An excellent and timely perspective on the current state of our nation’s state of justice and equality, or lack of it, and their causes. It is especially poignant to me as I have just returned from Memphis actually, including a visit to the National Civil Rights Museum, located at the Lorraine Motel, site of the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. I don’t think I was prepared for the effect that being there would actually have on me. The awareness of the depth of commitment and level of sacrifice to the struggle for basic rights is something I’m afraid is foreign to too many Americans these days. Of course, the fact that majorities of people were often opposed to the civil rights struggle from before the end of slavery up to the murder of MLK, Jr., is a fact that should give us pause about our own self-awareness of the conditions of our society today.

One of the disturbing aspects of the museum, however, was the fancy display wall of high level financial donors to the facility, and the monikers they would give to them by category. When a company like ExxonMobil is labeled as a “Liberator”, you know we are truly colonized by the Corporate State and that ‘The Dream’ is in some serious jeopardy.

Martin Luther King Jr. is held in precious memory because he made an alternative world seem possible. He spoke of a dream, but he mobilized a pragmatic program for change. Idealism, in his terms, was the height of realism. Thus, healing between races, the lifting up of the socially downtrodden, and the amelioration of all that made for violence were not three items on King’s agenda, but one human project.

We honor King today not as a way of recalling the past, but as a way of resuming his campaign in the present. A dream, yes. But equally a three-sided political movement. No racial justice without economic justice! No justice, period, without peace!

Now if we can only work to manifest a similar organized action on behalf of asserting people’s rights over the usurpation of those same rights by ruling elites hiding behind the fictional veil of ‘corporate personhood.’ This represents another use of the law by the modern Corporatocracy to sublimate people’s rights, egregious as was the use of law to keep people slaves during the time of the Slaveocracy,

Read James Carroll’s complete essay Here

Looks like we have a well-placed hammer doing a number on obliterating the whole Ford memorial mythos nail. This is definitely a recommended read for our fellow citizens who are taking in too much of the history soma in the United States of Amnesia.

But is that what Ford really did? Let’s recall the context. The burglary and cover-up we call “Watergate” gave the American people a rare glimpse at raw government power. The break-in at the Democratic
National Committee was not the only criminal activity that Nixon administration operatives had committed. They had also broken into the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, who had leaked to the New York Times the Pentagon Papers, which disclosed former President Lyndon Johnson’s determination to fight the war in Vietnam even though his advisors knew it couldn’t be won. Nixon’s infamous “plumbers” unit had wiretapped people thought to be undermining the war effort. He also had used the IRS to harass people on his notorious enemies list.

For once Americans could see the truth about unrestrained government: its subservience to privileged interests, its disregard for freedom, its pettiness. The wizard’s curtain had been pulled aside momentarily, and the people were disgusted. Respect for government and the presidency plummeted. This terrified the bipartisan power elite. The broad revulsion threatened to undermine the tacit consensus that had supported the Democratic-Republican power structure for years. Who knows what might have happened if the public’s outrage had not been contained? Maybe a third party would have flourished. Power and lucre were at stake.

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Thus, what Ford accomplished was to stanch a growing public cynicism about government and to restore complacency. This is universally heralded as a good thing. Observe how nearly every political figure and establishment pundit thinks Ford’s pardon of Nixon was wise. But why is it good that we were “spared” a full accounting of Nixon’s offenses? Could it be that the American people might have learned too much and drawn more-general conclusions about the morality of this government than the power elite would have preferred?

Read The Full Article Here

This guy is just laugh-out-loud funny. Amongst the highlights are the bits about GOP fiscal responsibility and the GOP having changed the way the government interacts with the people.

Enough is enough. Jonathan Tasini nails it dead on in regards to the current state of politics in America, and our complicity in tolerating it.

Here are a few excerpts from this exceptional piece…

Mind-boggling. Cowardly. Tone deaf. When I read what passes for the economic agenda for “liberal” Democrats and even progressives, I can’t help but think that they have lost their minds, their imagination or their spines. And I have judiciously left out the expletives that come to mind so my editor will let this piece run.

