Yes, they do go together. In the case of the Indian rapists, like the horrible gang-rapists of Delhi last month, it's hardly about sexual expression or repression. It's about losing control and male domination at the hands of a modernity they can see but can't touch.
It's estimated that there are 200-300 million Indians, almost entirely in the cities, who have entered the global middle class. That's one of the reasons why international corporations will do almost anything to penetrate the growing Indian market: it has almost as many modern consumers as the US. They aren't the rapists.
But, India has a population that's well over a billion: that's at least 800 million who are NOT in the middle class. Rape expresses a barely repressed class war of the huge underclass, just beginning to awaken. What they see is an India they can hardly fathom and never reach, yet they see it daily on TV and in the Bollywood movies.
The traditional caste system repressed everyone, even a too numerous four-part aristocracy, but it was a stable society for almost 3500 years. Castes are still present, now, but the rules that bound them together, are not. Class often subsumes caste in "Modern India," and those left behind in India's scramble to the future are treated the way lower castes used to be. Yet, they are no longer submissive; they're rebellious, rejectionist, unmoored by tradition. Male violence against women is safer than outright revolution.
Sri Lanka's Tamils, to India's south, invented suicide bombing, which has become a signature of al Qaeda and its allies in the Middle East and North Africa. "Islamic militants," ironically, share the anger of (largely Hindu) Indian rapists; they take it out on their own people, especially women--with extreme purdah and stonings, as well as amputations and beheadings to keep the men in line. In both cases, it's the violent rejection of what they want, are terrified of and can't have: participation in modern secular society.
I don't pretend to know whether al Qaeda members are predominantly lower class, but they do have one thing in common: rejection of any trace of secular, i.e. modern, society. The savagery of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al Dine may not be just a will to destroy what their societies are becoming, but that's certainly a part of it; it's also an inexpensive means to control resisters.
What's happening now, globally, is the incipient rumblings of the left out, against the newly affluent, who are the new entrants to the global middle class. With climate change, the billions of surplus people aren't anchored to the Middle East, India, or China; eventually, they will flood lands with more moderate climates.
The angry masses could become the equivalent of the Germanic and Turkic hordes, barbarians who surged into the late Roman Empire, and finally, brought it down; Classical society fell with it.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Inauguration-Coronation Vision
The Inauguration displayed history and unity: over 200 years worth, represented by 50 states, with an impressive backdrop for Obama's oath, his speech and the tradition he evoked.
Obama didn't present the soaring emotion of his first inaugural. I don't think it was one of his better speeches, except in the implied substance. After all, inaugural speeches are supposed to lay out a President's broad vision, not his legislative agenda. He said: "our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it," but he didn't lay out a tax and spending blueprint for righting this wrong--he couldn't have, unless he spoke for hours. Instead, he said, "But while the means will change, our purpose endures: a nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American."
The general thrust of this part of his speech was an implicit rejection of the conservative creed of everyone for himself. Americans, he insisted, over and over, have to pull together.
Obama rejected the partisanship of the past four years, but instead of bipartisanship, he implied that it was the responsibility of Republicans, as well as Democrats, conservatives as well as liberals, to make government work for the good of all, rather than blocking its functions, like the previous Republican House and the Senate Republican minority.
He also addressed climate change, and how we had to confront its reality; he plugged for new, alternative forms of energy, urging that America lead rather than follow.
Obama became most emotional over his peroration for civil rights, evoking the dream of "a King," and then championing equal rights for women, and gays.
Instead of specifically naming gun control, he said our "journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm."
Obama was following tradition. Inaugurals aren't the place for laying out an agenda, except in the broadest terms, But his vision: of peace, equal opportunity, caring and openness has potential--if he can translate this into concrete action and get it through Congress.
As the NY Times pointed out, it was a liberal vision.
Obama didn't talk about two important issues: the failed and destructive drug war that's been implicitly rejected outright by two states, and more indirectly by a handful more.
Nor did he mention his drone war, which appears to be expanding, not receding, as implied by his statement, "a decade of war is now ending." It's as if it was unmentionable: the American Empire advancing by covert means--hand in hand with his pledge to "support democracy" and peace, world-wide.
Does Obama's vision offer a chance that the US won't suffer the fate of the Roman Empire in 476? Perhaps: but only if Congress can return to its role as a functioning institution.
