Obama's America (Part 2)

A couple of days ago I wrote a post assigning a considerable portion of the blame for the Baltimore riots to President Obama in part because of his administration's economic policies that have increased wealth inequality and done nothing to help financially stressed working class Americans. Thus I would be remiss if were I to fail to mention the latest way that Obama is determined to make matters even worse and to set himself up to be showered with hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate largesse consultancies, speaking fees and book advances upon his retirement from office. I'm talking, of course, about the Trans-Pacific "Free" Trade Agreement, the opposition to which is being spearheaded by Senators Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren, and includes some strange bedfellows:

The Obama administration has been negotiating the TPP deal since the early days of his presidency. Democrats and a bloc of House Republicans lead by Rep. Walter Jones (N.C.) are concerned that the pact -- which has not been finalized -- will exacerbate income inequality and undermine U.S. authority to write its own regulations, while Obama and Republican leaders say the deal will help all Americans by boosting economic growth. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other top corporate lobbying groups support the deal, while environmentalists, organized labor and many Tea Party organizations are opposed. Warren and Brown said that corporate support for the deal shouldn't be surprising.

"Executives of the country's biggest corporations and their lobbyists already have had significant opportunities not only to read [the TPP text], but to shape its terms," the letter reads. "The Administration’s 28 trade advisory committees on different aspects of the TPP have a combined 566 members, and 480 of those members, or 85%, are senior corporate executives or industry lobbyists. Many of the advisory committees -- including those on chemicals and pharmaceuticals, textiles and clothing, and services and finance -- are made up entirely of industry representatives."

So here we have the great President Hopey-Changey, who rode into office in part because of a tsunami of disgust with Wall Street and the abuses of corporate America, looking to cement his legacy by pushing through one last big "fuck you" to the tens of millions of middle class, working class and young voters who placed their hopes in him. This, of course, despite twenty-plus years of evidence that "free" trade enriches the top 10% of the population at the expense of everyone else. What more evidence do you need that the man is a fucking sociopathic monster?

Here we also see the most direct evidence yet of why America is being turned into a virtual police state, which is docilely accepted by most of the population to the point where even Baltimore's black female mayor was throwing around the word "thug," without making any attempt to differentiate between the protestors who were expressing their First Amendment rights and the rioters who were looting and burning cars. This is why all of our electronic communications are being monitored and why police forces all over the country are being outfitted with all the surplus military hardware they can handle. Those in charge know their policies are going to cause greater and greater public outrage as economic desperation worsens and more and more people begin to realize that they have no future.

All of this wouldn't be possible had the Democratic Party not sold its own constituents down the river a long time ago. So is America's liberal party going support its two most progressive Senators and stand firm against their own president? Not hardly...as usual they are more worried about the political fallout than all the lives that would be ground up and spit out by the agreement:

Democrats have been wringing their hands about the potential damage the dispute on Capitol Hill could do to the party, particularly as the 2016 elections get into gear -- a concern that is only compounded by the vitriol now being exchanged between two of its most prominent figures. Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton has largely avoided addressing TPP in the early stages of her campaign.

Yeah, I'll just bet Hillary is trying to avoid saying anything about this issue, given that it was her fucking husband who pushed through NAFTA and GATT and started America down the "free" trade road to hell.


Bonus: "Hell ain't half full"...so there's plenty of room for Obama

Obama's America

I'll admit that by titling this post as I have and tying it to the riots in Baltimore I'm running this risk of being misunderstood. First of all, lets keep what's happening in perspective. Compared to the LA riots after the initial Rodney King trial, or the many conflagrations that consumed American inner cities during the 1960s, what happened today is like a firecracker going off next to a keg of dynamite. A few cops got injured, a few stored got looted and few cars were burned. By comparison, the LA riots resulted in 53 deaths and over 2000 injuries.

Secondly, I have no doubt that there are plenty of white bigots and racists who are already blaming the president for what they are seeing on their teevee screens. And while I agree with them that a large share of the blame DOES reside with our feckless commender-in-chief, it certainly is NOT for the reasons they think: namely that this is all part of the "socialist-communist-muslim" Obama's "plan" to "undermine" America and turn it over to the Islamic State...or something equally ridiculous.

No, Obama deserves much of the blame for plenty of other reasons. It was, after all, his 2008 campaign that raised the hopes and dreams of black Americans and led them to foolishly believe that having one of their own in the White House would mean they would finally have someone in a position of high power who understood the very real institutional barriers still preventing them from achieving economic parity with whites. It was Obama himself who then deliberately sold out those hopes and dreams by not lifting a finger to help black America (or anyone else who isn't rich) once in office. Obama's administration has presided over an even greater spread of wealth inequality between the rich (mostly white men) and everyone else (blacks included), and his so-called economic recovery has benefitted only about the top 10% of the population, while the lower 90% finds itself more economically stressed than at any time since the Great Depression. Obama has also greatly contributed to this country's culture of violence and the idea that settling disputes requires guns, bombs, missiles and predator drones aimed at non-whites overseas who refuse to to accept American hegemony over the planet.

But finally and most importantly, Obama and his administration has stood around with its thumb up its ass while police killing incident after police killing incident has occurred without any attempt to have his Department of Justice forcefully step in with aggressive civil rights prosecutions--as Daddy Bush did after the Rodney King trial not guilty verdict. Time after time, from George Zimmerman to Darren Wilson and now on to a steady onslaught of cases, cops and cop wannabees have been killing young black men in cold blood without being punished while Obama has done nothing except for what he's best at--running his fucking mouth. Conversely to what the racists and bigots think, it is my contention that Obama's presence in the White House actually served as a distraction that PREVENTED this kind of rioting from breaking out sooner. Eventually, however, as incident after incident unfolded the pressure was going to inevitably increase to the boiling point.

In his seventh year in office, we have reached the point where Obama's America is finally approaching maturity. Thanks to the hopes he raised in order to con his way into the Oval Office and his complete subservience to a corporate America he no doubt hopes will make him a very rich man upon leaving office (as it has the Clintons), the fault lines that were already there are deepening and widening ever so slowly to the point where we are now feeling the first minor tremors presaging a potential future major earthquake that will shake our body politic to its foundations. For awhile now those tremors could be heard in the increasingly hateful right-wing rhetoric being employed against blacks, gays, Muslims and the poor. And as of today, they can now be seen in the looted stores and burning police cars dotting the streets of downtown Baltimore.

Bonus: "There was a shooting...police on my back"

No Kids, This is NOT "What Democracy Looks Like"

Okay, they're high schoolers, so I will cut them a little bit of slack:

Today, in response to the Friday night killing of unarmed black teen Tony Robinson by Wisconsin police, nearly 1,000 high school students marched the streets of Madison in protest, and stormed the state capitol demanding justice. "This is what democracy looks like," they shouted.

Sorry, kids, but I beg to differ.

Real democracy is boring. And it's a LOT of hard work. Just a few years ago in your own state of Wisconsin, the unions tried to effect supposedly democratic change against your asshole governor by storming the capitol in even far bigger numbers. They even went so far as to try and recall Scott Walker by referendum. And what was the ultimate result of all that fuss and fury?

When the Wisconsin State Assembly dropped the hammer on the state’s labor movement, the State Capitol was as quiet as a library. Maybe half a dozen ragged protesters stood outside the chamber hollering weakly, but the rest of the building and the grounds were serene. After two short post-vote press conferences, Madison sailed calmly on.

