Ben Manski lays it down

Greens didn't spoil a single federal race in 2010.
The Democrats lost because they are spineless, two-faced, corporate puppets, and even with a majority in both houses they get nothing done for the people, and the people realized that, and stayed home.

#OWS is Creating a New World on the Ruins of the Old

Sorry about the little watermarks, I used my new p2 media setup, and I had to use a workaround to get it to work in Vegas.

As far as the dingy light quality, I just didn't pay close enough attention to the iris adjustment on the lens. Something I will deal with in the future.

Support the show! Please visit the donate or subscribe button over there --->

Scott Walker gets Mic Check'd

"We're all about the free expression of ideas..." - Gov. Scott Walker

When Wisonsin Governor gave a speech at Chicago's Union League Club the morning of Nov 3rd, he has some unexpected guests:
Stand Up! Chicago

Dear 1%

The people's voice will not be silenced.

The world of the Occupation, which values unity, diversity, and freedom of expression is slowly invading and destroying the old world that values hierarchy, ignorance, and silence. We are like white blood cells rushing to the site of an infection.

When public officials are mic checked, we're not interrupting a meeting, we are creating a new world in the same space as the old one. We are using your old world's space to host the creation of a new one. We are participating in a new, parallel form of government. Since we are many, and you are few, our actions don't seek to just disrupt business as usual, but to disband with it altogether.

Occupy's goal is not to fight your system, but to make it completely irrelevant.

Here's the thing about the 99%-- We are everywhere, and we don't need you. Expect us.

Knocking Doors in Wisconsin!

The past four days at Netroots Nation has been a total whirlwind.

I thought we'd have internet access in our hotel rooms, but sadly, no- the Hilton doesn't consider internet access an amenity. I personally think that internet access in this day and age should be viewed like access to potable water.

I've got a bunch of footage that I will be editing on the train home, and will be uploading on the DownEaster train on the way back home. I'm actually on a Union run busline provided by Democracy For America on my way back from a canvassing session in Hudson, Wisconsin in support of the recall effort against incumbent republican Sheila Horsdof.

I'm a little dissapointed with the Netroots crowd. Out of 2,500+ attendees, only 41 signed up for this canvass. Of the 41 who signed up, only 17 showed up. But with these 17 people, we knocked 1,200 doors -- the ENTIRE TOWN OF HUDSON in just under 2 hours. We are a powerhouse! Also, we had the help of a group of Hudson locals who knew the area, put together the walk lists, and drove us to our turf, which was a huge help.

Things were a little weird at a few points though-- As we were out canvassing, we were being followed by people driving black cars, and they were filming us with camcorders the entire time. I assume they are people from the Right Online conference and are going to post this online and smear us as being "outside agitators."

Forgetting the goons with the camcorders for a second, the people of Hudson were really friendly-- even the Republicans. One of our volunteers was actually invited into a Horsdorf supporter's home, something made even more hilarious by the fact the Harsdorf supporter in question was unsettled by the goons in black cars following and filming this volunteer. He asked her if the goons were with her, she said no. He mentioned that they were filming her and asked if she wanted to come inside to get away from them. And so she did, and they had a nice conversation. Another canvasser had a Shelly Moore pamphlet thrown back into his face and was told, "You get out of here! Please." You just can't beat that midwestern politeness.

I personally was surprised by how quick and easy the canvass was. If you've done voter ID in the past, you know about the 1-5 rating system. Those who are for your candidate are 1s, those who are opposed are 5s, and those who are undecided or unidentified are 3s.

On this canvass, those who were for Horsdorf were solidly for Horsdorf. Those who were for Shelly Moore were solidly for Shelly Moore. And those who were undecided had no clue about either candidate, though they often leaned towards Shelly Moore, asking "Who's the Democrat?"

While the majority of the people I talked to were solidly in support of the recall, the biggest obstacle for this campaign is twofold: First, people don't seem to understand how big a deal this recall election is. They view it as just another local race. Second, while the recall effort has solid backing in sentiment, many voters I talked to aren't sure if they're going to bother to vote in the upcoming primary on July 12th, nor in the general election on August 4th. While we may disagree with the right, we have to admire their sense of civic duty. This also lends credibility to my hunch that most of these terrible and shocking election outcomes of late are caused mostly by the fact that people on the left didn't bother to vote, because they assumed their issue/candidate would have their win in the bag.

I'm really excited about the prospects of this recall effort. Despite the fact that there are national organizations like DFA that are coming in to help coordinate things, they wouldn't matter for beans if it weren't for the strong grassroots support that's already on the ground in Wisconsin. Community after community is organizing themselves, or with the help of We Are Wisconsin and Democracy For America.