Obama didn't present the soaring emotion of his first inaugural. I don't think it was one of his better speeches, except in the implied substance. After all, inaugural speeches are supposed to lay out a President's broad vision, not his legislative agenda. He said: "our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it," but he didn't lay out a tax and spending blueprint for righting this wrong--he couldn't have, unless he spoke for hours. Instead, he said, "But while the means will change, our purpose endures: a nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American."
The general thrust of this part of his speech was an implicit rejection of the conservative creed of everyone for himself. Americans, he insisted, over and over, have to pull together.
Obama rejected the partisanship of the past four years, but instead of bipartisanship, he implied that it was the responsibility of Republicans, as well as Democrats, conservatives as well as liberals, to make government work for the good of all, rather than blocking its functions, like the previous Republican House and the Senate Republican minority.
He also addressed climate change, and how we had to confront its reality; he plugged for new, alternative forms of energy, urging that America lead rather than follow.
Obama became most emotional over his peroration for civil rights, evoking the dream of "a King," and then championing equal rights for women, and gays.
Instead of specifically naming gun control, he said our "journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm."
Obama was following tradition. Inaugurals aren't the place for laying out an agenda, except in the broadest terms, But his vision: of peace, equal opportunity, caring and openness has potential--if he can translate this into concrete action and get it through Congress.
As the NY Times pointed out, it was a liberal vision.
Obama didn't talk about two important issues: the failed and destructive drug war that's been implicitly rejected outright by two states, and more indirectly by a handful more.
Nor did he mention his drone war, which appears to be expanding, not receding, as implied by his statement, "a decade of war is now ending." It's as if it was unmentionable: the American Empire advancing by covert means--hand in hand with his pledge to "support democracy" and peace, world-wide.
Does Obama's vision offer a chance that the US won't suffer the fate of the Roman Empire in 476? Perhaps: but only if Congress can return to its role as a functioning institution.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Mali, Algeria and HIstory
About 425 years after the fall of Rome, an Islamic group not unlike those involved now in Mali and the siege in Algeria--Ansar al Dine, and AQIM--tore through North Africa as the latter two are doing today. The Islamic fanatics circa 900, were determined, much like our Wahabi-inspired "militants," to set the clock back, to undo civilization.
Driving in Tunisia (long before its revolution), I was struck by the huge Roman ruins; they ran for miles, sometimes paralleling modern highways. They were at least thirty feet high, and, with breaks, went on for miles in long lines; they were the remains of Roman aqueducts. North Africa had been, in some ways, Rome's California.
The economy of Roman North Africa was unlike anything found there today, because of those aqueducts. Instead of arid land, the Roman colonies grew a large portion of the grain the city of Rome depended upon, all irrigated, like California, today. It was like California in another way, too: Roman buildings in North African cities, like the rebuilt Carthage, were on a larger scale than in Rome, itself. It was prosperous--for free Romans.
Even after the Vandals threw out (or enslaved) the Romans, the aqueducts--and slave labor--allowed exporting bumper crops of grain to Rome and Constantinople. The Vandals grew rich and soft, like the Romans before them.
The first Muslim conquest of North Africa didn't change much; the land was still irrigated, still plentiful--unlike the deserts of Arabia. Now, Muslims were getting prosperous.
Tunisians told me what happened next. Ninth century Islamic militants tore down the aqueducts: North Africa reverted to near desert and has remained that way ever since. Tearing down these monumental structures must have been a major undertaking: there were no explosives then; it had to be done by hand. It was done thoroughly though: there were enough large breaks that no one has ever tried to rebuild them.
Driving the region back to desert was the intended result! It would revert to something comparable to the Arabian Desert, from which the Prophet and his Faith emerged.
The militant vision was much like al Qaeda's fantasy now: restoring pure Islam, as the Prophet practiced it. That requires poverty, not prosperity. The universal Caliphate is al Qaeda's grandiose goal, and again, hard times would be better than corrupt modern ones.
Both extremist Muslim movements represent rejections of the modernity of their day. Both set out to destroy civilization as it was or is.
There is a kind of nihilism in any fundamentalist religion: it requires you to destroy, before you can build the pure, envisioned world. The only modernity any of them seem to accept is the technologies of war, and of control. Those technologies are much more fearsome than in the 9th century, but the goals are about the same.
