“I’m not one of these people who says force has no place in international affairs.” —retired General Wesley Clark, in conversation with Amy Goodman
Force has no place in international affairs. The question is, how can we create the world in which this proposition is a safe one to hold not only in principle, but act on as policy. There are those who will immediately label this as hopeless idealism, but I answer it is the ultimate in realism. We cannot contemplate our own security to the exclusion of others without creating enemies, against whom we must then arm ourselves. We have armed ourselves with the ability to destroy the Earth several times over, and still do not feel safe from enemies. In fact, we see them everywhere, even where they do not yet exist. Shall we destroy the world, today, because one day it will turn against us? Apparently.
There are those who say we cannot have freedom without the freedom to trade. Trade means markets, and markets require empire—by any other name, whether by occupation, or foreign military bases, 737 of them currently (not counting many more undeclared) around the world, from which to project power and influence.
In answer, whom does it benefit when we make the world safe for global traders but unsafe for human beings? The lack of consideration afforded to human beings by the rules set forth for global trade fits hand and glove with atrocities committed by use of military force throughout the globe. The two are inextricably linked. Global changes arising from unbridled avarice has resulted in the deaths of millions, pushed many life forms off the planet already, and has humanity poised on the brink of extinction.
The alternative, the only rational alternative, is to work together for collective benefit, considering the Earth as a whole, because it is. This is not dictated by the triumph of an ideology, be it communist or capitalist. This is dictated for our mutual survival. It will not mean the end of trade, but it will mean the end of exploitation, both of human beings and of the Earth. We must come to recognize the ultimate limitations to individual liberty, both social and natural.
The Indigenous and the scientist, the priests, rabbis and imams, the mythmakers and the people, we must all join to chart our course. Some traditions may guide us. Others, it must be recognized, have brought us to the edge of the abyss, and must be abandoned.
The point is not negotiable. Our very survival depends upon it. The Earth will let us know if we succeed.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Don’t pop the champagne just yet..
Obama’s prescription for the auto industry may be too little, too late, unless more’s coming.
Viewed from one perspective, Obama’s mandate to the auto industry to come in line with California’s standard of 35 mpg average vehicle by 2016 is a bold and courageous step. However, if we look globally, many automakers have already shot past this standard and have set their sights higher, so this will not even bring the US into line with its competition. Historically we know Detroit loves to drag its feet and does nothing without being dragged kicking and screaming. If they hold true to their past lethargy and do nothing to dramatically reform their technology, this new standard may be nothing other than a death knell for the industry, in that it does not force them to go far enough.
Add to this the fact that the US is one of three hold-outs, along with Canada and New Zealand, to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Signed by 144 member states, it is the first step toward the international recognition of the rights of
350 million people world-wide on the forefront of ecological destruction from oil exploration and climate change.
A CAFÉ standard of 35mpg by 2016, while a significant improvement over current standards, will not come close to meeting the necessary global reduction to meet the 350ppm atmospheric carbon threshold to avoid catastrophic climate change affecting agriculture and all coastal communities. This will require transition away from coal and oil and non-development of tar-sands and oil shale.
Viewed from one perspective, Obama’s mandate to the auto industry to come in line with California’s standard of 35 mpg average vehicle by 2016 is a bold and courageous step. However, if we look globally, many automakers have already shot past this standard and have set their sights higher, so this will not even bring the US into line with its competition. Historically we know Detroit loves to drag its feet and does nothing without being dragged kicking and screaming. If they hold true to their past lethargy and do nothing to dramatically reform their technology, this new standard may be nothing other than a death knell for the industry, in that it does not force them to go far enough.
Add to this the fact that the US is one of three hold-outs, along with Canada and New Zealand, to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Signed by 144 member states, it is the first step toward the international recognition of the rights of
350 million people world-wide on the forefront of ecological destruction from oil exploration and climate change.
A CAFÉ standard of 35mpg by 2016, while a significant improvement over current standards, will not come close to meeting the necessary global reduction to meet the 350ppm atmospheric carbon threshold to avoid catastrophic climate change affecting agriculture and all coastal communities. This will require transition away from coal and oil and non-development of tar-sands and oil shale.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
To Sonali Kolhatkar and Joshua Holland; Re: 9/11
It's time to unpack this term "conspiracy theory." I listened with interest to your interview this morning with Joshua Holland of AlterNet, aware of your predilections around 9-11. I thought Holland’s comment “How can you do activism against a bunch of shadowy actors behind the scenes” was particularly telling, smacking of intellectual laziness. Perhaps a story would help.
On a dark night an individual searches the ground under a lamppost. A good Samaritan passing by offers to help.
“What are you looking for?”
“I lost my keys.”
“Where did you lose them?”
“Over there by the alley.”
“Why then are you looking over here!?”
“The light’s better.”
I’m not someone who believes in conspiracy theories necessarily; neither do I dismiss them. They are, after all, theories, which means an explanation of certain facts awaiting proof. Often they arise because the ‘official story’ ignores facts the officials would rather not see examined.
Did the U.S. Navy battleship Maine sink in Havana harbor due to a Spanish conspiracy? Current historians think not, it was the heat combined with improper storage of volatile armaments. Did William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate, use his position and power to push the American population into war with Spain? This is no longer theory but historical fact; a conspiracy involving him and his many employees. Did Orson Wells base his groundbreaking film Citizen Kane on the life of Hearst? Fact: a conspiracy, involving Wells, the actors, the production company, and the exhibitors, to expose Hearst, and make money. Did Hearst use his power to suppress and discredit the film, by running negative reviews in the hundred or so newspapers under his control, threaten exhibitors, and subsequently attempt to ruin Wells’ career? Conspiracy, yes, theory, no.