The difference in this election is going to be getting people out to vote. If people get to the polls, we can win this. If you'd like to help with the GOTV effort, you can go to CallOutTheVote.com

Your help is needed.

SOLIDARITY!

Bill Whittle is a douchebag.*

Ignore that this douchebag* spouting ad hominem attack after ad hominem attack; against the British, Michael Moore, liberals, et al.

Ignore the fact that he calls Michael Moore a hypocrite for being a millionaire who says that millionaires should pay more in taxes. (And why is that hypocritical, exactly? Shouldn't he have MORE right to talk about how much millionaires should pay, being one himself? Seriously, wtf? Is Bill Whittles idea of an un-hypocritical person a poor person defending the rights of the rich to pay nothing in taxes by sheltering their income in offshore tax havens? Clearly logic is not a big part of this guys day-to-day life.)

IGNORE ALL THAT:
The meat of the video is this: In trying to "blow a hole" in Michael Moore's "money hoarder" argument, Bill Whittle proves Moore's point for him. This video illustrates quite well, even with the narrow scope that it presents it's evidence with, that most of the money is in the hands of the super-wealthy. That we're able to make it through 2/3rds of the year on the salaries of a few thousand people alone is striking.

What he leaves out is that right now they aren't paying their fair share. And at the end of his argument, we're still one day short, so the rest of us get stuck with a whopping $40 in annual federal taxes!

Dear me! I've already had $2,000 withheld from my paycheck, and I'll be lucky to make $16,000 this year. I'd gladly pay $40 in federal taxes as opposed to what I pay now. The elephant in the room here, is that since the ultra-rich aren't paying in, the burden of taxation is falling on working people.

And he doesn't even touch the "dark market" shit on wall street- naked shortselling, derivatives trading, etc.

A Tobin tax of 1% applied to these "dark market" trades would raise 1.7 trillion annually.

I'm skeptical of the numbers he has on ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Eliminating these wars would reduce our spending every year after we end them from here to infinity, but they are portrayed in this video as being a one-time cost reduction-- which is a misleading error at best, and a deliberative deception at worst. No matter though, because either way, it's bullshit.

If we're spending $170 billion every year on killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our budgeted discretionary pentagon spending is $815 billion, then that leaves an additional $645 billion (that's more than half a trillion) in discretionary pentagon spending we could free up. Keep in mind, this is discretionary spending, not mandated spending for soldier's wages, VA benefits, etc.

What would his little fiscal calendar look like if we shut down all those 737 military bases we have all over the Goddamn planet?

What would it look like if we reduced our nuclear weapon stores by 50%? Between 1940 and 1996, we spent more than 5 trillion on maintaining our nuclear weapons. Just by letting them sit around and making sure that they don't explode on us. And keep in mind, we currently have enough nuclear weapons to replicate Hiroshima 150,000 times over.

The issue here isn't that we want to take everything from the rich. The issue here is that they don't pay taxes, and working people do. If you're rich enough, you can hide your money in tax shelters in the maldives and not pay a goddamn cent.

The issue here is that the richest among us got that way because our society provided them with the means to do so. If they manufactured products, everybody who paid taxes provided them with the means to do so-- electricity, water, sewage, waste disposal, etc-- and if they sold those products, everybody who paid taxes provided them with the means to do so-- we paid for the roads, bridges, and rail-beds that they shipped their products on.

It isn't uncouth to expect that since the wealthiest amongst us became wealthy because of social spending, that they should give back accordingly-- the more wealthy they become, the more they should give back to the society that allowed them to become wealthy. Also, I think we can conclude soundly and firmly, that Bill Whittle is a contemptible douchebag.*

* Not an ad hominem attack-- I've presented solid evidence that this is the case

Dennis Kucinich gets Gov Scott Walker to Admit It

via NoCureForThat

Washington D.C. (April 14, 2011) — Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today scored an admission from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker that his decision to strip the rights of public workers to bargain collectively “doesn’t save any” money for the Wisconsin taxpayers.

It's time to cut the bullshit

I agree

Putting the Mural Back Up

"What are you doing?"
"Putting the mural back up!"

NERDS RULE

This is just awesome.

Jim HIghtower: STOP PISSING ON WORKING PEOPLE

I <3 Jim Hightower. He's got such a way with words!

Punk Patriot video Remix

By OilWellian.

This is twenty times better than what I'd done on my own. BRAVO!

