JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
By Jack Random
In 1989 the Loma Prieta earthquake brought down a section of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, weakening the structure to such an extent that rebuilding the 1936 monument to engineering was inevitable. When completed in 2013 the bridge, like virtually everything stocked in Wal-Mart, Target or any other mass merchandise chain, will bear on its underside the insignia: Made in China.
If ever there was a clear example of what is wrong with the American economy this is it. The state of California claims it will save $400 million on an estimated $7.2 billion project for its betrayal of American industry. The state does not say how much of that $400 million could have been saved by applying for federal funding which would have required the structure to employ American manufacturers.
Let it be clear: This has little to nothing to do with Free Trade. China can overcome the cost of transporting a bridge 6,500 miles not only because it employs cheap labor but also because the Chinese manufacturing industry is government owned and subsidized. If our government were to subsidize manufacturing it would be decried as a violation of the principles of Free Trade. Indeed, it would.
The fact is: Free Trade does not exist. International corporations and their proxies in government employ the principles of Free Trade selectively to justify labor exploitation and to maximize profits.
In the fantasy world of Free Trade all parties operate on an equal playing field according to the laws of supply and demand. In the real world everything a government does or fails to do creates imbalance. If government provides universal health care as they do in Europe it creates imbalance. If government provides incentives to drill for oil or produce ethanol it creates imbalance. If government guarantees a minimum standard of living wages and decent working conditions it creates imbalance. If government owns an industry and guarantees its success the imbalance is obvious. If it sanctions indentured servitude and neglects slave labor the imbalance is equally obvious.
The fact is: In a civilized world that recognizes the fundamental rights of labor, exploitation of labor is itself a subsidy and all nations that embrace those rights have a responsibility to punish nations that do not. They can do so by enforcing trade sanctions or by subsidizing their own industries.
In a perfect world, all merchants would enjoy equal opportunity while bearing equal responsibility. In the beginning there was equity. But then greed took hold and one merchant decided he could buy out the competition. Monopoly trumped free enterprise and the system became imbalanced and dysfunctional. Employers were empowered to require workers to work longer hours at lower wages under increasingly difficult conditions. Sweatshops and child labor became common. Retirement and medical assistance were nonexistent. If a worker was hurt on the job he became unemployed.
As the abuses mounted it became mandatory for a democratic government to act. Child labor was banned, working standards were mandated, and minimum wage was instituted. Monopolies were broken apart to restore competitive balance and workers gained the right to organize. Unions became the counterbalance to the power of big business.
The system flourished. For the first time in history, working people joined in the prosperity of the nation, laying the foundation for a middle class. Working people were empowered to buy goods and services beyond the necessities of life. Each generation looked forward to a better standard of living for the next. Businesses prospered on middle class consumption.
Social Security and Medicare answered a basic need while relieving employers of the burden.
The system worked not because businesses, industries and corporations were allowed to do as they pleased but because unions and government struck an equitable balance.
Now we have lost the balance because one party decided to serve their corporate masters exclusively and the only viable alternative decided it was easier to go along than to fight for the working people. When the economy went global it provided an opportunity to reset the table and labor was not invited. We no longer hear the term Monopoly but now we have corporations that are considered too big to fail. We have politicians who would prefer to see the economy collapse and working people suffer if it will give them a competitive advantage in the next election. We have governments at the state level declaring war on unions even though organized labor is but a whisper of the roar it once was. We have bipartisan agreement that the national debt is our dominant priority though real unemployment exceeds ten percent and those jobs that are available no longer offer a living wage.
We are badly out of balance and our government is as dysfunctional as our economic system. We are sustaining wars on multiple fronts while we are being told there is no choice but to welcome an age of austerity.
In the case of the Bay Bridge, the deal with China was struck in 2006 when the economy was relatively strong. The federal government was willing to make up at least some of the difference by subsidizing the project but the state of California under the leadership of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger placed no value on American jobs and American workers. Schwarzenegger and his co-conspirators in government ran the state like a corporation and corporations have no values, no sense of justice, and no principles of fair play.
As a result, when the new Bay Bridge is opened for business it will represent far more than a triumph of engineering; it will symbolize the systematic degradation of our economy. It will stand as a monument to the corporate world of greed and profiteering. It will be a magnificent memorial to the once-prospering middle class.
It will be a bridge to the age of austerity. In other nations it has begun in earnest and the people have taken to the streets in protest by the tens and hundreds of thousands. In other nations they have come to the realization that they were sold a bill of goods. They have watched the moneychangers run their economies into the ground while they escaped with all the loot. The ordinary working people are angry, fed up, and they are not going to take it lying down. What is happening now in Greece and Spain is a preview of what will happen in America if the austerity hysterics have their way.
When will we begin to wake up? When will we realize that we are all in this together? When California turns its back on workers in the steel mills of Michigan, we all lose. When union busting becomes a government mandate, working itself from state to state, every worker in America loses.
When our elected officials throw up their hands and claim they can do nothing about the exportation of our jobs to cheap labor markets because the capitalist bible of Free Trade economics forbids it, we must ask ourselves: Whom do they really represent?
We are at a crossroad. What we do now may well determine the kind of world future generations will inherit. Will it be a world in which only the wealthy can pursue higher education? Will it be a world that sacrifices the elderly and infirm so the elite can enjoy ever-lower tax rates? Will it be a world in which fathers and mothers must work two jobs just to pay down the debt?
Yes, we are at a crossroad and the only real power we have left is the vote. If we choose to squander it on politicians who preach austerity and raise the flag of Free Trade, then our cause is lost and our future is bleak.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Friday, July 01, 2011
Monday, June 06, 2011
SLEEPING WITH THE DEVIL: The Mideast Democracy Movement
JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
By Jack Random
Since our emergence as a world power we as a nation have all too often been willing to partner with dictators and tyrants to further our financial or strategic interests. We have formed alliances with some of the worst characters in modern history, from Pinochet to the Shah of Iran, from Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden. Sleep with the devil and it’s bound to leave a mark on the progeny.
With the emergence of a youth inspired movement toward democracy in the Middle East, we have an opportunity to right our course and begin to make amends.
There is nothing easy about the way forward for while the urge to help in the cause of democracy is powerful it is often not clear whom we should be supporting. It is the cause that must move us and not the players. We are in a bind not only in the Middle East but throughout the world because we chose expedience over principle. We need not and should not repeat that pattern of shortsighted policy.
It is entirely possible if not probable that some of the freedom fighters in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere are allies of our enemies. That is to a large extent our own legacy and our penance is to support democracy regardless.
The Bush administration infamously failed the test in Palestine when the White House pushed for elections only to disavow them when the results did not meet with our expectations. Like nearly everything the Bush team touched, it was a blunder for which we are still paying.
President Obama, for all the criticism heaped upon him from the left and the right, has attempted to strike a balance. He will not forget the Palestinian people any more than he will neglect the Israelis. His initiative has made abundantly clear what we ought to have already known: There will be no peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as long as Benjamin Netanyahu is Prime Minister of Israel. Netanyahu may gather applause in a Republican congress but the Israeli people must recognize his failure to lead. It falls to the people now to replace him. That is the price of democracy and we must honor it. We can only hope to hold the aggressive elements of both parties in check until a new leader is chosen.
What the events of the Middle East are teaching us is that it is always bad policy to support dictators and oppressors. While such policies may disguise themselves under shrouds of sophistication they are shortsighted and naïve.
The desire of the people for self-determination cannot ultimately be denied. To stand in opposition is to be on the wrong side of history.
Get on board or be left behind.
This is not the time for hand wringing and cautionary tales. If we are to retain any self-respect in this rapidly evolving world, we must lend a hand. If we cannot join the people on the streets of protest, we can at least applaud them from where we sit. We can call out attempts to subvert the cause or disrupt the march to democracy. We can spread the word and keep the story alive. We can push our governments to do the right thing by supporting the people.
If in fact the events in the Middle East can be traced to the words and organization of a handful of activists on the worldwide web, then the dream is alive and all things on heaven and earth are possible. Little wonder the world’s established hierarchy of power is trembling at the prospects. Nothing frightens the elite more than democracy in action, democracy taken literally, democracy spreading like a blazing fire, democracy from the ground up.
This is not what they intended when they summoned the cry of democracy to justify their wars for oil. Democracy was only a word then, just a pleasant thought for the peasants to ponder, just a dream, a passing fancy and nothing at all to worry about.
As the cry now moves from Tunis to Tripoli, from Cairo to Manama, from Sana’a to Amman and from Damascus to Jerusalem, the ruling class has something very tangible to worry about. The gate is open and the march is on.
Write it up as yet another example of the law of unintended consequences. Greed and opportunity led the corporate dynasties to push the economic system beyond its capacity for profit. A global collapse could only be averted with a massive infusion of capital from the pockets of the working people. The resultant depreciation of currency contributed to a worldwide food crisis. When families can no longer afford to put food on the table, people take to the streets and frustration grows into movements and real systemic change is not only possible but mandatory.
Say what you will, doubt them at your own peril, these young dissidents of oppressed nations have already achieved more than the Paris youth rebellion of 1968, the Summer of Love 1969 and the largest antiwar protest in history on the eve of the Iraq War. They have affected real change. They have accomplished what we can only dream.
More than anything else, these events should serve as a reminder of the power and inevitability of democracy. Born of the individual and collective drive to control one’s own destiny, democracy is like the wind: You may find it discomforting, you may find it disturbing but you cannot deny it. You can only seek shelter from the storm.
All these rightwing Neocons who could not resist their knee-jerk support of all wars in the initial stages of this movement have since backtracked for fear that we cannot control the outcomes. Newsflash: If your support of democracy is contingent on outcome (for example, the 2000 election), then you do not support democracy at all.
Anyone who studies history knows that we as a nation have rarely supported democracies in their march to independence. At best we have been indifferent. At worst we have actively supported the despots who stood in the way.
We may never know exactly what was intended in Iraq but what we bought at an extraordinary price was a lasting antagonism, an unpaid debt and a bloody dagger of revenge. What we will leave in Afghanistan, if indeed we are ever able to extract ourselves from that nightmare, is a compounding of that debt.
It will require a great deal of time and effort to pay down that debt but we can begin now by ushering in a new era of unwavering support for freedom, democracy and human rights.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
By Jack Random
Since our emergence as a world power we as a nation have all too often been willing to partner with dictators and tyrants to further our financial or strategic interests. We have formed alliances with some of the worst characters in modern history, from Pinochet to the Shah of Iran, from Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden. Sleep with the devil and it’s bound to leave a mark on the progeny.
With the emergence of a youth inspired movement toward democracy in the Middle East, we have an opportunity to right our course and begin to make amends.
There is nothing easy about the way forward for while the urge to help in the cause of democracy is powerful it is often not clear whom we should be supporting. It is the cause that must move us and not the players. We are in a bind not only in the Middle East but throughout the world because we chose expedience over principle. We need not and should not repeat that pattern of shortsighted policy.
It is entirely possible if not probable that some of the freedom fighters in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere are allies of our enemies. That is to a large extent our own legacy and our penance is to support democracy regardless.
The Bush administration infamously failed the test in Palestine when the White House pushed for elections only to disavow them when the results did not meet with our expectations. Like nearly everything the Bush team touched, it was a blunder for which we are still paying.
President Obama, for all the criticism heaped upon him from the left and the right, has attempted to strike a balance. He will not forget the Palestinian people any more than he will neglect the Israelis. His initiative has made abundantly clear what we ought to have already known: There will be no peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as long as Benjamin Netanyahu is Prime Minister of Israel. Netanyahu may gather applause in a Republican congress but the Israeli people must recognize his failure to lead. It falls to the people now to replace him. That is the price of democracy and we must honor it. We can only hope to hold the aggressive elements of both parties in check until a new leader is chosen.
What the events of the Middle East are teaching us is that it is always bad policy to support dictators and oppressors. While such policies may disguise themselves under shrouds of sophistication they are shortsighted and naïve.
The desire of the people for self-determination cannot ultimately be denied. To stand in opposition is to be on the wrong side of history.
Get on board or be left behind.
This is not the time for hand wringing and cautionary tales. If we are to retain any self-respect in this rapidly evolving world, we must lend a hand. If we cannot join the people on the streets of protest, we can at least applaud them from where we sit. We can call out attempts to subvert the cause or disrupt the march to democracy. We can spread the word and keep the story alive. We can push our governments to do the right thing by supporting the people.
If in fact the events in the Middle East can be traced to the words and organization of a handful of activists on the worldwide web, then the dream is alive and all things on heaven and earth are possible. Little wonder the world’s established hierarchy of power is trembling at the prospects. Nothing frightens the elite more than democracy in action, democracy taken literally, democracy spreading like a blazing fire, democracy from the ground up.
This is not what they intended when they summoned the cry of democracy to justify their wars for oil. Democracy was only a word then, just a pleasant thought for the peasants to ponder, just a dream, a passing fancy and nothing at all to worry about.
As the cry now moves from Tunis to Tripoli, from Cairo to Manama, from Sana’a to Amman and from Damascus to Jerusalem, the ruling class has something very tangible to worry about. The gate is open and the march is on.
Write it up as yet another example of the law of unintended consequences. Greed and opportunity led the corporate dynasties to push the economic system beyond its capacity for profit. A global collapse could only be averted with a massive infusion of capital from the pockets of the working people. The resultant depreciation of currency contributed to a worldwide food crisis. When families can no longer afford to put food on the table, people take to the streets and frustration grows into movements and real systemic change is not only possible but mandatory.
Say what you will, doubt them at your own peril, these young dissidents of oppressed nations have already achieved more than the Paris youth rebellion of 1968, the Summer of Love 1969 and the largest antiwar protest in history on the eve of the Iraq War. They have affected real change. They have accomplished what we can only dream.
More than anything else, these events should serve as a reminder of the power and inevitability of democracy. Born of the individual and collective drive to control one’s own destiny, democracy is like the wind: You may find it discomforting, you may find it disturbing but you cannot deny it. You can only seek shelter from the storm.
All these rightwing Neocons who could not resist their knee-jerk support of all wars in the initial stages of this movement have since backtracked for fear that we cannot control the outcomes. Newsflash: If your support of democracy is contingent on outcome (for example, the 2000 election), then you do not support democracy at all.
Anyone who studies history knows that we as a nation have rarely supported democracies in their march to independence. At best we have been indifferent. At worst we have actively supported the despots who stood in the way.
We may never know exactly what was intended in Iraq but what we bought at an extraordinary price was a lasting antagonism, an unpaid debt and a bloody dagger of revenge. What we will leave in Afghanistan, if indeed we are ever able to extract ourselves from that nightmare, is a compounding of that debt.
It will require a great deal of time and effort to pay down that debt but we can begin now by ushering in a new era of unwavering support for freedom, democracy and human rights.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
TAKING BACK YOUR PARTY
A PLEA FOR MODERATION BY BILL PEACH
[Editor's Note: This writer hails from Nashville, Tennessee.]
In 2004, Christie Todd Whitman, published a book titled It’s My Party Too. She had been governor of New Jersey and head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Christie, a member of a distinguished and wealthy eastern Republican family, resigned her position in the Bush administration because “fundamentalist ideologues substituted right-wing doctrine for science.” She believed the Republican Party had been taken over by “social fundamentalists.”
I cannot speak for Republicans, but I feel their pain. I campaigned for George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy during racial strife and opposition to war. I understand the frustration of a divided political party. Ideas that I did not see as radical or revolutionary were not ideas embraced by moderate Democrat and independent voters. I have since been more main stream in the elections of moderates and pragmatists -- Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
A few weeks ago, the Williamson County Republican Party invited and hosted Geert Wilders for a meet and greet at party headquarters prior to his rally at the Cornerstone Church in Nashville. He came under the aegis of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition, a group with a radical image not compatible with local Republican politics. I don’t know if the local party leaders consulted the membership, but the event brought national exposure and evoked some concern and disaffection among moderate Republicans.
Those of us who embrace the principles of Democratic politics have finally found a unity within our own party. Once labeled as liberal or progressive, which none of us found offensive, we have again become the party of the political center. The most evident rebirth of democracy came in support of the students, parents, and teachers of public education. It emerged dramatically in New York, in one Congressional district, in an unprecedented upset, possibly because of a single issue. The once moderate Republican has been alienated by the movement that shattered the party.
My concerns have been primarily with the Tennessee Legislature. I spent 24 years on two school boards. We have always opposed random pieces of legislation that were simple errors in judgment, not in the best interests of classroom instruction or student performance. This session seems to have been a calculated attack on public education.
We would like to believe that the five or six Republican members of the House and Senate who drafted and introduced recent legislation were isolated anomalies from a move to privatize or abolish public education. The movement is not unique to Tennessee, and extends beyond the misinterpretation of American history.
None of us, Republican or Democrat, want to cry wolf, or be prophets of doom, or purveyors of conspiracy theories. This shift of political power is not a threat to the Democratic Party; it could be the return ticket to majority status. Politically we should strategically welcome it. However, it does not bode well for the integrity or future of the Republican Party, nor does it enhance the well-being of American politics.
Whatever this phenomenon is, it did not happen overnight. We can’t blame it on President Bush or President Obama, or the deficit, or the debt, or three wars. The movement has not addressed economic ills, or jobs, or Main Street, or small business. We will address those eventually, but for now we are forced to endure the folly of distraction, and partisan allegiance to corporate and social ideology.
We have created a monster. I think President Eisenhower may have been the visionary who saw this coming. His experience in Europe had taught him that the rise of extreme movements was not unique to time or place. Authoritarianism could take root anywhere, even in America. This movement has roots in the McCarthy era in a mood of extreme nationalism and fear, intensified by ostentatious religious zealotry.
There are many names that were early players in the abduction of the Republican Party and the Christian faith. R. J. Rushdoony and Robert Welch of the John Birch Society were forerunners of the Religious Right and the sequential images of Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins, Grover Norquist, Richard Viguerie, Irving and William Kristol, Tim LaHaye, and Pat Robertson. The establishment of “the private schools for the white students” or “seg academies” as we called them, followed Brown v. Board of Education, almost sixty years ago.
But even now, I sense a “distrust of democracy.” There is organized opposition to public education, women’s rights, small business, religious freedom, health care, and voting rights. There is revisionist denial of slavery, a renewal of primitive fundamentalist ideology, and a misguided plea for “God’s government” defined by standards of extremism and intolerance of the fifties, and a cultural vengeance in a penal code derived from the laws of Leviticus.
