrowly, they can justify all their fear- and hate-based actions and utterances. It's not vile of me to speak or act thusly because I am not a racist.

In spite of the fact that my nasty, hate-based words or actions are rooted in a fear of Scary Brown People so visceral and so intrinsic to my own concept of self that I am not even aware of that fear, I cannot possibly be a racist. My reasons for vile speech and pusillanimous action are explainable by all kinds of other, entirely legitimate reasons.

But there is a perceptible difference between the kind of speech and actions that are rooted in rational conviction and manifested in passionate opposition, and the kind of speech and actions that are rooted in fear and manifested as hate. Each can use hyperbole. Each can use satire or mockery. Each can use emotional language. But the signature of hate is unmistakable, and the root of hate is fear.

It's not always fear of Scary Brown People. But it's invariably revealed in two words:

those people

As soon as you hear those two words or any reasonable facsimile thereof, you can be sure that the person uttering them has created an us/them construct in their mind. And when that us/them construct becomes integral to their concept of their self, and their sense of value and self-worth, 'them' becomes something to despise.

And as soon as what we despise starts to threaten us in any way, hate blossoms.

President Obama is a brown "them" for these white people. And they are being told that he threatens them. Threatens their wallets, threatens their religious beliefs, threatens their security. Worse! Because he IS a "them," he will inevitably enable OTHER brown "thems" to acquire illegitimate benefits that will increase the threat to an intolerable level.

No wonder they are hysterical with fear and hate. And yes, it is about race. And it is racist.

And I pity them. Living in hate and fear is not only incredibly tiring and unpleasant, it floods your body with stress hormones that damage your health and impair your ability to enjoy life.

They can deny that their hate is based on race by blaming it on the "threat." But that "threat" alone is not sufficient to send them into frothing convulsions of horror. Many of us felt a very real and very tangible threat under George W. Bush and his cabal of vicious and incompetent greedheads. We expressed ourselves strongly. We "hated" him, and some of us allowed ourselves to wallow in that hate to a degree that was probably unhealthy for us. But the threat he represented to us was not based in the color of his skin.

There are more people in the ranks of liberals who nourish a robust sense of humor, and more who have achieved a fairly good level of education and a broad view of history and society, than in the ranks of conservatives --this I believe. I don't assert it as a fact, but I'd stake quite a lot on that belief. And so we have an abundance of liberals who can communicate passionately and effectively, using tools like mockery and satire and hyperbole. It may sound like hate, but the visceral fear of a threatening "them" is not nearly as prevalent.

Remember: If "those people" hovers about the discourse, even off-stage, as it were --it's about race. And it's racism.

We need to be aware of that racism, based in fear, and how strong a motivator it is, and how effective a barrier against rational analysis and decision making. And we need to be aware of how sincerly these very racists believe that it's not about race, and it's not racism. No matter how clearly we point it out to them, no matter how cogently we draw the connection, they will not be brought to believe or acknowledge their own terror of the Scary Brown Other.

It's important to know this about them. Because unless we understand the terror that lurks unacknowledged at the base of their reptilian cortex, we can't parse their wild, irrational hatred.

They're doing an excellent job of exposing that hatred-- to the point where those who oppose President Obama's policies and actions for reasons other than racist terror are starting to draw back from them, and perceive the peril that lurks in alliance with them.

So much so that the most effective action we can take to counter their wild outbursts is to methodically and constantly pull out the reality checks. Apply them with humor and good nature, and yes, with a little passion as well-- but concentrate on getting the reality checks across, not on opposing the racist haters with a level of invective and fury to match their own.

And when they assert "It's not about race! It's not racism!!"-- shake our heads and politely disagree and, if we aspire to or have attained a sufficient level of spiritual growth, pity them.

Because it's about race. And yes, it's racism.

assertively,
Bright

Thoughts on the Class War
By buhdydharma

Never has the divide between the Ruling Class and the "Underclasses" been so transparent, so stark, and so great.