Let me remind the quivering political leaders and think-tank, inside-the-Beltway experts about the economic insecurity most people face in their daily lives. The divide between rich and poor has never been greater; wages are barely keeping up with peoples’ bills, driven down in part by the corporate global pursuit of the lowest wage possible; personal debt is at an all-time high; 48 million Americans lack health care and millions more pay for inadequate coverage. As for the government, it’s a fiscal disaster mainly because this administration, aided and abetted by some Democrats, has blessed a wholesale raid on the public till by those for whom avarice knows no limits.

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Trade - It’s a no-brainer to stop anymore so-called “free trade” agreements, which have utterly failed to promote the welfare of the globe’s citizens. But, future trade deals will not be fixed with the band-aid of “enforceable labor and environmental provisions,” as some folks want, or tinkering along the edges on issues such as layoffs. We have to start with an entirely new vision of what trade means. The first page of every trade agreement should state that trade should take place for the benefit of the people, not corporations. It should spell out the specific goals in advancing prosperity and a decent standard of living-and, then, outline how corporations can serve that purpose. We need to replace the World Trade Organization, which is run by un-elected lobbyists and shills for global corporations, with a body we might call Global Prosperity-an open, democratic, transparent organization which figures out how to best manage an equitable allocation of work on an exhausted, depleted planet.

Corporate Rights - Take them on. In the past 100-plus years, corporations have accumulated rights never envisioned by the founders (which makes you wonder about the intellectual integrity of the conservative jurists on the federal bench who view themselves as “strict constructionists” but behave as shills for the expansion of corporate rights). Corporations now have Constitutional rights that were supposed to be just for individuals: for example, corporations have a 1st Amendment right to free speech (for more on this, check out the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy). And, if you can believe this, just the other day, the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation recommended that it be made more difficult to indict or sue companies accused of wrong-doing-as if Enron had never happened.

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From my vantage point, fighting for the minimum wage is a cop-out aimed at avoiding the debate that corporate power is the central threat to a decent standard of living. Look at it this way: People elected Democrats so they can earn $7.25 an hour? You’re kidding? For full-time work, my calculator shows that comes out to a whopping $15,000. How inspiring.

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We may not win some of these battles. But, we need people who don’t stick their finger up to see which way the wind is blowing but work to change the way the wind is blowing. They are the people who stand up and refuse to be silent because they know what is right and what is wrong. They are not swayed by how the wind blows because they know they have the power to change its direction.

Read The Complete Article

Good historical overview and synopsis from Eric Foner, one of the better historians around…

Ever since 1948, when Harvard professor Arthur Schlesinger Sr. asked 55 historians to rank U.S. presidents on a scale from “great” to “failure,” such polls have been a favorite pastime for those of us who study the American past.

Changes in presidential rankings reflect shifts in how we view history. When the first poll was taken, the Reconstruction era that followed the Civil War was regarded as a time of corruption and misgovernment caused by granting black men the right to vote. As a result, President Andrew Johnson, a fervent white supremacist who opposed efforts to extend basic rights to former slaves, was rated “near great.” Today, by contrast, scholars consider Reconstruction a flawed but noble attempt to build an interracial democracy from the ashes of slavery — and Johnson a flat failure.

More often, however, the rankings display a remarkable year-to-year uniformity. Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt always figure in the “great” category. Most presidents are ranked “average” or, to put it less charitably, mediocre. Johnson, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Richard M. Nixon occupy the bottom rung, and now President Bush is a leading contender to join them. A look at history, as well as Bush’s policies, explains why.