We are willing to entertain the idea that figures within our government conspire to kidnap people off foreign streets and torture them at various undisclosed locations throughout the world. We must accept at this point that figures with government sanction have purposefully injected African Americans with syphilis and GIs with plutonium without their knowledge, in order to study them, that viral agents were released in the surf and subways of San Francisco in order to track the spread of disease. Is this indicative of the majority of those who serve in government? No, but that these events occurred is a matter of public record, if one cares to look, exposed in documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, a law which the George W. Bush administration summarily ignored and attempted to dismantle.
Ditto the lie of the Tonkin gulf attack used to justify the war in Vietnam, exposed by the Pentagon Papers. Two million Vietnamese dead, and 60,000 US counting only those killed in direct combat, not the aftermath, so Lyndon Johnson’s friends could make money. Presidential candidate Nixon prolonged the war to help get elected, sending his emissary Kissinger to scuttle Paris peace talks in 1968. Presidential candidate Reagan cut a deal with the Iranians not to release the U.S. embassy hostages in order to ensure Jimmy Carter's defeat.
A million and a half Afghans died as a result of our policies before 2001, and a half million Iraqi children from our sanctions, but that must be okay because Madeline Albright said it was. Do we remember? Do we know? Do we care?
But those are foreign dead, right, not Americans, our government would never do that to its own people, you say. Well what about the Tailwind report from award winning journalist April Oliver that got her fired from CNN in 1998, which according to the book Into the Buzzsaw was confirmed in a sworn deposition by a retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, causing her employers to settle her wrongful termination suit. That story— that the United States targeted defectors in Laos with sarin nerve gas during the Vietnam war.
What about the soldiers— soldiers always die, so they don’t count? Please. If you choose to believe that the murders of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and others were the result solely of the lone gunmen punished for the crime, and conclude that for the most part justice is alive and well, what then of the National Guardsmen at Kent State, Jackson State, or for that matter the Blackwater sharpshooters at New Orleans, none of whom have seen the inside of a courtroom or even been identified. Huey Newton's murder at the hands of the FBI and Which is only to say that bad things happen, especially when people of like mind get together.
The history of our nation is replete with examples of those with power using the means at their disposal to manipulate the public and the government to their bidding. Exceptions (Teddy’s trust busting, FDR) are notable, but serve mainly to prove the rule. The people with power and vested interest are identifiable, but are rarely connected with their actions because they successfully use the means at their disposal to conceal their activities from the public at large. Union leaders and political activists, by contrast, are only capable of performing successfully by attracting public awareness, and they often suffer for their actions with their life. Which might form an argument, subconsciously at least, for not probing too deeply, too publicly.
I am not an architect, engineer, or scientist. Do I think the towers were brought down by Chinese space lasers or an atom bomb? No. Do I think they were brought down solely by aircraft and nineteen hijackers? Possibly; taking into account that their funding came from the CIA redirected through Pakistani intelligence (and some Saudis), and some in a position to know chose to make money off the attack by over-insuring the buildings and placing put options on the airline stocks affected, and putting down the quashing of FBI investigations and the erasure of a vast database of terrorism investigation solely to incompetence and ass covering and currying favor with those in power (sucking up to Bush protecting the Saudis), and I’d need to hear some kind of explanation for those little puffs of smoke that certainly look like ‘squibs,’ the trails of smoke that jut out from sequentially timed explosives in a controlled demolition—possible. Do I think that some in a position to know this attack was coming sought to make it even more sensational, by assisting the demolition of the Towers and loss of life with planted explosives, in order to further political ends they believed would fabulously increase their power and wealth? Possible, taking into account credible eye-witness reports of events from several weeks prior to and including the day of, including firemen in the building reporting explosions, whose reports were omitted when the "official" story was prepared.
Lyndon Johnson himself remarked he didn’t believe a word of the Warren Report. While still touted as gospel in some quarters with convoluted explanations to support it, it is widely regarded as a whitewash in others. Photographs of the presidential limo taken the day of the incident clearly show the impression of a bullet imbedded in the front of the chrome above the windshield. The limo was later destroyed. Explain that with your single bullet theory.
The 9-11 Commission Report has numerous flaws. I say let those with the expertise who feel motivated to do so pursue their investigations, hopefully one day with government sanction, without the need to prejudice our opinions one way or the other. To which I say good luck, but I mean that. Our track record in this area is not so great. Those of us without such expertise could use our intellect to more accurately make connections in the social realm. Do I think the dark powers who possibly participated but certainly profited from 9/11 are vulnerable on this issue? Absent a whistleblower from within, not really. Forensic evidence remains somewhat inconclusive and eye-witness reports, while compelling, are not enough to prove the issue. So I guess I agree with Holland, but not with his inference, that since we cannot prove it therefore is not true.
There are certainly more obvious, and larger crimes, that lack the emotional resonance of 9/11. Like, all the nasty business that's gone on for years that would make us a target in the first place, which most are content to ignore. Chalmers Johnson predicted such an event in Blowback, written in 1999.
Do I think that keeping photos of torture secret will protect our troops? No. Keeping them secret will protect the torturers, and continue the practice. Being seen as torturers with or without photos to prove it will not protect our troops. Quite the contrary. Exposing the photos to the public would hopefully result in outrage and revulsion at what has been allowed to transpire in our name, resulting in a push for a change of policy, and prosecutions, which by his actions is obviously something Obama fears, perhaps out of concern for his own safety. This would, by the way, do more to protect the troops, but then they're expendable, right? Not so ex-presidents, regardless their crimes.