Maddow: It's not about the budget

They just don't give a fuck

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

To quote Chris Hedges,

"Totalitarianism, George Orwell pointed out, is not so much an age of faith but an age of schizophrenia. "A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial," Orwell wrote. "That is when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud."

Our elites have used fraud. Force is all they have left. Our mediocre and bankrupt elite is desperately trying to save a system that cannot be saved. More importantly, they are trying to save themselves. . "

Dennis Kucinich speaks in Wisconsin

I'm proud to say that I worked as a volunteer and delegate 2004, and as an intern in 2008, to elect Dennis Kucinich president of the USA.

Michael Moore on Rachel Maddow: What Gov Walk has done is WAR

There's a LOT of people watching this video right now, so play may be interrupted.

Also, make it a point to learn to sing this song:

Michael Moore speaks in Madison

Hell yes.

Transcript:

America is not broke.

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.

Today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans combined.

Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have as much loot, stock and property as the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.

And I can see why. For us to admit that we have let a small group of men abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy, would mean that we'd have to accept the humiliating acknowledgment that we have indeed surrendered our precious Democracy to the moneyed elite. Wall Street, the banks and the Fortune 500 now run this Republic -- and, until this past month, the rest of us have felt completely helpless, unable to find a way to do anything about it.

I have nothing more than a high school degree. But back when I was in school, every student had to take one semester of economics in order to graduate. And here's what I learned: Money doesn't grow on trees. It grows when we make things. It grows when we have good jobs with good wages that we use to buy the things we need and thus create more jobs. It grows when we provide an outstanding educational system that then grows a new generation of inventors, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and thinkers who come up with the next great idea for the planet. And that new idea creates new jobs and that creates revenue for the state. But if those who have the most money don't pay their fair share of taxes, the state can't function. The schools can't produce the best and the brightest who will go on to create those jobs. If the wealthy get to keep most of their money, we have seen what they will do with it: recklessly gamble it on crazy Wall Street schemes and crash our economy. The crash they created cost us millions of jobs. That too caused a reduction in tax revenue. Everyone ended up suffering because of what the rich did.

The nation is not broke, my friends. Wisconsin is not broke. Saying that the country is broke is repeating a Big Lie. It's one of the three biggest lies of the decade: 1) America is broke, 2) Iraq has WMD, and 3) The Packers can't win the Super Bowl without Brett Favre.

The truth is, there's lots of money to go around. LOTS. It's just that those in charge have diverted that wealth into a deep well that sits on their well-guarded estates. They know they have committed crimes to make this happen and they know that someday you may want to see some of that money that used to be yours. So they have bought and paid for hundreds of politicians across the country to do their bidding for them. But just in case that doesn't work, they've got their gated communities, and the luxury jet is always fully fueled, the engines running, waiting for that day they hope never comes. To help prevent that day when the people demand their country back, the wealthy have done two very smart things:

1. They control the message. By owning most of the media they have expertly convinced many Americans of few means to buy their version of the American Dream and to vote for their politicians. Their version of the Dream says that you, too, might be rich some day -- this is America, where anything can happen if you just apply yourself! They have conveniently provided you with believable examples to show you how a poor boy can become a rich man, how the child of a single mother in Hawaii can become president, how a guy with a high school education can become a successful filmmaker. They will play these stories for you over and over again all day long so that the last thing you will want to do is upset the apple cart -- because you -- yes, you, too! -- might be rich/president/an Oscar-winner some day! The message is clear: keep you head down, your nose to the grindstone, don't rock the boat and be sure to vote for the party that protects the rich man that you might be some day.

2. They have created a poison pill that they know you will never want to take. It is their version of mutually assured destruction. And when they threatened to release this weapon of mass economic annihilation in September of 2008, we blinked. As the economy and the stock market went into a tailspin, and the banks were caught conducting a worldwide Ponzi scheme, Wall Street issued this threat: Either hand over trillions of dollars from the American taxpayers or we will crash this economy straight into the ground. Fork it over or it's Goodbye savings accounts. Goodbye pensions. Goodbye United States Treasury. Goodbye jobs and homes and future. It was friggin' awesome and it scared the shit out of everyone. "Here! Take our money! We don't care. We'll even print more for you! Just take it! But, please, leave our lives alone, PLEASE!"

The executives in the board rooms and hedge funds could not contain their laughter, their glee, and within three months they were writing each other huge bonus checks and marveling at how perfectly they had played a nation full of suckers. Millions lost their jobs anyway, and millions lost their homes. But there was no revolt (see #1).