I watch an “intrusive government” invade the heart, the mind and the body. I hear words of hatred and religious intolerance from voices that bring ignominy to our tradition of faith. I see efforts to reverse the march of freedom in the work place. I am still optimistic that both parties, Republican and Democratic, will speak in opposition to extremism. It may take two or more election cycles, but I think the moderates will return and take back their party, and conservative sanity will find some viability slightly right of center, and restore a two-party system about which we will feel no need for apology.
Bill Peach
615-306-1731
billpeach@att.net
Politics, Preaching & Philosophy
http://billpeach.wordpress.com/
[Editor's Note: This writer hails from Nashville, Tennessee.]
In 2004, Christie Todd Whitman, published a book titled It’s My Party Too. She had been governor of New Jersey and head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Christie, a member of a distinguished and wealthy eastern Republican family, resigned her position in the Bush administration because “fundamentalist ideologues substituted right-wing doctrine for science.” She believed the Republican Party had been taken over by “social fundamentalists.”
I cannot speak for Republicans, but I feel their pain. I campaigned for George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy during racial strife and opposition to war. I understand the frustration of a divided political party. Ideas that I did not see as radical or revolutionary were not ideas embraced by moderate Democrat and independent voters. I have since been more main stream in the elections of moderates and pragmatists -- Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
A few weeks ago, the Williamson County Republican Party invited and hosted Geert Wilders for a meet and greet at party headquarters prior to his rally at the Cornerstone Church in Nashville. He came under the aegis of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition, a group with a radical image not compatible with local Republican politics. I don’t know if the local party leaders consulted the membership, but the event brought national exposure and evoked some concern and disaffection among moderate Republicans.
Those of us who embrace the principles of Democratic politics have finally found a unity within our own party. Once labeled as liberal or progressive, which none of us found offensive, we have again become the party of the political center. The most evident rebirth of democracy came in support of the students, parents, and teachers of public education. It emerged dramatically in New York, in one Congressional district, in an unprecedented upset, possibly because of a single issue. The once moderate Republican has been alienated by the movement that shattered the party.
My concerns have been primarily with the Tennessee Legislature. I spent 24 years on two school boards. We have always opposed random pieces of legislation that were simple errors in judgment, not in the best interests of classroom instruction or student performance. This session seems to have been a calculated attack on public education.
We would like to believe that the five or six Republican members of the House and Senate who drafted and introduced recent legislation were isolated anomalies from a move to privatize or abolish public education. The movement is not unique to Tennessee, and extends beyond the misinterpretation of American history.
None of us, Republican or Democrat, want to cry wolf, or be prophets of doom, or purveyors of conspiracy theories. This shift of political power is not a threat to the Democratic Party; it could be the return ticket to majority status. Politically we should strategically welcome it. However, it does not bode well for the integrity or future of the Republican Party, nor does it enhance the well-being of American politics.
Whatever this phenomenon is, it did not happen overnight. We can’t blame it on President Bush or President Obama, or the deficit, or the debt, or three wars. The movement has not addressed economic ills, or jobs, or Main Street, or small business. We will address those eventually, but for now we are forced to endure the folly of distraction, and partisan allegiance to corporate and social ideology.
We have created a monster. I think President Eisenhower may have been the visionary who saw this coming. His experience in Europe had taught him that the rise of extreme movements was not unique to time or place. Authoritarianism could take root anywhere, even in America. This movement has roots in the McCarthy era in a mood of extreme nationalism and fear, intensified by ostentatious religious zealotry.
There are many names that were early players in the abduction of the Republican Party and the Christian faith. R. J. Rushdoony and Robert Welch of the John Birch Society were forerunners of the Religious Right and the sequential images of Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins, Grover Norquist, Richard Viguerie, Irving and William Kristol, Tim LaHaye, and Pat Robertson. The establishment of “the private schools for the white students” or “seg academies” as we called them, followed Brown v. Board of Education, almost sixty years ago.
But even now, I sense a “distrust of democracy.” There is organized opposition to public education, women’s rights, small business, religious freedom, health care, and voting rights. There is revisionist denial of slavery, a renewal of primitive fundamentalist ideology, and a misguided plea for “God’s government” defined by standards of extremism and intolerance of the fifties, and a cultural vengeance in a penal code derived from the laws of Leviticus.
I watch an “intrusive government” invade the heart, the mind and the body. I hear words of hatred and religious intolerance from voices that bring ignominy to our tradition of faith. I see efforts to reverse the march of freedom in the work place. I am still optimistic that both parties, Republican and Democratic, will speak in opposition to extremism. It may take two or more election cycles, but I think the moderates will return and take back their party, and conservative sanity will find some viability slightly right of center, and restore a two-party system about which we will feel no need for apology.
Bill Peach
615-306-1731
billpeach@att.net
Politics, Preaching & Philosophy
http://billpeach.wordpress.com/
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Take Your War Away From Me
by Chris Mansel
here's to the aged and to the ill
who can't afford their medical bills
to the protester being beaten
voicing his opinion up a great big hill
to the Iranian child who has no idea
where america begins and Iraq ends
if I were an immigrant in a Haitian land
I'd be surviving however I could stand
on the Ivory Coast where oil does flow
I'd be wondering when the money will show
Darfur, Darfur wait for the rallying cry
how pathetic is it when its fashionable
when people die
air strikes always level the wrong ground
you can hear them like a screaming sound
we talk about the promises the government made
helicopters used to bring aid, now raids
stack rubble to the sky it won't hold a window
the dead of the world are more than just shadows
chorus:
take my land but don't take my life
don't burn my house in the middle of the night
please take your war away from me
please take your war away from me
Chris Mansel
here's to the aged and to the ill
who can't afford their medical bills
to the protester being beaten
voicing his opinion up a great big hill
to the Iranian child who has no idea
where america begins and Iraq ends
if I were an immigrant in a Haitian land
I'd be surviving however I could stand
on the Ivory Coast where oil does flow
I'd be wondering when the money will show
Darfur, Darfur wait for the rallying cry
how pathetic is it when its fashionable
when people die
air strikes always level the wrong ground
you can hear them like a screaming sound
we talk about the promises the government made
helicopters used to bring aid, now raids
stack rubble to the sky it won't hold a window
the dead of the world are more than just shadows
chorus:
take my land but don't take my life
don't burn my house in the middle of the night
please take your war away from me
please take your war away from me
Chris Mansel
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Jake's Word: Shut it Down!
[Editor's Note: This is Jake Berry's response to the latest Jazzman Chronicle: Shut it Down! The Irrational Rage of Willful Ignorance - reprinted below.]
One of your best screeds ever. Right on target. You sound like you've been living in the South all your life.
That is what all of this hogwash passing for politics is - old school Southern politics. It basically comes down to a simple equation: If you have a problem it is someone else's fault. The solution is to destroy this fantasy chimera even if it kills you and your children and their children in the process. Someone else is always to blame.
Freedom means liberty and responsibility. Everyone wants freedom. Freedom to get rich or die trying. Freedom to curse your neighbor one minute and pray for him the next. Freedom to do whatever you damn well please and blame someone else for the damage you do.
I agree with you. Let it crash and burn. It seems to be the only way we'll ever recover from subservience to the golden calf of Wall Street and the loud and proud stupidity of those who are so desperate to vote against their own best interests.
Too bad. While it may be true that all empires eventually crumble, the U.S. doesn't have to shut down just yet. But if that is what the people want, then give them what they want. They'll find someone to blame.
Rave on brother. We listen and learn.
Jake
A JAZZMAN CHRONICLE. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
SHUT IT DOWN!
THE IRRATIONAL RAGE OF WILLFUL IGNORANCE
By Jack Random
“Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do you? Go ahead, make my day.”
Harry Callahan, Sudden Impact (1983)
Late Friday night the word came down that congress made a deal with the White House to avert a government shutdown. Too bad. If history teaches us anything it is that the American electorate does not believe in close calls.
In the last hour of the Bush administration, when congress was compelled to hand over billions to Wall Street in order to avoid a global economic meltdown, you would have thought we learned a lesson. We did not. We watched as the government reinstated the same catastrophic policies that placed us at the brink of catastrophic implosion.
We learned nothing. We continue to vent our rage at anyone but the criminal party. We continue to vote for pandering politicians who claim that government is the problem. We continue to support policies that favor the corporate elite.
I am reminded of the man who shot himself in the foot to cure a bunion. Seeing the damage the doctor said: Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t have a headache.
At some point we have to come to terms with the fact that we are a republic, a representative democracy, and therefore we are ultimately responsible for the actions of our elected officials. We enable them. We instruct them to get right back on that runaway train and point it straight over the cliff.
Feeling lucky, punk? Go ahead, make my day!
We all lived through the Bush years yet we are still listening to the same foreign policy geniuses that blundered their way into two losing wars in the Middle East. (If you thought we won in Iraq, check back in five years: Iran won the war and we were the biggest losers outside of the Iraqis.)
We all watched the free trade, free enterprise, free market economic purists drive us to the precipice of a great depression yet here we are doubling down on the same policies that created the crisis.
Like a compulsive gambler who’s been days too long at the tables, we’ve decided gambling is not the problem. It’s all a matter of timing. This time it will all work out. We’ll draw the lucky ace of spades and break the bank running.
Why shouldn’t it work out? Last time around it worked just fine for the CEO’s and the wealthy shareholders. They got to keep our money while we got our homes foreclosed, our jobs shipped out, our unions busted, our rights nullified and our wages cut to the bone.
Voices on the left who are not afraid of summoning phrases like social good and income inequality must be growing tired to death reminding people who work for a living that the parties in power do not represent our interests, the Tea Party least of all. They must grow tired defending the ineffectual Democrats over the offensive Republicans on the ever-diminishing grounds of least harm.
It’s like turning to the Don’s accountant to resolve the problems of the Don.
I know I’ve grown tired, damned tired, and I feel I’m down to two choices: Vent or walk away.
So go ahead, fellow voters, make my day: Shut it down! Let’s get a good look at life without the government. Let’s go back to square one. Let’s get back to the days of America’s greatness! Let’s have an industrial age without industry! Let’s work for lower pay! Let there be no safety standards, no inspectors, no regulation or oversight. If people die, so be it. It’s the cost of doing business. We have too many people anyway. Let a few thousand or million perish at the hands of the industrial machine. There will be more for the rest of us!
Why half measures? Let’s give all the money and all the resources to the elite. They’re better educated and nicer looking. They know how to behave themselves at dinner parties. Let them have it all and let the rest of us live in accordance with their wishes. What’s good for Wall Street is good for Pennsylvania Avenue!
Let them dig for oil in the national parks. Let them burn coal until the skies block the sun! Let them mark the way to the next mass extinction. Let them fight wars for oil and water and uranium with the blood of our working sons and daughters!
Go ahead, decimate social security, scrap Medicare and bring back a time where child labor is not only possible but necessary! Bring back squalor and recklessness in the workplace! Bring back segregated schools and reserve higher learning for the wealthiest elite.
Go ahead, let them have it all but don’t you dare say you did it for your children. You sold the children out along with the rest of us so at least have the courage to say so: You did it because you didn’t want to pay your fair share.
At least have the foresight to know your children and grandchildren will curse you for your selfish folly.
Go ahead, shut it down, let it crash and burn! But then, when it’s all done and the destruction has moved across the land like waves of a tsunami, have the decency to stand aside and let those who saw it coming and sounded a warning in vain, build a new world from the ashes of a fallen empire.
Let that be your final legacy.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
One of your best screeds ever. Right on target. You sound like you've been living in the South all your life.
That is what all of this hogwash passing for politics is - old school Southern politics. It basically comes down to a simple equation: If you have a problem it is someone else's fault. The solution is to destroy this fantasy chimera even if it kills you and your children and their children in the process. Someone else is always to blame.
Freedom means liberty and responsibility. Everyone wants freedom. Freedom to get rich or die trying. Freedom to curse your neighbor one minute and pray for him the next. Freedom to do whatever you damn well please and blame someone else for the damage you do.
I agree with you. Let it crash and burn. It seems to be the only way we'll ever recover from subservience to the golden calf of Wall Street and the loud and proud stupidity of those who are so desperate to vote against their own best interests.
Too bad. While it may be true that all empires eventually crumble, the U.S. doesn't have to shut down just yet. But if that is what the people want, then give them what they want. They'll find someone to blame.
Rave on brother. We listen and learn.
Jake
A JAZZMAN CHRONICLE. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
SHUT IT DOWN!
THE IRRATIONAL RAGE OF WILLFUL IGNORANCE
By Jack Random
“Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do you? Go ahead, make my day.”
Harry Callahan, Sudden Impact (1983)
Late Friday night the word came down that congress made a deal with the White House to avert a government shutdown. Too bad. If history teaches us anything it is that the American electorate does not believe in close calls.
In the last hour of the Bush administration, when congress was compelled to hand over billions to Wall Street in order to avoid a global economic meltdown, you would have thought we learned a lesson. We did not. We watched as the government reinstated the same catastrophic policies that placed us at the brink of catastrophic implosion.
We learned nothing. We continue to vent our rage at anyone but the criminal party. We continue to vote for pandering politicians who claim that government is the problem. We continue to support policies that favor the corporate elite.
I am reminded of the man who shot himself in the foot to cure a bunion. Seeing the damage the doctor said: Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t have a headache.
At some point we have to come to terms with the fact that we are a republic, a representative democracy, and therefore we are ultimately responsible for the actions of our elected officials. We enable them. We instruct them to get right back on that runaway train and point it straight over the cliff.
Feeling lucky, punk? Go ahead, make my day!
We all lived through the Bush years yet we are still listening to the same foreign policy geniuses that blundered their way into two losing wars in the Middle East. (If you thought we won in Iraq, check back in five years: Iran won the war and we were the biggest losers outside of the Iraqis.)
We all watched the free trade, free enterprise, free market economic purists drive us to the precipice of a great depression yet here we are doubling down on the same policies that created the crisis.
Like a compulsive gambler who’s been days too long at the tables, we’ve decided gambling is not the problem. It’s all a matter of timing. This time it will all work out. We’ll draw the lucky ace of spades and break the bank running.
Why shouldn’t it work out? Last time around it worked just fine for the CEO’s and the wealthy shareholders. They got to keep our money while we got our homes foreclosed, our jobs shipped out, our unions busted, our rights nullified and our wages cut to the bone.
Voices on the left who are not afraid of summoning phrases like social good and income inequality must be growing tired to death reminding people who work for a living that the parties in power do not represent our interests, the Tea Party least of all. They must grow tired defending the ineffectual Democrats over the offensive Republicans on the ever-diminishing grounds of least harm.
It’s like turning to the Don’s accountant to resolve the problems of the Don.
I know I’ve grown tired, damned tired, and I feel I’m down to two choices: Vent or walk away.
So go ahead, fellow voters, make my day: Shut it down! Let’s get a good look at life without the government. Let’s go back to square one. Let’s get back to the days of America’s greatness! Let’s have an industrial age without industry! Let’s work for lower pay! Let there be no safety standards, no inspectors, no regulation or oversight. If people die, so be it. It’s the cost of doing business. We have too many people anyway. Let a few thousand or million perish at the hands of the industrial machine. There will be more for the rest of us!
Why half measures? Let’s give all the money and all the resources to the elite. They’re better educated and nicer looking. They know how to behave themselves at dinner parties. Let them have it all and let the rest of us live in accordance with their wishes. What’s good for Wall Street is good for Pennsylvania Avenue!
Let them dig for oil in the national parks. Let them burn coal until the skies block the sun! Let them mark the way to the next mass extinction. Let them fight wars for oil and water and uranium with the blood of our working sons and daughters!
Go ahead, decimate social security, scrap Medicare and bring back a time where child labor is not only possible but necessary! Bring back squalor and recklessness in the workplace! Bring back segregated schools and reserve higher learning for the wealthiest elite.
Go ahead, let them have it all but don’t you dare say you did it for your children. You sold the children out along with the rest of us so at least have the courage to say so: You did it because you didn’t want to pay your fair share.
At least have the foresight to know your children and grandchildren will curse you for your selfish folly.
Go ahead, shut it down, let it crash and burn! But then, when it’s all done and the destruction has moved across the land like waves of a tsunami, have the decency to stand aside and let those who saw it coming and sounded a warning in vain, build a new world from the ashes of a fallen empire.
Let that be your final legacy.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
REMEMBERING BASEBALL & BRYAN STOW
(Please send out to as many people as you can)
To All Sports Fans,
We should all be thinking a lot about Bryan Stow, the Giants fan who is in a coma right now after being attacked after a game. This Monday night, the Giants and Dodgers will begin a second series, this time in San Francisco. But this issue has nothing to do with the Giants or the Dodgers. It’s about what it means to be a fan.
We all come out to watch the game of baseball to support our teams, to have a great time at the ballpark, and to remember and pay homage to the childhood wonder that we all felt growing up watching our heroes play. For me, being a fan is about knowing that I see the game exactly how my dad taught me to… even a little bit clearer (just like he always knew that I would). It’s about looking up with my little brothers and telling him that the Giants finally won it all! (And knowing he’s celebrating wherever he is.)
But to those fans who see yourselves as something like rival gang/club members protecting the honor of your teams, with violence if necessary, please know that you are missing the point, and you are truly disgracing your heroes. Giants fans out there talking about REVENGE for Bryan Stow, you are just as misled and in need of a look in the mirror as those FEW Dodgers fans who committed this crime in the first place, whether you act on it or not. And I hope a few of you are offended by me saying that because you absolutely need to think about the feelings and thoughts that resulted in that man being forced to fight for his life his life right now.
I mean I Haaaaaaaaaaate the Dodgers. Lol. But I why in the world should that extend to their fans??? Somewhere there is a Dodger fan with the EXACT same story as mine. A Dodger fan raises his hands just as high as a Giants fan when his team is doing well, and for the same reasons. The same goes for fans of the Yankees and Red Sox. We all just want to someday turn to our children, holding a ballpark hotdog, and watch with a smile as they experience the game for the first time.
So Monday night, regardless of the score at the end of the game, if you should come across a rival fan, look him in the eyes and tip your cap, (you can even refuse to smile if you like. lol), and give a fellow Sports Fan the respect that you both deserve.