Exposure dis-empowers the guilty, and forces a change of policy. What we need is more light, but it’s got to be in the right place. There’s plenty of work to go around. Most of the time you do a pretty good job with your microphone, but not always. The original meaning of the word ‘sin’ came from archery, meaning simply, to miss the mark. We all need to improve our accuracy, if we are to resolve our difficulties.
On a dark night an individual searches the ground under a lamppost. A good Samaritan passing by offers to help.
“What are you looking for?”
“I lost my keys.”
“Where did you lose them?”
“Over there by the alley.”
“Why then are you looking over here!?”
“The light’s better.”
I’m not someone who believes in conspiracy theories necessarily; neither do I dismiss them. They are, after all, theories, which means an explanation of certain facts awaiting proof. Often they arise because the ‘official story’ ignores facts the officials would rather not see examined.
Did the U.S. Navy battleship Maine sink in Havana harbor due to a Spanish conspiracy? Current historians think not, it was the heat combined with improper storage of volatile armaments. Did William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate, use his position and power to push the American population into war with Spain? This is no longer theory but historical fact; a conspiracy involving him and his many employees. Did Orson Wells base his groundbreaking film Citizen Kane on the life of Hearst? Fact: a conspiracy, involving Wells, the actors, the production company, and the exhibitors, to expose Hearst, and make money. Did Hearst use his power to suppress and discredit the film, by running negative reviews in the hundred or so newspapers under his control, threaten exhibitors, and subsequently attempt to ruin Wells’ career? Conspiracy, yes, theory, no.
We are willing to entertain the idea that figures within our government conspire to kidnap people off foreign streets and torture them at various undisclosed locations throughout the world. We must accept at this point that figures with government sanction have purposefully injected African Americans with syphilis and GIs with plutonium without their knowledge, in order to study them, that viral agents were released in the surf and subways of San Francisco in order to track the spread of disease. Is this indicative of the majority of those who serve in government? No, but that these events occurred is a matter of public record, if one cares to look, exposed in documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, a law which the George W. Bush administration summarily ignored and attempted to dismantle.
Ditto the lie of the Tonkin gulf attack used to justify the war in Vietnam, exposed by the Pentagon Papers. Two million Vietnamese dead, and 60,000 US counting only those killed in direct combat, not the aftermath, so Lyndon Johnson’s friends could make money. Presidential candidate Nixon prolonged the war to help get elected, sending his emissary Kissinger to scuttle Paris peace talks in 1968. Presidential candidate Reagan cut a deal with the Iranians not to release the U.S. embassy hostages in order to ensure Jimmy Carter's defeat.
A million and a half Afghans died as a result of our policies before 2001, and a half million Iraqi children from our sanctions, but that must be okay because Madeline Albright said it was. Do we remember? Do we know? Do we care?
But those are foreign dead, right, not Americans, our government would never do that to its own people, you say. Well what about the Tailwind report from award winning journalist April Oliver that got her fired from CNN in 1998, which according to the book Into the Buzzsaw was confirmed in a sworn deposition by a retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, causing her employers to settle her wrongful termination suit. That story— that the United States targeted defectors in Laos with sarin nerve gas during the Vietnam war.
What about the soldiers— soldiers always die, so they don’t count? Please. If you choose to believe that the murders of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and others were the result solely of the lone gunmen punished for the crime, and conclude that for the most part justice is alive and well, what then of the National Guardsmen at Kent State, Jackson State, or for that matter the Blackwater sharpshooters at New Orleans, none of whom have seen the inside of a courtroom or even been identified. Huey Newton's murder at the hands of the FBI and Which is only to say that bad things happen, especially when people of like mind get together.
The history of our nation is replete with examples of those with power using the means at their disposal to manipulate the public and the government to their bidding. Exceptions (Teddy’s trust busting, FDR) are notable, but serve mainly to prove the rule. The people with power and vested interest are identifiable, but are rarely connected with their actions because they successfully use the means at their disposal to conceal their activities from the public at large. Union leaders and political activists, by contrast, are only capable of performing successfully by attracting public awareness, and they often suffer for their actions with their life. Which might form an argument, subconsciously at least, for not probing too deeply, too publicly.
I am not an architect, engineer, or scientist. Do I think the towers were brought down by Chinese space lasers or an atom bomb? No. Do I think they were brought down solely by aircraft and nineteen hijackers? Possibly; taking into account that their funding came from the CIA redirected through Pakistani intelligence (and some Saudis), and some in a position to know chose to make money off the attack by over-insuring the buildings and placing put options on the airline stocks affected, and putting down the quashing of FBI investigations and the erasure of a vast database of terrorism investigation solely to incompetence and ass covering and currying favor with those in power (sucking up to Bush protecting the Saudis), and I’d need to hear some kind of explanation for those little puffs of smoke that certainly look like ‘squibs,’ the trails of smoke that jut out from sequentially timed explosives in a controlled demolition—possible. Do I think that some in a position to know this attack was coming sought to make it even more sensational, by assisting the demolition of the Towers and loss of life with planted explosives, in order to further political ends they believed would fabulously increase their power and wealth? Possible, taking into account credible eye-witness reports of events from several weeks prior to and including the day of, including firemen in the building reporting explosions, whose reports were omitted when the "official" story was prepared.
Lyndon Johnson himself remarked he didn’t believe a word of the Warren Report. While still touted as gospel in some quarters with convoluted explanations to support it, it is widely regarded as a whitewash in others. Photographs of the presidential limo taken the day of the incident clearly show the impression of a bullet imbedded in the front of the chrome above the windshield. The limo was later destroyed. Explain that with your single bullet theory.
