Good Morning!
Photo by: joanneleon.
Tunes
Culture Club - Time (Clock Of The Heart)
News & Opinion
Around the 25 minute mark, Bernie Sanders says that somebody with progressive values has to run for president and if no one else does, he will.
Brunch with Bernie: November 15, 2013
Bernie Sanders said "These are not normal times". I'm ecstatic to hear him use that phrase. It resonates with me because for at least five years, I've been like a broken record saying the same thing. These are not normal times and extraordinary measures are called for. Perhaps the 1% can't see that because for them, things have never been better. In 2009, Barack Obama seemed, while campaigning, to understand that the people of the country were in a state of emergency but apparently, other than a token stimulus filled with right-wing philosophy tax cuts. The stimulus was much smaller than advisors other than neoliberal Larry Summers, who already was a key figure in wrecking the country once before, were advising and smaller than economic academics on the left were advising. He then took an, unprecedented in modern times, mandate and momentum, and squandered it. It became clear that instead of fighting the oligarchy like FDR did, as any sane person with the interests of the 99% at heart could see was required, he was the advocate and champion of the 1%.
In 2012, while the banks were nominally stabilized after four years of back door bailouts via the Fed and front door bailouts via the Treasury, Congress, and a Justice Dept that provided no justice, the rest of the country was reeling and much worse off than they were when he took office. But after four years of life under Obama, the Democratic party leadership was obedient and complicit and focused only on keeping the White House and the new lesser evil strategy that was all they could manage to cough up.
At this point, we have a jobless recovery, or at best a part-time, minimum wage job recovery, a supposed health care reform program that is still not implemented, a crippled financial reform bill that was weak to begin with and is mostly not implemented and had been watered down even further. The too big to fail banks are even bigger. 80% of the country is below, at or near the poverty level. 80%. Millions of people have had their homes foreclosed, many of whom were foreclosed fraudulently in a massive, unprecedented system of fraud by the banking and real estate industry that has still not been punished other than a ridiculously small settlement, considering the numbers and damage incurred.
The 1% have continued to get wildly richer and the gap grew under Obama, the candidate of hope and change who so many people all over the world put their faith into and who turned out to be a fraud with a really good marketing campaign who took billions from the oligarchy and sold out the people with a smile, and provided neither hope nor anything like the kind of FDR era change that was needed. Instead he lectured us about working harder and being more responsible and obsessed over Wall Street priorties of fixing the debt and neocon priorities of wars and terrorism. The escalated war in Afghanistan is an unmitigated disaster. After trying to coerce the Iraqi government into allowing a significant number of troops to remain in Iraq with immunity but they refused.
Then he got us into another war in Libya, without the consent of the people or Congress, purporting to be an intervention when it was really an overthrow, leaving the country largely in the hands of radical extremists of the same kind that we claim to be fighting in the all consuming War on Terror that continues to be used to justify the gutting of our Constitution, Treasury and country. Covert wars have only increased under Obama and he escalated and perfected the extrajudicial assassination program and a "kill list" and now brags that he is "really good at killing people." He fuels another war in Syria, arming, training and supporting more radical extremists in Syria and very nearly got us into yet another war there but was stopped in his tracks (for now) by the people and the military who rose up in response. He and his cabinet have shown a spine in opposing Israel and Saudi Arabia and their very strong lobbies in the US who try to prevent a peace agreement and promote with Iran. This might turn out to be his best achievement, in my eyes. Thank FSM (and the people and military who stood up and said no more wars in the Middle East) for that.
But even with all of this in mind, nobody on the left thought it was a good idea to primary him in 2012 and so we got four more years after the president who took the world by storm in 2008 had to fight to win reelection, even with billions of dollars in campaign money and the billions of dollars that incumbency in the White House and the power and resources of the presidency provides, struggled to win four more years against a pathetic Republican opponent who was unliked by his own party, whose religion was an obstacle, according to national polling prior to the election, and who was a Wall Street man at a time when Wall Street is loathed.
