April 7, 2011
April 6, 2011
April 5, 2011
Putting the Mural Back Up
"What are you doing?"
"Putting the mural back up!"
NERDS RULE
This is just awesome.
April 3, 2011
Tiny little beards
"‘Worst case is some women may have little beards’" - Paul LePage on why the ban on using Biphenol A, in baby bottle plastic, should be lifted.
Actually, BPA will give you fucktons of cancer. But whatever. That's still no reason to avoid poisoning our kids, right?
Actually, BPA will give you fucktons of cancer. But whatever. That's still no reason to avoid poisoning our kids, right?
April 2, 2011
Vermont: We're doing Single Payer!
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
April 1, 2011
Laibach: Divided States of America
So Laibach is a band from a nation that no longer exists: Yugoslavia
They are part of the Neue Slowenische Kunst or NSK artistic movement, which uses a retrospective avant-garde aesthetic, borrowing from and combining conflicting ideologies to create an aesthetic both authentic feeling, and nonsensical.
They toured the USA just after the 2004 election, and while here, they documented the political, social, and psychological climate here.
It's interesting to watch this now, hearing people's critiques of Bush at the time, the critiques of the wars at the time, etc.
I can't shake the feeling that I'm actually watching a documentary on the fall of the Soviet Empire. But there it is, it's us. It's our empire that's crumbling now.
What becomes really apparent for me, is how the duopoly of two corporate, pro-war political parties, have deeply divided our nation politically into two opposing camps that fight essentially for the same team.
Until we get beyond this illusion that we have two different political parties that serve different masters, we're going to keep driving America into the same corporatocratic ditch every two years.
Below is their documentary: Divided States of America, in which a friend of mine makes a cameo.
I personally feel that this film's message culminates in section 6 with a reading by NSK luminary Peter Mlakar.
They are part of the Neue Slowenische Kunst or NSK artistic movement, which uses a retrospective avant-garde aesthetic, borrowing from and combining conflicting ideologies to create an aesthetic both authentic feeling, and nonsensical.
They toured the USA just after the 2004 election, and while here, they documented the political, social, and psychological climate here.
It's interesting to watch this now, hearing people's critiques of Bush at the time, the critiques of the wars at the time, etc.
I can't shake the feeling that I'm actually watching a documentary on the fall of the Soviet Empire. But there it is, it's us. It's our empire that's crumbling now.
What becomes really apparent for me, is how the duopoly of two corporate, pro-war political parties, have deeply divided our nation politically into two opposing camps that fight essentially for the same team.
Until we get beyond this illusion that we have two different political parties that serve different masters, we're going to keep driving America into the same corporatocratic ditch every two years.
Below is their documentary: Divided States of America, in which a friend of mine makes a cameo.
I personally feel that this film's message culminates in section 6 with a reading by NSK luminary Peter Mlakar.
March 31, 2011
Brought To You By SOCIALISM (tm)
I have another homework assignment!
So As I've said repeatedly in the past, Socialism has a really bad "brand image" problem.
Let's do what we can to fix that brand-image problem. Take the following graphic, designed to be printed on your standard 8.5x11 sheet of paper, and place it up on various socialist institutions in your neighborhood.
Here's a link where you can download the image. Just right click and "save as."
Socialist institutions that could use a carefully and thoughtfully placed graphic such as this include:
Public Schools
Public Transportation
Lamp Posts
Post Office
Library
Sidewalks
National Parks
State Parks
Municipal Parks
Town Hall/City Hall
Road Signs
Fire Departments
Police Departments
Military Recruiting Stations
Public Spaces
Public Monuments
Public Water facilities
Courts
Local Roads
Interstate highway system
Department of Health and Human Services
All the above are socialist institutions! People love these things, and yet hate socialism!?
Here's a handy tutorial on how to make wheatpaste:
WARNING: Vandalism is illegal
Mr Rodgers vs The Daily Corporate Mindfuck
Watch this video all the way through. It gets better and better and better as it goes on. It's a slow burn.