The debacle in Iraq and the torture arising from it has limned the Military Industrial Class. The Financial ruination the Economic Class has wrought has outlined them in a bright spotlight. The hypocrisy at the heart of the Religious and Cultural (including the media) Class, whose rhetoric is used to divide the "Underclasses" is being exposed. And of course the corruption of OUR government, government as owned by the Ruling Class is now glaringly obvious.

It is obvious in the battle for health care, and obvious in the financial crisis. It is obvious, and they are vulnerable, for one main reason, this time they are not just going after the "Lower" Classes, they have made the critical mistake of "going after" (affecting adversely to a grievous extent) the Middle Class as well.

Masses of people are now suffering at the hands of the system the Ruling Class has created to give them power and line their pockets. Foreclosure, unemployment, lack of good jobs and benefits for the employed and underemployed....and bill after bill of legislation for the Rich that ignores the plight, the plight that the Ruling Class created, of what they obviously consider to be literally the Lower Classes. The Health Care fight is just the most obvious and egregious battle of the Class War. But it can no longer be honestly denied.Class War is now out in the open.

This dynamic, this willingness of the one or two percent of the wealthiest Americans to screw the rest of America...and the world...merely to line their own pockets and increase their power touches literally every aspect of our lives. From the very personal aspects of getting decent affordable health care and to putting food on our families...to the greater spheres of politics, foreign policy and the survival of the planet itself.

The cultural controls and societal memes and conditioning are still effective in 'controlling' most of the GenPop, the "Underclasses"... and keeping them from uniting to even a small extent and rising up against The Ruling Class... are still in effect.

Except, perhaps, to some extent....among a burgeoning, hyper-informed online segment of the GenPop. Teh Bloggers. WE are, in our chaotic fashion, telling the story. Getting the word out, albeit in dribs and drabs, when no one else will

But there is one thing, one galvanizing force still missing. Just as we have discussed here to some extent with fighting for torture prosecutions...there is no unified narrative of what is happening in the Class War.

And of course that is where the media, or lack of it, comes in. With the death of Walter Cronkite and the media retrospectives that followed, we were reminded of his greatest contributions. Walter was the one who provided the narrative to the masses on two of the most important events of his time. The Vietnam war and Watergate. Ben Bradlee credits Walter, as highlighted in this piece, with pulling the narrative together and making it...well, real. Real to enough of the population that it could not be ignored or swept under the rug.

Today's media just does not do that. All of the stories of corruption and financial theft and the lies used to get us into iraq and the torture that followed are out there, But there is no one to pull them together into a comprehensive portrait of what has, and what is, really occurring in America.

A portrait that would make the Class War and all of its ancillary scandals and horrors into a narrative that cannot be ignored. That demands action. The larger picture is divided and diffused. Leaving the Underclasses divided and confused. And allowing the Ruling Class to not just continue the Class War that they are waging against us. to succeed, but also giving their PR armies time to do damage control, to seep the scandals under the rug and be minimized and forgotten.

Without a concerted effort by the one force they truly fear, the voice of the bloggers and their few but rapidly growing number of allies in government and the traditional media, the Ruling Class may succeed yet again in escaping the scrutiny they deserve. And the reforms to the system that are necessary not just to rein them in, but to break their hold on our economy, our media, and our government.

And incidentally...to prevent them from stopping efforts to save the planet from Climate Crisis before it is too late. For all of us. And our children.

The Ruling Class, the oligarchy/plutocracy have once again gone too far in their greed and exposed themselves. They are vulnerable. The new voices on the internet are doing a great job in exposing them and attempting to hold them accountable. But not yet quite good enough. The confusion and division they are so expert at sowing are still working, still preventing a clear narrative of the scope and tactics of their control of the economy and the government from emerging.

What more can we do to expose them? How can we weave the stories of groups like C Street and K Street and the MIC and the Banksters and their media pawns together into a compelling and powerful narrative that cannot be ignored?