Read The Full Article

Robert Borosage nails it pretty well here…

Rubinomics is also bad politics. It favors the Wall Street wing of the party at the expense of the main street voters. Democrats were propelled to victory in this election in part because of growing public dismay over an economy that doesn’t work for them. Democrats ran the most populist elections in memory - railing against the drug and oil lobbies, indicting failed trade policies that are shipping jobs abroad and undermining wages at home. Voters - including independent voters of the supposed “center” - are overwhelmingly in favor of aggressive trade policies, and are looking for help on wages, health care, pensions, and holding Wall Street moguls and corporate CEOs accountable.

With Bush in the White House, Democrats won’t be deciding national economic policy in the next two years. But they will be laying the groundwork for a Democratic economic strategy. They will be offering their indictment of Bush’s course. They should be holding hearings and developing policies to start meeting some of the pressing demands of the voters who put them in office. To do that, they would be well advised to reach out to a far broader range of advisors than the leading strategist for Citibank.

His suggestion of bringing in someone like Paul Krugman is a good one. Until the grassroots of the Democratic party say enough to the Corporatistas (who own the GOP and rent the Dems when needed), they will simply continue to be a mere shadow of their needed potential, an ersatz and diversionary representation of anything resembling democratic political action. Thanks to politicos such as the Clintons and their global capital wonderboy Rubin, the Democrats have become simply a watered down doppelganger of the GOP, effectively serving as part of Republicrat, Inc., the governing arm of the corporate state that the USA is.

Read The Complete Post

The Fox is in the Hen House. The Hill reports….

K Street Democrats are popular not just with companies trying to make inroads with the new majority - but with the new majority itself as well.

Lobbyists are expected to help fill the additional staff slots Democrats now have, and the migration has already begun.

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), who will be the chairman of the House Commerce Committee, announced that two former aides are rejoining his staff.

Dennis Fitzgibbons, now the top lobbyist at DaimlerChrysler, will be chief of staff to the committee. He was minority deputy staff director when he left in 2000 to join the automaker.

Gregg Rothschild, now a vice president and policy counsel at Verizon, will be the new chief counsel to Commerce. He had previously been the minority counsel.

Same as it ever was.

Read The Original Article

Is Rep. Murtha really the guy people want running the House Democrats (as Nancy Pelosi was aiming for)? Remember the FBI’s “ABSCAM” corruption investigations in the 80’s? Check out this report from the TPM Muckracker.

The episode threatened to end the career of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), who now seeks the position of House Majority Leader. He and his supporters brush off ABSCAM as old news, and accuse his opponents of lobbing baseless charges. “I am disconcerted that some are making headlines by resorting to unfounded allegations that occurred 26 years ago,” Murtha himself said in a statement yesterday. “I thought we were above [that] type of Swift-boating attack.”

But his detractors say it’s evidence that Murtha is at best a backroom dealer, and proves he shouldn’t be the face of a new, ethics-minded Congress.

But what was ABSCAM? How can anyone say it tainted Murtha — especially since he was never charged with any crime?

ABSCAM was the media’s name for an FBI undercover operation to catch corrupt lawmakers. Around 1980, agents and an informant met with several lawmakers posing as representatives of a fictional “sheik Abdul” to offer them $50,000 in cash for legislative favors. Murtha was one of the lawmakers who met with them.

Ultimately, six lawmakers went down on corruption charges stemming from the operation, nearly all of them Democrats. Murtha wasn’t one of them — but not, as Murtha implies, because his innocence was ever demonstrated.

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss?

Read The Complete Report (which includes actual surveillance video of the sting operation going down with Murtha)

From Sam Smith of The Progressive Review. Smith pretty much sums up many of my sentiments regarding the current political situation. This is not to say I do not warmly welcome some of the political changes taking place, particularly in regards to various committee controls in congress, but one needs to seriously ask the question as to how meaningfully effective those changes will be in the long-term.

I woke up the morning after the election feeling surprisingly glum. It took me awhile to figure out what was wrong. It certainly wasn’t that Bush had lost. That was wonderful. Then it hit me. The trouble was that we hadn’t won.

An improvement, yes, but nowhere near the sort of improvement that brings real joy. Then thoughts of the Clinton years came back, when the capital city turned myopically smug and anything not on the agenda was off the table. If you weren’t with the program you were only slightly better than a Republican.

