Gary Null - Let Us Stop The Blame

by Gary Null
Progressive Radio Network, February 13, 2012

One of the most famous examples of journalist integrity, that has served as exemplar of how journalism can correct wrongs and bring justice to bear, is the story of Emile Zola – a French naturalist writer and supporter of political liberalization in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

The case involves a Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an artillery officer in the French army who happened to have been Jewish. Following a scandal of French military secrets reaching the German embassy, growing anti-semitism convicted Drefus on charges of treason leading to his imprisonment on Devil’s Island in French Guiana.  Although evidence was available to implicate another officer, the right wing French government and media refuted it and continued with its original verdict against Dreyfus. Even the French officer, Lt. Colonel Picquart who uncovered the officer who was the real spy, was sentenced to serve a term in a prison.

Taking up the cause on behalf of Captain Dreyfus, Emile Zola risked his career by composing an article entitled – J’accuse – I accuse – that was printed on the front page of Paris’ daily. His article accused the highest echelons of French military and justice, and even the Church which held consider power in France, of anti-Semitism and corruption in accusing Dreyfus.  For his sense of justice, Zola was convicted for criminal libel, but rather than serving prison time, he had fled to England and didn’t return to France until the right wing French administration fell.  Almost a decade later, Zola was finally pardoned of all charges and became the hero standing up against corruption he rightfully deserved.

Who is our Emile Zola today in mainstream media?  Who is it that holds the facts to accuse those who falsify truth for their own profit, gain, influence and power, who speaks on behalf of citizens against those with the means and control to profit from them?

Before we continue our myth that 99 percent of Americans sleep on the side of angels and the other 1 percent bask with devils, we need to ask ourselves why we constantly blame others for the choices we permit those who we select, listen to, admire in power, to make on our behalf.

What would happen if we stopped blaming the Clinton administration and Phil Graham for eviscerating the Glass-Steagall Act, altering the Commodity Futures Trading act and neutering the SEC to assure Wall Street that no one among the banking elite would be subject to scandals leading to legal actions? Nor should we therefore blame Wall Street for its holding 100 trillion in credit default swaps and derivatives to continue their casino gambling.  

So let us stop blaming the attorney generals from all states for penalizing hundreds of banks and thousands of individuals, who engaged in criminal behavior – such as liar loans and robo-signing – with miniscule fines.  

Let us not blame the Federal Reserve for dishing out $16 trillion of taxpayer guaranteed loans with toxic valued assets and collateral at 0.25 interest across 20,000 transactions to domestic and foreign banks, hedge funds, and major corporations

Let us stop blaming Barack Obama and his administration for hiring only former Washington insiders from both the Clinton and Bush administrations to continue the entrenchment of corporate power in our policy decision making.

We must also stop blaming credit card companies who receive government loans at 0.25 percent and are permitted to debit cardholders at 29 percent or more for mispayments.
Let us not blame Walmart and major corporations from important cheap, toxic products manufactured with slave labor.

Let us not blame the economic experts who to this day paint a distorted picture of our recovery and growing economy.

Let us not blame the love-fests of the global elite at DAVOS and the Business Roundtable who believe their power, wealth and class status permit them to devise and direct our domestic and international policies.

Let us not blame the president and congress failing to implement a moratorium on home foreclosures and providing small businesses that qualify with no-interest loans, which could provide employment to millions of Americans.  

Let us forgive corporate America’s celebration of financial profits from off shoring jobs while having closed down over 50,000 factories in the US during the past dozen years and at the same time importing HB-1 foreign workers to replace 8.4 million educated American workers for lesser pay.
Neither should we blame Barack Obama for exonerating all the crimes of Bush-Cheney and their accomplices for knowingly creating secret intelligence offices in the Vice President office, which bypassed our national security apparatus, in order to divine a rationale for going to war in the Middle East.
As a constitutional scholar, let us not blame Obama for undermining our constitutional liberties by supporting the Patriot act, the Homeland Security act, FISA and the new National Defense Authorization Act that consolidates more power over Americans within the White House.  

Let us not blame the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC for manipulating state legislators to support bills and policies that would overturn and alter existing laws for financial gain to the ruling elite and the political campaigns of those who support them.  