(snip)

Regardless of whether you’d characterize the right-to-work law as fanatical or not, it’s remarkable the extent to which Madison kept mum about its passage. Besides a few dozen Democratic legislators and a few hundred labor protesters the day before, the famously liberal city was placid as the conservative legislation rolled along. The liberals who have faced Walker have lost, and lost, and lost again, and progressive Wisconsinites’ stores of outrage seem, at least for the moment, to be exhausted.

Now, you could argue that Walker won in part because of the huge amount of money ($30 million) he was able to raise, mostly from out of state big business interests. But I would argue that he also won because the protests were co-opted by the hopelessly corrupt Democratic Party, which then put up a mealy-mouthed candidate running offering the same old lame ass centrist bullshit when, as the protests showed, what was needed was some good old fashioned angry leftist populism. That might have sustained the energy of the protests through the recall election and helped overcome the big money pumped in by the Koch Brothers (the percentage of the vote won by Walker in the recall election was nearly identical to that of his initial election victory despite the big money he raised). It also seems that once the protests themselves died down, most of those who participated put away their signs and went home to resume watching American Idol or whatever--sort of an echo to what happened with the Occupy protestors.

In and of themselves, protests are NOT representative of democracy but tend to happen when democracy is either being denied or has broken down. Take the case of 1960s America. The civil rights protests were followed up by years of hard work by such figures as Martin Luther King until civil rights laws were passed that finally put Jim Crow into his long overdue grave. The antiwar protests and the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention fiasco were followed by years of work by young leftist political activists that resulted in election reforms that led to the primary election system that (very temporarily) democratized the selection of candidates within the two party system. It was only when the voters, "exhausted" by years of protest, stupidly went back to sleep that the oligarchs saw their opportunity to begin slowly reversing the political changes wrought during the 1960s and early 1970s.

So while I applaud the protestors in this instance for at least getting angry about the latest questionable violent police action against a young black person, I caution them that they should not think a few days of sign waving at the state capitol is going to change anything. Get involved and stay involved and keep fighting the bastards with everything you've got. It's hard, it's often boring and not nearly as much fun as the rush that comes from taking to the streets. But if you're not willing to to do that hard work, which is the REAL work of democracy, then there is really no point in protesting in the first place.


Bonus: The whole world may be watching, but that doesn't mean it gives a damn

Some Good News for a Change: Greenpeace Punks Shell Oil

Many thanks to reader johnnyboy41 at the Hubbert's Arm discussion forum for alerting me to this story.

Genuine good news stories seem to be few and far between these days. But here's one from the Huffington Post:

Greenpeace, the Yes Lab, and members of the Occupy movement are claiming responsibility for a set of actions that have focused intense attention on Shell's Arctic drilling program.

"This experience shows that a few energized people can compete with the billions that Shell spends on advertising and lobbying," said James Turner from Greenpeace, who posed as an advertising executive at the event. "As people find out how this oil company is exploiting global warming to cause yet more global warming, thus endangering everyone, they won't allow it, no matter how many billions Shell has in its war chest."

The centerpiece of the action was a lavish party in the Space Needle, in which a model of an Arctic-bound oil rig "accidentally" spewed liquid in the face of the rig designer's "widow"—actually 84-year-old Occupy activist Dorli Rainey, well-known for having been brutally pepper-sprayed in the face by Seattle Police during Occupy protests last fall.

A one-minute video (see below) of that "malfunction," shot by Occupy "infiltrator" Logan Price, quickly reached the top spot on Reddit and the #2 spot on Youtube, with a half-million views in less than 24 hours.

"We know that climate change is putting the entire planet at risk," said Rainey. "It's our duty to stop companies like Shell from using fossil fuels as a lethal weapon—even if it means being sprayed again and again in the face."

As Shell denied, with disappointing blandness, having had anything to do with the party or the "malfunction," the Yes Lab sent out a press release on Shell's behalf, threatening anyone who reposted the video and attacking also the activists' brand-new ArcticReady.com website, which includes a social media ad generator and a dangerously addictive children's video game called Angry Bergs. The fake Shell release generated additional media coverage.

Earlier this year, Shell obtained a legal injunction stopping any Greenpeace activist from coming within 1km of any Shell vessel. To thank the company, Greenpeace teamed up with the Yes Lab to plan a promotional advertising campaign for Shell's Arctic drilling efforts, which Shell prefers to keep quiet. Besides the ill-fated ceremony and the website, the campaign includes a number of other elements that will shadow Shell's summer Arctic destruction campaign.

The device which sprayed Rainey's face was a model of Shell's drill rig, the Kulluk, which is set to soon depart Seattle for the Arctic. The Kulluk was built-in 1983 by Mitsui, the same company that, two decades later, built the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon. Earlier this year, Mitsui paid out $90 million to the U.S. for its role in the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Recall Election Wankery in Wisconsin

Congratulations, Wisconsin. Exactly 18 months after the protests at your state capitol that seemed to provide so much promise of a real challenge by the citizenry against the awful status quo in America, you are now right back where you started, with the odious Scott Walker sitting in the Governor’s mansion. All would be activists and Occupiers should take note: this is what happens when you allow your passion and energy to be channeled into the conventional political process. For even if Walker had been defeated in the recall election, the only real difference would have been that his Democratic opponent would not have been so ham-handed as to openly signal his intentions to fuck over the working and middle classes.

This sad state of affairs is going to continue until you accept one incontrovertible fact: that the Democratic Party may actually be a bigger enemy to your cause than the Republicans. At least with the Republicans you KNOW exactly what you are getting—openly slavish devotion to big business, war and empire. With the Democrats you get empty platitudes and a lot of sunshine blown up your skirt, but at the end of the day you still get an Afghanistan surge, Guantanamo, drone missiles, Wall Street bailouts, invasive airport scanners, a predatory student loan industry, crumbling labor unions, unbridled globalization destroying good paying American jobs and raids on medical marijuana dispensaries and part of the senseless and never ending War on Drugs.

Look at how on the national level Obama’s election has effectively muted protest against America’s ongoing wars. There hasn’t been a major antiwar protest in Washington since Chimpy Bush split town, despite the fact that Obama added Libya to the menu and dramatically ramped up the drone missile bombing campaign. If one were not paying attention, one might be deluded into thinking that President Hopey-Changey has actually done something to warrant having been awarded that Nobel Peace Prize.

The Wisconsin protests of early 2011, coming as they did a half-a-year before the Occupy movement took to the streets, were a real eye opener for many people as they focused the nation’s attention on a direct assault against workers being nakedly directed by the political stooge of a family of oligarch billionaires. THAT was the real issue, and was what really mattered, not the meaningless party label being worn by the empty suit pushing the policy. By allowing the Democratic Party to con them into putting down their signs and redirecting their efforts into the recall election, the protest movement has effectively wasted its time, to say nothing of the countless millions of campaign dollars that merely served to enrich the media conglomerates that provided the advertising time. Plus, it gave the Koch brothers an excuse to spend millions of dollars pumping out their pro-oligarch propaganda in a key state just a few months before a presidential election in which they have vowed to defeat the incumbent because they don’t think he kisses their pasty white asses often enough. Truly a Mission Accomplished all around.

Again, the lesson for the Occupy Movement could not be any clearer: do not ever allow yourselves to be co-opted by the Democrats. Treat that horrible party the same way you would the Republicans, as an enemy never to be trusted. They will just use you in an effort to win elections that have become all but meaningless in terms of change that might benefit the average person. Make no mistake, in our post-Citizens United dystopia the deck is very much stacked against you. The oligarchs have virtually unlimited funds to use against any politician who steps out of line and to utterly crush any viable third party movement. It’s the ultimate uphill battle, but it will always be even harder if you treat one faction of your enemies as if they are your friends.