That's what the world faces in Mali and Algeria--and Pakistan, and Yemen, and--
Driving in Tunisia (long before its revolution), I was struck by the huge Roman ruins; they ran for miles, sometimes paralleling modern highways. They were at least thirty feet high, and, with breaks, went on for miles in long lines; they were the remains of Roman aqueducts. North Africa had been, in some ways, Rome's California.
The economy of Roman North Africa was unlike anything found there today, because of those aqueducts. Instead of arid land, the Roman colonies grew a large portion of the grain the city of Rome depended upon, all irrigated, like California, today. It was like California in another way, too: Roman buildings in North African cities, like the rebuilt Carthage, were on a larger scale than in Rome, itself. It was prosperous--for free Romans.
Even after the Vandals threw out (or enslaved) the Romans, the aqueducts--and slave labor--allowed exporting bumper crops of grain to Rome and Constantinople. The Vandals grew rich and soft, like the Romans before them.
The first Muslim conquest of North Africa didn't change much; the land was still irrigated, still plentiful--unlike the deserts of Arabia. Now, Muslims were getting prosperous.
Tunisians told me what happened next. Ninth century Islamic militants tore down the aqueducts: North Africa reverted to near desert and has remained that way ever since. Tearing down these monumental structures must have been a major undertaking: there were no explosives then; it had to be done by hand. It was done thoroughly though: there were enough large breaks that no one has ever tried to rebuild them.
Driving the region back to desert was the intended result! It would revert to something comparable to the Arabian Desert, from which the Prophet and his Faith emerged.
The militant vision was much like al Qaeda's fantasy now: restoring pure Islam, as the Prophet practiced it. That requires poverty, not prosperity. The universal Caliphate is al Qaeda's grandiose goal, and again, hard times would be better than corrupt modern ones.
Both extremist Muslim movements represent rejections of the modernity of their day. Both set out to destroy civilization as it was or is.
There is a kind of nihilism in any fundamentalist religion: it requires you to destroy, before you can build the pure, envisioned world. The only modernity any of them seem to accept is the technologies of war, and of control. Those technologies are much more fearsome than in the 9th century, but the goals are about the same.
That's what the world faces in Mali and Algeria--and Pakistan, and Yemen, and--
Sunday, January 13, 2013
What if a Platinum Coin?
What if the Treasury minted the platinum coin people have talked about, with a denomination of $1Trillion?
What would happen?
There would be much whining within the monopoly media that Obama had become a dictator: he's taken away Congress's power of the purse, the debt ceiling.
Obama could also simply declare, according to the 14th Amendment, that the President has to defend the "full faith and credit of the United States," by continuing to borrow whenever necessary, even if the Congress refused to pass an increased debt ceiling. That's a better alternative.
In either case, the Executive does have the power to maintain the currency. A strong case could be made: a President's first responsibility is to defend the nation, whether it derives from foreign military threats, or domestic economic ones. A default on the US dollar is a much greater threat than any of our last half-century's wars.
A default would probably spell the death knell for the greenback as the world's reserve currency. Interest rates could go sky high, stopping all growth; imports would become prohibitively expensive: a recipe for severe stagflation. Global depression could follow.
Yet, our powerful finance industry isn't leaning on the GOP to quash its debt-ceiling extortion. But then, Wall Street would dearly love to achieve some of the GOP's agenda: especially, privatizing Social Security (which doesn't contribute to the deficit), so maybe it won't press Republicans to stop, unless it looks as if Obama won't blink.
That's one reason why either the platinum coin or Presidential declaration, make sense. Either would stop the hostage taking. Then, if both sides still wanted to talk about deficit/debt reduction, they could have a rational discussion of corporate subsidies, of sensible cuts to the war machine, of reforms to health care and Medicare/Medicaid, by cutting costs without reducing benefits or raising eligibility.
Without the above Presidential action, negotiations would remain irrational: under duress on both sides. Just as in the fiscal cliff negotiation, corrupt deals under the table would pollute the actual bargain ("great" or not), in the rush to meet--or almost meet--the deadline. Reasonable solutions, like restructuring payment mechanisms in Medicare, (as is being tried in New York City hospitals), would be impossible to negotiate.
Wall Street, the GOP, and some Wall Street Democrats, wouldn't like either presidential response, because they'd have a harder time extorting their loopholes, gifts and grants. Conservatives would also bemoan the expansion of Presidential power--not that they opposed it under Bush II.