Little known fact, I received a letter of congratulations from Fred Rodgers after I earned the rank of Eagle Scout. That letter was way more valuable to be than any of the ones I got from Senators or Congressmen.
March 30, 2011
Responses to my Homework Assignment
Here's my homework assignment:
And here are some answers so far, by viewers:
From zigzigerblat:
From Libertarian Alex Merced
More to come! Hopefully somebody will sit down with a finance professor at some point?
And here are some answers so far, by viewers:
From zigzigerblat:
From Libertarian Alex Merced
More to come! Hopefully somebody will sit down with a finance professor at some point?
March 29, 2011
I'M GOING TO NETROOTS NATION 2011!!
So, this morning, I found in my inbox an email saying essentially that although I didn't get into the top three, they were impressed with my application, and chose to award me a scholarship to Netroots Nation 2011.
But a large reason my application was so good, was that I had a lot of ringing endorsements from wonderful people that I respect. I'm thinking of you in particular. Yeah, you, the person reading this right now.
My application managed to get something like 290 votes, putting it in something like 10th place. That was 290 people who decided that it was a good idea to send me. It's readily apparent that *I* wasn't the one who won this. It was YOU.
YOU won this scholarship. If it wasn't for your support, your endorsements, and your willingness to spread the word, my application would have sank right to the bottom and been ignored.
So Congratulations!
I promise, while at Netroots Nation '11, to share everything about online organizing that I learn, and to document as much of the experience as I can so that it's like YOU were there too. Because really, YOU won.
Thank you!
Onwards!
The Punk Patriot
But a large reason my application was so good, was that I had a lot of ringing endorsements from wonderful people that I respect. I'm thinking of you in particular. Yeah, you, the person reading this right now.
My application managed to get something like 290 votes, putting it in something like 10th place. That was 290 people who decided that it was a good idea to send me. It's readily apparent that *I* wasn't the one who won this. It was YOU.
YOU won this scholarship. If it wasn't for your support, your endorsements, and your willingness to spread the word, my application would have sank right to the bottom and been ignored.
So Congratulations!
I promise, while at Netroots Nation '11, to share everything about online organizing that I learn, and to document as much of the experience as I can so that it's like YOU were there too. Because really, YOU won.
Thank you!
Onwards!
The Punk Patriot
March 28, 2011
Help send The Punk Patriot to Minneapolis for Netroots Nation 2011!!!
I'm gonna float this post at the top for a while
SO:
I'm applying for a scholarship to attend the DFA Netroots Nation 2011 conference in Minneapolis, MN.
If you aren't familiar with it, Netroots Nation is a huge activism training workshop held every year by Democracy For America, and they train specifically for online activism, fundraising, campaigning, etc.
My hope is to be able to learn skills, or learn of tools, or how to better use tools I'm already using, so that I can be a better organizer, fundraiser, and all around activist.
http://www.democracyforamerica.com/netroots_nation_scholarships/1128-the-punk-patriot
The more people that vote for my scholarship, the more likely I am to get it. It's a tough competition, but already through the help of friends, family, and others, I've already made it into the top 20. I believe I have to make it into the top 3 to be considered, which is why your help is so important.
If you would be so kind as to visit the link below, vote, and after that, please spread the word!
http://www.democracyforamerica.com/netroots_nation_scholarships/1128-the-punk-patriot
Thank you very much!
The Punk Patriot
March 26, 2011
Documentary: The History of American Corporatocacy
How every populist movement in the USA's history has been co-opted and perverted by Wall Street.
... And how we can prevent it from happening again.
Sub-headed “Barack Obama and the failure of capitalist democracy”, this film explores the historical role of the Democratic Party as the “graveyard of social movements”, the massive influence of corporate finance in elections, the absurd disparities of wealth in the United States, the continuity and escalation of neocon policies under Obama, the insufficiency of mere voting as a path to reform, and differing conceptions of democracy itself.