Bonus: Yet another disaster hits the upper Great Lakes

Bathtub Photo Lands Coal Activist in Child-Porn Hot Water

In my May 5th post, Pretty Hate Machine, I wrote that anyone who is thinking of standing up to the forces of destruction in our society needs to be prepared to be for an all out assault on their character. But even I was astonished to read this horrific story from Grist magazine:

West Virginia coal activist Maria Gunnoe is used to intimidation, as writer/blogger Aaron Bady points out. It’s one thing to oppose coal companies from the office of the mayor of New York City. It’s another to do it, as Gunnoe does, from the West Virginia valley floors where the coal companies live.

Gunnoe has been an activist for years, in 2009 winning the Goldman Environmental Prize for her work trying to stem mountaintop-removal mining. The prize came with a $150,000 award – money she planned to use modestly: to extend the city water system to her house.

Her water, from a source on her property, wasn’t usable. Like many others in the region relying on wells and local sources, she depended on water that had been contaminated by run-off from the coal industry’s retrieval process. In some cases, the water was visibly polluted, running yellow- or copper-colored directly from the tap. Gunnoe’s efforts to stem pollution somewhat ironically meant she might be able to escape it.

Her neighbors weren’t (and aren’t) as lucky. Last week, Gunnoe joined some of them in Washington, D.C., to present the stories of people in her community at an oversight hearing of the House Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. In a better world, the hearing would have ended with a commitment to stem the pollution. It ended much differently.

Aaron Bady is a journalist who lives in California and writes for The New Inquiry magazine; his mother is the founder of an organization Gunnoe works with. Over the weekend, he told the story of what happened next.

Gunnoe’s planned testimony included this photo of a child bathing in water that is the color of a pumpkin, offset at the far end of the tub by a cluster of bath-fun bubbles. Gunnoe wanted to show the committee this photo, but the presiding politicians decided it was inappropriate. (The child was, as bathing children generally are, unclothed.) So the activist presented other evidence instead: ruined streams, stories of people with polluted water and air.

Then, when she was done and preparing to leave, the Capitol Police pulled her aside. Republican members of the panel had suggested that she be questioned about child pornography.

Bady’s telling of the story is thorough and astonishing. But there’s another point that should be made. Each of us has, in our picture albums or in iPhoto, images of ourselves as toddlers similar to Falkenberg’s photo, with one difference: the color of the water. And that’s what should be considered pornographic, unacceptable — not the child covering her skin with it.

Let's call this what it was: an act of pure hateful intimidation on the part of the coal industry's ass lickers in Congress. And the worst part is that they smugly know they can pull shit like this and yet will never be held accountable at election time.


Bonus: A song and video dedicated to the Congresscritters who hassled Maria Gunnoe

Preventive Detention In Obama's America

Still think it matters whether Obama or Romney wins the election this November? If so, then please explain this, as reported by the Examiner.com:

According to an interview with National Lawyers Guild (NLG) spokesman Kris Hermes, Chicago police officers raided a Bridgeport apartment complex on Wednesday evening without a valid warrant and detained up to nine people without cause.

The NLG is working in Chicago this week sending monitors to protests at the NATO Summit 2012 to insure activists rights are not violated. They are also functioning as lawyers for anyone detained during the week's activities.

The NLG worked through the night to locate the arrested activists. They were unable to get any information from the Chicago Police Department (CPD) or even any acknowledgement that a raid had taken place.

"We've called police officials at every level trying to find out where they were being held. We were denied any information at all about any people being arrested, let alone a raid happening last night. So essentially these people were disappeared for more than 12 hours until we could finally locate them," said NLG spokesman Kris Hermes.

They were found at the CPD Organized Crime Division police station lock up at 3340 W. Fillmore St. on the West Side.

Lawyers from The NLG were allowed to meet with nine individuals and reported that they were in low spirits, confused about why they were arrested and shackled at both their hands and feet at the meeting. No charges have been filed against them almost 24 hours after their arrest and an Illinois States Attorney at the station refused to meet with the NLG lawyers.

And spare me any bullshit about this being a local matter out of Obama's control. He is from Chicago and his former chief of staff is now Chicago's mayor, meaning he absolutely could influence what happens in that city if he wanted to. The fact is, he doesn't give a shit about civil liberties any more than his predecessor did, and if you vote for him in November thinking that he is somehow on your side you are seriously delusional.

Update: It's now being reported that three "terrorism" arrests have been made in Chicago, though it is unclear if the three detainees are connected to the incident reported above:

Three men loosely connected with the NATO protests have been arrested in Chicago for planning terror attacks on major police stations and businesses downtown, as well as President Obama's campaign headquarters and Mayor Rahm Emanuel's house.

Brian Church, 20, Jared Chase, 24, and Brent Vincent Betterly, 24, have been charged with criminal acts relating to terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism, and possession of explosives. The three were arrested Wednesday evening after a raid on a Chicago apartment found them loading Molotov cocktails into the back of a truck. According to court documents, the four had travelled to Chicago from out of town ahead of the NATO protests. They spent the days leading up to the weekend training themselves and planning their course of attack. Their plans for the weekend included:

According to court documents, the men planned to first attack four Chicago police stations and destroy several squad cars with "destructive devices" in order to divert the department’s attention and resources.

While authorities were distracted by those strikes, the group intended to hit Obama’s national campaign headquarters in the Prudential Building, Emanuel’s home in Ravenswood and other downtown financial institutions, prosecutors said. The group had already done reconnaissance work on the Chicago Police Department headquarters in Bronzeville in preparation for the attack, law-enforcement officials said.

Law enforcement records say the police confiscated, "four completed Molotov cocktails... a mortar gun, swords, a hunting bow, throwing stars and knives with brass knuckle handles," plus protective equipment like, "pre-positioned shields, assault vests and gas masks to help hide their identity during the planned attacks," according to the Chicago Tribune. "These men were here to hurt people," said the state's attorney Anita Alvarez. “The individuals we charged are not peaceful protesters, they are domestic terrorists,” said Alvarez.

But the lawyers in charge of defending the three men are alleging they're being set up by the Chicago police department. According to the New York Times report on the story, the lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild in charge of defending the three are going to argue for entrapment. They say a man and a woman who were either informants or undercover officers came up with the plans and provided the three men charged with the explosive equipment.

If this is part of the same action, even if the police account is true, that is some pretty weak tea. We are really supposed to believe that these guys were going to make a direct assault on the massive security wall surrounding Obama or Emmanuel with such puny weaponry?


Bonus: "I've got no patience now...so sick of complacence now"

The Political New Math: 6 > 100,000,000

In the interests of full disclosure so that my readers will know exactly where I am coming from: I despise Walmart and haven’t set foot in one in over a decade. I’m not a big fan of many large American corporations, of course, but Walmart is on a very short list along with McDonalds of nationwide retail chains I will not patronize under any circumstances.

The reason for my boycott of Walmart is that beyond my sheer disgust with the ugly stores, the low employee wages and crappy merchandise made in China, I have seen with my own eyes the destruction the company helped wreak upon the formerly vibrant downtown business district of my hometown. As recently as the 1980s, you could still go downtown in Freeport, Illinois, and shop at locally owned businesses along the two-block pedestrian mall, and then grab a bite to eat or take in a movie, all without returning to your car. I even worked as a sales clerk for a little mom-and-pop unfinished furniture store along the pedestrian mall for about a year when I was in college. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly a Norman Rockwell painting, but my job was far more pleasant than being a clerk at a big box store.