The 9-11 Commission Report has numerous flaws. I say let those with the expertise who feel motivated to do so pursue their investigations, hopefully one day with government sanction, without the need to prejudice our opinions one way or the other. To which I say good luck, but I mean that. Our track record in this area is not so great. Those of us without such expertise could use our intellect to more accurately make connections in the social realm. Do I think the dark powers who possibly participated but certainly profited from 9/11 are vulnerable on this issue? Absent a whistleblower from within, not really. Forensic evidence remains somewhat inconclusive and eye-witness reports, while compelling, are not enough to prove the issue. So I guess I agree with Holland, but not with his inference, that since we cannot prove it therefore is not true.
There are certainly more obvious, and larger crimes, that lack the emotional resonance of 9/11. Like, all the nasty business that's gone on for years that would make us a target in the first place, which most are content to ignore. Chalmers Johnson predicted such an event in Blowback, written in 1999.
Do I think that keeping photos of torture secret will protect our troops? No. Keeping them secret will protect the torturers, and continue the practice. Being seen as torturers with or without photos to prove it will not protect our troops. Quite the contrary. Exposing the photos to the public would hopefully result in outrage and revulsion at what has been allowed to transpire in our name, resulting in a push for a change of policy, and prosecutions, which by his actions is obviously something Obama fears, perhaps out of concern for his own safety. This would, by the way, do more to protect the troops, but then they're expendable, right? Not so ex-presidents, regardless their crimes.
Exposure dis-empowers the guilty, and forces a change of policy. What we need is more light, but it’s got to be in the right place. There’s plenty of work to go around. Most of the time you do a pretty good job with your microphone, but not always. The original meaning of the word ‘sin’ came from archery, meaning simply, to miss the mark. We all need to improve our accuracy, if we are to resolve our difficulties.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
When It Is Torture
Those locked in conversation over Obama’s reversal of his decision to release hundreds (or was it thousands) of photos that depict torture at US hands, probably missed a one paragraph item in the World Briefing section on page A6 of last Tuesday’s New York Times (May 12, 2009); “United Arab Emirates: Sheik Held Over Torture Video.” Seems a video surfaced in which the brother of the ruler of Abu Dhabi, who is also the President of the seventeen-member United Arab Emirates, appears to torture an Afghan grain merchant. He has been detained pending the outcome of a criminal investigation.
Contrast this with the United States, where the CIA erased the videotapes, and the President we elected on the pledge to bring sunshine to government makes the excuse that if we release the photos it might prove inflammatory with negative consequences for our troops. I for one do not think confirming to the world that we are a nation unwilling and incapable of facing up to the evidence of our own crimes will serve to protect our troops while carrying out any mission we attempt to portray as just.
Justice need not lack mercy but requires accountability. Justice requires crimes be exposed, the guilty prosecuted, whether they be a corporal or the brother of the president who carries out torture, or a president or vice president who ordered it. Justice is a contract between the rulers and the ruled, that says we play by the same rules; no one is above the law.
I can’t say how many times I have been in conversation with friends, intelligent people, who repeat to me sound-bites from the media or the President’s lips, as if that were the end of discussion. Behind these thought-numbing aphorisms is what Edward Said referred to as “Orientalism,” the unconscious supposition that white Christians of European descent are best disposed to rule the world, the only ones with a grasp of fairness, the only ones worth being accountable to. I find it equally at play in the question, “If we just leave Iraq, it would be chaos. How could they rebuild?” As if they didn’t build their country in the first place, as if they weren’t capable of rebuilding without our help, and of course we would be their first choice. I mean, since we destroyed it, we should know how to put it back together, right?
Many of us have become accustomed it seems, to accepting at face value pronouncements from power, instead of comparing them to our own internal sense of justice. The thing that made Orwell’s novel 1984 so compelling was the way he laid bare the conscious transition from human being to servile co-conspirator in the suffering of others. One thought only need be accepted; let it happen to others.
As Jeremy Scahill reported this morning on Democracy Now!, AlterNet, and his blog RebelReports.com, torture is alive and well at Guantanamo under Obama. Little wonder when we can’t even compel him to release the photos, let alone bring those responsible to justice, which is what he fears their release will require, more than consequences for our troops.
Obama’s message to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop building settlements notwithstanding, his pre-election pledge of “make me do it” is sounding ironically hollow. If he cuts off funding when Netanyahu ignores him (which he most certainly will), something even Bush senior once attempted, then I might believe him. Lacking that his actions are less than one step forward, two steps back.
Justice is alive in the world, even here in the US, but don’t look for it in the halls of power or the media. There it seems we can’t afford it. Find it, hang on to it, within yourself. Losing it is torture.
Contrast this with the United States, where the CIA erased the videotapes, and the President we elected on the pledge to bring sunshine to government makes the excuse that if we release the photos it might prove inflammatory with negative consequences for our troops. I for one do not think confirming to the world that we are a nation unwilling and incapable of facing up to the evidence of our own crimes will serve to protect our troops while carrying out any mission we attempt to portray as just.
Justice need not lack mercy but requires accountability. Justice requires crimes be exposed, the guilty prosecuted, whether they be a corporal or the brother of the president who carries out torture, or a president or vice president who ordered it. Justice is a contract between the rulers and the ruled, that says we play by the same rules; no one is above the law.