The fact that all sorts of issues were ignored, that the social democracy of the New Deal and Great Society was being deliberately undermined and that the country was moving steadily to the right were not meant to be mentioned. The capital had turned into another football stadium.

I wrote about it in my memoirs:

I realized later that I had stumbled upon the outlines of a new American political fault line. It was so new that it lacked a name, stereotypes, cliches, experts and prophets. In many ways it seemed more a refugee camp than a voluntary assembly, yet, as I thought about it, the more its logic seemed only concealed rather than lacking.

On one side were libertarians, blacks, greens, populists, free thinkers, the alienated apathetic, the rural abandoned, the apolitical young, as well as others convinced America was losing its democracy, its sovereignty and its decency. On the other side was a technocratic, media, legal, business and cultural elite centered in New York and Washington. At times it felt as if all of America outside of these two centers had turned into a gigantic, chaotic salon des refuses. Another thing I noticed was that this was about far more than politics.

A cultural and class coup was underway, of which the Clinton administration was a part, one that was creating a gated economy and transforming those outside the barriers into pliant, homogenized, multi-nationalized consumers for whom freedom, choice and democracy would atrophy into symbols of only virtual meaning. People like me were traitors to the cause. . .

Increasingly, the words of encouragement that I received came from somewhere other than my home town, a place whose conventional thinking I had happily challenged for nearly thirty years. In the 1960s and 1970s it had been no problem; there had always been plenty of similar voices and I never felt alone. Washington — like Madison or Berkeley — possessed a vigorous counterculture ready to strike out, provoke, and outrage and to enjoy every minute of it. Although by the 1980s the voices of protest had greatly dulled, dissent was still fair game as long as one’s targets were Reagan or Bush.

In the 1990s, however, the Washington establishment simply closed down the marketplace of ideas. This involved not merely Democratic lawyer-lobbyists now pursuing openly the cynical abuse of government they had discreetly enjoyed during the Republican years. It included not merely journalists whose sycophancy towards the powerful was now promiscuously out of the closet. It also included the professional liberal establishment of Washington — labor, feminist, and environmental leaders whose heady new access to government blinded them to how distant what they had once advocated was from what they were now willing to accept over — or even in return for — lunch. For mainstream Washington, there was no longer any politics, only deals. No victories, only leveraged buyouts. No ideology; only brand loyalty. No conservative and liberal, only Coke and Pepsi. . .

To be sure, it is different this time. The White House is still clearly the enemy and the Congress has some, like John Conyers, Bernie Sanders and Russ Feingold, who may be granted some long overdue respect. But the bulk of the Democratic Party remains aground on the reefs of myopic centrism where they were lured by their campaign contributors. Dean Baker of the Prospect gives some of the flavor: “One of the items on the Democrats’ ‘100 hours’ agenda is reforming the Medicare prescription drug bill. The bill passed by the Republican Congress prohibited Medicare from offering its own plan. This denied seniors the benefits of Medicare’s lower administrative costs and it means that drugs cost almost twice as much as if Medicare bargained directly with the industry and secured the same prices as the Veterans Administration or the Canadian government. The Republicans also added a seemingly gratuitous clause that explicitly prohibited Medicare from negotiating prices with the industry.

“During the campaign, the Democrats had promised that they would reform the drug bill to allow Medicare to offer its own drug plan. On NPR this morning, it was reported that the Democrats now are just planning to remove the gratuitous clause prohibiting Medicare from negotiating prices with the drug industry, while not allowing Medicare to offer its own plan.

“Removing this prohibition by itself will mean nothing. What would Medicare negotiate over, if it doesn’t offer its own plan? This could lead cynics to believe that the Democrats are trying to pull in some of the campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical and insurance industries which have disproportionately gone to Republicans in recent election cycles. Fixing the prescription drug benefit to save seniors and taxpayers money was one of the main promises made by the Democratic Party during the campaign. If they instead pursue a purely symbolic measure, with no practical significance, millions of people who voted for them on Tuesday will rightfully feel betrayed.”