Then around 1990, Walmart built a store on the outer edges of the city, and today downtown Freeport is a ghost town full of empty store fronts, cracked pavement and no hope for the future. It is a pattern that has been repeated all over the country, and the fact that there has been so little protest, even among those whose towns have been blighted by this menace, just shows how sick our consumerist society has become.

There were national retail chains before the rise of Walmart, of course, but none ever operated with the ruthless efficiency, disregard for the common good and sheer cold-bloodedness of the Monster from Bentonville, Arkansas. A common phrase among peak oilers and others outraged about Wall Street abuses these days is, “privatize the profits and socialize the losses.” Well, that’s been Walmart’s corporate strategy from the beginning. It is a perfect corporate psychopath of the kind that makes the Citizens United Supreme Court decision ruling that corporations have the same “free speech” rights as citizens and ability to donate to campaigns such a hideous abomination sounding the final death knell of American representative democracy.

All of which brings me to a recent story that was highlighted the other day by Dave Cohen of the outstanding Decline of the Empire blog. I urge you to read Dave’s post in its entirety, but I just wanted to highlight this little tidbit:

Upon closer inspection, the Forbes list reveals that six Waltons—all children (one daughter-in-law) of Sam or James “Bud” Walton the founders of Wal-Mart—were on the list. The combined worth of the Walton six was $69.7 billion in 2007—which equated to the total wealth of the entire bottom thirty percent!

BTW the new 2011 Forbes 400 has the inherited worth of these six Waltons at $93 billion.

You read that right. The six Walmart heirs collectively control as much wealth as do the bottom 30% of the U.S. population, which amounts to approximately 100,000,000 people. And because corporate campaign cash completely dominates America’s electoral system nowadays, a trend that was permanently locked into place by the aforementioned Citizens United decision, that effectively means that our new “one dollar-one vote” reality has placed at least as much political power in the hands of those six individuals as possessed collectively by the 100,000,000. But it is actually worse than that. Presumably, the 100,000,000 use nearly all of what little resources they do have just to survive. Which doesn’t leave a whole lot of money left to donate to campaigns, assuming the impossible—that they could ever unify into a cohesive political block. In comparison to this, control by the “1%” looks downright egalitarian.

So effectively, this political "new math” in modern America is that 6 people have more power and influence over our so-called “leaders” than do 100,000,000. Some might scoff at that last sentence and say that surely no politician would ever risk standing in opposition to so many voters on behalf of so few. To which I would assert that only means they haven’t been paying attention to how the 6 having been using their influence, as reported by Think Progress:

Not only have the Waltons gathered a fortune equal to that of the bottom third of the country, but they spend it lobbying to cut their own taxes. For years, the Waltons have been supporting efforts to cut the estate tax, the tax levied on inheritance. Conservatives intent on cutting this tax — which they’ve brilliantly dubbed the “death tax” — led to President Obama agreeing to a “compromise” last year that lowered the rate and increased the tax-free exemption, giving a senseless tax break to extremely wealthy families.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, “for the 1 percent of the population with the highest income, average real after-tax household income grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007,” while it grew by just 18 percent for the bottom 20 percent of the income scale. In a given year, the richest ten percent of the country takes home about one quarter of total income. But Congress still saw fit last year to give a tax break to the very richest families, who have collected fortunes that dwarf anything the rest of the country will ever see.

And there you have modern day America in a nutshell: government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. Where if you don’t have at least a six figure check you can drop in campaign coffers of the politicians, you have no influence and no ability to effect change. This sad state of affairs is what lies at the very heart of the motivations of the Occupy movement. So the next time you hear some dimwit criticize the protesters for “not having a message,” you can show them the facts above and reply that this is all they should really need to know.


Bonus: My thanks to 1960s pianist/comedian Tom Lehrer, whose song, "New Math," inspired the title of this blog post

Charlotte, North Carolina, is Already Getting Nervous About Next Year's Democratic Convention

The city of Charlotte, North Carolina, probably thought it would be getting a great boost when it was named to host the 2012 Democratic National Convention. Such things bring a lot of business to town, and oh, this time it will feature the added prestige of a visit by the incumbent president. Heady stuff indeed. The fact that Charlotte is also the corporate hometown of Bank of America probably didn't even figure in when the city was considered for the convention. Well, as this story from the Huffington Post points out, perhaps it should have:

When the Democratic National Committee picked Charlotte to host its September 2012 convention, city leaders saw it as a boost to the local service economy. Hotels would be filled, restaurants would be booked, and party spaces would be rented. Up until a few months ago, officials only had to worry about the would-be traffic congestion on Trade Street as lobbyists shuffled to the next cocktail party. But now, they have to be concerned about feistier visitors known as Occupy Wall Street.

Damn straight city officials ought to be worried about being Occupied. So what do they plan to do about it?

If Charlotte officials fear having another Chicago '68 on their hands, they're hoping to take one essential weapon out of the hands of activists: their tents. On Oct. 27, the Charlotte city manager released a draft ordinance that makes camping on public property a "public nuisance" and would prohibit "noxious substances," padlocks and other camping equipment that city officials fear could impede traffic and create public safety issues.

The Charlotte City Council has not yet voted on the ordinance, and some argue its language is vague and may violate First Amendment rights. "If the ordinance is passed, it is possible that its constitutionality will be challenged," wrote Isaac Sturgill, director of the Charlotte School of Law chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, in an editorial that will run in the Charlotte alternative weekly Creative Loafing on Dec. 13. "There is also the potential for increased confrontation between protesters and police."

How about that...if there isn't already a law on the books so we can evict the Occupiers, we'll just go ahead and pass one. And we'll do it right out in the open where everyone can see us, because the voters of our fair city no doubt have their collective heads so far up their asses that they would never punish us at the ballot box for it.

Here is what's specifically at stake with the proposed new law:

Occupy Charlotte formed on Oct. 1 with a march on Bank of America's headquarters, though the encampment at the Old City Hall on Trade Street downtown didn't begin until Oct. 8. Two months in, the occupation has established a sprawling campus that contained roughly 50 tents at its height. Despite its location directly across the street from Charlotte police headquarters, relations between cops and protesters have been respectful. Police have arrested twelve activists -- the majority stemming from a Rainforest Action Network protest on Nov. 15 after demonstrators hung an anti-coal banner from Bank of America's flagpoles and blocked an entrance.

The protests may be a dress rehearsal for Occupy Charlotte leading up to the Democratic National Convention. An estimated 50,000 people will visit the city during the DNC, transforming the moderately-sized banking hub into the center of the universe -- or at least the nexus of the 24-hour cable news cycle -- for the week.

This is not lost on Occupy Charlotte and other Occupy groups in the state. Luis Rodriguez, 33, an organizer with Occupy Charlotte, said he's talked to several members of occupations in Asheville and Raleigh, as well as a group 90 miles away in Columbia, S.C. "Everybody I talked to said the DNC is ground zero for everything," he explained to The Huffington Post. "Everybody wants to be involved. We're estimating several thousands of people coming especially from the Occupy community."

What the Occupy groups are actually coming for has yet to be determined. Rodriguez says they have not begun planning for specific actions. There is talk of hosting an alternative convention. "It's just an idea floating around," he said, adding "we're going to be protesting the DNC itself" and if necessary hitting the lobbyists' parties.

Rodriguez has more urgent concerns, however. "What we're trying to do is keep hold of the lawn so that we'll still be around for the DNC," he said.

