“…the most awesome, fearsome, and effective weapon in the arsenal of the modern Republican Party is their total, utter and complete lack of shame. That weapon - the ability to say or do anything, literally anything, even as it flies in the face of on-the-record comments made just the day before, or contradicts thousands of votes cast in congresses past - is the equivalent of a battlefield-deployed tactical nuclear weapon. It clears the field, but good, and if everything is ashes in the aftermath, so be it. So long as effective spin makes the news cycle, it's a victory for them, and screw the people who get hurt. The GOP wins when that is the contest, and that is all they care about...and the awful irony comes when the very people getting screwed are up on their feet cheering after the deal goes down, because "their team" won the day.”
- Will Pitt
Once again, I’m behind on these Red Pill blogs….which only
reinforces the need for me to start making them shorter…just too much other work to do the big posts like I used to...though this one is big :)
For those that didn’t hear it, I was interviewed on the
Rick Smith Show last week. Check it out....we delve into a bill I'm working on here in California as well as a lot of the issues I'm posting about here today.
Occupy Wall Street: The Flip Side of the American Dream
Movement
The big question, certainly that I’ve been asking anyway, is
how do we effectively challenge America’s Matrix and begin our transition away
from our capitalist, greed and competition based economic system (that
engenders increasing MASSIVE wealth disparity and economic injustice) before
it’s too late? Or, is it already too late, and the question then only becomes
what do we create after the fall? In either case, the fight must begin in
earnest today…and every day forward.
Watching the bits of coverage FINALLY being given to the Occupy Wall Street
protesters (granted, the coverage is atrocious…see the Greenwald piece today),
I must say we now have two major components of what such a movement should look
like. I do think that we need the positive, “what we are for” message, and that
has been building with the rise of the American Dream Movement, particularly
the concept of a Green New Deal. But that’s not enough is it? Because while I’m
all for the positive, we must also realize what’s at stake, and what we’re up
against. And that’s where the Occupy
Wall Street side of the coin comes in. To join a protest in California (or anywhere), go to the Occupy Together website...I'll be heading to the one in Berkeley outside of BofA this Saturday (I'll be writing more on all this next post).
The fact is we no longer live in a democracy…or
anything even close for that matter (thanks Citizens United! Though it began
long before that). Americans need to understand that we are rapidly becoming a
quasi-fascist state that is essentially of the corporation, by the corporation,
and for the corporation (or substitute “top 1%). Wall Street, and their crimes
against humanity, including the rot it causes to our economy as a whole,
obviously epitomizes this transition towards fascism (certainly we’re kleptocracy/plutocracy).
I know fascism is a loaded term, hence I don’t use when I do mainstream news
interviews or articles, but the facts are clear. Some say just use the term “corporatism”
instead…but that’s not a sufficient definition in my mind, as it only describes a part (though
the largest part) of what’s going on.
Fascism, in addition to being the corporate merger with
government (or takeover of it), is also identified by inflaming racist fears
and scapegoating “the other” (in this case, think gays, immigrants, Latinos,
Muslims, etc.), the slow evisceration of civil liberties and the increasing
scope of a surveillance state (obviously happening here now too), and endless
war and the personification of “an enemy” out to kill us (also obvious)…all
serving as a tools of control (think Tea Party too). Hence why I still use the term…
With that said, I’m VERY hopeful that just as the revolts in
Wisconsin and Ohio are showing us, so too now are the protesters on Wall
Street, that the people can stand up to those forces seeking to solidify their
control over this country and their victory over democracy.
In fact, as if on Q, I
just found this clip of Van Jones (American Dream Movement) on the Occupy
Wall Street protests…and talking about some Marines coming in to join them!For fun, watch
this protester tool a Fox News reporter trying to ambush demonstrators…as
they always do. Part of the challenge forward is merging all of these
movements, not necessarily with one message or a set of specific policy
proposals, but by the least around a shared commitment to changing the current paradigm...as the current one is dying, and no
longer acceptable. We now have a lot of the components needed….from the rise of
public employees and the working class in Ohio/Wisconsin, to the Wall Street
protests, to the American Dream movement.