But maybe the US would finally get a government that governed more or less rationally, for The People.
What are the odds, if our Roman Senators don't get what they want, that the President would even try to get what the nation needs? Where is a backbone when backbone is needed? The selfish class has to be stopped. It would be ironic if a mere coin could do that.
What would happen?
There would be much whining within the monopoly media that Obama had become a dictator: he's taken away Congress's power of the purse, the debt ceiling.
Obama could also simply declare, according to the 14th Amendment, that the President has to defend the "full faith and credit of the United States," by continuing to borrow whenever necessary, even if the Congress refused to pass an increased debt ceiling. That's a better alternative.
In either case, the Executive does have the power to maintain the currency. A strong case could be made: a President's first responsibility is to defend the nation, whether it derives from foreign military threats, or domestic economic ones. A default on the US dollar is a much greater threat than any of our last half-century's wars.
A default would probably spell the death knell for the greenback as the world's reserve currency. Interest rates could go sky high, stopping all growth; imports would become prohibitively expensive: a recipe for severe stagflation. Global depression could follow.
Yet, our powerful finance industry isn't leaning on the GOP to quash its debt-ceiling extortion. But then, Wall Street would dearly love to achieve some of the GOP's agenda: especially, privatizing Social Security (which doesn't contribute to the deficit), so maybe it won't press Republicans to stop, unless it looks as if Obama won't blink.
That's one reason why either the platinum coin or Presidential declaration, make sense. Either would stop the hostage taking. Then, if both sides still wanted to talk about deficit/debt reduction, they could have a rational discussion of corporate subsidies, of sensible cuts to the war machine, of reforms to health care and Medicare/Medicaid, by cutting costs without reducing benefits or raising eligibility.
Without the above Presidential action, negotiations would remain irrational: under duress on both sides. Just as in the fiscal cliff negotiation, corrupt deals under the table would pollute the actual bargain ("great" or not), in the rush to meet--or almost meet--the deadline. Reasonable solutions, like restructuring payment mechanisms in Medicare, (as is being tried in New York City hospitals), would be impossible to negotiate.
Wall Street, the GOP, and some Wall Street Democrats, wouldn't like either presidential response, because they'd have a harder time extorting their loopholes, gifts and grants. Conservatives would also bemoan the expansion of Presidential power--not that they opposed it under Bush II.
But maybe the US would finally get a government that governed more or less rationally, for The People.
What are the odds, if our Roman Senators don't get what they want, that the President would even try to get what the nation needs? Where is a backbone when backbone is needed? The selfish class has to be stopped. It would be ironic if a mere coin could do that.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Classic Catch 22!
"Obama Justice Department have argued individuals and organizations must be able to show they were monitored by the surveillance program to have standing and challenge it in court.
"But the program's target list is secret. The U.S. government won't tell potential targets whether they have been monitored. Therefore, the government contends, no one has standing." http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/01/06/Under-the-US-Supreme-Court-Spying-on-Americans-phase-2/UPI-75011357461000/ - ixzz2HQS7khMr
This is reminiscent of Orwell--1984, Animal Farm--but this is real life! The NDAA gives the Administration the power to monitor any communications between anyone in the US and anyone overseas. If, in some cases, there have to be warrants issued by the FISA Court (a special court set up to oversee covert surveillance), warrants can be highly generalized: they might even permit surveillance on a whole class of potential suspects.
There is a whole lot going on behind closed doors! So far, the people who are supervising it, making use of it, are apparently doing so for what might pass as "the Common Good," as in protecting the US from terror attacks. What is scary: there are so few checks on this surveillance, even in the cantankerous Congress! If no one has a need to know, and it's classified, then no one will know. Except those who take unto themselves the need to know--like the President, the intelligence heads, Defense and Justice at the top levels.
And, there are ominous signs, like the upending of General Petraeus, and before him, Governor Eliot Spitzer, when both were caught in the general surveillance web, apparently by accident.
In the hands of a Stalin, or, arguably, a Nixon, the powers the President has amassed in the realm of National Security would easily lead to the kind of dictatorship Orwell described in 1984.
I wouldn't argue Obama has made the best choices, or that he's egoless in wielding power. But so far, it doesn't look as if he aspires to be the kind of dictator that sweeps opposition aside; or one who's driven to re-make the nation in his own image, through his overpowering personality.