How can we comprehensively expose how the current corrupt system works, and having exposed it, bring about the real Change that we need to finally realize the promise of American democracy and achieve true justice and equality for all?

It is perhaps, the true challenge of our time. It is certainly an opportunity, now that they are vulnerable and exposed, at least for the moment, that is just too essential to ALL of us to let pass.

Bend Over, Here It Comes Again...and Again and Again
By One Pissed Off Liberal

The ‘climate’ cap and trade bill is an insult. The h-ealthc-are ‘reform’ debacle is a joke. The ‘bail out’ is a rip-off. The promises made us by our own politicians are vapors in the wind. Jokes, insults, rip-offs and vaporous promises signifying nothing are all we get for all our troubles. Welcome to the United States of Goldman Sachs...and fuck us if we don’t like it.

Some say the cap and trade bill is a step in the right direction. Nope. It’s hocking a loogie in the right direction while continuing merrily down the path of planetary ecocide. How foolish can a supposedly intelligent species be? Don’t answer that. Congress answers it every day, and the answer is: foolish beyond all belief.

The h-ealthc-are reform kabuki (IMHO) is just another fraud perpetrated on the American people by their supposed representatives. How will we pay for it? Hmmm, we could give up a useless war or two. Those three trillion dollars would come in handy in lots of areas of American life about now. Or we could strip the obscene profits out of our so-called h-ealthc-are system thus saving hundreds of billions and paying for it wouldn’t even be a question...but hey, we can’t do that in a system where blood-sucking vultures are given preferential treatment over mere people, so forget that. Single payer? Nahhh, not fair to the vultures. How ‘bout a cheap bait-and-switch to a watered down public option instead? Now we’re talkin’. How ‘bout we just let the lobbyists and the blood-sucking vultures decide...as we normally do? Pure buttah.

The great bailout ripoff seems to have worked out pretty well for the better connected Wall Street banksta gangstas. They’re swimming in dough. Those million dollar bonuses have been saved and the DOW is up bigtime. Zippity doo dah! Oh happy day! Of course things aren’t going so swell for the rest of us as we continue to lose half a million jobs a month while our states go belly-up and middleclass wealth in the form of our homes melts away like so many polar ice caps, and our good-for-nothing congress critters continue to ruthlessly fuck us over at every turn. But things are looking up on Wall Street baby. Rejoice.

But there is some bad news on the economic scene (believe it or not). The oh-so-generous raise in the minimum rage is due to kick in. The smart people in charge of things are very concerned about the timing of it too. Can the economy stand it? Won’t it eat into the Wall Street bonuses? Something like this could end up giving aid and comfort to the American people wretched of the earth. This should be very concerning to us all.

Today I read that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is royally pissed off about our mistreatment (shall we say) of our detainees (shall we say). That took long enough didn’t it? Talk about a long fuse and a slow burn. Who rattled that fucker’s cage? He says it could result in the mistreatment of Americans who’ve been taken prisoner. Huh? Why hadn’t we thought of that before? Go figure.

Yep, the good news tsunami just keeps on coming and the mainstream media have completely lost their minds...along with the most of the rest of this infernal country. Michael Jackson? Still dead. Obama? Not born here. Legalize marijuana? Not on Obama’s watch. Prominent black man arrested in his own home? Good police work. H-ealthc-are reform? Socialism. What have the banksters done with the hundreds of billions they stole from us? Who knows? Who cares? Withdrawal from Iraq? On track for 2011 (or there abouts)...honest injun (you can believe us). Changing tactics in Afghanistan? Yep, gonna stop killing them and start protecting them (mostly by killing them). Gay rights? Yeah, you betcha (just don’t hold your breath). Michael Jackson? Still dead.

Please don’t let my cynicism discourage those of you who are courageously fighting the good fight. More power to you. I’m proud of you all. It is always appropriate, however hopeless it may seem, to try and do the right thing.

Sorry I don’t have anything more cheerful, helpful or hopeful to say...but look out...and bend over, here it comes again.

GOP-h-ealthc-are -OPOL