"Lifting the Veil is the long overdue film that powerfully, definitively, and finally exposes the deadly 21st century hypocrisy of U.S. internal and external policies, even as it imbues the viewer with a sense of urgency and an actualized hope to bring about real systemic change while there is yet time for humanity and this planet. See this film!"
-Larry Pinkney
Editorial Board Member & Columnist
The Black Commentator
Original Source: http://blip.tv/file/4911311
Original interview footage derives from Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, Michael Albert, John Stauber (PR Watch), Sharon Smith (Historian), William I. Robinson (Editor, Critical Globalization Studies), Morris Berman (Author, Dark Ages America), and famed black panther Larry Pinkney.
Non-original interviews/lectures include Michael Hudson, Paul Craig Roberts, Ted Rall, Richard Wolff, Glen Ford, Lewis Black, Glenn Greenwald, George Carlin, Gerald Cliente, Chris Hedges, John Pilger, Bernie Sanders, Sheldon Wollin and Martin Luther King.
“Lifting the Veil is a major contribution to political documentary. ; It teaches everyone from the uninitiated to the most sophisticated the true nature of the American government... It covers the issues clearly and succinctly, from the opening narrative through to its stirring conclusion.”
-Ralph Poynter
lynne stewart defense committee
new abolitionist movement
"The best political film I've seen to date. A must watch if you want to understand who and what Obama is about, as well as this hypocrisy they call democracy."
Kiilu Nyasha Independent Journalist and former member of the Black Panther Party
"Noble is brilliantly pioneering the new film-making -- incisive analysis, compelling sound and footage, fearless and independent reporting, and the aggregation of the best information out there into powerful, educational and free online feature films – all on a shoestring budget. His films educate and inform while building the movements needed for real change at the grassroots. Noble's films are dedicated to democracy; they fan the flames of non-violent, people-powered revolution." -John Stauber, Founder, PR Watch
Punk Patriot video Remix
By OilWellian.
This is twenty times better than what I'd done on my own. BRAVO!
March 25, 2011
Today is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
We are racing to the bottom.
History is repeating itself.
Unless we put our foot down, we will go backwards beyond slavery.
Rachel Maddow on Gov LePage's #muralgate
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
I really like what the author of the Progressive Review, Sam Smith, has to say on all this:
"The Art Department of the Coastal Packet has come up with a suggestion of how to deal with the LePage Mural Massacre. Simply copy the mural photographs and display them everywhere you can: in windows, on walls, on your car, in letters to the governor. With a little effort we can make this the most famous mural in America. And let's not be too hard on the governor. After all, without his assistance, many of us wouldn't have known the murals were even displayed at the Labor Department. Now they can become really famous."
Here's the DailyShow's take:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Gov Hurts | ||||
| ||||
I'm Just A Girl covers Libya
Quite good. I love how she DJs pop culture to build coherent narrative.
March 24, 2011
Lewis Black on Donald Trump's 2012 run for president
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Back in Black - Trump 2012 | ||||
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Thank you Lewis Black for expressing the frustration and anger I feel everyday these days in a nonviolent and funny way.
March 23, 2011
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. . "
March 22, 2011
The Daily Show on US actions in Libya
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Odyssey Dawn | ||||
| ||||
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Odyssey Dawn - Unconstitutional War | ||||
| ||||
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| America's Freedom Packages | ||||
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March 15, 2011
The Punk Patriot vs Conservative Talk Radio
The Robber Baron Jay Gould said famously “I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.” That was back in the 1800s. It’s still true today.
This struggle we see today in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and all across America, this isn’t a new struggle. This is an old struggle. This is a struggle older than America. This is a struggle where the poor man, the man who does all the rich man’s work gets tired of having the screws put to him day in and day out-- and so he puts his foot down and says he ought to get a fair shake. That he’s a human being with dignity and ought to be treated as such.