Has no one in power really thought this through? The power they've seized since 9/11--in order to safeguard the nation--is the power to control the nation, but not the world.
US Drones may terrorize Pakistanis, Yemenis, Somalis, but look what all our vaunted power has gotten us there: recruits for al Qaeda. In Afghanistan: a lull before we leave. After we leave, who knows what will happen.
The American Empire is turning inward: the elites--government and corporate--are gaining the power to control us, power much greater than was held by Roman Senators over their serfs and slaves.
If the bipartisan drive towards austerity drives people to revolutionary desperation, then State repression will be necessary--for the survival of our Roman Senators--and the machinery will be ready to use.
"But the program's target list is secret. The U.S. government won't tell potential targets whether they have been monitored. Therefore, the government contends, no one has standing." http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/01/06/Under-the-US-Supreme-Court-Spying-on-Americans-phase-2/UPI-75011357461000/ - ixzz2HQS7khMr
This is reminiscent of Orwell--1984, Animal Farm--but this is real life! The NDAA gives the Administration the power to monitor any communications between anyone in the US and anyone overseas. If, in some cases, there have to be warrants issued by the FISA Court (a special court set up to oversee covert surveillance), warrants can be highly generalized: they might even permit surveillance on a whole class of potential suspects.
There is a whole lot going on behind closed doors! So far, the people who are supervising it, making use of it, are apparently doing so for what might pass as "the Common Good," as in protecting the US from terror attacks. What is scary: there are so few checks on this surveillance, even in the cantankerous Congress! If no one has a need to know, and it's classified, then no one will know. Except those who take unto themselves the need to know--like the President, the intelligence heads, Defense and Justice at the top levels.
And, there are ominous signs, like the upending of General Petraeus, and before him, Governor Eliot Spitzer, when both were caught in the general surveillance web, apparently by accident.
In the hands of a Stalin, or, arguably, a Nixon, the powers the President has amassed in the realm of National Security would easily lead to the kind of dictatorship Orwell described in 1984.
I wouldn't argue Obama has made the best choices, or that he's egoless in wielding power. But so far, it doesn't look as if he aspires to be the kind of dictator that sweeps opposition aside; or one who's driven to re-make the nation in his own image, through his overpowering personality.
Has no one in power really thought this through? The power they've seized since 9/11--in order to safeguard the nation--is the power to control the nation, but not the world.
US Drones may terrorize Pakistanis, Yemenis, Somalis, but look what all our vaunted power has gotten us there: recruits for al Qaeda. In Afghanistan: a lull before we leave. After we leave, who knows what will happen.
The American Empire is turning inward: the elites--government and corporate--are gaining the power to control us, power much greater than was held by Roman Senators over their serfs and slaves.
If the bipartisan drive towards austerity drives people to revolutionary desperation, then State repression will be necessary--for the survival of our Roman Senators--and the machinery will be ready to use.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Are We Trapped?
Republicans support the wealthy, the CEO's, the corporations; the worker is chopped liver. But Democrats are afraid: of the wealthy, the CEO's and the corporations--and enough are bought off, too.
Our two party system has been described as a duopoly, and when you look at the Obama/McConnell/Reid/Boehner compromise over "the fiscal cliff," you see that it is.
Remaining on the right, are the angry Tea Partiers, who distrust government in all its forms, though they're not unwilling to rip it off. Remaining on the left are forlorn progressives, who yearn for a government they can trust: they see one that's only protecting the "One Percent."
Both fringes attempt to push government more to their liking, but the duopoly has other plans: it's owned by the corporations: the banks, oil companies, media and more.
The anger among Tea Partiers is genuine, but the billionaire lobby, from astro-turf roots to media campaigns, to think tank creations, contrives its targets.
Anger on the left is at least as real, but its targets are scattered. Their anger focuses on exploitation, of, by and for the corporations, but also on government and military-style repression: they have little money behind them.
We don't have a Fourth Amendment any longer: unlawful search and seizure has been pushed aside by Terrorism and Drugs. All a local prosecutor, or enforcement officer, need do is to record everyone within electronic reach. Soon, I predict, all they'll have to do is apply to the NSA, or whatever Federal entity has become the repository, to access phone, email and Internet files on anyone "of interest." That's why everyone's online (and cloud) records are being recorded in the massive surveillance program initiated by the NSA. The justification: to intercept any terrorists before they act.