John Miller
To All Sports Fans,
We should all be thinking a lot about Bryan Stow, the Giants fan who is in a coma right now after being attacked after a game. This Monday night, the Giants and Dodgers will begin a second series, this time in San Francisco. But this issue has nothing to do with the Giants or the Dodgers. It’s about what it means to be a fan.
We all come out to watch the game of baseball to support our teams, to have a great time at the ballpark, and to remember and pay homage to the childhood wonder that we all felt growing up watching our heroes play. For me, being a fan is about knowing that I see the game exactly how my dad taught me to… even a little bit clearer (just like he always knew that I would). It’s about looking up with my little brothers and telling him that the Giants finally won it all! (And knowing he’s celebrating wherever he is.)
But to those fans who see yourselves as something like rival gang/club members protecting the honor of your teams, with violence if necessary, please know that you are missing the point, and you are truly disgracing your heroes. Giants fans out there talking about REVENGE for Bryan Stow, you are just as misled and in need of a look in the mirror as those FEW Dodgers fans who committed this crime in the first place, whether you act on it or not. And I hope a few of you are offended by me saying that because you absolutely need to think about the feelings and thoughts that resulted in that man being forced to fight for his life his life right now.
I mean I Haaaaaaaaaaate the Dodgers. Lol. But I why in the world should that extend to their fans??? Somewhere there is a Dodger fan with the EXACT same story as mine. A Dodger fan raises his hands just as high as a Giants fan when his team is doing well, and for the same reasons. The same goes for fans of the Yankees and Red Sox. We all just want to someday turn to our children, holding a ballpark hotdog, and watch with a smile as they experience the game for the first time.
So Monday night, regardless of the score at the end of the game, if you should come across a rival fan, look him in the eyes and tip your cap, (you can even refuse to smile if you like. lol), and give a fellow Sports Fan the respect that you both deserve.
John Miller
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
THE OBAMA DOCTRINE: THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
A JAZZMAN CHRONICLE By Jack Random. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
“It is time to become what American principles and values insist that we must become. It is time to be what our leaders have always claimed that we were: a beacon of justice, human rights and democracy. It is time to fulfill the promise of our forefathers. Our destiny cannot and must not be to dominate the world but rather to improve the lot of human kind.”
The Jazzman Chronicles, Volume One, Principles of Foreign Policy.
I believe in democracy. I believe in the right of the people to self-determination. I believe in civil liberties and fundamental human rights. I believe that unjustified war is the ultimate violation of human rights and, therefore, the use of arms to settle conflicts must be a last option.
I am not a pacifist. I believe there are circumstances that justify war. For a war to be truly justified, these circumstances cannot be defined ad hoc. They cannot be adopted impromptu to fit the circumstance of a crisis. They must be defined as a matter of policy and principle.
Clearly, a war is justified if a nation or its allies is attacked by another nation. By this essential and fundamental standard, no major military action since World War II has been justified. The Korean War was avoidable. The Vietnam War was a crime against civilization. The Iraq Wars were strategic. The Afghan-Pakistan War was unwise and unnecessary. The people who misled us into that war belittled those who called for a police action but that is exactly what our response should have been. A nation does not respond to a terrorist attack with the blunt instrument of war unless it wants to elevate the terrorist group to the status of sovereignty.
Politicos and politicians of all stripes can say that Afghanistan is now Obama’s war but that rings hollow. Libya is in fact the only military action instigated by the Obama administration. Thus far it remains uncertain and vague as a statement of policy. The administration may have its own reasons for this obscuration of purpose but if we want to determine fairly and objectively whether this war meets the standard of a justified action we must apply principles and policies already established.
Toward that end I have consulted my own prior writings for the principles that apply to the current action in Libya.
Principle: The United States will not engage in interventions that support non-democratic governments or governments that violate the inalienable rights of its citizens.
While it would seem that this principle would argue against Muammar Gaddafi it does not argue for intervention. Gaddafi is a despot and his government is tyrannical but we know very little about the opposition and what kind of government they would in fact bring. Moreover, we have neither the right nor the capacity to depose every despot in the world. Therefore the justification for this war must originate elsewhere.
Principle: Our nation will take appropriate action to prevent, inhibit or halt genocide.
This was the rationale Bill Clinton used for intervention in Kosovo where we were told genocide was under way. While there is evidence that massacres occurred on both sides of that conflict, the definition of genocide likely relies more on massive dislocation than on an attempt to exterminate the Muslim population. There is strong evidence that the US led NATO intervention may have enabled a reverse genocide (see “The Truth About Bosnia and Kosovo” by David Icke). By any objective account, the case for intervention in Kosovo is far more complex and less compelling than we have been led to believe.
Leaving an analysis of Kosovo aside, is there compelling evidence that genocide was about to occur in Libya? After the bombing began Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was quick to claim that a massacre was prevented in Benghazi. Maybe so. Maybe not. Any number of scenarios could have played out. A genuine truce might have been negotiated in lieu of a NATO attack or stiff sanctions. The western world could have seized the accounts of all mercenaries engaged in Libya unless they withdrew immediately. The opposition could have laid down their arms.
What we do know is that the Libyan opposition is political. It is not representative of any ethnic divide. Therefore, neither the extent of violence nor the nature of the conflict allows any consideration of genocide in Libya. This is not a cause for war.
Principle: We will not act as the police force of the world.
This principle argues strongly against unilateral intervention. President Obama was right to seek international agreement and the consent of the United Nations Security Council. Unlike his predecessor he did not defy the United Nations and he did not build a coalition by bribery and coercion. As long as we remain within the mandate of the Security Council resolution we have the sanction of international law. The instant we go beyond that mandate we lose moral and legal grounding.
When the president states that his standard for success in Libya is the removal of Gaddafi from power, he signals that he is prepared to go beyond the mandate. He promises that we will not take the lead in this operation and we will not commit troops to yet another ground war in the region. This is the very definition of a mixed message. Reminiscent of the promises made by the Clinton administration in Kosovo (promises that were not kept), we have run headlong into a zone of duplicity where we can neither move forward nor backward. If in fact the bombing campaign is insufficient to remove the dictator from power, we will have placed ourselves in a dilemma: Escalate our involvement or admit that we have failed and placed the civilians we were charged to protect at even greater risk than before.
This is precisely why policies of intervention should not be left to impromptu actions. We cannot afford to be entangled in yet another civil war while our nation is facing a prolonged economic crisis, while our own people are suffering and while the other more pressing needs of the world and the nation are neglected.
We have neither the right nor the resources to act as the police force of the world.
Principle: We will practice a policy of restraint in civil wars and civil conflicts.
A careful consideration of this principle would have prevented our disastrous entanglements in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It would have precluded us from a protracted engagement in Kosovo with at best mixed results.
How does it apply in Libya? Is this a civil war or is it an unpopular dictator imposing his will through mercenary forces and arms supplied by many of the same powers now aligned against him?
I have said so before and I will say so again: There is no place in a civilized world for mercenary armies. The first lesson of this conflict like so many others is that we can no longer permit mercenary armies and weapons traders to act with no more restraint than the free market allows. Mercenaries should be banned outright. Weapons traders should operate under strict international guidelines. No civilized nation should be supplying arms to dictators, tyrants and kings who operate independent of the will of their people.
What do we expect to happen when the people rise up against despotic leaders, as they inevitably will?
It is not yet clear whether the conflict in Libya can best be defined as a civil war or a popular uprising. If it is a civil war or becomes one, our best policy is restraint. If it is a popular uprising, our justification for war remains uncertain.
I can only conclude that either the principles guiding the Obama administration are substantially different than my own or this was an emotion-charged response to a crisis situation. Like the Bush administration in Afghanistan and Iraq, it appears to lack foresight. Like the ill-fated Supreme Court decision in 2000 that installed Bush in the White House, the administration may wish to discount precedent value but it cannot be done.
Are we prepared to act in kind when similar circumstances arise in other countries? How do we justify failure to act in Yemen, Bahrain, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia or anywhere else a popular uprising is suppressed by a non-democratic government?
Discounting the expansion of the Afghan War into Pakistan, the bombing of Libya was the first military intervention instigated by the Obama administration. What does it say about the Obama Doctrine of foreign policy?
It seems clear that the president is far less restrained in committing the force of arms than I can condone. The hope now is that events in Libya do not veer out of control as they have in Afghanistan and as they did in Iraq. The hope now is that the president will be able to keep his promise of a limited intervention.
Murphy’s Law holds that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. That is precisely why we should never engage in actions on the scale of war without a clear objective and an equally clear path to its fulfillment.
We are asking for trouble in Libya. We are asking for trouble with a policy that cannot be sustained elsewhere in the world. We are taking a gamble in an arena where the risks are far too great.
I genuinely hope the opposition seizes control in Libya and under the pressure of an international coalition fulfills the promise of a democratic government. If it does not and events spin out of control, entangling us in yet another quagmire of indefinite length, then this decision may well prove catastrophic.
For now we can only ask the president to remember his promise. The people do not want another war in a faraway land. We cannot afford it and we do not wish to sacrifice any more lives to foreign misadventures.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
“It is time to become what American principles and values insist that we must become. It is time to be what our leaders have always claimed that we were: a beacon of justice, human rights and democracy. It is time to fulfill the promise of our forefathers. Our destiny cannot and must not be to dominate the world but rather to improve the lot of human kind.”
The Jazzman Chronicles, Volume One, Principles of Foreign Policy.
I believe in democracy. I believe in the right of the people to self-determination. I believe in civil liberties and fundamental human rights. I believe that unjustified war is the ultimate violation of human rights and, therefore, the use of arms to settle conflicts must be a last option.
I am not a pacifist. I believe there are circumstances that justify war. For a war to be truly justified, these circumstances cannot be defined ad hoc. They cannot be adopted impromptu to fit the circumstance of a crisis. They must be defined as a matter of policy and principle.
Clearly, a war is justified if a nation or its allies is attacked by another nation. By this essential and fundamental standard, no major military action since World War II has been justified. The Korean War was avoidable. The Vietnam War was a crime against civilization. The Iraq Wars were strategic. The Afghan-Pakistan War was unwise and unnecessary. The people who misled us into that war belittled those who called for a police action but that is exactly what our response should have been. A nation does not respond to a terrorist attack with the blunt instrument of war unless it wants to elevate the terrorist group to the status of sovereignty.
Politicos and politicians of all stripes can say that Afghanistan is now Obama’s war but that rings hollow. Libya is in fact the only military action instigated by the Obama administration. Thus far it remains uncertain and vague as a statement of policy. The administration may have its own reasons for this obscuration of purpose but if we want to determine fairly and objectively whether this war meets the standard of a justified action we must apply principles and policies already established.
Toward that end I have consulted my own prior writings for the principles that apply to the current action in Libya.
Principle: The United States will not engage in interventions that support non-democratic governments or governments that violate the inalienable rights of its citizens.
While it would seem that this principle would argue against Muammar Gaddafi it does not argue for intervention. Gaddafi is a despot and his government is tyrannical but we know very little about the opposition and what kind of government they would in fact bring. Moreover, we have neither the right nor the capacity to depose every despot in the world. Therefore the justification for this war must originate elsewhere.
Principle: Our nation will take appropriate action to prevent, inhibit or halt genocide.
This was the rationale Bill Clinton used for intervention in Kosovo where we were told genocide was under way. While there is evidence that massacres occurred on both sides of that conflict, the definition of genocide likely relies more on massive dislocation than on an attempt to exterminate the Muslim population. There is strong evidence that the US led NATO intervention may have enabled a reverse genocide (see “The Truth About Bosnia and Kosovo” by David Icke). By any objective account, the case for intervention in Kosovo is far more complex and less compelling than we have been led to believe.
Leaving an analysis of Kosovo aside, is there compelling evidence that genocide was about to occur in Libya? After the bombing began Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was quick to claim that a massacre was prevented in Benghazi. Maybe so. Maybe not. Any number of scenarios could have played out. A genuine truce might have been negotiated in lieu of a NATO attack or stiff sanctions. The western world could have seized the accounts of all mercenaries engaged in Libya unless they withdrew immediately. The opposition could have laid down their arms.
What we do know is that the Libyan opposition is political. It is not representative of any ethnic divide. Therefore, neither the extent of violence nor the nature of the conflict allows any consideration of genocide in Libya. This is not a cause for war.
Principle: We will not act as the police force of the world.
This principle argues strongly against unilateral intervention. President Obama was right to seek international agreement and the consent of the United Nations Security Council. Unlike his predecessor he did not defy the United Nations and he did not build a coalition by bribery and coercion. As long as we remain within the mandate of the Security Council resolution we have the sanction of international law. The instant we go beyond that mandate we lose moral and legal grounding.
When the president states that his standard for success in Libya is the removal of Gaddafi from power, he signals that he is prepared to go beyond the mandate. He promises that we will not take the lead in this operation and we will not commit troops to yet another ground war in the region. This is the very definition of a mixed message. Reminiscent of the promises made by the Clinton administration in Kosovo (promises that were not kept), we have run headlong into a zone of duplicity where we can neither move forward nor backward. If in fact the bombing campaign is insufficient to remove the dictator from power, we will have placed ourselves in a dilemma: Escalate our involvement or admit that we have failed and placed the civilians we were charged to protect at even greater risk than before.
This is precisely why policies of intervention should not be left to impromptu actions. We cannot afford to be entangled in yet another civil war while our nation is facing a prolonged economic crisis, while our own people are suffering and while the other more pressing needs of the world and the nation are neglected.
We have neither the right nor the resources to act as the police force of the world.
Principle: We will practice a policy of restraint in civil wars and civil conflicts.
A careful consideration of this principle would have prevented our disastrous entanglements in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It would have precluded us from a protracted engagement in Kosovo with at best mixed results.
How does it apply in Libya? Is this a civil war or is it an unpopular dictator imposing his will through mercenary forces and arms supplied by many of the same powers now aligned against him?
I have said so before and I will say so again: There is no place in a civilized world for mercenary armies. The first lesson of this conflict like so many others is that we can no longer permit mercenary armies and weapons traders to act with no more restraint than the free market allows. Mercenaries should be banned outright. Weapons traders should operate under strict international guidelines. No civilized nation should be supplying arms to dictators, tyrants and kings who operate independent of the will of their people.
What do we expect to happen when the people rise up against despotic leaders, as they inevitably will?
It is not yet clear whether the conflict in Libya can best be defined as a civil war or a popular uprising. If it is a civil war or becomes one, our best policy is restraint. If it is a popular uprising, our justification for war remains uncertain.
I can only conclude that either the principles guiding the Obama administration are substantially different than my own or this was an emotion-charged response to a crisis situation. Like the Bush administration in Afghanistan and Iraq, it appears to lack foresight. Like the ill-fated Supreme Court decision in 2000 that installed Bush in the White House, the administration may wish to discount precedent value but it cannot be done.
Are we prepared to act in kind when similar circumstances arise in other countries? How do we justify failure to act in Yemen, Bahrain, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia or anywhere else a popular uprising is suppressed by a non-democratic government?
Discounting the expansion of the Afghan War into Pakistan, the bombing of Libya was the first military intervention instigated by the Obama administration. What does it say about the Obama Doctrine of foreign policy?
It seems clear that the president is far less restrained in committing the force of arms than I can condone. The hope now is that events in Libya do not veer out of control as they have in Afghanistan and as they did in Iraq. The hope now is that the president will be able to keep his promise of a limited intervention.
Murphy’s Law holds that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. That is precisely why we should never engage in actions on the scale of war without a clear objective and an equally clear path to its fulfillment.
We are asking for trouble in Libya. We are asking for trouble with a policy that cannot be sustained elsewhere in the world. We are taking a gamble in an arena where the risks are far too great.
I genuinely hope the opposition seizes control in Libya and under the pressure of an international coalition fulfills the promise of a democratic government. If it does not and events spin out of control, entangling us in yet another quagmire of indefinite length, then this decision may well prove catastrophic.
For now we can only ask the president to remember his promise. The people do not want another war in a faraway land. We cannot afford it and we do not wish to sacrifice any more lives to foreign misadventures.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Remembering Joe: Grief and Recovery
Subject: Two months ago
Date: Mar 24, 2011 7:47 AM
It is almost incomprehensible to me that Joe has been dead two months now. Up here in Santa Fe, alone in this empty house, I have had to confront my grief in ways I never did in the hustle and bustle of Albuquerque. Yesterday was the first day I got through without crying. Three tears while on the phone with my sister offering to send me the photos of Joe’s last birthday party, when I’m strong enough. I’m not strong enough yet but she’ll save them for me.
I do look forward to the Border Book Festival on April 8 and my plane flight out of the country on the 27th. Everything is new now, the van remodeled for one, new dishes, new cups, I just can’t look at the old stuff. I even bought new underwear. Most of the time I have spent up here crying and shopping.
I was invited into a women’s writers group in Santa Fe, we meet on Mondays. I sob as I read. Joe’s friend Mona came down from Taos, she has lost a son at 23, she and I both sobbed at the table at Whole Foods as we tried to eat our lunch. I cry when I get up, cry when I go to bed and try to fill the hours productively in between.
But I’m not asking for pity. Grief is simply work that must be done. I have had so much support from all of you. The pace will really pick up in April. I’ll go back to Las Cruces for April, got a place to stay. My van will be painted while I’m gone, so I am ecstatic about that. After three years of restoration this will be the final thing to do. When I get back from Mexico I see myself driving around the Southwest hitting all the open mics and selling Joe’s book out of the back of my van, just like so many others I have known.
I’ll get there, I will be happy again, I know it, Joe would want it for me. I believe I have dwelt too long on remembering him there at the last. I made some more chapbooks of poetry taken from the book and working on a project always makes me feel better. I get so much satisfaction from my artistic endeavors. I went to a bead shop and restrung my pearls. It’s a long necklace, then I added a giant cross to the pearls and now I look like a nun with a pearl rosary. All these images comfort me. I’ll get there.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Editor's Note: Beatlick Joe Speer's book Backpack Trekker: A 60's Flashback is available at Amazon.com.
Date: Mar 24, 2011 7:47 AM
It is almost incomprehensible to me that Joe has been dead two months now. Up here in Santa Fe, alone in this empty house, I have had to confront my grief in ways I never did in the hustle and bustle of Albuquerque. Yesterday was the first day I got through without crying. Three tears while on the phone with my sister offering to send me the photos of Joe’s last birthday party, when I’m strong enough. I’m not strong enough yet but she’ll save them for me.