I can’t say how many times I have been in conversation with friends, intelligent people, who repeat to me sound-bites from the media or the President’s lips, as if that were the end of discussion. Behind these thought-numbing aphorisms is what Edward Said referred to as “Orientalism,” the unconscious supposition that white Christians of European descent are best disposed to rule the world, the only ones with a grasp of fairness, the only ones worth being accountable to. I find it equally at play in the question, “If we just leave Iraq, it would be chaos. How could they rebuild?” As if they didn’t build their country in the first place, as if they weren’t capable of rebuilding without our help, and of course we would be their first choice. I mean, since we destroyed it, we should know how to put it back together, right?
Many of us have become accustomed it seems, to accepting at face value pronouncements from power, instead of comparing them to our own internal sense of justice. The thing that made Orwell’s novel 1984 so compelling was the way he laid bare the conscious transition from human being to servile co-conspirator in the suffering of others. One thought only need be accepted; let it happen to others.
As Jeremy Scahill reported this morning on Democracy Now!, AlterNet, and his blog RebelReports.com, torture is alive and well at Guantanamo under Obama. Little wonder when we can’t even compel him to release the photos, let alone bring those responsible to justice, which is what he fears their release will require, more than consequences for our troops.
Obama’s message to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop building settlements notwithstanding, his pre-election pledge of “make me do it” is sounding ironically hollow. If he cuts off funding when Netanyahu ignores him (which he most certainly will), something even Bush senior once attempted, then I might believe him. Lacking that his actions are less than one step forward, two steps back.
Justice is alive in the world, even here in the US, but don’t look for it in the halls of power or the media. There it seems we can’t afford it. Find it, hang on to it, within yourself. Losing it is torture.
Monday, November 17, 2008
What Now—
democracy does not begin and end with elections
The mesmerizing media is full of it, on Sixty Minutes and every news show;
“President-elect Obama, what will be your first act? Who will be in your cabinet? What will you do about the economy? Iraq? Afghanistan? Iran?”
It would be easy to sit back and enjoy the show, wondering how great the seemingly great man will be, or will he be . . build expectations, or doubt his sincerity and decision-making based on his staff choices, before he even takes office.
That’s getting ahead of ourselves, isn’t it? Aren’t we forgetting something? The first part of “When the people lead, the leaders will follow.”
So far, the people have gotten together to present a new (at least marginally superior) leader the keys to the White House, but before we fall under the spell of the Amazing Snox Box (best children’s allegory for adults ever, by Brian Gage), in all our celebrations and amazement over our achievement, let’s remember that we, the people’s job of leadership has just begun.
For instance:
Are our debates open to all, or is whose allowed on the debates chosen by one non-elected very partisan Republican, and one non-elected very partisan Democrat?
Do we have public financing of campaigns (caclean.org), to level the playing field between ordinary voters and corporatists?
Do we have Instant Runoff Voting (also referred to as ranked voting, LAvotefire.org, irvinla.org), so we can vote for the candidate who most clearly represents our values, without fearing that by doing so we’ll end up electing the one that represents them the least?
Do we have the most efficient form of healthcare, single payer, or the least efficient in all the industrialized world, such that our auto industry is about to go under from the weight of healthcare costs (setting aside for the moment their stupid decision-making in product choice), compared to competitors in other nations who do not bear this burden because they are under single payer plans?
Are our water and food supply safe and free from pollutants? Are they being monopolized by corporatists?
Are our oceans being over-fished and polluted into extinction?
Are our energy production and our transportation systems entrenched in reliance on fuels whose use will lead to catastrophic climate change, destroying the ability of much of the planet to support life as we know it? Did I hear someone say, ‘clean coal?’ Oh dear.
Is a dangerous alternative, nuclear, being seriously suggested without understanding that when the entire use cycle—from mining to refining to transport to plant construction to safe waste transport and disposal (as though such a thing is possible with something that remains toxic for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years) to plant decommissioning at end of use cycle—is considered, it is clearly anything but an alternative? And, can I hear someone say ‘nuclear proliferation’ and ‘terrorism’ in the same sentence? Oh yeah.
Is our economy still built on a house of mostly worthless paper, whose only tangible product (besides the crap entertainment to keep us distracted from how bad this all is) is high tech weaponry to threaten the rest of the world into turning over their resources on our terms, or should I say the terms of the few fabulously rich who control most of the lot, and neglect to share much with the rest of the world?
Are there fewer and fewer jobs and steeper and steeper college fees so that the siren song of the military to keep our thousand foreign bases stocked with fresh canon fodder actually starts to sound appealing, compared to the alternative of being broke and jobless?
Have our civil liberties suddenly been restored, or are we still spied on in our homes and through our phones, capable of legally being detained on here-say without a hearing?
Seems to me like there’s plenty of room for leadership to go around. That maybe we, the people should hang in there for awhile and push. Seems like no leader could lead out of this morass a populace that sits dead on their ass, lost in a daydream, that the change we need is in ourselves. Seems that’s where it has to be. Seems like we’re going to have to rise up and start walking, without waiting to be told in which direction.
Okay so we close Guantanamo and promise not to do it again, give everybody a tax cut and tell them to go shop. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to be enough.
We’re going to have to really work on this one—all of us.
The mesmerizing media is full of it, on Sixty Minutes and every news show;
“President-elect Obama, what will be your first act? Who will be in your cabinet? What will you do about the economy? Iraq? Afghanistan? Iran?”
It would be easy to sit back and enjoy the show, wondering how great the seemingly great man will be, or will he be . . build expectations, or doubt his sincerity and decision-making based on his staff choices, before he even takes office.
That’s getting ahead of ourselves, isn’t it? Aren’t we forgetting something? The first part of “When the people lead, the leaders will follow.”
