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A delirious decade

It’s been a tough decade.

2000 brought the appointment of George W. Bush to the Presidency by 5 members of the Supreme Court

2001 brought a terrorist attack and the resulting over-militancy of the United States in Afghanistan.  This war continues to wage on some 8 years later.

2002 brought a steady assault on freedom and civil liberties — the PATRIOT Act, Guantanamo Bay, torture, secret prisons, illegal wiretapping.  These activities remain today in some form or another.

2003 brought the misguided and illegal invasion of Iraq.  American troops continue to occupy that country.

2004 brought the reelection of George W. Bush.  His platform was that he was a “war president.”  Enough people bought this to obviate the need for Supreme Court intervention once again.

2005 brought Hurricane Katrina and exposed the criminal negligence of the Bush regime to domestic policy.

From 2006 to 2008, perhaps we were all a bit desensitized to the madness.  And indeed, things started to look better with the election of Obama.

Then came the economic crash.

And then the bailout.  Plus all the guarantees being made by the Fed to the banks, the insurance companies, and whoever else was “too big to fail.”

Is it just me or is everyone just a little poorer these days?  Other than the bankers, of course.

2009 was a bit rough for these reasons.  And it was also rough because it showed that even just months into office, a man who ran on a campaign of “change” wasn’t really ready to bring much of that fabled word to Washington after all.

Here’s to 2010.  Here’s to a decade of revival.  And awakening.  A decade where people might be more willing to look at reality, and ask why with so much abundance on this Earth there are still people who have to work three jobs and still can’t make ends meet.  Why there is so much war.  And government.  Why it is that a small group of people control so much power, and money, and resources.

The sad, sorrowful decade will soon be over.  Good riddance.  It’s time to do something different.  Time for real positivity, and real action.  It can happen.

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Dec 09, 2009 | Categories: Demand More | Leave A Comment »

Meet the new boss. He’s a lot like the old one.

Obama’s decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, and his push for a reauthorization of some of the most heinous provisions of the Patriot Act that are set to expire by year’s end, should end the illusion once and for all of Obama’s “progressive” credentials.

Indeed, Obama’s “must take the center” attitude towards every important issue before him has done nothing but alienate his liberal base and antagonize his opponents on the right, who were never set to compromise with Obama’s agenda.

Michael Moore asks Obama:

Do you really want to be the new “war president”? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple.

Not just the war president.  Let’s not forget the “bailout president”, the “banker president” and the “torture president” — after all, Guantanamo remains open despite Obama’s promise to close it.

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Nov 30, 2009 | Categories: Demand More | Leave A Comment »

Noam Chomsky on labor

You’d be hard-pressed to name a public intellectual as incisive as Chomsky.  Here’s a new interview where he discusses the future of labor in the US.

Some sample quotes, this one on power:

First of all, don’t believe anything you hear from power systems. So if Obama or the boss or the newspapers or anyone else tells you they’re doing this, that, or the other thing, dismiss it or assume the opposite is true, which it often is.

On right-wing radio:

If you look at those people and listen to them on talk radio, these are people with real grievances. I listen to talk radio a lot and it’s kind of interesting. If you can sort of suspend your knowledge of the world and just enter into the world of the people who are calling in, you can understand them. I’ve never seen a study, but my sense is that these are people who feel really aggrieved. These people think, “I’ve done everything right all my life, I’m a god-fearing Christian, I’m white, I’m male, I’ve worked hard, and I carry a gun. I do everything I’m supposed to do. And I’m getting shafted.” And in fact they are getting shafted

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/23178

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Nov 22, 2009 | Categories: Demand More | Leave A Comment »

“Change we can believe in”

Change we can believe in.  That’s what most of the country was sold on.  Sold on “hope”.  What a great drug.

Of course, nothing at all like the messages offered in 1992.  Here’s Bill Clinton offering his promise of change:

What’s there to say? It’s not enough to say Obama’s doing all he can. The short answer is that he’s answering to his most powerful critics — the banks, the elite, the people with money. The long answer is that everyone else doesn’t care enough to hold him and Congress accountable to what’s going on in this country: namely, the gradual impoverishment of many for the benefit of the few.

Let’s put it this way: jobs are impossible to find, more Americans are going hungry than ever before, and now Obama is talking about a “double-dip” recession.

And on the Republican side, all we hear about is Sarah Palin.  This is democracy — the educated but captive soldier of the banks on the one side; and the clown on the other.

Change we can believe in:  a motto for something very different.  Something local, something powerful, something really meaningful.  Whatever it’s shape, it will need to be positive.  There is too much greed running the country into the ground as it is.

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Nov 20, 2009 | Categories: Demand More | Leave A Comment »