When he does, the rich man comes down on him with hell’s fury and tells him he’s a coward, a thug, a cheat, and a parasite. And he tells him to shut up and get back to work.
People get confused by sychophants shouting through the rich man’s megaphone, the ABCs, CBSs, NBCs, FoxNews’s, and CNNs. They’ve learned how to talk like you so you get confused into thinking that these Devils are just like you. They’re not like you. They talk like you. They talk like you all day, with little drops of poison in every word, poisoning your mind, and then you get confused and you start to talk like them; you go around telling people if we let the Rich Man work you just a little bit harder and pay you a little bit less, everything will come out all right; That it’s not the rich man’s fault you’re poor cause he doesn’t pay you shit, it’s your brother and sisters fault for taking too many crumbs off the floor under the Rich Man’s table. If we all just sit back and let the rich man do whatever he wants, step on whomever he wants, poison and kill whomever he wants, everything will come out okay.
They’re like the Devil whispering in your ear, telling you the Devil is Jesus, and Jesus got a plan to save you from the Devil. You know you’re sick of getting the screws put to you, day in and day out. But the devils are there telling you it ain’t their fault they’re working you so hard and paying you so little. It’s your own fault , it’s your brother and sister’s fault for thinking you ought to have a bit dignity on this earth before you die. Listen to them-- Can’t you hear it? The Devil in the way they talk?
Their job is make sure that crooks on Wall Street, the Robber Barons, the Jay Goulds of today, can still hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.
This episode brought to you by:
Michelle Duffy, Jason Dawson, Maike Both, James Sullivan, Brian Bergman, Gina Dennis, Stephen Totten, Matthew Pieper, Christopher Allen, Dennis Trainor Jr, Cheryl Keil, Kelly Houghland, Deborah Henry, David Bergeron, Rex Pechler
Their support makes it possible for me to make videos. I’m trying to get to 60 monthly subscribers so I can make this a sustainable effort rather than what it is-- a vlog that goes in fits and stops depending on my work schedule and activism volunteer commitments. If you would like to support my work, please become a subscriber at whatever level is right for you here at PunkPatriot.blogspot.com, up in the upper right hand corner.
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT:
Find an economics professor, and ask him, what would be the result of every college student in the USA refusing to pay back their loans. Film their response. Send me the raw video at punkpatriot411@gmail.com
Send the Punk Patriot to Minneapolis for Netroots Nation!
You can vote for my scholarship by going to bit.ly/NN11TPP If you've already voted, please spread the word! Thank you!
March 14, 2011
Anonymous, Wikileaks, and the Bank of America email dump
So here's the story so far:
Anonymous has set up BankofAmericasuck.com which is currently down. Likely scenarious are that either Bank of America is using a DNS attack against Anonymous (ironic, but not funny), or Anonymous are hosting the site on a macintosh LC2 with a dial-up modem (ironic, and funny).
Of course there's the third option that the emails are all faked, and that the website is down right now because they want it to look like Bank Of America is trying to shut them down, but that's a little too left-field for me at present.
Supposedly these emails reveal criminal activity that could send people at Bank Of America to jail, specifically in regards to mortgage practices.
We don't know if the emails are legit yet, or not. You also can't see them on BankofAmericasuck.com. But you can download graphics of the emails as .rar files here.
Which I've done.
And now I'm uploading them to my flickr account. I've kept the original file names when uploading them so that you can search the HTML source code on the Anonymous webpage and build a mirror site.
You can still find BankofAmericasuck.com in Google's search cache, and try to piece together the context as best you can. And maybe somebody out there who doesn't have to leave for work soon can spend today using the titles of the photos hosted on my flickr, searching for them in the HTML code of the cached website, and building a mirror site? That would be rockin.
I gotta leave for work. If nobody's done it by tonight at midnight (when I get home) I'll work on it.
Minor Update:
Here's the YouTube video that's at the top of Anonymous's BankOfAmericaSuck.com page:
BankOfAmericaSuck.com is back up.