So far, the people have gotten together to present a new (at least marginally superior) leader the keys to the White House, but before we fall under the spell of the Amazing Snox Box (best children’s allegory for adults ever, by Brian Gage), in all our celebrations and amazement over our achievement, let’s remember that we, the people’s job of leadership has just begun.
For instance:
Are our debates open to all, or is whose allowed on the debates chosen by one non-elected very partisan Republican, and one non-elected very partisan Democrat?
Do we have public financing of campaigns (caclean.org), to level the playing field between ordinary voters and corporatists?
Do we have Instant Runoff Voting (also referred to as ranked voting, LAvotefire.org, irvinla.org), so we can vote for the candidate who most clearly represents our values, without fearing that by doing so we’ll end up electing the one that represents them the least?
Do we have the most efficient form of healthcare, single payer, or the least efficient in all the industrialized world, such that our auto industry is about to go under from the weight of healthcare costs (setting aside for the moment their stupid decision-making in product choice), compared to competitors in other nations who do not bear this burden because they are under single payer plans?
Are our water and food supply safe and free from pollutants? Are they being monopolized by corporatists?
Are our oceans being over-fished and polluted into extinction?
Are our energy production and our transportation systems entrenched in reliance on fuels whose use will lead to catastrophic climate change, destroying the ability of much of the planet to support life as we know it? Did I hear someone say, ‘clean coal?’ Oh dear.
Is a dangerous alternative, nuclear, being seriously suggested without understanding that when the entire use cycle—from mining to refining to transport to plant construction to safe waste transport and disposal (as though such a thing is possible with something that remains toxic for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years) to plant decommissioning at end of use cycle—is considered, it is clearly anything but an alternative? And, can I hear someone say ‘nuclear proliferation’ and ‘terrorism’ in the same sentence? Oh yeah.
Is our economy still built on a house of mostly worthless paper, whose only tangible product (besides the crap entertainment to keep us distracted from how bad this all is) is high tech weaponry to threaten the rest of the world into turning over their resources on our terms, or should I say the terms of the few fabulously rich who control most of the lot, and neglect to share much with the rest of the world?
Are there fewer and fewer jobs and steeper and steeper college fees so that the siren song of the military to keep our thousand foreign bases stocked with fresh canon fodder actually starts to sound appealing, compared to the alternative of being broke and jobless?
Have our civil liberties suddenly been restored, or are we still spied on in our homes and through our phones, capable of legally being detained on here-say without a hearing?
Seems to me like there’s plenty of room for leadership to go around. That maybe we, the people should hang in there for awhile and push. Seems like no leader could lead out of this morass a populace that sits dead on their ass, lost in a daydream, that the change we need is in ourselves. Seems that’s where it has to be. Seems like we’re going to have to rise up and start walking, without waiting to be told in which direction.
Okay so we close Guantanamo and promise not to do it again, give everybody a tax cut and tell them to go shop. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to be enough.
We’re going to have to really work on this one—all of us.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
The beginning …
As I write the Star Spangled Banner is being sung, awaiting Barack’s victory speech. I have just returned from working a dozen polling locations in central Los Angeles, documenting machine malfunctions, and first time voters forced to vote provisional for not being on the rolls — even when they had a sample ballot in hand, with their name on it, and had come to the correct precinct, here in one of the blu-est areas of one of the blue-est states.
So am I elated? No time for that, because this is not a victory, yet. It is said our nation was formed to be a nation of laws, not of men. Though we have been led for eight years by men who have done their best to destroy laws that were formed to make us one society, and now are poised to believe they have ultimately failed in this attempt, we are far from fulfilling this promise.
So to our leaders elect, this new Congress and administration, who have successfully performed the balancing act between the majority of the people and the wealthy powerful elites whose influence has put them on the stage before us, here then is the marching orders, my personal mandate, a reassessment of priorities on which I must be uncompromising:
Electoral reform:
—Instant Run-off Voting
—Proportional representation
—Elimination of the electoral college, to make one person one vote a reality
—remove our elections from the hands of unelected corporate partisans, and return to hand counted paper ballots
—elimination of the Presidential Debate Commission; why should partisans of the two major parties decide whose ideas are worthy of consideration by the public — is not a vigorous debate by all candidates the best avenue for voters to appraise the issues before us and determine the most appropriate reaction? Is this not what the founders of our nation intended?
Media reform:
—Divestiture of multinational corporations from ownership of the vast majority of what we see, hear, or read — return to local ownership. A population incapable of discerning truth from falsehood because the media only reflects the views of its billionaire owners can no longer be considered a democracy. Garbage in garbage out.
Economic reform:
—Withdrawal from the WTO
—Reigning in of those who would monopolize our food and water supply
—reinvest in infrastructure —rebuild America
Energy reform:
— regardless of what you have said on the campaign trail, “clean coal” and nuclear are no solution to the global energy crisis or global climate change. We need major investment in geothermal, tidal and wave power, in addition to wind and solar energy. The entry of many small players is healthier for the economy than a few major ones.
Reaffirmation of Civil Liberties:
— The act of a real patriot would be to ensure that our civil liberties are restored and apply to all this time; all classes, all colors, all races, all religions, all tribes, all gender definitions.
Pullback from empire:
— Okay, so the thirst for revenge on the part of American vanity will necessitate a pursuit of Ben Laden, but can we pull back from our global approach of world policeman, if for no other reason than we can no longer afford a thousand overseas bases and the military to keep the whole thing running. Our worst enemy in the world is ourselves.
President-elect Obama, I believe you understand this. From what you have said, I believe you know I must hold you and the new Congress accountable to this agenda, in order to give you the fortitude to push back against established interests that must sacrifice if the country and the world are to move in a positive direction. I believe you are counting on it.