Stalin gained power by controlling information about everyone; people need to wrest that power back. And this is an issue where both fringes could/should collaborate. Tea Partiers hate the idea of government surveillance as much as lefties.
Unless "the fringes" can come together in resistance, there is no escape. Republicans and Democrats are equally implicated in the Surveillance State. Democratic Senator Feinstein and President Obama are as much a part of it as Bush II, Cheney and Senator McCain. The renewal--and strengthening--of the NDAA in December demonstrates this.
In the Fifth Century Empire, Roman Senators and German generals collaborated in controlling and repressing the humiliores.
With powers of surveillance and manipulation of information greater than Stalin ever dreamed of, the modern American state soon will leave no room for real dissent. That could be its downfall, just like the Stalinist state before it.
Like the USSR's failed New Lands wheat projects, the US plunges into fracking, oil sands and nuclear, while the rest of the world pushes ahead with solar, wind and bio-fuel alternatives.
We'll decline, driven by government-corporate induced blindness. Others will rise--if there is any livable environment left.
Our two party system has been described as a duopoly, and when you look at the Obama/McConnell/Reid/Boehner compromise over "the fiscal cliff," you see that it is.
Remaining on the right, are the angry Tea Partiers, who distrust government in all its forms, though they're not unwilling to rip it off. Remaining on the left are forlorn progressives, who yearn for a government they can trust: they see one that's only protecting the "One Percent."
Both fringes attempt to push government more to their liking, but the duopoly has other plans: it's owned by the corporations: the banks, oil companies, media and more.
The anger among Tea Partiers is genuine, but the billionaire lobby, from astro-turf roots to media campaigns, to think tank creations, contrives its targets.
Anger on the left is at least as real, but its targets are scattered. Their anger focuses on exploitation, of, by and for the corporations, but also on government and military-style repression: they have little money behind them.
We don't have a Fourth Amendment any longer: unlawful search and seizure has been pushed aside by Terrorism and Drugs. All a local prosecutor, or enforcement officer, need do is to record everyone within electronic reach. Soon, I predict, all they'll have to do is apply to the NSA, or whatever Federal entity has become the repository, to access phone, email and Internet files on anyone "of interest." That's why everyone's online (and cloud) records are being recorded in the massive surveillance program initiated by the NSA. The justification: to intercept any terrorists before they act.
Stalin gained power by controlling information about everyone; people need to wrest that power back. And this is an issue where both fringes could/should collaborate. Tea Partiers hate the idea of government surveillance as much as lefties.
Unless "the fringes" can come together in resistance, there is no escape. Republicans and Democrats are equally implicated in the Surveillance State. Democratic Senator Feinstein and President Obama are as much a part of it as Bush II, Cheney and Senator McCain. The renewal--and strengthening--of the NDAA in December demonstrates this.
In the Fifth Century Empire, Roman Senators and German generals collaborated in controlling and repressing the humiliores.
With powers of surveillance and manipulation of information greater than Stalin ever dreamed of, the modern American state soon will leave no room for real dissent. That could be its downfall, just like the Stalinist state before it.
Like the USSR's failed New Lands wheat projects, the US plunges into fracking, oil sands and nuclear, while the rest of the world pushes ahead with solar, wind and bio-fuel alternatives.
We'll decline, driven by government-corporate induced blindness. Others will rise--if there is any livable environment left.
Friday, January 4, 2013
Black Panthers = Occupy = Terrorists?
Some of us remember Fred Hampton. He was a Black Panther in Chicago, a rising personality in the Black Panther Party when he was murdered. He was murdered by a tactical unit of the Cook County's Attorney General's office, in an attack planned and initiated by the FBI.
Dangerous, we were told, shooting back when the police raided, at 3 AM. Actually, a Black Panther, who was on watch, fired only one shot. He shot it reflexively, in his death throes. Fred Hampton was shot four times in the head, while he slept, drugged by an informant.
Hoover had it in for the Panthers. He ordered Cointelpro to go after them regardless of any facts: he was sure they were violent revolutionaries who threatened the nation--uppity blacks with their free schools and their breakfast program for hungry youth in the ghettos.
Now, FOIA's provided to the Partnership For Civil Justice Fund have revealed that the FBI was about to do it again, this time to Occupy activists. Only this time, they were going to assassinate leaders--not that there were any--with snipers! The plot was never carried out, but it clearly was in the planning stages. Why?