An "alternative convention" would just be stupid and counterproductive. The Occupiers need to yell as loud and long as they can during the convention and make it clear that Obama is a primary target of their anger. That would dispel any notion that the movement is just a Democratic front. Forget whether it hurts President Hopey-Changey's reelection chances. In a contest between him and either the Newtster or Willard Romney, it's not like the outcome is going to matter much either way for anyone not in the 1%.

At least one Occupier has a sense of just what a spectacle the convention could become:

Between the state's anti-union stance and playing home to Bank of America's headquarters, Ramsey expects the DNC here will be "a powder keg." The city, he said, "has got a big target on it."

My fervent hope is that the Occupiers manage to make the convention a very unpleasant experience for Obama and the Democrats. Even better if it is so bad and embarrassing to the local officials that it makes every other city out there think twice about holding one of these farcical quadrennial exercises in political masturbation in the future.

Unlikely, I know. But as I've said before it's my blog, and a man can dream, can't he?


Bonus: How fitting that Obama is from Chicago

Stupid Liberal Tricks: Portland, Oregon's Mayor Blasts the Occupy Movement

image: Portland, Oregon, Mayor Sam Adams has "Teh Gay," so that makes it "okay" when he sics his thug cops on peaceable Occupy protesters

Last Saturday in my post, "The Occupy Movement May Be About to Jump the Shark" I sounded the warning that the Occupy protesters need to be vigilant against attempts at co-option by the Democratic Party and such sell out conventional liberal and progressive groups like MoveOn.org. I was specifically referring to last week's "Take Back the Capital" protest and it's stated goal: "Supporters hope the growing activism of liberal groups will translate into Election Day victories in 2012." I questioned what good any of these groups think it is going to do to elect more "liberals" like the mayors of Los Angeles and Oakland, who sicced their thug cops on the Occupy encampments in those cities. Well, you can add the mayor of Portland, Oregon, to the list of sorry ass "liberal" mayors who are making a mockery of that idea:

Portland Mayor Sam Adams is a self-described strong liberal, but despite sharing the politics of many anti-Wall Street protesters who rocked his city, he has also emerged as one of their harshest critics.

Adams told Reuters this week in an interview at City Hall in Portland that the movement had lost its focus.

The Oregon mayor’s running argument with the Occupy movement, much of it conducted openly over Twitter, points to a similar rift between left-wing protesters and liberal politicians in cities across the country, from Los Angeles to Atlanta.

Occupy protesters have denounced economic inequality and the perceived undue power of the wealthy. But they have also clashed with liberal politicians in ways that suggest the movement will not necessarily align with Democratic officials and candidates, political analysts said.

Adams is one of several mayors who, despite expressing sympathy with the Occupy movement, said his duty to maintain law and order compelled him to send in police to dismantle protest camps.

Demonstrations that began in September in New York against banks and corporations have shifted to include opposition to what protesters say is police brutality, as Occupy camps across the nation were forcibly shut down in recent weeks.

“I am a liberal progressive, but I also get to have an opinion on the movement, and I’m going to put it out there,” Adams told Reuters. “Because any good movement has to be nimble, and this one so far hasn’t been.”

The mayor said he has watched the nationwide Occupy protests “devolve to fighting with liberal mayors in liberal cities.”

How much more proof do you need that ANYONE who wins election to a major public office these days is fundamentally corrupt? Just like those other mayors, Adams got into office through an election no doubt funded by fat cat political donors who don't take too kindly to "dirty hippies" loudly pointing out the social inequities in this country. Ergo, he represents the enemy, no matter how "liberal" he professes to be.

Many clueless mainstream liberals and progressives, especially those upper middle class twits who still have good jobs, are no doubt be willing to forgive Mayor Adams because of this:

Adams, who is openly gay, touts his city’s accomplishments in spending $150 million over the past five years on help for the homeless and affordable housing.

Wow, we're supposed to be impressed because the city spent a mere $30 million a year on anti-poverty programs during Adams's tenure? Anti-poverty programs that I gather were already in place BEFORE he became mayor, since he doesn't claim that he helped get them enacted? No doubt, too, that he is trying to hide behind the fact that he is openly gay to "prove" that he is one of the "good" guys. Because one of the side of effects of ten years of conservative gay bashing is that many liberals and progressives now put gays on a pedestal as if they are not just as capable of selling out the common good on behalf of the elites as any straight politician (paging: Barney Frank).

Fortunately, there was good news to be had towards the end of the article:

While the conservative Tea Party movement helped Republicans retake the U.S. House in the 2010 elections, political observers do not anticipate a similar outcome for the anti-Wall Street crowd.

“The difference is the Tea Party got to take over the Republican Party and begin to reshape it in its own image,” Jeffe said.

“It doesn’t appear that’s going to happen in any way quickly with the Democratic Party,” she added, citing a lack of cohesiveness so far in the Occupy movement and distrust of electoral politics.

As well it shouldn't. And if that leads to a massive Republican victory next year, too bad. It might finally spell the death throes of the thoroughly corrupt Democratic Party once and for all. We'll be just as screwed, but at least there won't be millions of delusional liberal and progressives running around making excuses for why "their guy" can't effect change, or even why he or she has to "uphold law and order" at the expense of peaceable protesters seeking economic justice.

Hypocrisy Porn: U.S. Calls on Russia to Respect Peaceful Protests

image: "Respecting peaceful protests" in Los Angeles

Every once in awhile a story appears that is stunning in how dramatically it reveals the sheer hypocrisy and duplicity coming out of the Imperial Capital these days. Seriously, you just can't explain this:

The United States called Friday on both Russian authorities and protesters to remain peaceful as opponents of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin prepared major weekend demonstrations against his rule.

Putin has angrily accused the United States of inciting the protests after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised concerns about the fairness of parliamentary elections that Putin’s party won but with a reduced majority.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that the United States supported the right to peaceful protest in Russia as it does “anywhere in the world.”

“We expect that those demonstrations will remain peaceful on behalf of all parties, whether they’re the demonstrators or whether they are those keeping social order,” she said.

“So our expectation is that if there are protests, that they will be peaceful and that they will be allowed to proceed peacefully,” Nuland said.

What unmitigated fucking gall our so-called "leaders" have.

How much has the U.S. been respecting "the right to peaceful protest" within the United States? Here is a recent report from The Exiled's Yahsa Levine on the police abuses that accompanied the recent eviction of Occupy LA:

First off, don’t believe the PR bullshit. There was nothing peaceful or professional about the LAPD’s attack on Occupy LA–not unless you think that people peacefully protesting against the power of the financial oligarchy deserve to be treated the way I saw Russian cops treating the protesters in Moscow and St. Petersburg who were demonstrating against the oligarchy under Putin and Yeltsin, before we at The eXiled all got tossed out in 2008. Back then, everyone in the West protested and criticized the way the Russian cops brutally snuffed out dissent, myself included. Now I’m in America, at a demonstration, watching exactly the same brutal crackdown…

While people are now beginning to learn that the police attack on Occupy LA was much more violent than previously reported, few actually realize that much—if not most—of the abuse happened while the protesters were in police custody, completely outside the range of the press and news media. And the disgraceful truth is that a lot of the abuse was police sadism, pure and simple:

* I heard from two different sources that at least one busload of protesters (around 40 people) was forced to spend seven excruciating hours locked in tiny cages on a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. prison bus, denied food, water and access to bathroom facilities. Both men and women were forced to urinate in their seats. Meanwhile, the cops in charge of the bus took an extended Starbucks coffee break.