It would take many more paragraphs to go through the other reasons why this disastrous presidency and disastrous era for the Democratic party should cause it to run the other way, as fast as they can, from the Obama era and any candidate who has similar ideas or positions on the issues. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, though it's a good exercise to lay it all out periodically. I don't think that anyone honestly doubts that the people in power in the Democratic party, while they like to exploit its 20th century legacy to get votes and win elections, actually loathe the party and policies of FDR that they exploit. They have transformed it into the party of Clinton and Obama, the so called left-wing of the Corporate party. The party faithful march along to the beat of yet another Clinton, which, when looking at what has happened over the past twenty years, is the road to ruin. But hyperpartisans will be hyperpartisans and the default position now is that the alternative is worse.
Sanders is one of the few people in a position of unofficial leadership in the party, though he only caucuses with it and is not actually a member himself, who speak for the people and sees what has to be done. He realizes that without a "progressive" (whatever that even means anymore) presence in the 2016 primary or in the race itself, the status quo Dem leadership will relentlessly march it to toward plutocracy and ruin for the 99%, if you read between their faux populist lines and if you close your ears to what they say and instead examine what they do. Without someone in the race who actually represents the people, there will be no chance at all for any kind of change or any kind of justice. He apparently receives pleas to run for president on a regular basis and is finally considering it. We're already hearing about how he's too old, regardless of the fact that the de facto candidate is only a handful of years younger and despite the fact that, as he says, these are not normal times. The age of the candidate, while not a trivial issue, is just about the least important issue that I can think of, given the situation that we're in. It's a distraction.
Sanders wants progressive 2016 presence
Americans are willing to listen to a populist message like his, senator says
Still, Sanders says he is willing to consider making a run if no one else with progressive views similar to his ends up taking the plunge.
It is essential, he said, to have someone in the 2016 presidential campaign who is willing to take on Wall Street, address the “collapse” of the middle class, tackle the spread of poverty and fiercely oppose cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
Also, addressing global warming needs to be a top priority, not an afterthought, Sanders said.
“Under normal times, it’s fine, you have a moderate Democrat running, a moderate Republican running,” Sanders said. “These are not normal times. The United States right now is in the middle of a severe crisis and you have to call it what it is.”
Chomsky’s right: The New York Times’ latest big lie
More misleading half-truths from a paper too cowed by power and myth to tell the truth about U.S. foreign policy
This is how the consciousness of empire is dribbled into us and sustained, one touch at a time. Iran asserts only the validity of international law. What the administration is prepared to allow or acknowledge has nothing to do with what Iran can and cannot do as a sovereign nation.
This is also why these talks are very likely to fail. If they do, it will be the fault of Washington and its allies and the complicit media. It is this kind of language that enables Congress to begin debates on new sanctions against Iran. Concessions and demands are different: Iran may choose to concede this or that; the U.S. cannot demand those things by pretending international law does not (somehow) apply.
In my view, we are amid a pandemic of misinformation as to our global behavior. The dishonesty with which we are given the world — an essentially fantastic version of it — is becoming abject to the point of danger. And it is frighteningly willful. Here is the paradox: We cannot bear to see things as they are because things as they are constitute a refutation of our dearest mythologies, but we must see things as they are if we are to make sense of ourselves in the 21st century.
There is, what looks to be a smear campaign, on Pierre Omidyar and the new media organization that he, Greenwald, Scahill and Poitras are building. By the way it looks like they've hired Bart Gellman too, and many others who they announce every few days. NSFW, that other new media organization that I had high hopes for, is one of those doing the smearing and this article by Mark Ames, their editor, and Yasha Levine. These same two guys have sent up my red flags during the past month with their crusade advising against any liberals collaborating with any libertartians on the fight against the NSA.
On Twitter they've been active during the past day or so arguing about Pierre and questioning his political views and his past. That's fair game, of course, but they way that they are doing it isn't. You can find one of the latest dust ups with them on Twitter last night with Marcy Wheeler and Dan Wright. Personally, I'm ready to extend the benefit of the doubt. My assumption is that Greenwald, Scahill and Poitras are no dummies and they have vetted Pierre to the extent that they can, and they are building this organization. While having a couple hundred million in seed money is nothing to shake a stick at (!) they were planning to build their own news organization anyway, and they could have done it without Pierre's money and if he turns out to not to be the real deal, they can still do that. There's a reason why Pierre sought them out. They are the core of the operation.