Until now. On Wisconsin! Never has a Michigander been more happy to share a big, great lake with you! You have aroused the sleeping giant known as the working people of the United States of America. Right now the earth is shaking and the ground is shifting under the feet of those who are in charge. Your message has inspired people in all 50 states and that message is: WE HAVE HAD IT! We reject anyone who tells us America is broke and broken. It's just the opposite! We are rich with talent and ideas and hard work and, yes, love. Love and compassion toward those who have, through no fault of their own, ended up as the least among us. But they still crave what we all crave: Our country back! Our democracy back! Our good name back! The United States of America. NOT the Corporate States of America. The United States of America!

So how do we make this happen? Well, we do it with a little bit of Egypt here, a little bit of Madison there. And let us pause for a moment and remember that it was a poor man with a fruit stand in Tunisia who gave his life so that the world might focus its attention on how a government run by billionaires for billionaires is an affront to freedom and morality and humanity.

Thank you, Wisconsin. You have made people realize this was our last best chance to grab the final thread of what was left of who we are as Americans. For three weeks you have stood in the cold, slept on the floor, skipped out of town to Illinois -- whatever it took, you have done it, and one thing is for certain: Madison is only the beginning. The smug rich have overplayed their hand. They couldn't have just been content with the money they raided from the treasury. They couldn't be satiated by simply removing millions of jobs and shipping them overseas to exploit the poor elsewhere. No, they had to have more -- something more than all the riches in the world. They had to have our soul. They had to strip us of our dignity. They had to shut us up and shut us down so that we could not even sit at a table with them and bargain about simple things like classroom size or bulletproof vests for everyone on the police force or letting a pilot just get a few extra hours sleep so he or she can do their job -- their $19,000 a year job. That's how much some rookie pilots on commuter airlines make, maybe even the rookie pilot who flew me here to Madison today. He told me he's stopped hoping for a pay increase. All he's asking for now is enough down time so that he doesn't have to sleep in his car between shifts at O'Hare airport. That's how despicably low we have sunk! The wealthy couldn't be content with just paying this man $19,000 a year. They had to take away his sleep. They had to demean him and dehumanize him and rub his face in it. After all, he's just another slob, isn't he?

And that, my friends, is Corporate America's fatal mistake. But trying to destroy us they have given birth to a movement -- a movement that is becoming a massive, nonviolent revolt across the country. We all knew there had to be a breaking point some day, and that point is upon us. Many people in the media don't understand this. They say they were caught off guard about Egypt, never saw it coming. Now they act surprised and flummoxed about why so many hundreds of thousands have come to Madison over the last three weeks during brutal winter weather. "Why are they all standing out there in the cold?" I mean, there was that election in November and that was supposed to be that!

"There's something happening here, and you don't know what it is, do you ...?"

America ain't broke! The only thing that's broke is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now on. Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still stands, it's one person, one vote, and it's the thing the rich hate most about America -- because even though they seem to hold all the money and all the cards, they begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact: There are more of us than there are of them!

Madison, do not retreat. We are with you. We will win together.

IVAW in Madison: BRING THE WAR MONEY HOME

H/T to K E Harelston, and RyanHarveySongs

A call to the Wisconsin National Guard to refuse any orders to fight against working people.

MAD AS HELL IN MADISON by Ralph Nader

VIA Dandelion Salad

by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
February 25. 2011

The large demonstrations at the state Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin are driven by a middle class awakening to the spectre of its destruction by the corporate reactionaries and their toady Governor Scott Walker.

For years the middle class has watched the plutocrats stomp on the poor while listening to the two parties regale the great middle class, but never mentioning the tens of millions of poor Americans. And for years, the middle class was shrinking due significantly to corporate globalization shipping good-paying jobs overseas to repressive dictatorships like China. It took Governor Walker’s legislative proposal to do away with most collective bargaining rights for most public employee unions to jolt people to hit the streets.

Republicans take rigged elections awash in corporatist campaign cash seriously. When they win, they aggressively move their corporate agenda, unlike the wishy-washy Democrats who flutter weakly after a victory. Republicans mean business. A ram rod wins against a straw all the time.

Governor Walker won his election, along with other Republicans in Wisconsin, on mass-media driven Tea Party rhetoric. His platform was deceitful enough to get the endorsement of the police, and firefighters unions, which the latter have now indignantly withdrawn.

These unions should have known better. The Walker Republicans were following the Reagan playbook. The air traffic controllers union endorsed Reagan in 1980. The next year he fired 12,000 of them during a labor dispute. (This made flying unnecessarily dangerous.)