I do look forward to the Border Book Festival on April 8 and my plane flight out of the country on the 27th. Everything is new now, the van remodeled for one, new dishes, new cups, I just can’t look at the old stuff. I even bought new underwear. Most of the time I have spent up here crying and shopping.
I was invited into a women’s writers group in Santa Fe, we meet on Mondays. I sob as I read. Joe’s friend Mona came down from Taos, she has lost a son at 23, she and I both sobbed at the table at Whole Foods as we tried to eat our lunch. I cry when I get up, cry when I go to bed and try to fill the hours productively in between.
But I’m not asking for pity. Grief is simply work that must be done. I have had so much support from all of you. The pace will really pick up in April. I’ll go back to Las Cruces for April, got a place to stay. My van will be painted while I’m gone, so I am ecstatic about that. After three years of restoration this will be the final thing to do. When I get back from Mexico I see myself driving around the Southwest hitting all the open mics and selling Joe’s book out of the back of my van, just like so many others I have known.
I’ll get there, I will be happy again, I know it, Joe would want it for me. I believe I have dwelt too long on remembering him there at the last. I made some more chapbooks of poetry taken from the book and working on a project always makes me feel better. I get so much satisfaction from my artistic endeavors. I went to a bead shop and restrung my pearls. It’s a long necklace, then I added a giant cross to the pearls and now I look like a nun with a pearl rosary. All these images comfort me. I’ll get there.
Happy Trails
Beatlick Pamela
Editor's Note: Beatlick Joe Speer's book Backpack Trekker: A 60's Flashback is available at Amazon.com.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Buy American: Check the Can
By Joan Stellrecht
Did y’all see that Diane Sawyer has a special report coming up this week. They removed ALL items from a typical, middle class family's home that were not made in the USA . There was hardly anything left besides the kitchen sink. Literally. During the special they are going to show truckloads of items - USA made - being brought in to replace everything and will be talking about how to find these items and the difference in price etc..
It was interesting that Diane said that if every American spent just $64 more than normal on USA made items this year, it would create something like 200,000 new jobs!
I WAS BUYING FOOD THE OTHER DAY AT WALMART and ON THE LABEL OF SOME PRODUCTS IT SAID 'FROM CHINA’
FOR EXAMPLE THE "OUR FAMILY" BRAND OF THE MANDARIN ORANGES SAYS RIGHT ON THE CAN 'FROM CHINA '
I WAS SHOCKED SO FOR A FEW MORE CENTS I BOUGHT THE LIBERTY GOLD BRAND OR THE DOLE SINCE IT'S FROM CALIF.
Are we Americans as dumb as we appear --- or --- is it that we just do not think while the Chinese, knowingly and intentionally, export inferior and even toxic products and dangerous toys and goods to be sold in American markets?
70% of Americans believe that the trading privileges afforded to the Chinese should be suspended.
Why do you need the government to suspend trading privileges? DO IT YOURSELF, AMERICA!!
Simply look on the bottom of every product you buy, and if it says 'Made in China ' or 'PRC' (and that now includes Hong Kong ), simply choose another product, or none at all. You will be amazed at how dependent you are on Chinese products, and you will be equally amazed at what you can do without.
Who needs plastic eggs to celebrate Easter? If you must have eggs, use real ones and benefit some American farmer. Easter is just an example. The point is do not wait for the government to act. Just go ahead and assume control on your own.
THINK ABOUT THIS: If 200 million Americans refuse to buy just $20 each of Chinese goods, that's a billion dollar trade imbalance resolved in our favor...fast!!
Most of the people who have been reading about this matter are planning on implementing this on March. 4th and continue it until April 4th. That is only one month of trading losses, but it will hit the Chinese for 1/12th of the total, or 8%, of their American exports. Then they might have to ask themselves if the benefits of their arrogance and lawlessness were worth it.
Remember, March 4th to April 4th
START NOW.
Send this to everybody you know. Let's show them that we are Americans and NOBODY can take us for granted.
If we can't live without cheap Chinese goods for one month out of our lives, WE DESERVE WHAT WE GET!
Pass it on, America.
Did y’all see that Diane Sawyer has a special report coming up this week. They removed ALL items from a typical, middle class family's home that were not made in the USA . There was hardly anything left besides the kitchen sink. Literally. During the special they are going to show truckloads of items - USA made - being brought in to replace everything and will be talking about how to find these items and the difference in price etc..
It was interesting that Diane said that if every American spent just $64 more than normal on USA made items this year, it would create something like 200,000 new jobs!
I WAS BUYING FOOD THE OTHER DAY AT WALMART and ON THE LABEL OF SOME PRODUCTS IT SAID 'FROM CHINA’
FOR EXAMPLE THE "OUR FAMILY" BRAND OF THE MANDARIN ORANGES SAYS RIGHT ON THE CAN 'FROM CHINA '
I WAS SHOCKED SO FOR A FEW MORE CENTS I BOUGHT THE LIBERTY GOLD BRAND OR THE DOLE SINCE IT'S FROM CALIF.
Are we Americans as dumb as we appear --- or --- is it that we just do not think while the Chinese, knowingly and intentionally, export inferior and even toxic products and dangerous toys and goods to be sold in American markets?
70% of Americans believe that the trading privileges afforded to the Chinese should be suspended.
Why do you need the government to suspend trading privileges? DO IT YOURSELF, AMERICA!!
Simply look on the bottom of every product you buy, and if it says 'Made in China ' or 'PRC' (and that now includes Hong Kong ), simply choose another product, or none at all. You will be amazed at how dependent you are on Chinese products, and you will be equally amazed at what you can do without.
Who needs plastic eggs to celebrate Easter? If you must have eggs, use real ones and benefit some American farmer. Easter is just an example. The point is do not wait for the government to act. Just go ahead and assume control on your own.
THINK ABOUT THIS: If 200 million Americans refuse to buy just $20 each of Chinese goods, that's a billion dollar trade imbalance resolved in our favor...fast!!
Most of the people who have been reading about this matter are planning on implementing this on March. 4th and continue it until April 4th. That is only one month of trading losses, but it will hit the Chinese for 1/12th of the total, or 8%, of their American exports. Then they might have to ask themselves if the benefits of their arrogance and lawlessness were worth it.
Remember, March 4th to April 4th
START NOW.
Send this to everybody you know. Let's show them that we are Americans and NOBODY can take us for granted.
If we can't live without cheap Chinese goods for one month out of our lives, WE DESERVE WHAT WE GET!
Pass it on, America.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
THE JACK RANDOM PROBLEM
I am Jack Random.
I published my first short story under the name of Jack Random in 1997. I have since published several stories, a novel and hundreds if not thousands of commentaries or works of fiction under the name of Jack Random on the worldwide web. I believe I have some measure of ownership of that name and feel responsible for the words associated with it.
Much to my amazement I have learned that there are characters by the name of Jack Random in at least two works of fiction, including the Deathstalker series by British SciFi writer Simon Green and the obscure 1918 movie Somebody’s Widow. There are to my knowledge, however, no writers by the name of Jack Random predating my work in 1997.
In recent years I have become aware of a proliferation of individuals operating under the name of Jack Random. Most of them I can abide but some I would like to distance myself from, the most recent being a Facebook edition of Mr. Random. There is also a Yahoo Jack Random and a MySpace Jack Random.
On this occasion I would like to point out that they are not me and I am not associated with their words or music or thoughts in any way.
I am the jazzman Jack Random, author of Dark Underground, Ghost Dance Insurrection, The Killing Spirit, Hard Times, and the Jazzman Chronicles as well as many other works of fiction.
I am a progressive independent and believe strongly in tolerance. If any writer or personality expresses thoughts contrary to that philosophy they are not me. Anyone who rants from the right is not worthy of the name.
Jazz.
I published my first short story under the name of Jack Random in 1997. I have since published several stories, a novel and hundreds if not thousands of commentaries or works of fiction under the name of Jack Random on the worldwide web. I believe I have some measure of ownership of that name and feel responsible for the words associated with it.
Much to my amazement I have learned that there are characters by the name of Jack Random in at least two works of fiction, including the Deathstalker series by British SciFi writer Simon Green and the obscure 1918 movie Somebody’s Widow. There are to my knowledge, however, no writers by the name of Jack Random predating my work in 1997.
In recent years I have become aware of a proliferation of individuals operating under the name of Jack Random. Most of them I can abide but some I would like to distance myself from, the most recent being a Facebook edition of Mr. Random. There is also a Yahoo Jack Random and a MySpace Jack Random.
On this occasion I would like to point out that they are not me and I am not associated with their words or music or thoughts in any way.
I am the jazzman Jack Random, author of Dark Underground, Ghost Dance Insurrection, The Killing Spirit, Hard Times, and the Jazzman Chronicles as well as many other works of fiction.
I am a progressive independent and believe strongly in tolerance. If any writer or personality expresses thoughts contrary to that philosophy they are not me. Anyone who rants from the right is not worthy of the name.
Jazz.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
BEATLICK JOE: The Last Goodbye.
When you come of a certain age as I have, death becomes a part of life. No longer an abstraction, a mystery of time and space, but a reality of everyday life. We grow numb to death as a means of survival.
But every so often death moves too close. It taps our shoulder and inhabits our conscious lives. The death of a child, whose innocence offends our sense of justice, or a promising youth who never reached fulfillment, or the death of a brethren spirit, someone who exemplified the kind of person we always admired and strove to be.
Beatlick Joe Speer has waved his last goodbye on this journey through life on the planet earth. He has gone to a place where only memories and spiritual messaging can reach him. He was an artist in the purest sense, a master carpenter in the medium of words, a fellow traveler in search of wisdom and inspiration and possessing more than his share of both. Along with his longtime wife and partner, Beatlick Pamela Hirst, he cultivated art and artists, provided a forum for voices longing to be heard, and transformed the world he encountered into a more interesting and better place.
It was my pleasure to share the stage in a recorded production of perhaps my most inspired and least understood work: Dark Underground. I can still hear his Ornette Coleman riffs, rising, falling, punctuated pauses and elongated phonemes, hammering a beat only he could feel. Not only words, which he possessed in abundance, but a master of sound as well.
No one will ever take the place of Beatlick Joe Speer. He leaves behind friends, family, a legacy of prose and poetry, and his masterwork: Backpack Trekker: A Sixties Flashback. It is a work that stakes a place in history, literature, sociology and psychology. It is an exploration of the soul of an artist and stands alone as a chronicle of both the sixties and human evolution. It is a work that will live forever.
“Books are like angels that move between the living and the dead.” Joe Speer.
Adios, my friend, you will be missed.
See you on the next run.
Jazz.
But every so often death moves too close. It taps our shoulder and inhabits our conscious lives. The death of a child, whose innocence offends our sense of justice, or a promising youth who never reached fulfillment, or the death of a brethren spirit, someone who exemplified the kind of person we always admired and strove to be.
Beatlick Joe Speer has waved his last goodbye on this journey through life on the planet earth. He has gone to a place where only memories and spiritual messaging can reach him. He was an artist in the purest sense, a master carpenter in the medium of words, a fellow traveler in search of wisdom and inspiration and possessing more than his share of both. Along with his longtime wife and partner, Beatlick Pamela Hirst, he cultivated art and artists, provided a forum for voices longing to be heard, and transformed the world he encountered into a more interesting and better place.
It was my pleasure to share the stage in a recorded production of perhaps my most inspired and least understood work: Dark Underground. I can still hear his Ornette Coleman riffs, rising, falling, punctuated pauses and elongated phonemes, hammering a beat only he could feel. Not only words, which he possessed in abundance, but a master of sound as well.
No one will ever take the place of Beatlick Joe Speer. He leaves behind friends, family, a legacy of prose and poetry, and his masterwork: Backpack Trekker: A Sixties Flashback. It is a work that stakes a place in history, literature, sociology and psychology. It is an exploration of the soul of an artist and stands alone as a chronicle of both the sixties and human evolution. It is a work that will live forever.
“Books are like angels that move between the living and the dead.” Joe Speer.
Adios, my friend, you will be missed.
See you on the next run.
Jazz.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Beatlicks: Fighting off Death
I fought off death last night
Actually night before last. I suppose this was an hallucination. I have been working on editing Joe's book proof, setting up his new facebook page and reediting the website with the latest newsletter. I was working on the website all day and night and was shocked to see it was almost three o'clock in the morning. I went to bed. As I lay in bed, very sad and crying, I looked up in the dark at the ceiling. There was a faint glimmer of light. I began to see spinning and whirling entities fill the top of the room. Everything was rotating, smoky like giant white moths. These little whirls began to come towards me and Joe. I had no doubt that this was death, horrible furries, swirling around and trying to suck up Joe's soul. Evil horrible things. I stared at them and they flew close to my face taunting me, but I just kept my eyes wide open challenging them and leaned over Joe as he lay in the bed so they couldn't get at him. This went on for quite a few minutes. Finally they began to come together up in the ceiling and reshape into something more like clouds. It seemed I had been able to repel them but they were not leaving by any means.
I thought to myself this is working but I don't know how long I can keep my eyes wide open like this for the whole night. And then I realized they would never tolerate the light. So I merely got out of bed and turned on the light. Problem solved. But I tell you with ever fiber of my heart I believe I fought off death last night as it came to take Joe.
The next day new medication to help his nausea worked and he was able to eat just a little bit but at least something. He has been literally starving to death for two weeks. So I can get some food in him, he has rallied enough to sit in on the editing sessions and I do believe he will make it to The Source on Thursday here in Albuquerque for a little tribute celebration in his honor. It's at 1111 Carlisle SE here in Albuquerque.
This is the only good thing that has happened in such a long time. Joe won't have long for this world, but at least I hope he will live to hold the final edition of his book. The editing is going on fast and furious, six of us at a time sitting around the table editing the proofs.
Love and peace
Beatlick Pamela
Actually night before last. I suppose this was an hallucination. I have been working on editing Joe's book proof, setting up his new facebook page and reediting the website with the latest newsletter. I was working on the website all day and night and was shocked to see it was almost three o'clock in the morning. I went to bed. As I lay in bed, very sad and crying, I looked up in the dark at the ceiling. There was a faint glimmer of light. I began to see spinning and whirling entities fill the top of the room. Everything was rotating, smoky like giant white moths. These little whirls began to come towards me and Joe. I had no doubt that this was death, horrible furries, swirling around and trying to suck up Joe's soul. Evil horrible things. I stared at them and they flew close to my face taunting me, but I just kept my eyes wide open challenging them and leaned over Joe as he lay in the bed so they couldn't get at him. This went on for quite a few minutes. Finally they began to come together up in the ceiling and reshape into something more like clouds. It seemed I had been able to repel them but they were not leaving by any means.
I thought to myself this is working but I don't know how long I can keep my eyes wide open like this for the whole night. And then I realized they would never tolerate the light. So I merely got out of bed and turned on the light. Problem solved. But I tell you with ever fiber of my heart I believe I fought off death last night as it came to take Joe.
The next day new medication to help his nausea worked and he was able to eat just a little bit but at least something. He has been literally starving to death for two weeks. So I can get some food in him, he has rallied enough to sit in on the editing sessions and I do believe he will make it to The Source on Thursday here in Albuquerque for a little tribute celebration in his honor. It's at 1111 Carlisle SE here in Albuquerque.
This is the only good thing that has happened in such a long time. Joe won't have long for this world, but at least I hope he will live to hold the final edition of his book. The editing is going on fast and furious, six of us at a time sitting around the table editing the proofs.
Love and peace
Beatlick Pamela
Monday, January 03, 2011
Realist Re: The Clinton Pivot
Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2011 08:41:20 -0800
From: writerealist@earthlink.net
I have to begin with praise for this article, for it is the best rebuttal to those who defend Obama's sorry performance that I have yet seen. I do not, however, place all of the blame for his disaster upon him.
As the nominal leader of his party, Obama certainly deserves denunciation. But there was another -Harry Reid- who could have done much to alter the present outcome of the 111th Congress. Many times he telegraphed the strategy of the Democratic caucus, as if to provide early warning to their opponents on how to prepare a counterattack. He also didn't enforce party discipline as well as the Republicans did, or the Blue Dogs like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln couldn't have held so much control in their corporatist hands. I'm glad we don't have Sharron Angle to deal with, but I sure wish Reid had gone down to defeat. I feel he should be challenged for the Majority Leader spot in the 112th Congress.
In contrast, Nancy Pelosi -who received far more abuse from the right-wingers than Reid did- managed to keep a fractious House under control and produced 400 bills that never saw the light of the Senatorial day. She is the exception to the inept Democratic leadership of the 111th Congress period. Had Obama and Reid done their jobs, life would be so much better in America today.
In your comment thread on Dissident Voice, you are attacked for promoting Hillary as being no different from Bill. Frankly, I have to agree, but not for the reasons presented. I expect that Hillary -having served as a corporate lawyer as Bill did not- is even more in tune with the corporatist coup going on today. She shares its roots in her own life, only becoming liberalized in college. I believe that she would have been worse than Bill or Obama. Her Senate record supporting the Iraq War when her constituents opposed it is alone a sufficient difference to promote in your defense. It certainly convinced me that she was not the horse to back in the race.
Moving back to Obama, once he had defeated Hillary for the nomination, his dramatic rightward shift should have been a siren in the night for Democrats. As your Dissident Voice commenter Max Shields said on December 14th, 2010 at 5:16pm, "I could not bare (sic) to vote for the man; he was just far too transparent." I have to agree with this assessment (I could not bring myself to vote for him either), and yet too many Democrats did not seem to notice.
The simple conclusion is that collectively we were fooled. The next issue we face is how to avoid being fooled again.
As I see it, somehow we have to convince the Democratic Party leadership that Obama cannot run again in 2012. One would think that the midterm avalanche would awaken them, but I see no sign of any awareness. I don't see that we are going to have much time to alter the nation's course if the next election goes corporatist. 2012 could be our last chance. So we have to make the best of what we have and look ahead to plan what to do, and to stop looking back for things to happen that might never have happened anyway. It's down to our own welfare. We have to look out for ourselves now. If somehow we win, then we can take care of our friends. we can help no one if we don't help ourselves. and the first thing we need to do is change the Democratic Party if we can. Otherwise, we might as well get used to corporate rule.