This was in 2011, when Occupy was just beginning and was primarily 'occupying Wall Street.' In the memos, they treat the protesters as if they were potential terrorists, or revolutionaries. Hoover, remember, was concerned that the Black Panther Party was going to foment a revolution for radical change.
Did FBI agents in the hierarchy see the Occupiers as similarly threatening? The BPP had been armed; it had emerged, at least in part, from violence in the black ghettos, so guns were to be expected. But the OWS was largely white, even middle class, and except for the black bloc, determinedly non-violent.
Yet, the FBI was going to kill the leaders "via suppressed sniper rifles." Later, it seems clear, there was a nationally coordinated effort, probably at least aided by the FBI, to close down the encampments, peacefully or not.
Again, why?
Occupy popularized consciousness of the extreme inequality of wealth growing in the US. It also protested the bailouts that aided Wall Street and few others. Their ideas were potentially revolutionary, but they had no revolutionary program; they had no program, at all.
Still, the FBI saw them as such a threat that they were going to assassinate the leaders!
Some Occupiers spoke of revolution: we had an activist stay with us for four days too long, but their ideas were for the kind of non-violent change that made sense--unless you felt the wealthy must be defended at all costs.
The FBI plotting reveals which people they're really defending: it ain't you and me. It's America's Roman Senators, the wealthy: Occupy identified them as "the One Percent."
Maybe their protectors are pulling Obama's strings, too. That might explain a lot. In fifth century Rome, miscreants were slowly burned alive--as a warning.
Dangerous, we were told, shooting back when the police raided, at 3 AM. Actually, a Black Panther, who was on watch, fired only one shot. He shot it reflexively, in his death throes. Fred Hampton was shot four times in the head, while he slept, drugged by an informant.
Hoover had it in for the Panthers. He ordered Cointelpro to go after them regardless of any facts: he was sure they were violent revolutionaries who threatened the nation--uppity blacks with their free schools and their breakfast program for hungry youth in the ghettos.
Now, FOIA's provided to the Partnership For Civil Justice Fund have revealed that the FBI was about to do it again, this time to Occupy activists. Only this time, they were going to assassinate leaders--not that there were any--with snipers! The plot was never carried out, but it clearly was in the planning stages. Why?
This was in 2011, when Occupy was just beginning and was primarily 'occupying Wall Street.' In the memos, they treat the protesters as if they were potential terrorists, or revolutionaries. Hoover, remember, was concerned that the Black Panther Party was going to foment a revolution for radical change.
Did FBI agents in the hierarchy see the Occupiers as similarly threatening? The BPP had been armed; it had emerged, at least in part, from violence in the black ghettos, so guns were to be expected. But the OWS was largely white, even middle class, and except for the black bloc, determinedly non-violent.
Yet, the FBI was going to kill the leaders "via suppressed sniper rifles." Later, it seems clear, there was a nationally coordinated effort, probably at least aided by the FBI, to close down the encampments, peacefully or not.
Again, why?
Occupy popularized consciousness of the extreme inequality of wealth growing in the US. It also protested the bailouts that aided Wall Street and few others. Their ideas were potentially revolutionary, but they had no revolutionary program; they had no program, at all.
Still, the FBI saw them as such a threat that they were going to assassinate the leaders!
Some Occupiers spoke of revolution: we had an activist stay with us for four days too long, but their ideas were for the kind of non-violent change that made sense--unless you felt the wealthy must be defended at all costs.
The FBI plotting reveals which people they're really defending: it ain't you and me. It's America's Roman Senators, the wealthy: Occupy identified them as "the One Percent."
Maybe their protectors are pulling Obama's strings, too. That might explain a lot. In fifth century Rome, miscreants were slowly burned alive--as a warning.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Falling For The Cliff
The "fiscal cliff" was a contrivance Democrats and Republicans, Obama and Boehner/McConnell, all thought would work for them. It should have worked for Obama and the Democrats.
Obama won reelection convincingly, and his most salient deficit-cutting issue was raising taxes on the wealthy with incomes over $250,000. That was part of his proposal to reduce the deficit with proper balance between expenditure cuts and revenue increases. Polls showed high levels of support. So, why did he give in to Republicans at all?