Obama’s Linguistic Move Left Not Met by Actions
As I talked about last post, yes, it is important that the
President has struck a more populist chord again…for whatever his reasons (there
are a number I suspect…which I also detailed last post)…but any real impact, or any
reason to celebrate, would mean his words must be meant by actions. And of
course this is where little change has actually occurred. Yes, pushing for
taxing the rich is great…but will he let the Bush tax cuts expire? (Because we
know the GOP won’t give him a vote on his plan)
And yes, it’s nice he
FINALLY put forth a jobs plan (something we should have been doing since taking
office, rather than focusing all that time on implementing Bob Dole’s health
care plan). Of course, the jobs plan, while worth voting for, is half tax cuts
and way too small….and won’t pass.
In other words, while its important Mitt Romney (I don’t see
any other GOP candidates posing a threat) never occupies the White House,
what’s more important is we don’t allow the Democratic Party to become another
tool of the plutocrats, which Obama has allowed it to increasingly
become…more so than even Nader predicted sadly.
As I have pointed out many times, there are things he can do
without the “help” of Congress…from how to spend the remaining TARP money (help
homeowners!!!) to ending the wars to implementing clean air standards to
preventing the huge tar sands pipeline from being built and others. When he
starts doing THOSE things I will feel much happier about his obvious change in
tone and language.
So I'm concerned that too many left voters are just so happy that Obama SOUNDS like he did in 2008, we will once again get caught up in the Matrix and forget what matters most: we must be judged by our actions, not words.
Randy Shaw details a few more of this contrast between words and deeds, noting, "...as schools and libraries
close due to lack of funds, Obama continues to spend billions on a fruitless
war in Afghanistan. And it was this very month that he reversed EPA smog regulations. His Administration is still
led by political insiders and opponents of real change. I understand the perils
of a Perry presidency, but what concrete actions is Obama taking to get
millions of disappointed voters back on his side? If Obama were really committed to showing that he backs real
change he could start by withdrawing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. That
would certainly send the type of people-first message that Americans long to
hear.
SNIP
It’s great that Obama vows to veto any deficit-reduction deal that cuts Medicare without taxing the rich. But why are progressives excited about a strategy that involves cutting Medicare?
There’s no way candidate Obama would have defeated Hilary Clinton by promoting Medicare cuts. And the money saved by ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy was supposed to go toward education, transit, housing, the arts and other human needs, not as an offset for health care cuts.
It’s astonishing how many progressives forget that Obama’s 2010 State of the Union promoted deficit reduction, including a three year spending freeze on the discretionary programs that voters in 2008 thought he would increase. This speech was given while Democrats still maintained overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate.
Are many progressives really so scared of Obama losing in 2012 that they are willing to abandon their own priorities and principles? Never before have elements of the United States left been bought off so cheaply, in this case promoting the President in exchange for access, meetings, and speeches rather than any concrete results.
Poverty, Deficits and How We Got Here
I’ve often used the stat that as many as 1 in 5 Americans
(and Californians) live in poverty…which in itself is a staggering figure. But
probably not enough times have I pointed out that that is a GROSS
underestimation. The reason? Because similar to the way we measure unemployment - not counting those
that have given up searching altogether or those that can only find part time
work - is the way we measure poverty.
The fact is, in REAL TERMS, the poverty level is probably
more around 1 in 3, if not more. The reason of course it has never been
properly adjusted for all the costs of living today. AS such, the marker we use
right now is a family of 4 living on about $22,000 a year. I actually don’t
even know how that can be done…I couldn’t live on that ALONE let alone with 3
other family members. So when we talk poverty, let’s remember, we’re talking
about a HUGE number of Americans now…most of which are children.
On that, a new study has been released that shows what we’ve
all suspected: A family of four in California would need an average of more
than $63,000 a year – nearly triple the federal poverty level – to cover its
basic needs, according to an analysis of the state's
cost of living to be released today. The 2011 Self-Sufficiency
Standard, released by the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, a
national research organization, shows that in every county in California,
the federal poverty level falls short of meeting basic needs: housing, food,
child care, health care, transportation and other essential household
expenses.
Now to the how we got here. Some of this data is straight
from the Robert Parry article I’m including in the article section today…but
it’s worth noting here too:
Reagan began our country's march towards Banana Republic land when he
slashed the top marginal tax rate by more than half. Since that time, “the
American tax structure has been roughly turned on its head. From the rich
paying between 70 and 90 percent on their top income, some now pay 20 percent
or less, which means there is a much bigger incentive to be greedy. For
instance, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office – in an analysis of data
from 1979 to 2005 – found that the inflation-adjusted income of middle-class
Americans rose about 21 percent (only about one-fifth the increase enjoyed by
the middle class during the post-World War II era).