Anonymous has set up BankofAmericasuck.com which is currently down. Likely scenarious are that either Bank of America is using a DNS attack against Anonymous (ironic, but not funny), or Anonymous are hosting the site on a macintosh LC2 with a dial-up modem (ironic, and funny).
Of course there's the third option that the emails are all faked, and that the website is down right now because they want it to look like Bank Of America is trying to shut them down, but that's a little too left-field for me at present.
Supposedly these emails reveal criminal activity that could send people at Bank Of America to jail, specifically in regards to mortgage practices.
We don't know if the emails are legit yet, or not. You also can't see them on BankofAmericasuck.com. But you can download graphics of the emails as .rar files here.
Which I've done.
And now I'm uploading them to my flickr account. I've kept the original file names when uploading them so that you can search the HTML source code on the Anonymous webpage and build a mirror site.
You can still find BankofAmericasuck.com in Google's search cache, and try to piece together the context as best you can. And maybe somebody out there who doesn't have to leave for work soon can spend today using the titles of the photos hosted on my flickr, searching for them in the HTML code of the cached website, and building a mirror site? That would be rockin.
I gotta leave for work. If nobody's done it by tonight at midnight (when I get home) I'll work on it.
Minor Update:
Here's the YouTube video that's at the top of Anonymous's BankOfAmericaSuck.com page:
Another Update
BankOfAmericaSuck.com is back up.
March 13, 2011
If you needed more proof that Wall Street is run by Sociopaths...
Let CNBC's Larry Kudlow offer some up for you.
Illustrating what a terrible, soulless, sack of shit and sorry excuse for a human being he is, Larry Kudlow let us all know that we should be glad that in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Wall Street is doing just fine.
And his wall street harpies on either arm chime in, to let us know that oil is part of this, that with Japan in ruins, oil consumption is down, and with that the price is falling, making this whole thing good for the US economy.
Well God Bless the USA-- the Unfeeling Sociopaths of America.
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.
March 11, 2011
Cassandra Bangs on Single Payer Healthcare
Visit Cassandra Bangs's Youtube channel here.
She's totally right.
SIX TIMES the number of people who died on 9/11 die EVERY GODDAMN YEAR from preventable or curable illness, here in America, the richest fucking country in the world.
There are two Americas: One America is a place where the rich get whatever the fuck they want.
The other America is a third world shithole where kids die of diseases left over from the Great Gatsby days, like scarlet fever and tuberculosis. Where people still get the fucking BUBONIC PLAGUE.
Six times the number of people who died on 9/11 die every fucking year from preventable or curable illness, and if you are opposed to universal single payer healthcare-- you're a fucking murderer.
March 10, 2011
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:
March 7, 2011
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.
This American Life: Ask An Iraqi
I really don't know what to say about this, other than it clearly illustrates how deluded we are as a nation. And I don't think to do with any evil on our part. It's more to do with our desire to do good. When our government, in our name, commits atrocities, we either have to rationalize it somehow, or we need to come to terms with the fact that we are involved in atrocity.
As the one young man said, "If I say that we're fighting for freedom, it feels better, in my mind."
The most moving part is in the second half, when a girl approaches him to personally apologize for the war.
As the one young man said, "If I say that we're fighting for freedom, it feels better, in my mind."
The most moving part is in the second half, when a girl approaches him to personally apologize for the war.
March 4, 2011
Environmental Activist Tim DeChristopher convicted
For the heroic act of interrupting the energy industry's grab of public land
From DemocracyNow
A federal jury in Salt Lake City has convicted environmental activist Tim DeChristopher of two felony counts for disrupting the auction of more than 100,000 acres of federal land for oil and gas drilling. DeChristopher was charged in December 2008 with infiltrating a public auction and disrupting the Bush administration’s last-minute move to auction off oil and gas exploitation rights on vast swaths of federal land. A student at the time, DeChristopher posed as a bidder and bought 22,000 acres of land with no intent to pay in an attempt to save the property from drilling. He faces up to ten years in prison. DeChristopher joins us today to talk about the verdict.