Let us not blame the lobbyists, private consultants and experts, many of whom are former members of Congress or government agencies, who draft legislation that benefits their industries at the cost of the public good.

Let us not blame the military industrial intelligence-gathering industry for its massive financial fraud and redundant operations amounting to approximately $1.3 trillion annually when only $250 billion is necessary to keep Americans safe.  

Let us not blame the Bush and Obama administrations for neglecting 12 million hungry American children, the over 50 million citizens in deep poverty and the other 50 million working poor. And in the meantime, lets forgive the government for intentionally manipulating unemployment figures for political gain.

Let us not blame the House , Senate and the White House for supporting off shore oil drilling and billions of dollars in subsidies for clean coal, nuclear and hydrofracking natural gas while ignoring the cleaner more efficient geothermal and wave energy technologies.

Let us not blame any of the last five administrations for encouraging the FDA and the USDA to denounce complementary approaches for the prevention and treatment of disease while aligning federal health policies with the greed of Big Pharma and private insurance carriers who virtually write our healthcare programs, including Medicare, and prevents government from purchasing inexpensive generic drugs in order to reap an additional $1 trillion in profits.

Let us not blame our Surgeon General and our Secretary of Health and Human Services failing to offer alternative healthcare choices nationwide.  Rather, we should forgive the FDA its attacks on the natural and supplement industries, even preventing those who grow cherries and walnuts from suggesting these foods can actually prevent certain illnesses.

And while we are at it, let us forgive the FDA for permitting known pharmaceutical drugs that have maimed and killed thousands of patients to continue to be advertized and prescribed to patients.
Let us not blame American medicine for being the number one cause of death in the US while ignoring any criticism about its methodologies, drug’s evidence for efficacy and safety, and the regulatory approval processes.

Let us not blame the psychiatric industry for creating non-existent mental disorders, such as Oppositional Defiance Disorder, in order to increase medication rates and drug sale profits.  
Let us not blame the mental health centers in our inner cities for spearheading community programs to diagnose upward to 80 percent of children and young adults through erroneous test batteries such as Teen Screen to increase positive medical diagnoses.  

Let us not blame mainstream media for offering products that promote disease such as obesity and diabetes in children and adults.

Let us not blame the five past administrations for pushing neoliberal free-market globalization practices in their for globalization. Nor should we blame the IMF for the consequences of its draconian rules and structural readjustments opening markets in poor nations for foreign economic colonization.

Let us not blame the FBI, CIA and Homeland Securities for the militarization of our domestic police forces and their intrusion into our lives without warrant or due-process, including their punishing the dissent of peaceful environmental and social protesters who find themselves on enemy terrorist FBI watch lists.  
And lets forgive the dismal failures behind our government’s sanctioned domestic wars – the war on drugs, the war on cancer, the war against poverty, the war on terrorism – that serve only the high and mighty who profit from their bankrupt agendas.

Let us stop blaming the immense profits to private corporations running our prisons and the hidden agendas to incarcerate more Americans for minor misdemeanors and increase class warfare and renew Jim Crow racism with new forms of segregation.

Let us stop blaming teachers for graduating illiterate students and their curriculums designed by private corporations that never challenge students to have the intellectual skills to be independent, creative thinking human beings.  

Let us not blame the American media for failing to look honestly at economic  bubbles – equity partnerships, hedge funds, subprime and commercial market - -and then warning citizens in advance.
Let us not blame the producers within the entertainment industry who inundate us with vulgar, mind-numbing, violent programs and movies carries American culture to the bottom of etiquette, manners, decency and the ethics.

We must also forgive the agro-industrial complex -- the Monsantos and Duponts of the world -- who seek the monopolization of the global food supply and manipulate its control through genetic engineering of seeds.  

We must forgive all corporations who contribute to the pollution and destruction of our environment.
Let us cease blaming the corporate Democrats and the corporate Republicans and their mouthpieces in the media promulgating rigid ideologies that only serve the interests of those in power and not the common people.