In fact, see for yourself who's most responsible for our deficits:
Some more facts to remember:
- The income for the ultra-rich (the top 100th of one percent) jumped 480 percent from 1979 to 2005, rising from an average of $4.2 million to $24.3 million. And CBO’s analysis ends in 2005, thus missing the decimation of the middle class from the Wall Street bust of 2008.
- In 2008, the last year for which data are available, for example, the top 0.1 percent of earners took in more than 10 percent of the personal income in the United States, including capital gains, and the top 1 percent took in more than 20 percent.
- The top 0.1 percent of earners make about $1.7 million or more, including capital gains. Of those, 41 percent were executives, managers and supervisors at non-financial companies, according to the analysis, with nearly half of them deriving most of their income from their ownership in privately-held firms.
- An additional 18 percent were managers at financial firms or financial professionals at any sort of firm. In all, nearly 60 percent fell into one of those two categories. Other recent research, moreover, indicates that executive compensation at the nation’s largest firms has roughly quadrupled in real terms since the 1970s, even as pay for 90 percent of America has stalled.
The Real Face of Food Stamp/Welfare Recipients
Meanwhile, the Agriculture Department’s annual snapshot on
the characteristics of food stamp households, shows that seven in 10 households
receiving food stamps had no earned income last year, though many got other
forms of government benefits.
Nearly 21% of households on food stamps also received
Supplemental Security Income, assistance for the aged and blind. Some 21.4%
received Social Security benefits. Just 8% of households also received
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the cash welfare program.
But some 20% of households had no cash income of any kind
last year, up from 15% in 2007, the year the recession began, and up from 7% in
1990. That’s partly because most household heads who were receiving food stamps
were also out of work. Just 21.8% of them had jobs in 2010, while 19.8% were
jobless and looking for work.
I give you those stats to refute all those right wing
talking points that try to attack food stamp users as somehow living the high
life off the government or somehow ripping the system off. Obviously…that’s a
crock of shit.
E-Voting Machines Hacked in Lab by Remote Control and $26 in Computer Parts
Back to our flailing “democracy” of course is the fact that W. Bush didn’t win the 2000 or 2004 election, thanks in part to electronic voting systems (in 04’ anyway). In 2008 the only difference was Obama won by enough that the theft wasn’t adequate…though very similar in terms of total numbers (2-3%).
Anyway, this should help you understand what I’m talking
about...straight from Brad Blog:
The Vulnerability Assessment Team (VAT) at the U.S. Dept. of
Energy's Argonne National Laboratory
in Illinois has managed to hack a Diebold Accuvote touch-screen voting machine
in what I describe at my exclusive today at Salon as perhaps "one of the
most disturbing e-voting machine hacks to date." As noted by the computer scientists and security experts at
Argonne's VAT, largely all that's needed to accomplish this hack is about $26 and
an 8th grade science education.
"This is a national security issue," VAT team leader Roger Johnston told me, echoing what I've been reporting other computer scientists and security experts telling me for years. "It should really be handled by the Department of Homeland Security."
Johnston should know. While the VAT folks have been dabbling in the security (or lack thereof) of e-voting systems in their spare time of late, most of the work they do is related to issues like nuclear safeguards and non-proliferation.
What makes this hack so troubling --- and different from those which have come before it --- is that it doesn't require any actual changes to, or even knowledge of, the voting system software or its memory card programming. It's not a cyberattack. It's a "Man-in-the-middle" attack where a tiny, $10.50 piece of electronics is inserted into the system between the voter and the main circuit board of the voting system allowing for complete control over the touch-screen system and the entire voting process along with it.
Add an optional $15 radio frequency remote control device, and votes can be changed, without the knowledge of the voter, from up to half a mile away…
"This is a national security issue," VAT team leader Roger Johnston told me, echoing what I've been reporting other computer scientists and security experts telling me for years. "It should really be handled by the Department of Homeland Security."
Johnston should know. While the VAT folks have been dabbling in the security (or lack thereof) of e-voting systems in their spare time of late, most of the work they do is related to issues like nuclear safeguards and non-proliferation.
What makes this hack so troubling --- and different from those which have come before it --- is that it doesn't require any actual changes to, or even knowledge of, the voting system software or its memory card programming. It's not a cyberattack. It's a "Man-in-the-middle" attack where a tiny, $10.50 piece of electronics is inserted into the system between the voter and the main circuit board of the voting system allowing for complete control over the touch-screen system and the entire voting process along with it.