Daily Show: Working People vs Wall Street
Part1
Part 2
Also, former Democratic Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich WAS RIGHT:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Crisis in the Dairyland - For Richer and Poorer | ||||
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Part 2
Also, former Democratic Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich WAS RIGHT:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Diane Ravitch | ||||
| ||||
March 2, 2011
Colbert reports on the wealth gap
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Word - New Country for Old Men | ||||
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March 1, 2011
The Story of Citizens United vs FEC released TODAY
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!
Tuesday evening (tonight) there are two live webinar events - one at 7pm Eastern, another at 7pm Pacific - with Annie Leonard of the Story of Stuff Project and Rob Weismann, President of Public Citizen.
To participate in one of the live webinar events, please register beforehand at one of the links below to get set up.
For the 7pm EST webinar visit:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/665275368
For the 7pm PST webinar visit:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/472298832>https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/472298832
You'll be able to watch and listen to the event on your computer (and even pose questions to the speakers), or, you can use the phone number provided to listen to the webinar on speaker phone if that is preferable.
Action Toolkit
Finally, if you need sample letters, a copy of the petition, ideas for how to organize locally and more, you'll find them all in Public Citizen's Action Toolkit. You can download a copy of the toolkit HERE. Look for "Action Toolkit" in the PDF section.
And make sure to post your event on map at http://bit.ly/SoCUparties.
TAKE ACTION NOW
Click here for a whole list of things you can do:
http://storyofstuff.org/citizensunited/what-you-can-do/
February 27, 2011
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.
Alternative Currency: BitCoin
For more info: BitCoin.org
And if you think this is totally insane, check out this episode of This American Life:
This American Life: The Invention of Money
I'm still suspicious of it, only because I haven't had a chance to think it all the way through yet. I'll tell you what I do like about it:
*It's decentralized, meaning that bankers cannot control it. Because there are no bankers.
*The money supply supposedly cannot be fiddled with. It will increase steadily over time, until it reaches a cap. Which means that it is not subject to inflation or deflation.
* It's not backed by anything other than trust, much like our own fiat money supply, except credit doesn't need to be artificially borrowed from Goldman Sachs, er *cough* I mean, the New York Federal Reserve Bank... which means that the value will not fluctuate based on the availability of some arbitrary mineral resource like gold or silver.
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.
February 26, 2011
Working People vs Wall Street part 2
Now, I never aim to inspire defeatism, but today I aim to inspire disillusionment, which is a very different thing. I think we can all agree it’s a good thing to be without illusion, and right now there are far too many of us who believe in this illusion that the folks at the top got their through legitimate means, and maintain their position through legitimate means, that The Man’s game is a fair one.
The Man? Yeah. Normally, I don’t like abstractions like this, but for the sake of understanding our economic situation, I find it’s easier to understand if we lump the so called “captains of industry” together into one entity. If we lump the Wall Street Banks, the Globalist Chemical Companies, the Globalist Factory Farms, the Military Industrial Complex, everything that isn’t Labor, into one entity. Because it really is, us versus them.
Right now we’ve got a Republican President who is pretending to be a Democrat, and we’ve got a Republican Party who is trying to send our nation back to the time of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.” We had a regressive corporate shill in Clinton who totally fucked working people of America over with NAFTA and the WTO. We had regressive corporate shills in GW Bush and Reagan who busted unions and rolled back labor protections, environmental protections, consumer safety protections, all in the name of the fuckers at the top making shit loads of money while you die of cancer because of their pollution in your air, water and soil.
An illusion we need to dispense with is that we all share equally in our nation's prosperity, that a rising tide lifts all boats, as it were.
Truth is, as the rich get richer, we get poorer, which is clearly demonstrated by this chart you can view over at StateOfWorkingAmerica.org
The lower 90% of Americans, by income bracket, have actually seen their mean wages decline since 1977, while the top 1% by income bracket, have seen their income balloon wildly, seeing their already absurdly high income triple, while our income has declined. We’re working more today, for less money.