I declare I will do my utmost to fulfill my end of the bargain called democracy. I hope I can count on you. For us to have small d democracy in a small r republic, it is essential that we all deliver. I believe this is what is meant by the expression “freedom isn’t free.”
So am I elated? No time for that, because this is not a victory, yet. It is said our nation was formed to be a nation of laws, not of men. Though we have been led for eight years by men who have done their best to destroy laws that were formed to make us one society, and now are poised to believe they have ultimately failed in this attempt, we are far from fulfilling this promise.
So to our leaders elect, this new Congress and administration, who have successfully performed the balancing act between the majority of the people and the wealthy powerful elites whose influence has put them on the stage before us, here then is the marching orders, my personal mandate, a reassessment of priorities on which I must be uncompromising:
Electoral reform:
—Instant Run-off Voting
—Proportional representation
—Elimination of the electoral college, to make one person one vote a reality
—remove our elections from the hands of unelected corporate partisans, and return to hand counted paper ballots
—elimination of the Presidential Debate Commission; why should partisans of the two major parties decide whose ideas are worthy of consideration by the public — is not a vigorous debate by all candidates the best avenue for voters to appraise the issues before us and determine the most appropriate reaction? Is this not what the founders of our nation intended?
Media reform:
—Divestiture of multinational corporations from ownership of the vast majority of what we see, hear, or read — return to local ownership. A population incapable of discerning truth from falsehood because the media only reflects the views of its billionaire owners can no longer be considered a democracy. Garbage in garbage out.
Economic reform:
—Withdrawal from the WTO
—Reigning in of those who would monopolize our food and water supply
—reinvest in infrastructure —rebuild America
Energy reform:
— regardless of what you have said on the campaign trail, “clean coal” and nuclear are no solution to the global energy crisis or global climate change. We need major investment in geothermal, tidal and wave power, in addition to wind and solar energy. The entry of many small players is healthier for the economy than a few major ones.
Reaffirmation of Civil Liberties:
— The act of a real patriot would be to ensure that our civil liberties are restored and apply to all this time; all classes, all colors, all races, all religions, all tribes, all gender definitions.
Pullback from empire:
— Okay, so the thirst for revenge on the part of American vanity will necessitate a pursuit of Ben Laden, but can we pull back from our global approach of world policeman, if for no other reason than we can no longer afford a thousand overseas bases and the military to keep the whole thing running. Our worst enemy in the world is ourselves.
President-elect Obama, I believe you understand this. From what you have said, I believe you know I must hold you and the new Congress accountable to this agenda, in order to give you the fortitude to push back against established interests that must sacrifice if the country and the world are to move in a positive direction. I believe you are counting on it.
I declare I will do my utmost to fulfill my end of the bargain called democracy. I hope I can count on you. For us to have small d democracy in a small r republic, it is essential that we all deliver. I believe this is what is meant by the expression “freedom isn’t free.”
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
REPUBLICAN WAR ON DEMOCRACY
The Republicans have a program that appeals to maybe twenty percent of the population. The only way they can win (and the way they have in the past eight years) is to distort this fact through lies, and to prevent people from voting Democratic:
— before voting, by scrubbing names of likely Democratic voters from the voting rolls, challenging their right to vote because of a name or address mismatch, that they are out of the country on military service, challenging new registrations, providing too few absentee ballots
— on election day, by closing precincts, moving polling places around, by providing too few machines in Democratic precincts, delivering them late, machines so poorly designed that they break down repeatedly, causing such long delays that the wait proves prohibitive for many people
— in the booth, by inserting bogus programming that flips a voter’s choice to the Republican or a third party candidate (very very rarely, if ever, has it ever occurred the other way around), or ones where selecting the straight party vote option registers a vote for President only if you choose Republican, creating an amazing percentage of “undervote”, those who apparently made no choice for President, or by providing poorly designed, confusing ballots
— by providing “provisional ballots” whenever problems arise, leaving the voter with the impression that they have voted, when in fact these ballots are rarely counted
— at the central tabulator, which is programmed to flip the entire election to a given percentage, usually 51—49%, while keeping the same total to conceal the fraud
Theses tactics have been used and are in use now.
They were used in the 2000 election, where Florida made the news, and the over 90,000 disenfranchised were primarily African American and Jewish.
The were used in 2004 when Kerry lost Ohio by 5,988 votes, and the statewide ‘undervote’ was 17,095, and one machine was caught counting backwards for Kerry, attempting to deliver a negative 16,000 votes, and another recorded 4500 votes for Bush, out of 658 cast. He was aware of the fraud, noting on election night that wherever paper ballots were used in New Mexico, the results matched the polls, but where opti-scan machines were used, they were off by exactly the percentage that had predicted his victory— the results had been flipped. He chose not to fight it in order to remain “viable for 2008.”
They were used in 2006 when the Democrats should have won an additional thirty seats in the House, but were so jubilant to have regained the House and a slim majority in the Senate, they chose to remain silent about it.
And they are on display now, in early voting in many states. Machines are flipping votes all over the place.
My question is, where is the media? Outside of Thom Hartmann on Air America and Amy Goodman on Pacifica radio, I hear barely a mention. Everyone is preoccupied with the horserace, and ‘he said—she said,’ not whether the game is fixed.
Where are the Democratic protests? Why are they doing nothing now, eight years into this. I don’t want noble losers, I want fair elections. I want denunciations on the floor of the House and Senate. I want bills criminalizing this behavior with severe penalties. Are you afraid the electorate is fragile, made of glass, easily discouraged from voting if there’s a possibility it won’t count. You’re wrong. The anger is coming, we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore. This is our democracy—or not.