Add an optional $15 radio frequency remote control device, and votes can be changed, without the knowledge of the voter, from up to half a mile away…
MORE AT THE BRAD BLOG: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8785
FULL EXCLUSIVE AT SALON: http://www.salon.com/news/politics/elections/2011/09/27/votinghack/index.html
VIDEO SECTION
Chris Matthews did something very interesting
yesterday…something I’m thankful for in fact…he had on a number of progressives
and a number of centrists to debate, head to head, what Obama’s strategy, and
Presidency, should look like…in terms of both policy and message. As you all
know by now, this is the debate that is
really needed, because we know what the GOP stands for…they no longer even
operate in a discernible reality when it comes to policy…the question is what
becomes of the DEMOCRATIC party…at this rate, in a decade or two, it will be
the GOP of today, and the GOP will be an outwardly bioted fascist/terrorist
network. On that cheerful note, watch first Michael Moore take on
Mark Penn (scum bag who ran Hillary’s campaign):
And then watch Bernie Sanders take on Ed Rendell:
Daily Show on the ludicrous Chris Christie for President press coverage (i.e. HE'S NOT RUNNING...NOR IS PALIN...obviously):
Dr. Cornel West on Obama’s pretty disgraceful ending to his
speech before the black caucus…
Daily Show to GOP base: You’re the problem…nice:
ARTICLE SECTION
By Cutting Taxes on the Rich, We've
Incentivized Greed--How Do We Return to Fairness?, Robert Parry
A FEW CLIPS:
Some leading Republicans have even suggested that “tax reform” should impose at least some income tax on the poor and working class so the tax rates on the rich can be lowered even more. It’s ironic, too, that the core of today’s economic crisis is that American bankers became so excessively greedy – spurred on by the prospects of “earning” bonuses in the tens of millions of dollars and keeping nearly all that money – that they blinded themselves to the risks from exotic financial products built on an unsustainable housing bubble.
If the tax rates had been kept at Eisenhower or Kennedy levels, not only would there have been plenty of money to keep the United States modern and strong but there likely would not have been the kind of financial crisis that, since 2008, has cost millions of jobs and required massive government borrowing to bail out the greedy bankers. Thus, in a variety of ways, the Right’s orthodoxy of low taxes on the rich (or the “job creators,” as Republican wordsmiths prefer) has been a major driver in creating today’s massive federal debt and in savaging the middle class.
SNIP
The other bitter irony about all this is that despite the
oil shocks and other problems of the 1970s, the United States was actually
poised to reap huge benefits from the government’s investments in the 1950s and
1960s. Eisenhower had used tax revenues to build the Interstate
Highway system and other modern transportation infrastructure. Kennedy had
pushed the Space Program which led to microprocessors and other crucial
technological breakthroughs. Government funding also was behind major advances
in medicine and in the creation of the Internet.
There were benefits emerging, too, from global markets based on an international system promoted and defended by the United States. The wealth created by these various developments should reasonably have been shared by the American people, with some of the money reinvested to keep the United States at the cutting edge of transportation, science and technology.
Though higher productivity and global trade would mean the inevitable loss of many factory jobs, the higher profits – if recycled through the government to benefit the average American citizen – could have meant new employment opportunities in areas such as construction, teaching, research, health care and the arts.
Instead, because Ronald Reagan became president in 1981 and won over much of the U.S. population to his message that “government is the problem,” the new orthodoxy called for tax cuts to benefit the rich and the rollback of government enterprises.The Right’s larger strategy was to starve the government of resources and to make sure that the benefits from the era’s economic gains went disproportionately to the investor class. Prosperity was supposed to come from “trickle-down” or “supply-side” economics.
There were benefits emerging, too, from global markets based on an international system promoted and defended by the United States. The wealth created by these various developments should reasonably have been shared by the American people, with some of the money reinvested to keep the United States at the cutting edge of transportation, science and technology.
Though higher productivity and global trade would mean the inevitable loss of many factory jobs, the higher profits – if recycled through the government to benefit the average American citizen – could have meant new employment opportunities in areas such as construction, teaching, research, health care and the arts.
Instead, because Ronald Reagan became president in 1981 and won over much of the U.S. population to his message that “government is the problem,” the new orthodoxy called for tax cuts to benefit the rich and the rollback of government enterprises.The Right’s larger strategy was to starve the government of resources and to make sure that the benefits from the era’s economic gains went disproportionately to the investor class. Prosperity was supposed to come from “trickle-down” or “supply-side” economics.