* The bus that I was shoved into didn’t move for at least an hour. The whole time we listened to the screams and crying from a young woman whom the cops locked into a tiny cage at the front of the bus. She was in agony, begging and pleading for one of the policemen to loosen her plastic handcuffs. A police officer sat a couple of feet away the entire time that she screamed–but wouldn’t lift a finger.

* Everyone on my bus felt her pain–literally felt it. That’s because the zip-tie handcuffs they use—like the ones you see on Iraq prisoners in Abu Ghraib—cut off your circulation and wedge deep through your skin, where they can do some serious nerve damage, if that’s the point. And it did seem to be the point. A couple of guys around me were writhing in agony in their hard plastic seats, hands handcuffed behind their back.

* The 100 protesters in my detainee group were kept handcuffed with their hands behind their backs for 7 hours, denied food and water and forced to sit/sleep on a concrete floor. Some were so tired they passed out face down on the cold and dirty concrete, hands tied behind their back. As a result of the tight cuffs, I wound up losing sensation in my left palm/thumb and still haven’t recovered it now, a day and a half after they finally took them off.

* One seriously injured protester, who had been shot with a shotgun beanbag round and had an oozing bloody welt the size of a grapefruit just above his elbow, was denied medical attention for five hours. Another young guy, who complained that he thought his arm had been broken, was not given medical attention for at least as long. Instead, he spent the entire pre-booking procedure handcuffed to a wall, completely spaced out and staring blankly into space like he was in shock.

* An Occupy LA demonstrator in his 50s who was in my cell block in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center told us all about when a police officer forced him to take a shit with his hands handcuffed behind his back, which made pulling down his pants and sitting down on the toilet extremely difficult and awkward. And he had to do this in sight of female police officers, all of which made him feel extremely ashamed, to say the least.

* There were two vegetarians and one vegan in my cell. When I left jail around 1:30 pm, they still had not been given food, despite the fact that they were constantly being promised that it would come.

* There were 292 people arrested at Occupy LA. About 75 of them have been released or have gotten out on bail, according the National Lawyers Guild. Most are still inside, slapped with $5,000 to $10,000 bail. According to a bail bondsman I know, this is unprecedented. Misdemeanors are almost always released on their own recognizance, which means that they don’t pay any bail at all. Or at most it’s a $100.

* That means the harsh, long detentions are meant to be are a purely punitive measure against Occupy LA protesters–an order that had to come from the very top.

The sheer hubris and gall of the "leadership" of this country is really a sight to behold. The only thing we can hope for now is that pride really does goeth before the fall.

The Occupy Movement May be About to "Jump the Shark"

I've been dreading the moment when there would be a solid indication that the Occupy movement was beginning to be co-opted. That moment may well be approaching. At first, this report about a major protest in DC next week seemed like good news:

Roughly 3,000 unemployed workers from around the country are expected in the nation's capitol next week for four days of protests with labor, religious and social justice groups that say Congress cares more about America's wealthiest 1 percent than it does the masses of struggling middle-class families.

Union members march in New York. Next week's D.C. protests piggyback on the Occupy Wall Street movement. Piggybacking on the Occupy Wall Street movement, the three-day "Take Back the Capitol" protest will open Monday with construction of a "Peoples Camp" on the National Mall as a base of operations. On Tuesday, protesters will hit Capitol Hill to lobby members of Congress about extending federal unemployment benefits. The group walks to K Street on Wednesday to protest the political influence of corporate lobbyists.

But wait...what's this?

Protesters will call for passage of President Barack Obama's jobs bill and for continuing the 2 percentage point payroll tax cut for employees.

All right, here is where you guys can let me out of the car and go on ahead without me. There is no doubt that unemployment is one of the most dire challenges facing the country these days. But the way to combat it is NOT to borrow another few hundred billion dollars and spend it on wasteful, boondoggle government projects of the type that were funded in Obama's stimulus package, and it is CERTAINLY not advisable to hasten the day of Social Security's ultimate demise by extending the payroll tax cut. The only reason that you would advocate for the latter is because you want to goose the economy by encouraging people to buy more shit they don't need at the price of running up the federal deficit even further. That is the kind of myopic, spoiled, entitlement thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.

But this is the part that really galls me:

Supporters hope the growing activism of liberal groups will translate into Election Day victories in 2012.

So the "solution" to our problems is to elect more Democrats, then? Excuse me, but were you idiots NOT paying attention to how the Obama-led Democratic Party stood around with its thumbs up its ass from January 2009 to January 2011 despite having overwhelming control of both houses of Congress AND the White House? Exactly what the fuck do you think would change if the Democrats win next time around?

Maybe we need more "liberals" in office like the current mayors of Los Angeles and Oakland, who sicced their thug cops on the asses of the Occupy movements in those two cities. Or maybe some more "liberals" like Michigan Senator Carl Levin, who just authored the Senate measure that will allow any of you to be detained by the military indefinitely without trial as suspected "terrorists." Think that will work? Wake the fuck UP already.

The only hope I see in the article was contained in this paragraph:

Representatives from 15 Occupy protests from around the country will also take part, Borosage said, but the local Occupy DC isn't a sponsor, said Legba Carrefour, a spokesman for the group.

At least Occupy DC has it right. They need to keep this effort as far at arm's length as possible. Anyone who advocates electing more "liberals" as the solution for what ails us is simply NOT serious about effecting real change in this country.

Joe Rogan Podcast on the Occupy Movement

Joe Rogan is a stand up comedian who hit the jackpot a decade ago when he was hired to be the host of the reality teevee show, Fear Factor. To his credit, once he made the big bucks Rogan didn't keep whoring himself out to the American mainstream media machine to make more, but instead used the financial freedom to begin saying what he wants to say via his standup routines and his regular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience.

Rogan's recent podcast on the Occupy movement has been made into a video featuring images of the protests while he and his cohosts free associate about what it all means. Personally, I believe that if Bill Hicks hadn't died nearly nearly 20 years ago at the way-too-young age of 32, he'd be saying similar things today.

Apology Not Accepted

I’m sorry, Madame, but this (from Talking Points Memo) just isn’t going to cut it:

University of California-Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi on Monday apologized to students for last week’s pepper-spraying incident, where a campus police officer at point-blank range sprayed down a group of sitting protesters.

“I feel horrible for what happened on Friday, Katehi told a rally of students. “If you think you don’t want to be students in a university like we had Friday, I’m just telling you, I don’t want to be the chancellor of the university we had on Friday.”

Well, since you WERE the chancellor of the university on Friday, you really should do the honorable thing and GTFO. But sadly, no:

Katehi has been under growing pressure to resign, but so far she’s staying put. “The university needs me,” she told ABC’s Good Morning America Monday morning. In an interview with NPR affiliate KQED, Katehi said the university police were not supposed to use force. She said, “as a human being,” she was “horrified” by the pepper-spraying images. And in front of students later on Monday, the chancellor admitted she must work to earn back the students’ trust.

“I know you may not believe anything that I’m telling you today, and you don’t have to,” Katehi said. “It is my responsibility to earn your trust.”

The crowd chanted “Shame on you” and “resign” at Katehi after she finished her remarks, AggieTV reported.

Let me put this as bluntly as I can, Ms. Katehi, so that even a dimwitted academic such as yourself can understand it: apology not accepted. You are the “leader” of a university that employs brutish thugs who have no inhibition against pepper-spraying students for engaging in non-violent protest. The same students, incidentally, who pay thousands of dollars a year for the “privilege” of attending your morally decrepit institution—many of whom have no doubt put themselves in hock with massive amounts of student loans in order to pay your salary, among other frivolous expenses.