What is important at a time like this is that those who truly want a democratic, decent and progressive America have to clearly differentiate themselves from both parties. There needs to be a loud third voice - not so much a political one as a moral and pragmatic one - constantly reminding the political leeches on both sides of the real issues, the real reforms, the real problems. One of the reasons Bush won office originally was because too many members of this third voice - including women’s, civil liberties, and environmental groups - had indentured themselves to the Clinton machine and the sound of progress had gone voluntarily silent.

Now is the time not for silence but for the third voice of American politics to become far louder and to be constantly holding a light on a better path than is likely to followed by the new Congress. There must be a clearly visible alternative for everything the cowardly and corrupt center does or refuses to do. Phrases like ‘universal healthcare’ can not be politely avoided nor can the fact that those who fund both parties are destroying our planet.

We must always remember that while Bush and his capos lost this time we have yet to win.

Unfortunately, I think he’s right.

Here is something that came to us through the e-grapevine from a supporter of USTV, who had received it from an associate of theirs. The person seemed rather dismissive of the information and perspectives our supporter had been providing to him, some of which originally came from USTV Media, claiming it was “scary and wacky.” They had responded that they didn’t need any help in voting, and that they were voting “straight Republican in this house.” with this right-wing spam message as somehow providing evidence towards their rationale for doing so.

It is followed by a somewhat detailed response from those of us inhabiting the ‘reality-based world.’

Something to read from the sensible side:

By now you’ve all seen the Democrats’ latest campaign slogan:
A New Direction For America — Vote DEMOCRATIC!

Let’s analyze this empty and misleading promise.

The stock market is at a new all-time high and America’s 401K’s are back. –A new direction from there means what?
Unemployment is at 25 year lows. –A new direction from there means what?
Oil prices are plummeting. –A new direction from there means what?
Taxes are at 20 year lows. –A new direction from there means what?
Federal tax revenues are at all-time highs. –A new direction from there means what?
The Federal deficit (as predicted) is down almost 50%, from last year.–A new direction from there means what?
Home valuations are up 200% over the past 3.5 years. –A new direction from there means what?
Inflation is in check, hovering at 20 year lows. –A new direction from there means what?

Not a single terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11/01. –A new direction from there means what?
Osama bin Laden is living under a rock in a dark cave, having not surfaced in years, if he’s alive at all, while 95% of Al Queda’s top dogs are either dead or in custody, and cooperating with US Intel. –A new direction from there means what?
Several major terrorist attacks already thwarted by US and British Intel, including the recent planned attack involving 10 Jumbo Jets being exploded in mid-air in order to celebrate the anniversary of the 9/11/01 attacks. –A new direction from there means what?

Just as Bush had planned and foretold us on a number of occasions, Iraq was to be made “ground zero” for the war on terrorism — and just as Bush said they would, terrorist cells from all over the region are alighting the shadows of their hiding places and flooding into Iraq in order to get their faces blown off by US Marines rather than boarding planes and heading to the United States to wage war on us here. –A new direction from there means what?

Moreover, bear in mind that all of the above occurred in the face of the 1999 tech crash, the epidemic of corporate scandals throughout the 90’s, and the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks on NYC that were years in the planning, all of which collectively sucked 24 trillions dollars and 7.8 million jobs out of the US economy even before G. W. Bush had time to unpack his suitcases in the White House.

It’s easy for the Democrats to attempt to discredit, disgrace and defame our commander in chief, George W. Bush, because that’s what they do. What’s not so easy for them to do is to refute irrefutable facts, no matter how they might try.

Do yourself and this country of ours a favor and don’t be a mindless sheep or a blind liberal lap dog, bent on hate and blame-shifting simply in the name of hate and blame-shifting. Take heed of reality, use your head and cast your vote wisely in the upcoming elections. The stakes are far too high today, and America’s very future, and yes, even its very survival is now at stake.