What's Behind the
Scorn for the Wall Street Protests?, by Glenn Greenwald
A FEW CLIPS:
It's unsurprising
that establishment media outlets have been condescending, dismissive and scornful of the ongoing protests on Wall Street. Any
entity that declares itself an adversary of prevailing institutional power is
going to be viewed with hostility by establishment-serving institutions and
their loyalists. That's just
the nature of protests that take place outside approved channels, an inevitable
by-product of disruptive dissent: those who are most vested in safeguarding and
legitimizing establishment prerogatives (which, by definition, includes
establishment media outlets) are going to be hostile to those challenges.
As the virtually universal disdain in these same circles for
WikiLeaks (and, before that, for the Iraq War
protests) demonstrated: the more effectively adversarial it is, the
more establishment hostility it's
going to provoke.
SNIP
There's a vast
and growing apparatus of intimidation designed to deter and control citizen
protests. The most that's
allowed is to assemble with the permission of state authorities and remain
roped off in sequestered, out-of-the-way areas: the Orwellian-named free speech zones. Anything that is even remotely
disruptive or threatening is going to be met with aggressive force: pepper
spray, mass arrests by highly militarized urban police forces, and aggressive
prosecutions. Recall the wild excesses of force in connection with the
2008 RNC Convention in Minneapolis (I reported
on those firsthand);
the overzealous
prosecutions of civil disobedience activists like Aaron Swartz,
environmentalist Tim DeChristopher, and Dan Choi; the war being waged on
whistleblowers for the crime of exposing high-level wrongdoing; or the treatment of these Wall Street protesters.
Financial elites and their political servants are well aware that exploding wealth inequality, pervasive economic anxiety, and increasing hostility toward institutions of authority (and corresponding realization that voting fixes very little of this) are likely to bring London-style unrest -- and worse -- to American soil; it was just two weeks ago that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned that the unemployment crisis could trigger "riots." Even the complacent American citizenry -- well-trained in learned impotence and acquiescence to (even reverence for) those most responsible for their plight -- is going to reach a tipping point of unrest. There are numerous weapons of surveillance and coercion that have been developed over the last decade in anticipation of that unrest: most of it justified in the name of Terrorism, but all of it featuring decidedly dual-use domestic capability (illustrating what I mean is this chart showing how extensively the Patriot Act has been used in non-Terrorist cases, and how rarely it has been used for Terrorism).
Financial elites and their political servants are well aware that exploding wealth inequality, pervasive economic anxiety, and increasing hostility toward institutions of authority (and corresponding realization that voting fixes very little of this) are likely to bring London-style unrest -- and worse -- to American soil; it was just two weeks ago that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned that the unemployment crisis could trigger "riots." Even the complacent American citizenry -- well-trained in learned impotence and acquiescence to (even reverence for) those most responsible for their plight -- is going to reach a tipping point of unrest. There are numerous weapons of surveillance and coercion that have been developed over the last decade in anticipation of that unrest: most of it justified in the name of Terrorism, but all of it featuring decidedly dual-use domestic capability (illustrating what I mean is this chart showing how extensively the Patriot Act has been used in non-Terrorist cases, and how rarely it has been used for Terrorism).
SNIP
Given the costs and risks one incurs from participating in
protests like this -- to say nothing of the widespread mockery one receives
-- it's natural that most of the
participants will be young and not yet desperate to cling to institutional
stability. It's also natural
that this cohort won't be
well-versed (or even interested) in the high arts of media messaging and
leadership structures. Democratic Party precinct captains, MBA students
in management theory and corporate communications, and campaign media
strategists aren't the ones who will
fuel protests like this; it takes a mindset of passionate dissent and a
willingness to remove oneself from the safe confines of institutional
respectability.
So, yes, the people willing to engage in protests like these at the start may lack (or reject the need for) media strategies, organizational hierarchies, and messaging theories. But they're among the very few people trying to channel widespread anger into activism rather than resignation, and thus deserve support and encouragement -- and help -- from anyone claiming to be sympathetic to their underlying message.
So, yes, the people willing to engage in protests like these at the start may lack (or reject the need for) media strategies, organizational hierarchies, and messaging theories. But they're among the very few people trying to channel widespread anger into activism rather than resignation, and thus deserve support and encouragement -- and help -- from anyone claiming to be sympathetic to their underlying message.
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