Being in charge isn’t all about getting the big office, all the perks and the high salary. You’re also the one who gets to take the fall when things go wrong. When your employees fuck up so massively and deliberately, YOU should be the FIRST one to go. That’s called accountability, something which we have far too little of in this country these days.

In fairness, you’re obviously not the only one. The entire management team of every Wall Street firm that was complicit in crashing the economy back in 2008 should have been similarly removed from their positions and then vigorously prosecuted for their actions. The entire defense and foreign policy team of the Bush administration that was complicit in launching the Iraq War and engaging in torture and rendition should be on the dock at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The current occupant of the White House, who utterly failed to prosecute the criminals on Wall Street and in the Bush administration and in fact has committed his own set of heinous war crimes in Afghanistan and with his drone missile campaign, should also at a minimum do the honorable thing and resign.

Does all of that seem far too extreme? If so, it is only because you have become inured to the idea that accountability is only something that happens to little people and not the movers and shakers of our society. When President Hopey-Changey said almost immediately upon inauguration that we need to “look forward,” he was signaling that he was not going to hold those responsible for wrecking the economy and lying us into war accountable for their actions. Upon hearing those words, any right-thinking person should have immediately begun demanding Obama’s impeachment for dereliction of duty.

Much as rhetorical con men like Obama like to try to complicate these issues, it really is very simple. Either you innately recognize that giving $700 billion in taxpayer bailouts to financial criminals; or launching a war against a country that did not attack our own and posed no military threat to us; or operating an unaccountable concentration camp on foreign soil; or torturing defenseless prisoners; or wantonly assassinating American citizens without trial; or bombing innocent villagers with drone missiles; or not reporting to law enforcement a sexual predator preying on children in your midst; or tear-gassing, billy-clubbing and pepper spraying non-violent protesters seeking economic justice is morally wrong, or you do not. And if you do not, you are the enemy and should be considered as such regardless of position, education level, social standing or political affiliation.

Your apology is not accepted, Ms. Katehi. And I suspect that this is only the beginning.

The Top 0.1% Earn Half of All Capital Gains

Ummm...this is not the kind of story that I ever thought would have appeared on the website of Forbes magazine:

Capital gains are the key ingredient of income disparity in the US-- and the force behind the winner takes all mantra of our economic system. If you want even out earning power in the U.S, you have to raise the 15% capital gains tax.

Income and wealth disparities become even more absurd if we look at the top 0.1% of the nation's earners-- rather than the more common 1%. The top 0.1%-- about 315,000 individuals out of 315 million-- are making about half of all capital gains on the sale of shares or property after 1 year; and these capital gains make up 60% of the income made by the Forbes 400.

Even more surprising, Forbes provides the history of the capital gains tax that shows just what an historical anomaly the current capital gains tax rate is:

The reduction in the tax from 20% to 15% continued the step-by-step tradition of cutting this tax to create more wealth. It had first been reduced from 35% in 1978 at a time of stock market and economic stagnation to 28% . Again 1981, at the start of the Reagan era, it was reduced again to 20%-- raised back to 28% in 1987, on the eve of the October 19 23.2% crash in the market. In 1997 Clinton agreed to reduce it back to 20%, which move was an inducement for the explosion of hedge funds and private equity firms-- the most "rapidly rising cohort within the top 1 per cent."

So it should be pretty obvious that with the country facing billion-and-a-half dollar annual deficits for the forseeable future what the first course of action should be, right? Yeah, right.

Make no mistake; the battle that is to be fought over the coming attempt to reverse this reduction in capital gains will be bloody and intense. The facts are clear according to the Congressional Budget Office more than 80% of the increase in income inequality was the result of an increase in the share of household income from capital gains. In fact, you can go so far as to claim that "Capital Gains income is the most unevenly distributed-- and volatile-- source of household income," according to Laura D'Andrea Tyson, University of California business professor and former chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton.

I beg to differ. In order for the battle to be "bloody and intense," there actually has to BE a battle. In fact, it should have been being fought these past three months during the "super committee" deliberations on the reducing the deficit. The fact that it wasn't tells you all you need to know about the chances that it is going to happen anytime soon.

The article then concludes with the kind of flourish that you normally only see in a Matt Taibbi Rolling Stone piece:

No wonder the super wealthy plutocrats obtained the largest share of national income-- 25% of the nation's wealth- greater than any other industrial nation in the the period of 1979 to 2005. Make no mistake; after unemployment-- this disparity between the 1%-- 3 million-- or the 0.1%-- the 300,000-- and the other 312 million citizens of the U.S. has become the major theme of the Occupy Wall Street movement-- and an important national debate.

I commend you to the late Justice Louis Brandeis warning to the nation that " We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." We have to make up our minds to restore a higher, fairer capital gains tax to the wealthiest investor class-- or ultimately face increased social unrest.

Damn...someone over at Forbes must have been passing around their supply of weed on a giddy Friday afternoon, or something. That's the only explanation I can think of as to how this story got the green light.

New Poll: 41% Think the American Dream is Dead, the Other 59% Believe in Unicorns

A recent poll conducted by Yahoo Finance shows that Americans are slowly waking up to the basic truths that I write about every day here at TDS:

A new survey by Yahoo! Finance shows Americans have a disturbing lack of hope and a frightening lack of retirement planning.

Among the highlights of the poll:

-- 41% of Americans say the 'American Dream' has been lost.

-- 37% of adults have NO retirement savings and 38% plan to live off Social Security.

-- 63% of Americans believe the economy is getting worse, including 72% of those over the age of 55.

These findings are consistent with broader trends The Daily Ticker has reported on in the past year: Despite macro data showing the economy has technically recovered from the 'Great Recession', the majority of Americans just aren't feeling it. Considering 49 million Americans are living in poverty, the "real" unemployment rate is 16% and millions of Americans are facing foreclosure, it's no wonder many believe the recession never ended.

Bad as that first number is, the second one is even more scary given how, as I have demonstrated here at TDS, Social Security is effectively bankrupt just as the Baby Boomers are beginning to retire in large numbers.

The poll goes on to show the flip side of these numbers:

-- 53% of Americans ages 18-34 still see America as the land of opportunity.

-- 45% of parents believe their kids will be better off than they are.

-- 68% of Americans say their currency financial situation is either "excellent" or "satisfactory."

Here too, the survey is consistent with trends we've reported on: In an era of rising income inequality, those doing well in America today are doing quite well, indeed.

Yep--most of those who still have their jobs remain completely in the dark about what so many of their fellow citizens are experiencing. They are the ones who stare uncomprehendingly at the Occupy protests and wonder what all of the fuss is about. Many will no doubt be lining up at midnight next Thursday so they can trample some of their fellow citizens trying to be the first to save 20% on the new flat screen teevee.

God Bless America.


Bonus: God Bless America (alternative version)

Occupy Protests as One-Percenters Gather for Speech by the Worst President in American History

As much as I like using President Hopey-Changey as a rhetorical punching bag, I sometimes lament that I didn't start this blog back when his predecessor was still in office. To any unbiased individual with a working knowledge of American History, President George Bush the Lesser has to be ranked down there with the likes of Millard Filmore, James Buchanan and Warren Harding as the worst ever occupants of the Oval Office. The three main duties of any president is to protect the country from attack, not involve it in unwinnable military entanglements and be a good steward of the economy. Strike three there, Chimpy.

At this point you would think that even the haves and the have-mores, who Bush once notoriously referred to as his "base," would have had enough of the man. Well, apparently not:

Bush, who recently authored the book Decision Points, is scheduled to speak at the forum starting at 8:30 a.m. He will take part in a session called “Fireside chat” with President George W. Bush, which will be moderated by James S. Turley, Chairman and CEO of Ernst & Young.