Realist
http://blogcritics.org/writers/realist
PS: Best wishes to Joe Speer for a speedy recovery.
From: writerealist@earthlink.net
I have to begin with praise for this article, for it is the best rebuttal to those who defend Obama's sorry performance that I have yet seen. I do not, however, place all of the blame for his disaster upon him.
As the nominal leader of his party, Obama certainly deserves denunciation. But there was another -Harry Reid- who could have done much to alter the present outcome of the 111th Congress. Many times he telegraphed the strategy of the Democratic caucus, as if to provide early warning to their opponents on how to prepare a counterattack. He also didn't enforce party discipline as well as the Republicans did, or the Blue Dogs like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln couldn't have held so much control in their corporatist hands. I'm glad we don't have Sharron Angle to deal with, but I sure wish Reid had gone down to defeat. I feel he should be challenged for the Majority Leader spot in the 112th Congress.
In contrast, Nancy Pelosi -who received far more abuse from the right-wingers than Reid did- managed to keep a fractious House under control and produced 400 bills that never saw the light of the Senatorial day. She is the exception to the inept Democratic leadership of the 111th Congress period. Had Obama and Reid done their jobs, life would be so much better in America today.
In your comment thread on Dissident Voice, you are attacked for promoting Hillary as being no different from Bill. Frankly, I have to agree, but not for the reasons presented. I expect that Hillary -having served as a corporate lawyer as Bill did not- is even more in tune with the corporatist coup going on today. She shares its roots in her own life, only becoming liberalized in college. I believe that she would have been worse than Bill or Obama. Her Senate record supporting the Iraq War when her constituents opposed it is alone a sufficient difference to promote in your defense. It certainly convinced me that she was not the horse to back in the race.
Moving back to Obama, once he had defeated Hillary for the nomination, his dramatic rightward shift should have been a siren in the night for Democrats. As your Dissident Voice commenter Max Shields said on December 14th, 2010 at 5:16pm, "I could not bare (sic) to vote for the man; he was just far too transparent." I have to agree with this assessment (I could not bring myself to vote for him either), and yet too many Democrats did not seem to notice.
The simple conclusion is that collectively we were fooled. The next issue we face is how to avoid being fooled again.
As I see it, somehow we have to convince the Democratic Party leadership that Obama cannot run again in 2012. One would think that the midterm avalanche would awaken them, but I see no sign of any awareness. I don't see that we are going to have much time to alter the nation's course if the next election goes corporatist. 2012 could be our last chance. So we have to make the best of what we have and look ahead to plan what to do, and to stop looking back for things to happen that might never have happened anyway. It's down to our own welfare. We have to look out for ourselves now. If somehow we win, then we can take care of our friends. we can help no one if we don't help ourselves. and the first thing we need to do is change the Democratic Party if we can. Otherwise, we might as well get used to corporate rule.
Realist
http://blogcritics.org/writers/realist
PS: Best wishes to Joe Speer for a speedy recovery.
Reader response: The Clinton Pivot
Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2011 09:03:23 -0600
Subject: Thanks for "The Clinton Pivot: Obama Sells the Farm" and...
...what can we do to get out of the mess we are in now? Population in 1910 was 1.9 billion people on earth and now it is around 7 billion in 2011. Which resources will we run out of first which will cause the civilizations currently existing to implode? Help!!! Is anyone listening, that is, enough of us to affect the change we need or are people going willingly to their death, not having heard of Alan Harrington's "The Immortalist" and Robert Heinlein's Methuselah's Children ideas. Oh well, where is the nearest cave. This summer I will gather wood for the winter...just in case.
KHB, Platteville area, WI, USA
Subject: Thanks for "The Clinton Pivot: Obama Sells the Farm" and...
...what can we do to get out of the mess we are in now? Population in 1910 was 1.9 billion people on earth and now it is around 7 billion in 2011. Which resources will we run out of first which will cause the civilizations currently existing to implode? Help!!! Is anyone listening, that is, enough of us to affect the change we need or are people going willingly to their death, not having heard of Alan Harrington's "The Immortalist" and Robert Heinlein's Methuselah's Children ideas. Oh well, where is the nearest cave. This summer I will gather wood for the winter...just in case.
KHB, Platteville area, WI, USA
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Prayers for Beatlick Joe
[Editor Note: Those of you who have from time to time checked the contents of this web log are familiar with the adventures of the Beatlicks (Joe Speer & Pamela Hirst). Along with my friend wZ they are artists of the first order (art for art's sake) and members of a vanishing tribe: The Troubadours. I recently learned (see below) that on their latest adventure Beatlick Joe was diagnosed with cancer. At last word they were in Texas on their way back to New Mexico from Florida. Our prayers go out to them both. They are one of a kind. I will always remember my days in Nashville where the Beatlicks were King and Queen of the poetry scene. It was my pleasure to stand beside him in a recorded production of my radio play: Darc Underground. Joe would begin his usual readings with "Page#..." from his work in progress. What followed was a day in the life, an anecdote, or a recounting of literature and history, and was always compelling. In my various encounters with him, I would always ask him if he finished the book, perhaps knowing that he had no intention of doing so. Now, as the sunset may be nearing, it may be time to finish it up and post it as a legacy to a singular life worth living. A blessing on you both. You will have a lasting place in the hearts, minds and souls of all you have touched. Peace.]
From: Pamela Hirst
Subject: Pray for Beatlick Joe
Date: Nov 19, 2010 3:47 PM
As most of you know Beatlick Joe and I have been traveling cross country visiting old haunts. He has been having some indistinct pains on his left side and when his leg swelled up alarmingly this morning I took him to an emergency room in Panama City, or near there.
Joe has deep vein thrombosis, blood clots in his lungs and legs, and lesions on his liver. He also has a mass on his pancreas about half the size of my thumb. He was hospitalized and will be given blood thinners in the morning. We will see a cancer specialist on Monday.
Joe has insurance in New Mexico. We have to get back as quickly as possible but Joe will not be able to sit for long stretches at a time so it will take some time. I will be injecting him with blood thinners once a day.
He does have insurance in New Mexico, thank god.
We will have to find some kind of affordable housing in Las Cruces. We have to find a cancer doctor to decide whether to cut out the growth on his pancreas or use radiation. I have asked his doctor in Las Cruces to recommend a cancer doctor, I think they are called oncologists.
In Las Cruces we will have to find a cancer doctor who will decide whether to treat the mass in his pancreas with radiation or surgery.
If you know others who have gone through this, hopefully successfully, please let me know, suggest some websites for me.
Pray pray
Beatlick Pamela
From: Pamela Hirst
Subject: Pray for Beatlick Joe
Date: Nov 19, 2010 3:47 PM
As most of you know Beatlick Joe and I have been traveling cross country visiting old haunts. He has been having some indistinct pains on his left side and when his leg swelled up alarmingly this morning I took him to an emergency room in Panama City, or near there.
Joe has deep vein thrombosis, blood clots in his lungs and legs, and lesions on his liver. He also has a mass on his pancreas about half the size of my thumb. He was hospitalized and will be given blood thinners in the morning. We will see a cancer specialist on Monday.
Joe has insurance in New Mexico. We have to get back as quickly as possible but Joe will not be able to sit for long stretches at a time so it will take some time. I will be injecting him with blood thinners once a day.
He does have insurance in New Mexico, thank god.
We will have to find some kind of affordable housing in Las Cruces. We have to find a cancer doctor to decide whether to cut out the growth on his pancreas or use radiation. I have asked his doctor in Las Cruces to recommend a cancer doctor, I think they are called oncologists.
In Las Cruces we will have to find a cancer doctor who will decide whether to treat the mass in his pancreas with radiation or surgery.
If you know others who have gone through this, hopefully successfully, please let me know, suggest some websites for me.
Pray pray
Beatlick Pamela
Saturday, November 20, 2010
The Giants Win the Series!
By Jack Random
Prosperity for the prosperous
Austerity for the poor
Less for those with the least
For those with the most more
College for the rich
War for the poor
Fortunes for the fortunate
Debt for the working stiffs
Bailouts for the bankers
Foreclosures for the dreamers
Bonuses for the corporate masters
Bankruptcy for the shopkeepers
The wars drone on in silence
The warriors and wounded cast aside
Pick up the pieces and get in line
There's enough bread for all
Global meltdown nuclear winter...
Who cares?
The Giants won the Series!
Peace,
Random
Prosperity for the prosperous
Austerity for the poor
Less for those with the least
For those with the most more
College for the rich
War for the poor
Fortunes for the fortunate
Debt for the working stiffs
Bailouts for the bankers
Foreclosures for the dreamers
Bonuses for the corporate masters
Bankruptcy for the shopkeepers
The wars drone on in silence
The warriors and wounded cast aside
Pick up the pieces and get in line
There's enough bread for all
Global meltdown nuclear winter...
Who cares?
The Giants won the Series!
Peace,
Random
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Hunter S. Thompson: Ignorance & Morality
RE: HUNTER S THOMPSON
BY JAKE BERRY
An except from an email to my brother Jon regarding Hunter Thompson and morality:
Thanks for the latest HST info. I know about Steadman's book, but I didn't know about Breakfast with Hunter. I think you're right on target about him. He was not only a visionary in his approach to the art, an innovator in it's practice, but also he was at heart a moralist. Many, even the elite and literati, refuse to acknowledge this because to do so would be to cede ground to someone that was definitely not one of them. It would also expose their hypocrisy. Western culture, the U.S. especially, is incredibly puritanical and doctrinaire. They talk about freedom and liberal democracy and thump their chests while they spout their "values" just like fundamentalists thump their Bibles or Korans. They make more interesting conversation and are less likely to justify their violence in the name of God, but they're just as narrow minded, intolerant and dangerous. Hunter saw straight through all kinds of hypocrisy because it was so alien to him. When he lied he lied straight in your face, did it well and laughed at you when you fell for it. He was aware that he was lying and knew the advantages of a well made lie over a steaming pile of facts that pass for truth. He gets knocked from all sides for his drug abuse, but look at the people who are criticizing him. How many of them are or are long dead as a result of bad diet and / or officially sanctioned drug abuse (i.e. their doctor was their pusher). Like all puritans they hide anything that doesn't conform to the doctrine. Hunter called their bluff. He openly confessed and enjoyed his sins. In other words he admitted to being a flawed human, just like every other human and made it an integral part of his work. So with HST you get the full creature, not the primed and coifed human ready for his or her moment - playing out the charade of progressivism. We make progress in technology. That makes sense. You keep trying to improve your tools for more efficiency, a quicker route to a better result. But we're just plain lying to ourselves if we think we've made moral progress. We've just learned how to hide the beast behind a cloak of civility. We have that leisure because we're at the top of the heap. Most humans have to get what they can get any way they can get it or die. Those are the people we hire to do the dirty work of keeping the gears turning. They take the risks and we buy the product of that risk. The only difference between cold blooded murder and murder by proxy is that the latter doesn't have to hide the corpse and clean the blood out of his clothes. We're all guilty of almost every form of atrocity - even if we don't know we're doing it. Ignorance is no excuse. Hunter refused to be ignorant, but he didn't go soft either. He knew that survival for one often meant death for another, freedom for a few meant slavery for most. That's why people like him and William Burroughs will remain relevant long after the majority of the pulitzer prize winner class have become quaint curiosities.
We do what we must to survive. If we can be kind enough to treat one another the way we want to be treated we're far ahead of the devouring pack. That's the most you can expect from humans and that's the most any truly wise human and / or savior ever asked of us. We all fail even to reach that low mark, but the least we can do is admit it and keep trying. Things like religion, politics and what we consume are mere side effects of what is actually happening. Why get tangled up in the side show when you can walk right into the full light of reality and drink your fill - and then some?
BY JAKE BERRY
An except from an email to my brother Jon regarding Hunter Thompson and morality:
Thanks for the latest HST info. I know about Steadman's book, but I didn't know about Breakfast with Hunter. I think you're right on target about him. He was not only a visionary in his approach to the art, an innovator in it's practice, but also he was at heart a moralist. Many, even the elite and literati, refuse to acknowledge this because to do so would be to cede ground to someone that was definitely not one of them. It would also expose their hypocrisy. Western culture, the U.S. especially, is incredibly puritanical and doctrinaire. They talk about freedom and liberal democracy and thump their chests while they spout their "values" just like fundamentalists thump their Bibles or Korans. They make more interesting conversation and are less likely to justify their violence in the name of God, but they're just as narrow minded, intolerant and dangerous. Hunter saw straight through all kinds of hypocrisy because it was so alien to him. When he lied he lied straight in your face, did it well and laughed at you when you fell for it. He was aware that he was lying and knew the advantages of a well made lie over a steaming pile of facts that pass for truth. He gets knocked from all sides for his drug abuse, but look at the people who are criticizing him. How many of them are or are long dead as a result of bad diet and / or officially sanctioned drug abuse (i.e. their doctor was their pusher). Like all puritans they hide anything that doesn't conform to the doctrine. Hunter called their bluff. He openly confessed and enjoyed his sins. In other words he admitted to being a flawed human, just like every other human and made it an integral part of his work. So with HST you get the full creature, not the primed and coifed human ready for his or her moment - playing out the charade of progressivism. We make progress in technology. That makes sense. You keep trying to improve your tools for more efficiency, a quicker route to a better result. But we're just plain lying to ourselves if we think we've made moral progress. We've just learned how to hide the beast behind a cloak of civility. We have that leisure because we're at the top of the heap. Most humans have to get what they can get any way they can get it or die. Those are the people we hire to do the dirty work of keeping the gears turning. They take the risks and we buy the product of that risk. The only difference between cold blooded murder and murder by proxy is that the latter doesn't have to hide the corpse and clean the blood out of his clothes. We're all guilty of almost every form of atrocity - even if we don't know we're doing it. Ignorance is no excuse. Hunter refused to be ignorant, but he didn't go soft either. He knew that survival for one often meant death for another, freedom for a few meant slavery for most. That's why people like him and William Burroughs will remain relevant long after the majority of the pulitzer prize winner class have become quaint curiosities.
We do what we must to survive. If we can be kind enough to treat one another the way we want to be treated we're far ahead of the devouring pack. That's the most you can expect from humans and that's the most any truly wise human and / or savior ever asked of us. We all fail even to reach that low mark, but the least we can do is admit it and keep trying. Things like religion, politics and what we consume are mere side effects of what is actually happening. Why get tangled up in the side show when you can walk right into the full light of reality and drink your fill - and then some?
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Election Day 2010 (A Voter's Guide)
By Jake Berry
Choose a thick cut -
preferably a fat ham.
Drill a small hole through it.
Insert a spark plug into the wound.
Wrap a live wire around its tip.
Insert a tube
into the opposite end of the wound.
Pour gasoline down the tube.
Observe how the flesh leaps.
Keep the gasoline coming.
The flesh is twitching now,
moving across the floor.
Call it a meat engine.
Clothe the entire apparatus
in a large flag.
Toss it out into the yard.
Keep the gasoline coming.
When it rains
observe how the convulsions surrender
and reignite
and thick smoke rises.
Inhale the stench.
Keep the gasoline coming.
Choose a thick cut -
preferably a fat ham.
Drill a small hole through it.
Insert a spark plug into the wound.
Wrap a live wire around its tip.
Insert a tube
into the opposite end of the wound.
Pour gasoline down the tube.
Observe how the flesh leaps.
Keep the gasoline coming.
The flesh is twitching now,
moving across the floor.
Call it a meat engine.
Clothe the entire apparatus
in a large flag.
Toss it out into the yard.
Keep the gasoline coming.
When it rains
observe how the convulsions surrender
and reignite
and thick smoke rises.
Inhale the stench.
Keep the gasoline coming.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Arundhati Roy: Oppressing Dissent
In an update of events in India regarding Arundhati Roy, the author relates that while the charges of sedition have been dropped, the attempt to oppress her dissenting view continues with the media... (courtesy of Z Net).
Statement on Media and Mobs
By Arundhati Roy
Monday, November 01, 2010
New Delhi, October 31: A mob of about a hundred people arrived at my house at 11 this morning (Sunday October 31st 2010.) They broke through the gate and vandalized property. They shouted slogans against me for my views on Kashmir, and threatened to teach me a lesson.
The OB Vans of NDTV, Times Now and News 24 were already in place ostensibly to cover the event live. TV reports say that the mob consisted largely of members of the BJP’s Mahila Morcha (Women’s wing).
After they left, the police advised us to let them know if in future we saw any OB vans hanging around the neighborhood because they said that was an indication that a mob was on its way. In June this year, after a false report in the papers by Press Trust of India (PTI) two men on motorcycles tried to stone the windows of my home. They too were accompanied by TV cameramen.
What is the nature of the agreement between these sections of the media and mobs and criminals in search of spectacle? Does the media which positions itself at the ‘scene’ in advance have a guarantee that the attacks and demonstrations will be non-violent? What happens if there is criminal trespass (as there was today) or even something worse? Does the media then become accessory to the crime?
This question is important, given that some TV channels and newspapers are in the process of brazenly inciting mob anger against me.
In the race for sensationalism the line between reporting news and manufacturing news is becoming blurred. So what if a few people have to be sacrificed at the altar of TRP ratings?
The Government has indicated that it does not intend to go ahead with the charges of sedition against me and the other speakers at a recent seminar on Azadi for Kashmir. So the task of punishing me for my views seems to have been taken on by right wing storm troopers.
The Bajrang Dal and the RSS have openly announced that they are going to “fix” me with all the means at their disposal including filing cases against me all over the country. The whole country has seen what they are capable of doing, the extent to which they are capable of going.
So, while the Government is showing a degree of maturity, are sections of the media and the infrastructure of democracy being rented out to those who believe in mob justice?
I can understand that the BJP's Mahila Morcha is using me to distract attention from the senior RSS activist Indresh Kumar who has recently been named in the CBI charge-sheet for the bomb blast in Ajmer Sharif in which several people were killed and many injured.
But why are sections of the mainstream media doing the same?
Is a writer with unpopular views more dangerous than a suspect in a bomb blast? Or is it a question of ideological alignment?
Arundhati Roy
October 31st 2010
Statement on Media and Mobs
By Arundhati Roy
Monday, November 01, 2010
New Delhi, October 31: A mob of about a hundred people arrived at my house at 11 this morning (Sunday October 31st 2010.) They broke through the gate and vandalized property. They shouted slogans against me for my views on Kashmir, and threatened to teach me a lesson.