Another illusion is that most people you know are middle class. This is bullshit, pure and simple.
Most people who think that they are middle class are actually working poor, and hover just above the poverty line.
I see the Tea Party protesters out there in Wisconsin, complaining that they don’t have a right to organize, or to strike, or to call in sick. Well, dipshits, it’s because you don’t have a fucking union. If you had one, YOU TOO could enjoy the right to strike, and would probably get higher wages. Instead of pissing and moaning about how the Union Labor gets all the bennies, why don’t you get off your lazy ass, risk getting fired, and through months and months of hard work, organize a union and get a better standard of living for yourself?
And to the Union Labor in WI, who is saying publicly that they’re willing to negotiate all their benefits away... This isn’t a time to be negotiating. This is a time to get aggressive. Shit is getting serious, people are losing their homes, the whole fucking economic system is collapsing, and people are suffering. This is the time to go for the whole goddamn cake.
Why? Well, there’s something you should know:
It was never in the plans for you to make any money, to make anything of yourself.
It was never in the plans for anybody but the rich, the REALLY rich, to get ahead in life.
That is an illusion started with the Horatio Algers stories of rags to riches. We love these stories here in America. They show real life examples once and a while as fluff peices on the nightly news. But these cases are extreme statistical outliers, you’re more likely to get rich playing the lotto than by working hard and keeping your head down. It doesn’t matter that it’s never going to fucking happen to you. The Rags to Riches story still a cornerstone of the American Dream. But Horatio Algers wrote fiction, and dreams are fantasies experienced while asleep.
You are poor. How do I know? I don’t. But by pure statistics alone, I’m certain you are. You might be in denial about this, but the truth remains, you’re poor.
You’re just one severe illness away from being homeless, and losing everything, but maybe you don’t know it. There are middle class people, people with insurance, who get cancer, cap out on their claims, lose everything, and die homeless. And with cancer rates rising every passing year, this is lottery game you’re far more likely to win.
Unless things begin to change, and I mean REALLY CHANGE, you're going to be poor FOREVER, too. And your kids are going to be poor. My generation is the first generation that will do worse than their parents. Not because we’re lazy, but because the free-market economic system is collapsing in on us, and we’re being forced to take shittier jobs, without union protection, without benefits, with lower wages. Thanks to NAFTA and the WTO, my generation has to compete with children in China who are literally working for rice. We have to compete with workers in Mexico who get paid 7 cents and hour. Unless we change things, we’re going to keep getting poorer and poorer.
When you get poorer, the rich get even richer.
How? That’s just the rules of the game. The game called “Free Market Capitalism.”
The Super Rich, the parasites down on Wall Street, they own the whole goddamn Monopoly game. They own the playing board, they own the shoe and the thimble and the scottish terrier, they own the dice, and they own the money. They are The Man. We all play by their rules. Don’t beleive me? Have you checked your credit score lately? Oh, it doesn’t look so good does it. Maybe that’s because you have too much credit card debt. Or not enough credit card debt. Or maybe you don’t pay your statements off fast enough. Or maybe you pay your balance off too fast. Or maybe it’s just all just fucking bullshit set up by the bankers on Wall Street to control your spending habits so they can steal even more of your goddamn money by making interest off of your debt.
So, What are the rules?
The rules go like this: you work for them your whole life, give up every waking moment to earn that money that you so desperately need to stay alive, and then when you get it, you pay rent back to your capitalist master for permission to keep living. So that you can keep living to do what? To keep working, until you get too old to work and become either social securities problem, or if social security is gone by then, you become your kids problem. And if your kids can’t support you because they’re competing against workers in Mexico who get 7 cents an hour, then you end up on the street curb with the rest of the trash that nobody wants.