Then Reagan pushed for tax cuts—primarily for the wealthy—which led to larger deficits to turn the screws on programs benefitting the people. Reagan, though years earlier opposed to corporate welfare, not only maintained these taxpayer subsidies but created a government deficit, over eight years, that was double that of all the accumulated deficits from George Washington to Jimmy Carter.

Maybe the unions that endorsed Walker will soon realize that not even being a “Reagan Democrat” will save them from being losers under the boot of the corporate supremacists.

The rumble of the people in Madison illustrates the following:

1. There is an ideological plan driving these corporatists. They create “useful crisis” and then hammer the unorganized people to benefit the wealthy classes. Governor Walker last year gave $140 million in tax breaks to corporations which produced the $137 million deficit for this fiscal year. Note this oft-repeated dynamic. President Obama caved to the Minority party Republicans in Congress last December by going along with the deficit-deepening extension of the huge dollar volume tax cuts for the rich. Now the Republicans want drastic cuts in programs that help the poor.

2. Whatever non-union or private union workers (who are giving ground or losing jobs) think of the sometimes better pay and benefits of unionized public employees, they need to close ranks without giving up their opposition to government waste. For corporate lobbyists and their corporate governments are going after all collective bargaining rights for all workers and they want to further weaken The National Labor Relations Board.

3. Whenever corporations and government want to cut workers’ incomes; the corporate tax abatements, bloated contracts, handouts and bailouts should be pulled into the public debate. What should go first?

4. For the public university students in these rallies, they might ponder their own tuition bills and high interest loans, compared to students in Western Europe, and question why they have to bear the burden of massive corporate welfare payouts—foodstamps for the rich. What should go first?

5. The bigger picture should be part of the more localized dispute. Governor Walker also wants weaker safety and environmental regulations, bargain-basement sell-outs of state public power plants and other taxpayer assets.

6. The mega-billionaire Koch brothers are in the news. They are bankrolling politicians and rump advocacy groups and funding media campaigns in Wisconsin and all over the country. Koch Industries designs and builds facilities for the natural gas industry. Neither the company nor the brothers like the publicity they deserve to get every time their role is exposed. Always put the spotlight on the backroom boys.

7. Focusing on the larger struggle between the people and the plutocracy should be part and parcel of every march, demonstration or any other kind of mass mobilization. The signs at the Madison rallies make the point, to wit—“2/3 of Wisconsin Corporations Pay No Taxes,” “Why Should Public Workers Pay For Wall Street’s Mess?”, “Corporate Greed Did the Deed.”

8. Look how little energy it took for these tens of thousands of people to sound the national alarm for hard-pressed Americans. Just showing up is democracy’s barn raiser. This should persuade people that a big start for a better America can begin with a little effort and a well-attended rally. Imagine what even more civic energy could produce!

Showing up lets people feel their potential power to subordinate corporatism to the sovereignty of the people. After all, the Constitution’s preamble begins with “We the People,” not “We the Corporations.” In fact, the founders never put the word “corporation” or “company” in our constitution which was designed for real people.

As for Governor Walker’s projected two-year $3.6 billion deficit, read what Jon Peacock of the respected nonprofit Wisconsin Budget Project writes at: http://www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org about how to handle the state budget without adopting the draconian measures now before the legislature.

Working People vs Wall Street part 1

Right now in Wisconsin their Koch Brother funded, dick-wad Governor is trying to strip public employees the right to organize. What’s hidden behind the awesome demonstration in which labor has occupied the capitol building, is the fact that the labor groups have conceded to every budgetary demand, except losing their right to organize. Gov Walker won’t budge, proving that this is about one thing and one thing only: Union busting. And any attack on unions should be viewed as a full-on assault on the middle class.

This is class warfare motherfuckers.

America, we’ve been so scared shitless, and so willing to compromise away everything that we have, we’ve got nothing left to bargain with and so now begging just to hold on to our last shred of dignity. And even then we’re trying now to parse that last shred into slivers and use them as bargaining chips. We have been so passive, that we have allowed all the gains won by the labor movements of the 1920s and 30s, the socialists of the midwest, and the wobblies and the communists during the 1940s... all of it to be taken away.

Our forefathers in the labor movement must be rolling in their graves.
They were beaten, shot at, and died for your right to a 40 hour week.
They were beaten, shot at, and died for your right to a weekend.
They were beaten, shot at, and died for your right to organize.
They were beaten, shot at, and died for your right to overtime pay.
They were beaten, shot at, and died for your right to safe workplace conditions.

These are all things that we take for granted. But to get even these little consolations, they had to be beaten, shot at and killed.