The OB Vans of NDTV, Times Now and News 24 were already in place ostensibly to cover the event live. TV reports say that the mob consisted largely of members of the BJP’s Mahila Morcha (Women’s wing).
After they left, the police advised us to let them know if in future we saw any OB vans hanging around the neighborhood because they said that was an indication that a mob was on its way. In June this year, after a false report in the papers by Press Trust of India (PTI) two men on motorcycles tried to stone the windows of my home. They too were accompanied by TV cameramen.
What is the nature of the agreement between these sections of the media and mobs and criminals in search of spectacle? Does the media which positions itself at the ‘scene’ in advance have a guarantee that the attacks and demonstrations will be non-violent? What happens if there is criminal trespass (as there was today) or even something worse? Does the media then become accessory to the crime?
This question is important, given that some TV channels and newspapers are in the process of brazenly inciting mob anger against me.
In the race for sensationalism the line between reporting news and manufacturing news is becoming blurred. So what if a few people have to be sacrificed at the altar of TRP ratings?
The Government has indicated that it does not intend to go ahead with the charges of sedition against me and the other speakers at a recent seminar on Azadi for Kashmir. So the task of punishing me for my views seems to have been taken on by right wing storm troopers.
The Bajrang Dal and the RSS have openly announced that they are going to “fix” me with all the means at their disposal including filing cases against me all over the country. The whole country has seen what they are capable of doing, the extent to which they are capable of going.
So, while the Government is showing a degree of maturity, are sections of the media and the infrastructure of democracy being rented out to those who believe in mob justice?
I can understand that the BJP's Mahila Morcha is using me to distract attention from the senior RSS activist Indresh Kumar who has recently been named in the CBI charge-sheet for the bomb blast in Ajmer Sharif in which several people were killed and many injured.
But why are sections of the mainstream media doing the same?
Is a writer with unpopular views more dangerous than a suspect in a bomb blast? Or is it a question of ideological alignment?
Arundhati Roy
October 31st 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Pity the Nation that Jails Dissent
As we wrestle with the issues of an election in America, the world continues to remind us that we are fortunate to live in a nation that allows dissent. One of the world's great political writers and novelists is currently threatened by the oppressive sedition laws of her nation. Here is her statement (courtesy of Z Net):
I Pity The Nation That Needs To Jail Those Who Ask For Justice
By Arundhati Roy
Wednesday, October 26, 2010
I write this from Srinagar, Kashmir. This morning's papers say that I may be arrested on charges of sedition for what I have said at recent public meetings on Kashmir. I said what millions of people here say every day. I said what I, as well as other commentators have written and said for years. Anybody who cares to read the transcripts of my speeches will see that they were fundamentally a call for justice. I spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one of the most brutal military occupations in the world; for Kashmiri Pandits who live out the tragedy of having been driven out of their homeland; for Dalit soldiers killed in Kashmir whose graves I visited on garbage heaps in their villages in Cuddalore; for the Indian poor who pay the price of this occupation in material ways and who are now learning to live in the terror of what is becoming a police state.
Yesterday I traveled to Shopian, the apple-town in South Kashmir which had remained closed for 47 days last year in protest against the brutal rape and murder of Asiya and Nilofer, the young women whose bodies were found in a shallow stream near their homes and whose murderers have still not been brought to justice. I met Shakeel, who is Nilofer's husband and Asiya's brother. We sat in a circle of people crazed with grief and anger who had lost hope that they would ever get 'insaf'—justice—from India, and now believed that Azadi—freedom— was their only hope. I met young stone pelters who had been shot through their eyes. I traveled with a young man who told me how three of his friends, teenagers in Anantnag district, had been taken into custody and had their finger-nails pulled out as punishment for throwing stones.
In the papers some have accused me of giving 'hate-speeches', of wanting India to break up. On the contrary, what I say comes from love and pride. It comes from not wanting people to be killed, raped, imprisoned or have their finger-nails pulled out in order to force them to say they are Indians. It comes from wanting to live in a society that is striving to be a just one. Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free.
Arundhati Roy
October 26 2010
I Pity The Nation That Needs To Jail Those Who Ask For Justice
By Arundhati Roy
Wednesday, October 26, 2010
I write this from Srinagar, Kashmir. This morning's papers say that I may be arrested on charges of sedition for what I have said at recent public meetings on Kashmir. I said what millions of people here say every day. I said what I, as well as other commentators have written and said for years. Anybody who cares to read the transcripts of my speeches will see that they were fundamentally a call for justice. I spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one of the most brutal military occupations in the world; for Kashmiri Pandits who live out the tragedy of having been driven out of their homeland; for Dalit soldiers killed in Kashmir whose graves I visited on garbage heaps in their villages in Cuddalore; for the Indian poor who pay the price of this occupation in material ways and who are now learning to live in the terror of what is becoming a police state.
Yesterday I traveled to Shopian, the apple-town in South Kashmir which had remained closed for 47 days last year in protest against the brutal rape and murder of Asiya and Nilofer, the young women whose bodies were found in a shallow stream near their homes and whose murderers have still not been brought to justice. I met Shakeel, who is Nilofer's husband and Asiya's brother. We sat in a circle of people crazed with grief and anger who had lost hope that they would ever get 'insaf'—justice—from India, and now believed that Azadi—freedom— was their only hope. I met young stone pelters who had been shot through their eyes. I traveled with a young man who told me how three of his friends, teenagers in Anantnag district, had been taken into custody and had their finger-nails pulled out as punishment for throwing stones.
In the papers some have accused me of giving 'hate-speeches', of wanting India to break up. On the contrary, what I say comes from love and pride. It comes from not wanting people to be killed, raped, imprisoned or have their finger-nails pulled out in order to force them to say they are Indians. It comes from wanting to live in a society that is striving to be a just one. Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free.
Arundhati Roy
October 26 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
RANDOM GUIDE TO THE CALIFORNIA ELECTION
NOVEMBER 2, 2010
This is intended as a general guide to voting in the upcoming California election for like-minded progressive independents. The further right you are on the political spectrum the more you should consider this a guide on how not to vote.
STATEWIDE OFFICES:
GOVERNOR: Jerry Brown, Democrat.
Is this the year of the CEO? I think not. We are less than two years removed from the Wall Street meltdown that nearly landed the nation in a second Great Depression. Make no mistake: The politics of Meg Whitman and her wealthy Wall Street cohorts are what landed us in this protracted recession. I think it generous of Whitman to boost California’s economy by spending a large chunk of her fortune to become Governor but the jobs she’s created will disappear in a few weeks and the only jobs she’s likely to create if elected will be in China, India or anywhere that labor is cheap.
The sky will not fall if Whitman is elected because she’s unlikely to get anything passed in the California legislature but why should we reward the arrogance of a candidate who never voted in her adult life yet believes she can buy the governor’s palace?
Jerry Brown is not the same man who was christened Moonbeam back in the day. He’s a hardnosed pragmatist and may be just the man to lead us out of the deep hole we’re in.
SENATOR: Barbara Boxer, Democrat.
Is this the year of the CEO? I think not. Carly Fiorina is the poster candidate of corporate America: Tax breaks for the elite, cheap labor, union busting, free trade, job exportation, de-regulation and corporate rule. She represents everything that is wrong with government in America and she has the audacity to call Barbara Boxer arrogant. That’s the pot calling the kettle black.
Boxer may not be the most dynamic Senator in Washington but she stands with the working people most of the time. She will vote to end our involvement in both wars and will push hard for the kinds of jobs California needs most: Rebuilding our infrastructure and laying the groundwork for an emerging Green Economy.
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: Weber, King or Castillo.
This is an office without power or authority. It is a stepping stone for politicians seeking to further their careers and an opportunity to prove they can win a statewide election. I see no compelling reason to vote for either major party candidate. This is an opportunity for the voter to assert his or her independence without fear of the consequences. Vote Peace and Freedom, Libertarian or Green. Who cares?
SECRETARY OF STATE: Tobin or Menasche.
As we have seen in the states of Ohio and Florida, there are times when a Secretary of State can wield enormous power. This office should be nonpartisan and the best we can do in this election is a civil rights attorney (Menasche) from the Green Party or a voting rights advocate (Tobin) from the Libertarians.
ATTORNEY GENERAL: Kamala Harris, Democrat.
In an increasingly important role, setting law enforcement priorities with dwindling resources, we can be reasonably certain Harris will bring a progressive view to the state attorney general’s office. She has done well in San Francisco.
CONTROLLER: John Chiang, Democrat.
There are times when we should support an incumbent for a job done well. It appears that this is the case with John Chiang. In these hard times he has saved taxpayers millions of dollars by exposing fraud and misappropriation of funds. Bravo!
TREASURER/INSURANCE COMMISSIONER/BOARD OF EQUALIZATION: Go Independent. As a rule of thumb, unless you have a compelling reason to vote mainstream, vote independent.
UNITED STATES REPRESENTATIVE: Democrat.
The balance of power in the US Congress is at stake in this election. It is a shame independents have not found the candidates or resources to make a run in this election. In my district there are no independent alternatives. With the Supreme Court’s ruling on corporate funding of campaigns (Citizens United) it can only get worse. Nevertheless, hold your nose and vote for these feckless Democrats. There are bigger issues at stake than the individual candidates represent.
STATE SENATOR AND ASSEMBLY: Independent. It is unlikely the Republicans will take control of the state assembly or senate. The voter should therefore feel free to vote for the independent or third party candidate of your preference. If however there is no independent alternative on the ballot, hold your nose and vote Democrat.
PROPOSITION 19: Legalization of Marijuana.
Yes. Take away the morality play (one group seeking to impose their morality on their fellow citizens) and the arguments against legalization have no bite. The same folks who said the sky would fall with medical marijuana swear that it is a gateway drug. No, it is not but alcohol is. One paper claims it is poorly written because it doesn’t spell out the details but that is exactly how it should be written. End prohibition and figure out the details as we go along. One study says it won’t shut down the cartels but it certainly won’t do them any good, will it? It is no secret that the fiercest opponents of 19 are the drug dealers. Another says it won’t raise nearly as much money as we might think. Maybe so but it will open a vast revenue stream while freeing our law enforcement officers to address more pressing issues of law and order. But the feds won’t honor it. Really? Do they have nothing better to do than to bust people growing, selling and distributing relatively small amounts of marijuana that would otherwise come from more nefarious sources? Do they intend to go after everyone or have they never heard of discriminatory law enforcement? Like medical marijuana, let California lead and the nation will eventually follow.
PROPOSITION 20: Redistricting.
Yes. Anything would be better than partisan gerrymandering. Who knows if the 14-member commission will truly be independent but lets give it a chance.
PROPOSITION 21: Vehicle fee for state parks.
Yes. As a result of Proposition 13, the single most potent reason for California’s perpetual budget shortfall, the state can no longer raise revenues through tax increase. Therefore, California’s legislators have turned to fees to escape the two-thirds vote required for taxes. State parks desperately need funds and this provides them. Too bad its prospects are so dismal.
PROPOSITION 22: Protects State Funds for Transportation, Redevelopment and Local Government Projects.
No. Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul is another way the state has adapted to its financial restraints. If you think these particular expenditures are more important than education, fire and police then vote yes. I don’t.
PROPOSITION 23: Repeal of the Green Initiative.
No. Two Texas oil companies have conspired to undo California’s Green initiative, a critical incentive to the development of a new economy. This is far and away the most important proposition on the ballot. Say No to Texas and Yes to Green.
PROPOSITION 24: Repeal of a Corporate Tax Exemption.
Yes. The corporate elite managed to get tax exemptions in the last budget compromise. Almost all of the tax breaks would go to the largest corporations while the state in all its need would sacrifice billions in lost revenues.
PROPOSITION 25: Majority Rule on Budget Passage.
Yes. The two-thirds vote is the primary weapon of all “Don’t Tax Us!” interests and it is grossly anti-democratic. It’s too bad this proposal doesn’t target the two-thirds requirement on tax increases as well but you take what you can get.
PROPOSITION 26: Two-thirds Vote for Fees.
No. If you don’t believe in majority rule you don’t believe in democracy. Allowing a majority in one election to require two-thirds in perpetuity is irresponsible, immoral and it is one major reason for the decline of the great state of California.
PROPOSITION 27: Repeals Districting Commission (Proposition 20).
No. With 20 and 27 on the ballot it is possible to create a commission and eliminate with one vote. Go figure.
VOTE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2ND, 7 AM TO 8 PM.
SUMMARY
GOVERNOR: BROWN
US SENATOR: BOXER
LT. GOVERNOR: CASTILLO
CONTROLLER: CHIANG
ATTORNEY GENERAL: HARRIS
SECRETARY OF STATE: MENASCHE
TREASURER: CRITTENDEN
INSURANCE COMISH: PADILLA
BD OF EQUALIZATION: MICHLIN
US REPRESENTATIVE: DEMOCRAT
STATE SENATOR: INDEPENDENT
STATE ASSEMBLY: INDEPENDENT
PROPOSITION 19: YES
PROPOSITION 20: YES
PROPOSITION 21: YES
PROPOSITION 22: NO
PROPOSITION 23: NO
PROPOSITION 24: YES
PROPOSITION 25: YES
PROPOSITION 26: NO
PROPOSITION 27: NO
This is intended as a general guide to voting in the upcoming California election for like-minded progressive independents. The further right you are on the political spectrum the more you should consider this a guide on how not to vote.
STATEWIDE OFFICES:
GOVERNOR: Jerry Brown, Democrat.
Is this the year of the CEO? I think not. We are less than two years removed from the Wall Street meltdown that nearly landed the nation in a second Great Depression. Make no mistake: The politics of Meg Whitman and her wealthy Wall Street cohorts are what landed us in this protracted recession. I think it generous of Whitman to boost California’s economy by spending a large chunk of her fortune to become Governor but the jobs she’s created will disappear in a few weeks and the only jobs she’s likely to create if elected will be in China, India or anywhere that labor is cheap.
The sky will not fall if Whitman is elected because she’s unlikely to get anything passed in the California legislature but why should we reward the arrogance of a candidate who never voted in her adult life yet believes she can buy the governor’s palace?
Jerry Brown is not the same man who was christened Moonbeam back in the day. He’s a hardnosed pragmatist and may be just the man to lead us out of the deep hole we’re in.
SENATOR: Barbara Boxer, Democrat.
Is this the year of the CEO? I think not. Carly Fiorina is the poster candidate of corporate America: Tax breaks for the elite, cheap labor, union busting, free trade, job exportation, de-regulation and corporate rule. She represents everything that is wrong with government in America and she has the audacity to call Barbara Boxer arrogant. That’s the pot calling the kettle black.
Boxer may not be the most dynamic Senator in Washington but she stands with the working people most of the time. She will vote to end our involvement in both wars and will push hard for the kinds of jobs California needs most: Rebuilding our infrastructure and laying the groundwork for an emerging Green Economy.
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: Weber, King or Castillo.
This is an office without power or authority. It is a stepping stone for politicians seeking to further their careers and an opportunity to prove they can win a statewide election. I see no compelling reason to vote for either major party candidate. This is an opportunity for the voter to assert his or her independence without fear of the consequences. Vote Peace and Freedom, Libertarian or Green. Who cares?
SECRETARY OF STATE: Tobin or Menasche.
As we have seen in the states of Ohio and Florida, there are times when a Secretary of State can wield enormous power. This office should be nonpartisan and the best we can do in this election is a civil rights attorney (Menasche) from the Green Party or a voting rights advocate (Tobin) from the Libertarians.
ATTORNEY GENERAL: Kamala Harris, Democrat.
In an increasingly important role, setting law enforcement priorities with dwindling resources, we can be reasonably certain Harris will bring a progressive view to the state attorney general’s office. She has done well in San Francisco.
CONTROLLER: John Chiang, Democrat.
There are times when we should support an incumbent for a job done well. It appears that this is the case with John Chiang. In these hard times he has saved taxpayers millions of dollars by exposing fraud and misappropriation of funds. Bravo!
TREASURER/INSURANCE COMMISSIONER/BOARD OF EQUALIZATION: Go Independent. As a rule of thumb, unless you have a compelling reason to vote mainstream, vote independent.
UNITED STATES REPRESENTATIVE: Democrat.
The balance of power in the US Congress is at stake in this election. It is a shame independents have not found the candidates or resources to make a run in this election. In my district there are no independent alternatives. With the Supreme Court’s ruling on corporate funding of campaigns (Citizens United) it can only get worse. Nevertheless, hold your nose and vote for these feckless Democrats. There are bigger issues at stake than the individual candidates represent.
STATE SENATOR AND ASSEMBLY: Independent. It is unlikely the Republicans will take control of the state assembly or senate. The voter should therefore feel free to vote for the independent or third party candidate of your preference. If however there is no independent alternative on the ballot, hold your nose and vote Democrat.
PROPOSITION 19: Legalization of Marijuana.
Yes. Take away the morality play (one group seeking to impose their morality on their fellow citizens) and the arguments against legalization have no bite. The same folks who said the sky would fall with medical marijuana swear that it is a gateway drug. No, it is not but alcohol is. One paper claims it is poorly written because it doesn’t spell out the details but that is exactly how it should be written. End prohibition and figure out the details as we go along. One study says it won’t shut down the cartels but it certainly won’t do them any good, will it? It is no secret that the fiercest opponents of 19 are the drug dealers. Another says it won’t raise nearly as much money as we might think. Maybe so but it will open a vast revenue stream while freeing our law enforcement officers to address more pressing issues of law and order. But the feds won’t honor it. Really? Do they have nothing better to do than to bust people growing, selling and distributing relatively small amounts of marijuana that would otherwise come from more nefarious sources? Do they intend to go after everyone or have they never heard of discriminatory law enforcement? Like medical marijuana, let California lead and the nation will eventually follow.
PROPOSITION 20: Redistricting.
Yes. Anything would be better than partisan gerrymandering. Who knows if the 14-member commission will truly be independent but lets give it a chance.
PROPOSITION 21: Vehicle fee for state parks.
Yes. As a result of Proposition 13, the single most potent reason for California’s perpetual budget shortfall, the state can no longer raise revenues through tax increase. Therefore, California’s legislators have turned to fees to escape the two-thirds vote required for taxes. State parks desperately need funds and this provides them. Too bad its prospects are so dismal.