You’re a fool to think that the money you earn is ever really yours. That money is owned by The Man, and he’s only lending it to you temporarily, so that you THINK you’re making progress. They’ll take it back from you soon enough. And no I’m not talking about taxes. The Man gives you just enough of their money so that you stay just happy enough, or just confused enough, that you don’t fully realize you’re being totally fucked every moment of your life.
Every breath you take, they are snatching their money back from you. You want to buy food so you don’t starve to death, you pay The Man. You pay Kraft Foods, Inc and you pay Con Agra and you pay Monsanto. You can’t get to your job by public transport so you have to buy a car. You get your loan to buy your from The Man.
The Man charges you interest on this new debt you just created, and The Man immediately begins to trade your debt with his buddies, as if it were money.
If time is money, it stands to reason that money is time, and when you are in debt, you owe your time on this earth to the Man. When the man is trading your debt like money, what he’s really doing is trading your life away. He is selling derivatives on his ownership of your every breath. He’s trading in futures of YOU, with the implicit guarantee that you’ll keep slaving your sorry ass to the bone so that The Man can turn more profits, because you promised to give The Man back all the money he just gave you and then some.
So now you’re working for The Man for free. How does it feel to be a slave? Shut up, go watch TV. Don’t talk politics. How dare you question America, the greatest best country on earth that god ever gave to man? Gave to man? Or gave to The Man?
February 25, 2011
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.
February 17, 2011
So This Is America...
I just learned through friend, former colleague, and current head of New Hampshire Peace Action, Will Hopkins, that 71 year old former CIA intelligence analyst Ray McGovern was arrested and brutalized for wearing a Veterans For Peace t-shirt at a speech by Hillary Clinton.
The irony is, of course, that her speech is on the subject of oppressive governments who beat and shoot protesters.
Now, you're probably thinking, "well shit, he must have been screaming and yelling like a Code Pink lady to get hauled out, right?"
No.
By the account over on JusticeOnline.org he did nothing but wear a t-shirt.
So this is America:
Said Will Hopkins, "[I] just watched the video of two cops roughing up Ray McGovern at a Hilary Clinton event. Made me ill. [I] don't even want to admit that the administration I helped get elected is so callous and brutal. It's Ray McGovern, he's 71 and devoted his whole life to this country. A more honest and true patriot there has never been, and for standing and turning his back quietly on the brutality of our nation, he was beaten and thrown in jail."
According to JusticeOnline.org's report, he was then roughed up by police. The guy is 71 years old for fuck's sake. Is it really nessecary to rough up an old man? According to McGovern's attorneys he was left bruised and bleeding in his jail cell.
So this is America.
In order to export Democracy and Freedom overseas, does that require us to disassemble it here at home first?
UPDATE:
A more full account of the events from VotersForPeace.org is here:
http://votersforpeace.us/press/index.php?itemid=4666
The irony is, of course, that her speech is on the subject of oppressive governments who beat and shoot protesters.
Now, you're probably thinking, "well shit, he must have been screaming and yelling like a Code Pink lady to get hauled out, right?"
No.
By the account over on JusticeOnline.org he did nothing but wear a t-shirt.
So this is America:
Said Will Hopkins, "[I] just watched the video of two cops roughing up Ray McGovern at a Hilary Clinton event. Made me ill. [I] don't even want to admit that the administration I helped get elected is so callous and brutal. It's Ray McGovern, he's 71 and devoted his whole life to this country. A more honest and true patriot there has never been, and for standing and turning his back quietly on the brutality of our nation, he was beaten and thrown in jail."
According to JusticeOnline.org's report, he was then roughed up by police. The guy is 71 years old for fuck's sake. Is it really nessecary to rough up an old man? According to McGovern's attorneys he was left bruised and bleeding in his jail cell.
So this is America.
In order to export Democracy and Freedom overseas, does that require us to disassemble it here at home first?
UPDATE:
A more full account of the events from VotersForPeace.org is here:
http://votersforpeace.us/press/index.php?itemid=4666
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