God help us! This is wrong in so many ways that I can’t begin to address it as a whole, but here are some obvious problems:

A key element in the Republican’s support system is the willingness of its stalwarts to sacrifice democracy for perceived economic comfort (Much as the investor class in Germany did when they threw in with the Nazis). Lets look at the foundation of those economic comforts for just a minute.

Average home valuations have peaked and are now dropping. The peak was a symptom of a real-estate and banking industry-induced irrational frenzy on the west coast and in other seller’s markets for property.

The deficit reduction does not exist. It is just an accounting trick, and not a very good one, since it only allows them to compare the current (post Social Security trust-fund raiding) situation with a deficit THEY CREATED after they inherited an annual surplus that had been being applied to the national debt. They ballooned that debt to previously unheard of proportions and now they want to brag about deficit reduction? That’s the most ridiculous LIE I’ve heard come out of politician’s mouths in a long time, and these are politicians we’re talking about, so that’s no mean feat. Well, now that I think of it, that lie does have some competition from that one little story the White House was telling. You know the one, it went something like:

“We FOUND the weapons of mass destruction.”

Osama Bin laden is living under a rock in a dark cave with a dialysis machine and a portable television studio. It was Bush who made Iraq into a place where terrorists can thrive, and when the Sunnis in Iraq (not to be confused with foreign terrorists) realized they were going to get the short end of the stick, they began an insurgency. Meanwhile the US media began dutifully plastering our TV screens with stories featuring the insignificant “AL Qaeda in Iraq” group, and letting the administration attribute the indigenous insurgency’s actions to them. Eventually (after the 2004 elections) the media couldn’t make that story work any more and the American people found out that there was no relevant connection between the Iraqi insurgency and the terrorist plot that led to the September 11, 2001 attacks, now infamously known as simply 9/11.

Speaking of 9/11, Why does the administration get away with bragging that there have been no successful attacks on US soil since 9/11- that is like a real-estate developer saying there’s been no significant damage to the house since the roof caved in. Put succinctly: August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Breifing!!!!! Why didn’t the Bush administration use the information that they had in their hands to stop 9/11? I think it was probably because they were busy trying to steal from old people by trashing Social Security, a quite healthy system they keep writing obituaries about. Or dreaming up the ridiculous Medicare Part D scheme that is designed to bankrupt the medicare system and glut the coffers of the GOP’s corporate sponsors in the big parmaceutical companies. Enough.

Thank the voters of America for their ability to see through the Busheviks’ barrage of lies and cognitive dissonance. Now we can stop living in a monarchistic pre-1776 mentality, a fantasy woven from the twisted imaginations of the corporate whores on K Street, and get on with real politics that argues about real questions. I just hope that the Democrats will not be expected to spend their time painting rosy pictures for the media when there is so much damage to be repaired.

- Ed Lacy, USTV Media

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As a USTV reader pointed out to me, the odd thing about this piece of propaganda is how it ends, with “America’s very survival is at stake”. This after naming myriad ways that it is currently stronger and better than ever. If that is indeed the case, then what is all the hysterical concern about these supposed imminent threats to it about? It should instead end with “things are so great, why f*ck it up even a little?”

It is also worth noting that this screed defines George W. Bush as “our commander in chief.” I guess in the world of neo-fascist, banana republican, junta-loving right-wingers he probably is your commanding officer, but he’s not mine. In the America as defined by our Constitution we do not have military leaders over society. The president is not my ‘commander-in-chief’. He is intended to be a citizen who works for me, not whom I am answerable to and am “commanded by.”

This all reminds me of Lincoln’s warning about where the true threat to the future survival of the United States will come, what with profoundly un-American actions like “The Patriot Act” and the “Military Commissions Act” being perpetrated upon our nation by the rouge regime currently in power today.

“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
- Abraham Lincoln

- Andy Valeri, USTV Media