PROPOSITION 22: Protects State Funds for Transportation, Redevelopment and Local Government Projects.
No. Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul is another way the state has adapted to its financial restraints. If you think these particular expenditures are more important than education, fire and police then vote yes. I don’t.
PROPOSITION 23: Repeal of the Green Initiative.
No. Two Texas oil companies have conspired to undo California’s Green initiative, a critical incentive to the development of a new economy. This is far and away the most important proposition on the ballot. Say No to Texas and Yes to Green.
PROPOSITION 24: Repeal of a Corporate Tax Exemption.
Yes. The corporate elite managed to get tax exemptions in the last budget compromise. Almost all of the tax breaks would go to the largest corporations while the state in all its need would sacrifice billions in lost revenues.
PROPOSITION 25: Majority Rule on Budget Passage.
Yes. The two-thirds vote is the primary weapon of all “Don’t Tax Us!” interests and it is grossly anti-democratic. It’s too bad this proposal doesn’t target the two-thirds requirement on tax increases as well but you take what you can get.
PROPOSITION 26: Two-thirds Vote for Fees.
No. If you don’t believe in majority rule you don’t believe in democracy. Allowing a majority in one election to require two-thirds in perpetuity is irresponsible, immoral and it is one major reason for the decline of the great state of California.
PROPOSITION 27: Repeals Districting Commission (Proposition 20).
No. With 20 and 27 on the ballot it is possible to create a commission and eliminate with one vote. Go figure.
VOTE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2ND, 7 AM TO 8 PM.
SUMMARY
GOVERNOR: BROWN
US SENATOR: BOXER
LT. GOVERNOR: CASTILLO
CONTROLLER: CHIANG
ATTORNEY GENERAL: HARRIS
SECRETARY OF STATE: MENASCHE
TREASURER: CRITTENDEN
INSURANCE COMISH: PADILLA
BD OF EQUALIZATION: MICHLIN
US REPRESENTATIVE: DEMOCRAT
STATE SENATOR: INDEPENDENT
STATE ASSEMBLY: INDEPENDENT
PROPOSITION 19: YES
PROPOSITION 20: YES
PROPOSITION 21: YES
PROPOSITION 22: NO
PROPOSITION 23: NO
PROPOSITION 24: YES
PROPOSITION 25: YES
PROPOSITION 26: NO
PROPOSITION 27: NO
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Jake's Word: In Response to "The Long View of American History" by Jack Random.
In response to "The Long View of American History: The Fall before the Rise" by Jack Random (reprinted below).
"But we do know that the laws of economics will not be suspended by public sentiment."
Yes! Why does the public not understand this? Do we have to be reduced to a third world economic structure before people realize they've been had?
It does seem that real change can only be realized in the wake of great catastrophe - usually catastrophes that could have been avoided. Is rationality so alien to the majority of humans most of the time?
To add to the confusion, the 10:10 campaign releases a video in which people that disagree with them are blown up. This was supposed to be funny. It isn't. When the the result was overwhelmingly negative, they pulled the video, but too late. It has gone viral. Is this really the work of an environmental group concerned about the future, or right-wing propaganda out of left field?
Obviously the polemic is out of control from all sides. Before the U.S. presidential election of 2004 people were asking if a nation of people could collectively lose their minds. It seems that they can. Germany in the 1930s leaps to mind. Worse yet, the problem has gone global as corporatism, under the name of austerity campaigns, deprives people of the services their taxes pay for while the rich get tax breaks and corporations are allowed to do as they please beyond any real legal restraint.
Does it all have to fall apart before we wake up? I hope not. Waking up in a new dark ages would be like waking up in a cave. How many centuries, how many generations, would have to pass before we recovered?
Sadly, no matter what we say, or how we vote, and I will be voting, it seems to be out of our hands.
Take care,
Jake
JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
THE LONG VIEW OF AMERICAN HISTORY: THE FALL BEFORE THE RISE
By Jack Random
It seems to me that anyone who has a vision of real and systemic change in government must inevitably come to terms with the reality that change is a long-term proposition. It is improbable that we are the change we’ve been looking for or that the change we seek will come in our lifetimes.
Historic change requires a convergence of events far beyond our collective ability to control or create it.
History instructs us that change often requires a catalyst in the form of a catastrophe, a disaster or a tragedy so profound it touches the heart and invades the psyche of every man, woman and child who bears witness.
At a time when news was carried primarily by word of mouth from tavern to tavern, from church to public hall, on the wings of an emerging independent press, the Boston Massacre was such an event. Analogous in some ways to Kent State and Jackson State in 1970 it was widely perceived as the first occasion where those charged with protecting us, turned on us and killed our fellow beings for merely asserting their rights of citizenship. It struck a deep chord with the American colonists and propelled us forward toward the war for independence.
The great upheaval of the Civil War ended the scourge of state sanctioned slavery in America.
The Great Depression of the 1930’s combined with the rise of unions and the rights of the working class gave rise to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, ending forever this nation’s philosophic indifference to the poor, the infirm and the elderly under the guise of “rugged individualism.”
The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 hurled us into global politics and the great upheaval of World War II. It unleashed America’s industrial might (now all but vanished) and eventually altered the balance of powers, setting the stage for over four decades of the Cold War.
The change from cataclysmic events is not always positive. In our own lifetimes we experienced such an event with the attack on the towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and an unknown third target. It precipitated a policy of aggressive war and a bold attempt by a brash and all too eager administration to dominate the world by capturing its key supply of oil. We can only imagine how many lives and how much damage to the economy, to civil liberties and to the nation’s reputation in world politics resulted from the Neocon reign of terror.
We have not even begun to glimpse the end of the costs attributable to the Bush administration and foreign policy is only half the story. We very nearly experienced a second cataclysmic event during our lifetime and it came to fruition only seven years after the September 11 attack.
As a direct result of the Bush administration policies (an overextended military, a burgeoning debt, tax cuts favoring the wealthy, deregulation, job exportation, on and on), an out of control financial system pushed us to the brink of global economic collapse.
Owing largely to a massive injection of capital from the public coffers to the private sector we narrowly escaped the cataclysm of an implosion that would surely have led to a second Great Depression. We were left with the lingering effects of a great recession: long-term unemployment, depressed wages, diminished home values, depreciating benefits and an ever-increasing gap between the elite and the working class. But we were spared the cataclysm that would have triggered systemic change.
As one who believes in change, who believes that the democratic form of government requires constant change to curtail the growing power of international corporations, I am reluctant to conclude that total economic collapse might have been the better long-term option but that is the possibility that now presents itself.
For it appears that we as a people have learned little to nothing of the hard lessons delivered by a near collapse. Indeed, those who seem to dominate our political discourse today either refuse to believe it happened or refuse to connect the dots between the economic pain we are currently suffering and the policies that created it.
As we continue down this path of blind denial it seems probable that we will soon elect a sufficient number of unknowing, irresponsible, corporate sponsored politicians, so blind to our economic realities that they will paralyze government indefinitely.
We are asking for trouble.
We will continue marching like lemmings to the sea toward the next economic breakdown only this time congress will be sworn against a government bailout and the chief executive will be disinclined to ask.
There will be no comfort in being among those who warned the general public of pending disaster.
Will there be another Great Depression? No one knows. But we do know that the laws of economics will not be suspended by public sentiment.
We are living in times when historical events are accelerating and the government’s ability to keep pace is dramatically diminished. With the power of corporations growing like the weeds of an untended garden it is hardly the time to rip the heart out of the only counterforce that can hold it in check.
In the long term, perhaps a second Great Depression is inevitable and maybe it is needed to deliver the lessons that should have been learned from lesser disasters.
If this is our destiny, it is my hope that like the Phoenix we will rise from the ruins greater, wiser, more democratic and more humane.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
"But we do know that the laws of economics will not be suspended by public sentiment."
Yes! Why does the public not understand this? Do we have to be reduced to a third world economic structure before people realize they've been had?
It does seem that real change can only be realized in the wake of great catastrophe - usually catastrophes that could have been avoided. Is rationality so alien to the majority of humans most of the time?
To add to the confusion, the 10:10 campaign releases a video in which people that disagree with them are blown up. This was supposed to be funny. It isn't. When the the result was overwhelmingly negative, they pulled the video, but too late. It has gone viral. Is this really the work of an environmental group concerned about the future, or right-wing propaganda out of left field?
Obviously the polemic is out of control from all sides. Before the U.S. presidential election of 2004 people were asking if a nation of people could collectively lose their minds. It seems that they can. Germany in the 1930s leaps to mind. Worse yet, the problem has gone global as corporatism, under the name of austerity campaigns, deprives people of the services their taxes pay for while the rich get tax breaks and corporations are allowed to do as they please beyond any real legal restraint.
Does it all have to fall apart before we wake up? I hope not. Waking up in a new dark ages would be like waking up in a cave. How many centuries, how many generations, would have to pass before we recovered?
Sadly, no matter what we say, or how we vote, and I will be voting, it seems to be out of our hands.
Take care,
Jake
JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
THE LONG VIEW OF AMERICAN HISTORY: THE FALL BEFORE THE RISE
By Jack Random
It seems to me that anyone who has a vision of real and systemic change in government must inevitably come to terms with the reality that change is a long-term proposition. It is improbable that we are the change we’ve been looking for or that the change we seek will come in our lifetimes.
Historic change requires a convergence of events far beyond our collective ability to control or create it.
History instructs us that change often requires a catalyst in the form of a catastrophe, a disaster or a tragedy so profound it touches the heart and invades the psyche of every man, woman and child who bears witness.
At a time when news was carried primarily by word of mouth from tavern to tavern, from church to public hall, on the wings of an emerging independent press, the Boston Massacre was such an event. Analogous in some ways to Kent State and Jackson State in 1970 it was widely perceived as the first occasion where those charged with protecting us, turned on us and killed our fellow beings for merely asserting their rights of citizenship. It struck a deep chord with the American colonists and propelled us forward toward the war for independence.
The great upheaval of the Civil War ended the scourge of state sanctioned slavery in America.
The Great Depression of the 1930’s combined with the rise of unions and the rights of the working class gave rise to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, ending forever this nation’s philosophic indifference to the poor, the infirm and the elderly under the guise of “rugged individualism.”
The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 hurled us into global politics and the great upheaval of World War II. It unleashed America’s industrial might (now all but vanished) and eventually altered the balance of powers, setting the stage for over four decades of the Cold War.
The change from cataclysmic events is not always positive. In our own lifetimes we experienced such an event with the attack on the towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and an unknown third target. It precipitated a policy of aggressive war and a bold attempt by a brash and all too eager administration to dominate the world by capturing its key supply of oil. We can only imagine how many lives and how much damage to the economy, to civil liberties and to the nation’s reputation in world politics resulted from the Neocon reign of terror.
We have not even begun to glimpse the end of the costs attributable to the Bush administration and foreign policy is only half the story. We very nearly experienced a second cataclysmic event during our lifetime and it came to fruition only seven years after the September 11 attack.
As a direct result of the Bush administration policies (an overextended military, a burgeoning debt, tax cuts favoring the wealthy, deregulation, job exportation, on and on), an out of control financial system pushed us to the brink of global economic collapse.
Owing largely to a massive injection of capital from the public coffers to the private sector we narrowly escaped the cataclysm of an implosion that would surely have led to a second Great Depression. We were left with the lingering effects of a great recession: long-term unemployment, depressed wages, diminished home values, depreciating benefits and an ever-increasing gap between the elite and the working class. But we were spared the cataclysm that would have triggered systemic change.
As one who believes in change, who believes that the democratic form of government requires constant change to curtail the growing power of international corporations, I am reluctant to conclude that total economic collapse might have been the better long-term option but that is the possibility that now presents itself.
For it appears that we as a people have learned little to nothing of the hard lessons delivered by a near collapse. Indeed, those who seem to dominate our political discourse today either refuse to believe it happened or refuse to connect the dots between the economic pain we are currently suffering and the policies that created it.
As we continue down this path of blind denial it seems probable that we will soon elect a sufficient number of unknowing, irresponsible, corporate sponsored politicians, so blind to our economic realities that they will paralyze government indefinitely.
We are asking for trouble.
We will continue marching like lemmings to the sea toward the next economic breakdown only this time congress will be sworn against a government bailout and the chief executive will be disinclined to ask.
There will be no comfort in being among those who warned the general public of pending disaster.
Will there be another Great Depression? No one knows. But we do know that the laws of economics will not be suspended by public sentiment.
We are living in times when historical events are accelerating and the government’s ability to keep pace is dramatically diminished. With the power of corporations growing like the weeds of an untended garden it is hardly the time to rip the heart out of the only counterforce that can hold it in check.
In the long term, perhaps a second Great Depression is inevitable and maybe it is needed to deliver the lessons that should have been learned from lesser disasters.
If this is our destiny, it is my hope that like the Phoenix we will rise from the ruins greater, wiser, more democratic and more humane.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON NUMEROUS CITES OF THE WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING THE ALBION MONITOR, BELLACIAO, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS AND PACIFIC FREE PRESS. SEE WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM.
Friday, August 06, 2010
THE GREAT CON OF THE FINANCIAL ELITE
The Financial Con of the Decade Explained So Simply Even A Congressman Will Get It
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/financial-con-decade-explained-so-simply-even-congressman-will-get-it
(Submitted by Tyler Durden 7/10/10. Forwarded by DakotaNomad 8/6/10.)
Sometimes, when chasing the bouncing ball of fraud and corruption on a daily basis, it is easy to lose sight of the forest for the millions of trees.
Luckily, Charles Hugh Smith of oftwominds.com has taken the time to put it all into such simple and compelling terms even [a] corrupt congressmen will not have the chance to plead stupidity after reading this.
Of course, to those familiar with the work of Austrian economists, none of this will come as a surprise.
1. Enable trillions of dollars in mortgages guaranteed to default by packaging unlimited quantities of them into mortgage-backed securities (MBS), creating unlimited demand for fraudulently originated loans.
2. Sell these MBS as "safe" to credulous investors, institutions, town councils in Norway, etc., i.e. "the bezzle" on a global scale.
3. Make huge "side bets" against these doomed mortgages so when they default then the short-side bets generate billions in profits.
4. Leverage each $1 of actual capital into $100 of high-risk bets.
5. Hide the utterly fraudulent bets offshore and/or off-balance sheet (not that the regulators you had muzzled would have noticed anyway).
6. When the long-side bets go bad, transfer hundreds of billions of dollars in Federal guarantees, bailouts and backstops into the private hands which made the risky bets, either via direct payments or via proxies like AIG. Enable these private Power Elites to borrow hundreds of billions more from the Treasury/Fed at zero interest.
7. Deposit these funds at the Federal Reserve, where they earn 3-4%. Reap billions in guaranteed income by borrowing Federal money for free and getting paid interest by the Fed.
8. As profits pile up, start buying boatloads of short-term U.S. Treasuries. Now the taxpayers who absorbed the trillions in private losses and who transferred trillions in subsidies, backstops, guarantees, bailouts and loans to private banks and corporations, are now paying interest on the Treasuries their own money purchased for the banks/corporations.
9. Slowly acquire trillions of dollars in Treasuries--not difficult to do as the Federal government is borrowing $1.5 trillion a year.
10. Stop buying Treasuries and dump a boatload onto the market, forcing interest rates to rise as supply of new T-Bills exceeds demand (at least temporarily). Repeat as necessary to double and then triple interest rates paid on Treasuries.
11. Buy hundreds of billions in long-term Treasuries at high rates of interest. As interest rates rise, interest payments dwarf all other Federal spending, forcing extreme cuts in all other government spending.
12. Enjoy the hundreds of billions of dollars in interest payments being paid by taxpayers on Treasuries that were purchased with their money but which are safely in private hands.
Since the Federal government could potentially inflate away these trillions in Treasuries, buy enough elected officials to force austerity so inflation remains tame. In essence, these private banks and corporations now own the revenue stream of the Federal government and its taxpayers. Neat con, and the marks will never understand how "saving our financial system" led to their servitude to the very interests they bailed out.
The circle is now complete: in "saving our financial system," the public borrowed trillions and transferred the money to private Power Elites, who then buy the public debt with the money swindled out of the taxpayer. Then the taxpayers transfer more wealth every year to the Power Elites/Plutocracy in the form of interest on the Treasury debt. The Power Elites will own the debt that was taken on to bail them out of bad private bets: this is the culmination of privatized gains, socialized risk.
In effect, it's a Third World/colonial scam on a gigantic scale: plunder the public treasury, then buy the debt which was borrowed and transferred to your pockets. You are buying the country with money you borrowed from its taxpayers. No despot could do better.
As for part two of this epic con we are all living through:
The Con of the Decade (Part II) meshes neatly with the first Con of the Decade. Yesterday I described how the financial Plutocracy can transfer ownership of the Federal government's income stream via using the taxpayer's money to buy the debt that the taxpayers borrowed to bail out the Plutocracy.
In order for the con to work, however, the Power Elites and their politico toadies in Congress, the Treasury and the Fed must convince the peasantry that low tax rates on unearned income are not just "free market capitalism at its best" but that they are also "what the country needs to get moving again."
The first step of the con was successfully fobbed off on the peasantry in 2001: lower the taxes paid by the most productive peasants marginally while massively lowering the effective taxes paid by the financial Plutocracy.
One Year Later, No Sign of Improvement in America's Income Inequality Problem:
Income inequality has grown massively since 2000. According to Harvard Magazine, 66% of 2001-2007's income growth went to the top 1% of Americans, while the other 99% of the population got a measly 6% increase. How is this possible? One thing to consider is that in 2001, George W. Bush cut $1.3 trillion in taxes, and 32.6% of the cut went to the top 1%. Another factor is Bush's decision to increase the national debt from $5 trillion to $11 trillion. The combination of increased government spending and lower taxes helped the top 1% considerably.
The second part of the con is to mask much of the Power Elites' income streams behind tax shelters and other gaming-of-the-system so the advertised rate appears high to the peasantry but the effective rate paid on total income is much much lower.
The tax shelters are so numerous and so effective that it takes thousands of pages of tax codes and armies of toadies to pursue them all: family trusts, oil depletion allowances, tax-free bonds and of course special one-off tax breaks arranged by "captured" elected officials.