So what'll it set you back you to hear this speech by the former Dimwit-in-Chief?

The cost to attend the entire conference, which is sold out, is $3,695. It is not open to the public.

Proof positive that it is not just buyers of Call of Duty Jeep Wranglers who have more money than brains. There is good news to be had in this situation, however:

The protest organized by Occupy Coachella Valley is set for 9:30 a.m. Friday at an Ernst & Young Strategic Growth Forum at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa in Palm Desert.

Occupy organizers claim the Ernst & Young event and Bush's visit represent the 1 percent of Americans who control political power and wealth.

Kudos to the Occupy protesters. Since Bush is not currently sitting in a cell at the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague as he should be, the least we Americans can do it make it extremely unpleasant for any group of one-percenters who invite him to "speak."


Bonus: Bush may be long gone, but this song never gets old.

Occupy the Junk Mail

This video is absolutely brilliant. I strongly encourage anyone who gets barraged with credit card applications to do the same.

A Marine Learns an Important Truth about the Empire

Last week, the Occupy movement received a huge boost in public sympathy when the Oakland Police Department stupidly chose commit a wanton act of brutality by apparently firing a tear gas shell in a manner designed to maim the crowd rather than merely controlling it. It was their “bad luck” that the protester whose head got in the way and who was knocked into a coma by the round was a former Marine and two-tour Iraq War veteran. The progressive blogosphere and sympathetic mainstream media sources like Keith Olbermann were all over the story almost immediately—seizing on and highlighting the victim’s service record.

This incident was the latest in a serious of deplorable acts on the part of police around the country who have engaged in unwarranted confrontations with the Occupy protesters. Despite the very justifiable rage of those participating in the demonstrations, their peaceful restraint has been nothing but admirable. Given the huge numbers who have been occupying various cities around the country, you would have thought that at least one hothead would have provoked a violent confrontation by now. Instead all of the violent provoking has so far been on the law enforcement end.

Still, I couldn’t help but being depressed that those among the pundit class who sympathize with the protests felt they had to so relentlessly hype the fact that the unfortunate victim was a Marine and a war veteran. I know they are anxious to show that the protesters are more than just a bunch of “dirty college hippies,” but the fact that the poor soul who ended up in a coma had been a foot soldier in America’s imperial wars does not make this crime any more or less severe than had he been a third year philosophy student at Berkeley.

Don’t get me wrong. It is a great thing that Scott Olsen and many of his former fellow soldiers and Marines from the group, Iraq Veterans Against the War, have chosen to join the Occupy movement. These brave young men and women have woken up to the fact that they have far more in common with the other young adults of their generation who went to college rather than volunteer for the military than either group has with the “one percenters.”

The real lesson here, however, is that just because you raise your right hand at the recruiting center, put yourself through the hell that is basic training and then spend a year or multiple years in the desert halfway around the world fighting people you have no personal quarrel with for the economic interests of the empire, it in no way, shape or form makes you any more valuable to the elites who sent you there. They don’t care about you, and despite your service should you ever stand up like Mr. Olsen did and try to object to having been so callously used, you too might find yourself on the wrong end of a tear gas gun, flash bang grenade or even worse.

It’s a lesson that far more people in the United States today need to learn, up to and including those cops on the other side of the barricades. You are perfectly expendable—a piece of meat who will only be thrown some crumbs by the select few who sit at the big table as long as you continue to play ball and keep your fucking mouth shut. I think back to the protagonist in Dalton Trumbo's horrific World War One novel, Johnny Got His Gun, who doesn’t learn this lesson until it is far too late. Years after the war, when he is lying in a hospital bed, blind and deaf, his arms, legs and face blown off, unable to communicate with those taking care of him, he angrily thinks:

Somebody said let's go out and fight for liberty and so they went and got killed without ever once thinking about liberty. And what kind of liberty were they fighting for anyway? How much liberty and whose idea of liberty? Were they fighting for the liberty of eating free ice cream cones all their lives or for the liberty of robbing anybody they pleased whenever they wanted to or what? You tell a man he can't rob and you take away some of his liberty. You've got to. What the hell does liberty mean anyhow? It's just a word like house or table or any other word. Only it's a special kind of word. A guy says house and he can point to a house to prove it. But a guy says come on let's fight for liberty and he can't show you liberty. He can't prove the thing he's talking about so how in the hell can he be telling you to fight for it?

No sir anybody who went out and got into the front line trenches to fight for liberty was a goddamn fool and the guy who got him there was a liar.

You can be a dutiful citizen and pay your taxes, sign up to go fight in the latest war against people trying to protect their homeland from exploitation, be the perfect obedient worker serving in the holy temples of American consumerism or even go out wielding a baton to bust the skulls of troublesome protesters, but you will never, ever get a seat at the big table. It is off limits to you and your ilk. If your labor is no longer profitable, they will still lay you off. If you miss some payments on your mortgage they will still evict you. If you get seriously sick or injured and don’t have health insurance you will still be bankrupted if not actually allowed to die. And if you try to object you will be the one who finds yourself on the wrong end of that flying baton or tear gas grenade shell.

The quicker you wake up these basic facts, the better off you will be. America faces a crisis far more dire than any it has faced before. The peak oil-induced end of the era of economic growth and the beginning of the period of permanent economic contraction will mean a free-for-all scramble by the elites to secure for themselves as much of the country’s remaining wealth as possible. At some point in the future, your economic interests WILL conflict with theirs. And by then it will be too late to stand with those who are today rallying on behalf of the 99%.

National Propaganda Radio Fires Host for Participating in Occupy DC

Once again, the myth that there is any such thing as a "liberal media" in the United States has been exposed as a laughable falsehood. Here is The Raw Story with the details:

A broadcaster that hosts several programs that air on NPR was reportedly fired Wednesday for her participation in “October 2011/Stop the Machine” protests in Washington, D.C. after conservative websites suggested “apparent ethics violations.”

Lisa Simeone said Thursday that she was read NPR’s code of ethics as she was fired as the host of Soundprint.

To Ms. Simeone's credit, she didn't take her firing lying down:

“I find it puzzling that NPR objects to my exercising my rights as an American citizen — the right to free speech, the right to peaceable assembly — on my own time in my own life,” Simeone told WarIsACrime.org’s David Swanson, a noted peace activist. “I’m not an NPR employee. I’m a freelancer. NPR doesn’t pay me. I’m also not a news reporter. I don’t cover politics.”

“This sudden concern with my political activities is also surprising in light of the fact that Mara Liaason reports on politics for NPR yet appears as a commentator on FoxTV, Scott Simon hosts an NPR news show yet writes political op-eds for national newspapers, Cokie Roberts reports on politics for NPR yet accepts large speaking fees from businesses. Does NPR also send out ‘Communications Alerts’ about their activities?”

Mara Liaason, Scott Simon and Cokie Roberts haven't been fired from their NPR gigs or even reprimanded because they play the game. Which means that even if you are supposedly "leftist" you can at times be mildly critical of the system, but must not EVER be seen to stand in real opposition to it.

Ms. Simeone's example should serve as an important lesson to liberals and progressives everywhere that NPR is no more a reliable source of unbiased information than is Fox News. It would be supremely ironic if, by demanding Ms. Simeone's ouster, the conservative media websites that raised this issue instead caused NPR's somnolent audience to wake up to what is really happening in modern day America. But I'm not holding my breath.