Anyway, here's one more reason why I'm sour on NSFW now and will be canceling the subscription at the end of the month. It's unlocked for a couple more hours so you can read the whole thing. If I remember, I'll unlock it again after this one expires and replace this link with the new unlocked link. I'll excerpt the first few paragraphs but you'll need to read it to get the full gist.
The Extraordinary Pierre Omidyar
The world knows very little about the political motivations of Pierre Omidyar, the eBay billionaire who is founding (and funding) a quarter-billion-dollar journalism venture with Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill. What we do know is this: Pierre Omidyar is a very special kind of technology billionaire.
We know this because America’s sharpest journalism critics have told us.
In a piece headlined "The Extraordinary Promise of the New Greenwald-Omidyar Venture", The Columbia Journalism Review gushed over the announcement of Omidyar's project. And just in case their point wasn’t clear, they added the amazing subhead, "Adversarial muckrakers + civic-minded billionaire = a whole new world."
Ah yes, the fabled "civic-minded billionaire"—you'll find him two doors down from the tooth fairy.
This is important. Yesterday I excerpted the WaPo article where Holder says he isn't going to prosecute Greenwald. But I hadn't read the part that Marcy calls out here and it's very discomforting for a number of reasons. What is "true journalism"? Here we go again with the DoJ definining journalism. I'm increasingly seeing this as an end run around the First Amendment, a potentially deceitful way of removing First Amendment without overtly turning into a third world country or fascist regime who jails their dissidents and opponents if they write something inconvenient for the regime, in order to maintain the necessary secrecy to continue the path they're on, where the few exploit and control the many.
The Second Page, Glenn Greenwald Edition
“Unless information that has not come to my attention is presented to me, what I have indicated in my testimony before Congress is that any journalist who’s engaged in true journalistic activities is not going to be prosecuted by this Justice Department,” Holder said.
“I certainly don’t agree with what Greenwald has done,” Holder said. “In some ways, he blurs the line between advocate and journalist. But on the basis of what I know now, I’m not sure there is a basis for prosecution of Greenwald.” [my emphasis]
Remember what I was saying yesterday? How many others do things like this and don't get caught or worse if it becomes part of the culture and they don't rat each other out? NYPD is famous for a no snitching type of culture.
NYPD DETECTIVE FESSES TO HACKING COLLEAGUES’ EMAIL AND PHONES
CYBER ESPIONAGE; INSIDER ATTACK; STOLEN CREDENTIALS; UNAUTHORIZED USE OF EMPLOYER’S DATA; USER ACCOUNTS COMPROMISED
He also tapped the federal National Crime Information Center database, without permission, to dig up information on at least two fellow cops.
Edwin Vargas, a 42-year-old detective assigned to a precinct in the Bronx, paid hackers more than $4,000 to obtain the usernames and passwords of at least 43 personal email accounts and one cellular phone belonging to at least 30 different individuals, including NYPD officers.
Court press release (PDF)
NYPD DETECTIVE PLEADS GUILTY IN MANHATTAN FEDERAL
COURT TO COMPUTER HACKING
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “Detective Edwin Vargas broke the law,
instead of upholding it as he swore to do. He accessed a law enforcement database without authorization and paid hackers to illegally obtain e-mail login information for his fellow officers and others. Vargas’s guilty plea today and his forthcoming punishment make clear that those who illegally invade others’ privacy, including members of law enforcement, will not escape prosecution. ”
Action
Stop Watching Us.
The revelations about the National Security Agency's surveillance apparatus, if true, represent a stunning abuse of our basic rights. We demand the U.S. Congress reveal the full extent of the NSA's spying programs.
|
Blog Posts and Tweets of Interest
More Tunes
Culture Club - Karma Chameleon