Step three is to convince the peasantry that $600 in unearned income (capital gains) should be taxed in the same way as $600 million. The entire key to the U.S. tax code is to tax earned income heavily but tax unearned income (the majority of the Plutocracy's income is of course unearned) not at all or very lightly.
In a system which rewarded productive work and provided disincentives to rampant speculation and fraud, the opposite would hold: unearned income would be taxed at much higher rates than earned income, which would be taxed lightly, especially at household incomes below $100,000.
If the goal were to encourage "investing" while reining in the sort of speculations which "earn" hedge fund managers $600 million each (no typo, that was the average of the top 10 hedgies' personal take of their funds gains), then all unearned income (interest, dividends, capital gains, rents from property, oil wells, etc.) up to $6,000 a year would be free--no tax. Unearned income between $6,000 and $60,000 would be taxed at 20%, roughly half the top rate for earned income. This would leave 95% of U.S. households properly encouraged to invest via low tax rates.
Above $60,000, then unearned income would be taxed the same as earned income, and above $1 million (the top 1/10 of 1% of households) then it would be taxed at 50%. Above $10 million, it would be taxed at 60%. Such a system would offer disincentives to the speculative hauls made by the top 1/10 of 1% while encouraging investing in the lower 99%.
Could such a system actually be passed into law and enforced by a captured, toady bureaucracy and Congress? Of course not. But it is still a worthy exercise to take apart the rationalizations being offered to justify rampant speculative looting, collusion, corruption and fraud.
The last step of the con is to raise taxes on the productive peasantry to provide the revenues needed to pay the Plutocracy its interest on Treasuries. If the "Bush tax cuts" are repealed, the actual effective rates paid on unearned income will remain half (20%) of the rates on earned income (wages, salaries, profits earned from small business, etc.) which are roughly 40% at higher income levels.
The financial Plutocracy will champion the need to rein in Federal debt, now that they have raised the debt via plundering the public coffers and extended ownership over that debt.
Now the con boils down to insuring the peasantry pay enough taxes to pay the interest on the Federal debt--interest which is sure to rise considerably. The 1% T-Bill rates were just part of the con to convince the peasantry that trillions of dollars could be borrowed "with no consequences." Those rates will steadily rise once the financial Power Elites own enough of the Treasury debt. Then the game plan will be to lock in handsome returns on long-term Treasuries, and command the toady politicos to support "austerity."
The austerity will not extend to the financial Elites, of course. That's the whole purpose of the con. "Some are more equal than others," indeed.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/financial-con-decade-explained-so-simply-even-congressman-will-get-it
(Submitted by Tyler Durden 7/10/10. Forwarded by DakotaNomad 8/6/10.)
Sometimes, when chasing the bouncing ball of fraud and corruption on a daily basis, it is easy to lose sight of the forest for the millions of trees.
Luckily, Charles Hugh Smith of oftwominds.com has taken the time to put it all into such simple and compelling terms even [a] corrupt congressmen will not have the chance to plead stupidity after reading this.
Of course, to those familiar with the work of Austrian economists, none of this will come as a surprise.
1. Enable trillions of dollars in mortgages guaranteed to default by packaging unlimited quantities of them into mortgage-backed securities (MBS), creating unlimited demand for fraudulently originated loans.
2. Sell these MBS as "safe" to credulous investors, institutions, town councils in Norway, etc., i.e. "the bezzle" on a global scale.
3. Make huge "side bets" against these doomed mortgages so when they default then the short-side bets generate billions in profits.
4. Leverage each $1 of actual capital into $100 of high-risk bets.
5. Hide the utterly fraudulent bets offshore and/or off-balance sheet (not that the regulators you had muzzled would have noticed anyway).
6. When the long-side bets go bad, transfer hundreds of billions of dollars in Federal guarantees, bailouts and backstops into the private hands which made the risky bets, either via direct payments or via proxies like AIG. Enable these private Power Elites to borrow hundreds of billions more from the Treasury/Fed at zero interest.
7. Deposit these funds at the Federal Reserve, where they earn 3-4%. Reap billions in guaranteed income by borrowing Federal money for free and getting paid interest by the Fed.
8. As profits pile up, start buying boatloads of short-term U.S. Treasuries. Now the taxpayers who absorbed the trillions in private losses and who transferred trillions in subsidies, backstops, guarantees, bailouts and loans to private banks and corporations, are now paying interest on the Treasuries their own money purchased for the banks/corporations.
9. Slowly acquire trillions of dollars in Treasuries--not difficult to do as the Federal government is borrowing $1.5 trillion a year.
10. Stop buying Treasuries and dump a boatload onto the market, forcing interest rates to rise as supply of new T-Bills exceeds demand (at least temporarily). Repeat as necessary to double and then triple interest rates paid on Treasuries.
11. Buy hundreds of billions in long-term Treasuries at high rates of interest. As interest rates rise, interest payments dwarf all other Federal spending, forcing extreme cuts in all other government spending.
12. Enjoy the hundreds of billions of dollars in interest payments being paid by taxpayers on Treasuries that were purchased with their money but which are safely in private hands.
Since the Federal government could potentially inflate away these trillions in Treasuries, buy enough elected officials to force austerity so inflation remains tame. In essence, these private banks and corporations now own the revenue stream of the Federal government and its taxpayers. Neat con, and the marks will never understand how "saving our financial system" led to their servitude to the very interests they bailed out.
The circle is now complete: in "saving our financial system," the public borrowed trillions and transferred the money to private Power Elites, who then buy the public debt with the money swindled out of the taxpayer. Then the taxpayers transfer more wealth every year to the Power Elites/Plutocracy in the form of interest on the Treasury debt. The Power Elites will own the debt that was taken on to bail them out of bad private bets: this is the culmination of privatized gains, socialized risk.
In effect, it's a Third World/colonial scam on a gigantic scale: plunder the public treasury, then buy the debt which was borrowed and transferred to your pockets. You are buying the country with money you borrowed from its taxpayers. No despot could do better.
As for part two of this epic con we are all living through:
The Con of the Decade (Part II) meshes neatly with the first Con of the Decade. Yesterday I described how the financial Plutocracy can transfer ownership of the Federal government's income stream via using the taxpayer's money to buy the debt that the taxpayers borrowed to bail out the Plutocracy.
In order for the con to work, however, the Power Elites and their politico toadies in Congress, the Treasury and the Fed must convince the peasantry that low tax rates on unearned income are not just "free market capitalism at its best" but that they are also "what the country needs to get moving again."
The first step of the con was successfully fobbed off on the peasantry in 2001: lower the taxes paid by the most productive peasants marginally while massively lowering the effective taxes paid by the financial Plutocracy.
One Year Later, No Sign of Improvement in America's Income Inequality Problem:
Income inequality has grown massively since 2000. According to Harvard Magazine, 66% of 2001-2007's income growth went to the top 1% of Americans, while the other 99% of the population got a measly 6% increase. How is this possible? One thing to consider is that in 2001, George W. Bush cut $1.3 trillion in taxes, and 32.6% of the cut went to the top 1%. Another factor is Bush's decision to increase the national debt from $5 trillion to $11 trillion. The combination of increased government spending and lower taxes helped the top 1% considerably.
The second part of the con is to mask much of the Power Elites' income streams behind tax shelters and other gaming-of-the-system so the advertised rate appears high to the peasantry but the effective rate paid on total income is much much lower.
The tax shelters are so numerous and so effective that it takes thousands of pages of tax codes and armies of toadies to pursue them all: family trusts, oil depletion allowances, tax-free bonds and of course special one-off tax breaks arranged by "captured" elected officials.
Step three is to convince the peasantry that $600 in unearned income (capital gains) should be taxed in the same way as $600 million. The entire key to the U.S. tax code is to tax earned income heavily but tax unearned income (the majority of the Plutocracy's income is of course unearned) not at all or very lightly.
In a system which rewarded productive work and provided disincentives to rampant speculation and fraud, the opposite would hold: unearned income would be taxed at much higher rates than earned income, which would be taxed lightly, especially at household incomes below $100,000.
If the goal were to encourage "investing" while reining in the sort of speculations which "earn" hedge fund managers $600 million each (no typo, that was the average of the top 10 hedgies' personal take of their funds gains), then all unearned income (interest, dividends, capital gains, rents from property, oil wells, etc.) up to $6,000 a year would be free--no tax. Unearned income between $6,000 and $60,000 would be taxed at 20%, roughly half the top rate for earned income. This would leave 95% of U.S. households properly encouraged to invest via low tax rates.
Above $60,000, then unearned income would be taxed the same as earned income, and above $1 million (the top 1/10 of 1% of households) then it would be taxed at 50%. Above $10 million, it would be taxed at 60%. Such a system would offer disincentives to the speculative hauls made by the top 1/10 of 1% while encouraging investing in the lower 99%.
Could such a system actually be passed into law and enforced by a captured, toady bureaucracy and Congress? Of course not. But it is still a worthy exercise to take apart the rationalizations being offered to justify rampant speculative looting, collusion, corruption and fraud.
The last step of the con is to raise taxes on the productive peasantry to provide the revenues needed to pay the Plutocracy its interest on Treasuries. If the "Bush tax cuts" are repealed, the actual effective rates paid on unearned income will remain half (20%) of the rates on earned income (wages, salaries, profits earned from small business, etc.) which are roughly 40% at higher income levels.
The financial Plutocracy will champion the need to rein in Federal debt, now that they have raised the debt via plundering the public coffers and extended ownership over that debt.
Now the con boils down to insuring the peasantry pay enough taxes to pay the interest on the Federal debt--interest which is sure to rise considerably. The 1% T-Bill rates were just part of the con to convince the peasantry that trillions of dollars could be borrowed "with no consequences." Those rates will steadily rise once the financial Power Elites own enough of the Treasury debt. Then the game plan will be to lock in handsome returns on long-term Treasuries, and command the toady politicos to support "austerity."
The austerity will not extend to the financial Elites, of course. That's the whole purpose of the con. "Some are more equal than others," indeed.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
KING JAMES AND THE NEW ECONOMY: THE RICH GET RICHER
RANDOM JACK: SPORTSLAND ESOTERICA.
With the rest of the world focused on the World Cup finals, America’s latest obsession was the decision of free agent NBA star LeBron James. Who would he choose to bless with his awesome talent and inspiring humility? After seven years of service, would he really turn his back on his hometown team? How much would he command?
In the most highly anticipated sporting event since the superb debut of Stephen Strasburg or the horrendous first post-trauma “press conference” of Tiger Woods, King James answered all questions with one word: Miami.
The Miami Heat had already signed superstar Chris Bosh and resigned superstar Dwyane Wade. With the addition of LeBron, Miami becomes the odds on favorite to win the NBA title and more importantly the team with the greatest star-driven marketability (unless you count Jack Nicholson with the Lakers). He reportedly will receive less than the Cleveland Cavaliers would have paid but if it translates into a string of championships the money will be astronomical.
Then there’s the glory. Let’s face it: You can’t be the King if your team is not a champion. The problem is: You can have three wise men but you can’t have three kings. No one knows how it will play out but if King James is reduced to Prince LeBron the dream may begin to unravel.
As a fan whose inclination is to root for the underdog (when my dog is not the hunt) this may be the first season since the days of Magic and Kareem when I root for the Lakers.
On a grander scale, if sport is a microcosm for the world at large, this is just the latest symptom of a disturbing economic trend: the rich get richer and richer and richer…
Fact: In 1970 the ratio of CEO (Chief Executive Officer) to average worker pay was 25:1. By 2000 it rose to 90:1. When stock options and other benefits are factored in the equation the latest estimate is 500:1.
Fact: The top one percent of the national population tripled its after tax income between 1980 and 2006 while the bottom 90% of the population declined by 20%. That elite one percent now owns 70% of the nation’s financial assets.
Fact: In 2009 while the nation’s workforce was suffering layoffs, reduced pay and benefits in the wake of the financial crisis, Wall Street doled out $150 billion in bonus checks: enough to pay five million people a salary of $30,000.
Fact: We now have the greatest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world.
[Memo to the Tea Party: Income inequality is antithesis to socialism. Our system is therefore so far removed from socialist you would be wiser and more credible to refer to the current administration as fascist though you would be hard pressed to distinguish it from prior administrations.]
What can we do? We are ostensibly a democracy. We could refuse to empower candidates who accept corporate contributions but we don’t. We could refuse to reward corporate crooks like Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorina. We could insist on candidates who pledge to close the gap, to restore the goal of full employment, who value wages and worker rights over corporate favoritism (deregulation and tax breaks) but we don’t.
In the Sportsland analogy we could boycott the Miami Heat. We could refuse to tune in for that championship season. We could refuse to buy the King James jersey. We could confine the fan base to Miami. But we won’t.
Like a train wreck we have to watch – even if we are watching our own demise.
See: “The Rise of the Economic Elite” by David DeGraw, Dissident Voice, February 17, 2010.
With the rest of the world focused on the World Cup finals, America’s latest obsession was the decision of free agent NBA star LeBron James. Who would he choose to bless with his awesome talent and inspiring humility? After seven years of service, would he really turn his back on his hometown team? How much would he command?
In the most highly anticipated sporting event since the superb debut of Stephen Strasburg or the horrendous first post-trauma “press conference” of Tiger Woods, King James answered all questions with one word: Miami.
The Miami Heat had already signed superstar Chris Bosh and resigned superstar Dwyane Wade. With the addition of LeBron, Miami becomes the odds on favorite to win the NBA title and more importantly the team with the greatest star-driven marketability (unless you count Jack Nicholson with the Lakers). He reportedly will receive less than the Cleveland Cavaliers would have paid but if it translates into a string of championships the money will be astronomical.
Then there’s the glory. Let’s face it: You can’t be the King if your team is not a champion. The problem is: You can have three wise men but you can’t have three kings. No one knows how it will play out but if King James is reduced to Prince LeBron the dream may begin to unravel.
As a fan whose inclination is to root for the underdog (when my dog is not the hunt) this may be the first season since the days of Magic and Kareem when I root for the Lakers.
On a grander scale, if sport is a microcosm for the world at large, this is just the latest symptom of a disturbing economic trend: the rich get richer and richer and richer…
Fact: In 1970 the ratio of CEO (Chief Executive Officer) to average worker pay was 25:1. By 2000 it rose to 90:1. When stock options and other benefits are factored in the equation the latest estimate is 500:1.
Fact: The top one percent of the national population tripled its after tax income between 1980 and 2006 while the bottom 90% of the population declined by 20%. That elite one percent now owns 70% of the nation’s financial assets.
Fact: In 2009 while the nation’s workforce was suffering layoffs, reduced pay and benefits in the wake of the financial crisis, Wall Street doled out $150 billion in bonus checks: enough to pay five million people a salary of $30,000.
Fact: We now have the greatest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world.
[Memo to the Tea Party: Income inequality is antithesis to socialism. Our system is therefore so far removed from socialist you would be wiser and more credible to refer to the current administration as fascist though you would be hard pressed to distinguish it from prior administrations.]
What can we do? We are ostensibly a democracy. We could refuse to empower candidates who accept corporate contributions but we don’t. We could refuse to reward corporate crooks like Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorina. We could insist on candidates who pledge to close the gap, to restore the goal of full employment, who value wages and worker rights over corporate favoritism (deregulation and tax breaks) but we don’t.
In the Sportsland analogy we could boycott the Miami Heat. We could refuse to tune in for that championship season. We could refuse to buy the King James jersey. We could confine the fan base to Miami. But we won’t.
Like a train wreck we have to watch – even if we are watching our own demise.
See: “The Rise of the Economic Elite” by David DeGraw, Dissident Voice, February 17, 2010.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
RE: Gulf: "We are all guilty"
[Note: Jimmi wZ is a resident of northern Florida, Gulf side. I asked him for his thoughts...]
Its a travesty.
All profit oriented, even the clean up process is ruled by the dollar. People are not even allowed to talk about it in certain communities because of the fear it bring to the tourist.
I heard that they could have stopped the thing at the start except they were afraid of losing the billion plus they spent on drilling the thing. I go to the beach three or four times a day thanking and offering apologies to the mother earth that we have abused.
We are getting what we deserve. Myself amongst all others for being so gutless to not fight for alternative ways of transport. Even now I am preparing to drive my mother across the country in a gas guzzling Motorhome... We are all guilty.
I truly hope that this is the wake up call to america and the rest of the world. It has to be terrible beyond means to make us wake up. The planet is screaming at us ... spewing her blood in to our life giving gulf. How else could she react?
Meanwhile they pour zillions of gallons of chemicals in to cover their tracks and try to hide the problem. Its going to get really bad down here.
It hasnt quite reached my shores yet... though it is only a matter of time.
Each little tiny creature will be effected. I caught whiff of some of the fumes a week ago. Burnt my eyes and closed up my throat. That was from a random cloud that snuck its way in on a windy night.
I heard that the ruskies used nukes to close up wells before... the oil industry is still more worried about profits then saving the gulf.
....
some thoughts
we are all desperate and angry down here... with little that we can do except complain and talk.
thanks for asking
wz
Its a travesty.
All profit oriented, even the clean up process is ruled by the dollar. People are not even allowed to talk about it in certain communities because of the fear it bring to the tourist.
I heard that they could have stopped the thing at the start except they were afraid of losing the billion plus they spent on drilling the thing. I go to the beach three or four times a day thanking and offering apologies to the mother earth that we have abused.
We are getting what we deserve. Myself amongst all others for being so gutless to not fight for alternative ways of transport. Even now I am preparing to drive my mother across the country in a gas guzzling Motorhome... We are all guilty.
I truly hope that this is the wake up call to america and the rest of the world. It has to be terrible beyond means to make us wake up. The planet is screaming at us ... spewing her blood in to our life giving gulf. How else could she react?
Meanwhile they pour zillions of gallons of chemicals in to cover their tracks and try to hide the problem. Its going to get really bad down here.
It hasnt quite reached my shores yet... though it is only a matter of time.
Each little tiny creature will be effected. I caught whiff of some of the fumes a week ago. Burnt my eyes and closed up my throat. That was from a random cloud that snuck its way in on a windy night.
I heard that the ruskies used nukes to close up wells before... the oil industry is still more worried about profits then saving the gulf.
....
some thoughts
we are all desperate and angry down here... with little that we can do except complain and talk.
thanks for asking
wz
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