Sure, the Biden/McConnell tentative agreement is an admission by Republican Senators that they are on the wrong side of the tax issue, unemployment insurance extensions and low-income enhancers like the Earned Income Tax Credit.
On the other hand, for Democrats, trying to avoid the 'fiscal cliff' was bad strategy, because allowing tax increases to go up temporarily would have increased Obama's leverage: the no-tax-hike GOP can be assailed for opposing tax cuts, if the deadline of the fiscal cliff really passes with no agreement. Isn't it more plausible that they'd vote for tax cuts to everyone with incomes below $250,000, instead of raising taxes on the wealthy? They wouldn't even break the Norquist no-tax-hike pledge. And people wouldn't blame them for a stalemate, which growing numbers of people--and financial rating institutions--will do if they don't go along.
But, no, Obama, after months campaigning on the $250,000 figure, opens his latest bid with raising the rate to $400,000, a position Speaker Boehner had taken less than a month before.
Obama has already sounded conciliatory about cutting Social Security benefits--through adjusting the Cost of Living--yet Social Security is self-funding and its surpluses have financed some of the deficits for a long time. He's tried out cuts to Medicare eligibility, but Medicare proponents--Democratic activists--through much pressure, have persuaded him to withdraw the proposal.
Why doesn't he, or other Democrats, propose cuts to oil and coal subsidies? We have no business continuing to promote these polluters in the face of accelerating global warming.
Obama and "moderate" Democrats are either afraid of the money big oil, banks, etc. can wield against them, or they’ve been bought out by it. The same could be said of "defense" expenditures: no one spends anywhere near as much as we do on military and surveillance, yet neither Democrats nor Republicans see the mandated Pentagon cuts as an opportunity.
The US, through its dysfunctional politics and polarization, its obeisance to status quo interests and its fear of crossing capitalists, is leading the world to a violent conflagration brought on by increasingly disruptive climate change. Capitalists, said Lenin, will sell you the rope to hang them.
In fifth-century Rome, Senators even bought the rope, and applied it to their own necks.
Obama won reelection convincingly, and his most salient deficit-cutting issue was raising taxes on the wealthy with incomes over $250,000. That was part of his proposal to reduce the deficit with proper balance between expenditure cuts and revenue increases. Polls showed high levels of support. So, why did he give in to Republicans at all?
Sure, the Biden/McConnell tentative agreement is an admission by Republican Senators that they are on the wrong side of the tax issue, unemployment insurance extensions and low-income enhancers like the Earned Income Tax Credit.
On the other hand, for Democrats, trying to avoid the 'fiscal cliff' was bad strategy, because allowing tax increases to go up temporarily would have increased Obama's leverage: the no-tax-hike GOP can be assailed for opposing tax cuts, if the deadline of the fiscal cliff really passes with no agreement. Isn't it more plausible that they'd vote for tax cuts to everyone with incomes below $250,000, instead of raising taxes on the wealthy? They wouldn't even break the Norquist no-tax-hike pledge. And people wouldn't blame them for a stalemate, which growing numbers of people--and financial rating institutions--will do if they don't go along.
But, no, Obama, after months campaigning on the $250,000 figure, opens his latest bid with raising the rate to $400,000, a position Speaker Boehner had taken less than a month before.
Obama has already sounded conciliatory about cutting Social Security benefits--through adjusting the Cost of Living--yet Social Security is self-funding and its surpluses have financed some of the deficits for a long time. He's tried out cuts to Medicare eligibility, but Medicare proponents--Democratic activists--through much pressure, have persuaded him to withdraw the proposal.
Why doesn't he, or other Democrats, propose cuts to oil and coal subsidies? We have no business continuing to promote these polluters in the face of accelerating global warming.
Obama and "moderate" Democrats are either afraid of the money big oil, banks, etc. can wield against them, or they’ve been bought out by it. The same could be said of "defense" expenditures: no one spends anywhere near as much as we do on military and surveillance, yet neither Democrats nor Republicans see the mandated Pentagon cuts as an opportunity.
The US, through its dysfunctional politics and polarization, its obeisance to status quo interests and its fear of crossing capitalists, is leading the world to a violent conflagration brought on by increasingly disruptive climate change. Capitalists, said Lenin, will sell you the rope to hang them.
In fifth-century Rome, Senators even bought the rope, and applied it to their own necks.
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