The documentation is now overwhelming. Under Republican leadership, our elections have been privatized, turned over to Premiere (formerly Diebold), E S & S, and Sequoia / Robis, Republican executives all, who are running it on machines seemingly designed specifically so they could be hacked. Even from where I write here in Los Angeles County, the bluest of the blue states, they are in charge of the running the vote, counting the vote, training the pollworkers, even running the help desk to which complaints are made — now recorded electronically (by Robis), so there is no paper record. They way in which they were awarded these contracts seems highly questionable, along with the Supervisors choice of registrar.
Against this there is an army of election activists who are through exit polling, poll monitoring, video taping, are documenting all phases of the problems. Without anyone willing to enforce either the letter or spirit of justice, where will this lead.
Since many are too lazy to read these days and time is short, check out these links:
http://videothevote.org/player_vtv_onsite
http://videothevote.org/video/reports/
"Hacking Democracy" trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8O43LxV_Xw
"Hacking Democracy" on Youtube;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVlZTWH7u8w
"Uncounted" - The Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nJz09T0HME
Uncounted on Youtube:
"Uncounted" will bring up various chapters, All smoking gun proof of fraud
http://www.uncountedthemovie.com/
"Murder, Spies and Voting Lies"
trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNHhP4JCDhA
putting the ttle into Youtube will bring up longer clips
the film:
http://www.votinglies.com/
"Stealing America, Vote by Vote"
youtube trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyip_5C2E0w
the film:
http://www.stealingamericathemovie.org/
DO SOMETHING!
— before voting, by scrubbing names of likely Democratic voters from the voting rolls, challenging their right to vote because of a name or address mismatch, that they are out of the country on military service, challenging new registrations, providing too few absentee ballots
— on election day, by closing precincts, moving polling places around, by providing too few machines in Democratic precincts, delivering them late, machines so poorly designed that they break down repeatedly, causing such long delays that the wait proves prohibitive for many people
— in the booth, by inserting bogus programming that flips a voter’s choice to the Republican or a third party candidate (very very rarely, if ever, has it ever occurred the other way around), or ones where selecting the straight party vote option registers a vote for President only if you choose Republican, creating an amazing percentage of “undervote”, those who apparently made no choice for President, or by providing poorly designed, confusing ballots
— by providing “provisional ballots” whenever problems arise, leaving the voter with the impression that they have voted, when in fact these ballots are rarely counted
— at the central tabulator, which is programmed to flip the entire election to a given percentage, usually 51—49%, while keeping the same total to conceal the fraud
Theses tactics have been used and are in use now.
They were used in the 2000 election, where Florida made the news, and the over 90,000 disenfranchised were primarily African American and Jewish.
The were used in 2004 when Kerry lost Ohio by 5,988 votes, and the statewide ‘undervote’ was 17,095, and one machine was caught counting backwards for Kerry, attempting to deliver a negative 16,000 votes, and another recorded 4500 votes for Bush, out of 658 cast. He was aware of the fraud, noting on election night that wherever paper ballots were used in New Mexico, the results matched the polls, but where opti-scan machines were used, they were off by exactly the percentage that had predicted his victory— the results had been flipped. He chose not to fight it in order to remain “viable for 2008.”
They were used in 2006 when the Democrats should have won an additional thirty seats in the House, but were so jubilant to have regained the House and a slim majority in the Senate, they chose to remain silent about it.
And they are on display now, in early voting in many states. Machines are flipping votes all over the place.
My question is, where is the media? Outside of Thom Hartmann on Air America and Amy Goodman on Pacifica radio, I hear barely a mention. Everyone is preoccupied with the horserace, and ‘he said—she said,’ not whether the game is fixed.
Where are the Democratic protests? Why are they doing nothing now, eight years into this. I don’t want noble losers, I want fair elections. I want denunciations on the floor of the House and Senate. I want bills criminalizing this behavior with severe penalties. Are you afraid the electorate is fragile, made of glass, easily discouraged from voting if there’s a possibility it won’t count. You’re wrong. The anger is coming, we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore. This is our democracy—or not.
The documentation is now overwhelming. Under Republican leadership, our elections have been privatized, turned over to Premiere (formerly Diebold), E S & S, and Sequoia / Robis, Republican executives all, who are running it on machines seemingly designed specifically so they could be hacked. Even from where I write here in Los Angeles County, the bluest of the blue states, they are in charge of the running the vote, counting the vote, training the pollworkers, even running the help desk to which complaints are made — now recorded electronically (by Robis), so there is no paper record. They way in which they were awarded these contracts seems highly questionable, along with the Supervisors choice of registrar.
Against this there is an army of election activists who are through exit polling, poll monitoring, video taping, are documenting all phases of the problems. Without anyone willing to enforce either the letter or spirit of justice, where will this lead.
Since many are too lazy to read these days and time is short, check out these links:
http://videothevote.org/player_vtv_onsite
http://videothevote.org/video/reports/
"Hacking Democracy" trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8O43LxV_Xw
"Hacking Democracy" on Youtube;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVlZTWH7u8w
"Uncounted" - The Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nJz09T0HME
Uncounted on Youtube:
"Uncounted" will bring up various chapters, All smoking gun proof of fraud
http://www.uncountedthemovie.com/
"Murder, Spies and Voting Lies"
trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNHhP4JCDhA
putting the ttle into Youtube will bring up longer clips
the film:
http://www.votinglies.com/
"Stealing America, Vote by Vote"
youtube trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyip_5C2E0w
the film:
http://www.stealingamericathemovie.org/
DO SOMETHING!
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