Let us stop blaming the US military for causing the permanent disability and death of countless elderly, parents and children in the Middle East and forgive our media’s refusal to acknowledge their suffering.
Finally let us forgive all the administrations from JFK forward who expanded the military industrial complex for a global imperial outreach, sugar coated in the rhetoric of freedom and democracy, while simultaneously supporting dictators and despots around the world.

Let us also not blame the Republicans for claiming to represent smaller, efficient government while supporting the largest social welfare system in history for large banks and major corporations in the form of grotesque bailouts and subsidies.

When we cease to blame government, banks, corporations, the media and influential policy makers and opinion leaders for the choices we have made, then we must ask what personal and collective responsibilities are there for the plight and crises the nation is in?  Since our current system of governance is beyond reform from within the system itself, are we then capable of dissociating ourselves from it?

And we should pay attention to those who accept the torch of Emile Zola’s courage to speak truth to power and accuse those who deny freedom and democracy throughout the nation.  We do have our Zola’s in the voices of Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Tom Engelhardt, Alan Grayson, Chris Hedges, Michael Hudson, Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Ralph Nader, Greg Palast, Dylan Ratigan, Robert Reich, Rebecca Solnit, David Swanson, and others.

At this present moment, individuals identifying themselves as progressives and independents represent 41 percent of the population. If you are among this group, you are in the majority exceeding official Democrats and Republicans.  Therefore it is for us to decide, individually and collectively, what standards of ethically based policies and democratic structures should be fought for as we move forward.

Otherwise, just continue to watch Fox and the major networks in order to perpetuate the Manichaean myth of 99 versus 1 so the blame-game can live on. 

Ralph Nader - United States Congress - A Graveyard for Democracy and Justice

The editor of The Hill, a newspaper exclusively covering Congress, said that Congress was not going to do very much in 2012, except for "the big bill" which is extending the payroll tax cut and unemployment compensation, which expire in late February. That two month extension will likely reignite the fight between Democrats and Republicans that flared last month.

In 2012, Congress, the editor implied, would be busy electioneering. That is, the Senators and Representatives will be busy raising money from commercial interests so they can keep their jobs. There won't be much time to change anything about misallocated public budgets, unfair tax rules, undeclared costly wars, and job-depleting trade policies that, if fixed, would increase employment and public investment.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/19

Rob Hager and James Marc Leas - The Problem With Citizens United Is Not Corporate Personhood

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Florida Rep. Ted Deutch introduced a constitutional amendment [4]in December to overturn Citizens United [5], one of five decisions since 2006 by which a closely divided Supreme Court vastly increased the amount of corrupting corporate money in elections.

In an opinion piece critical of the decision in Citizens United, Senator Sanders wrote:

When the Supreme Court says that for purposes of the First Amendment, corporations are people, that writing checks from the company's bank account is constitutionally-protected speech and that attempts by the federal government and states to impose reasonable restrictions on campaign ads are unconstitutional, when that occurs, our democracy is in grave danger.

The joint Sanders-Deutch Resolution proposes an amendment to the constitution "to expressly exclude for-profit corporations from the rights given to natural persons." The first section of the amendment states:

Read More:

http://www.truth-out.org/problem-citizens-united-not-corporate-personhood/1326497162

Patrick Martin - Government of the Rich, by the Rich and for the Rich

By Patrick Martin

Global Research, December 29, 2011

World Socialist Web Site - 2011-12-28

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28393

According to a study reported Tuesday, nearly half the members of the United States Congress are

millionaires. Of the 535 legislators (100 members of the Senate and 435 members of the House of Representatives), at least 250 are millionaires and the median net worth is $913,000.

 

Sixty-seven senators are millionaires and the median wealth of the body’s 100 members is $2.63 million.

 

While the Senate has long been known as a millionaires’ club, the transformation of the House is a relatively recent phenomenon. The median net worth of members of the House of Representatives, excluding home equity, has more than doubled over the last 25 years, from $280,000 in 1984 to $725,000 in 2009 in inflation-adjusted dollars. During that same period, the median net worth of an American family fell from $20,600 to $20,500.

 

Both the Washington Post and the New York Times gave front-page treatment to the data, derived from figures collected by the Center for Responsive Politics. The articles reflect nervousness in the corporate-controlled media over the degree to which the rising personal wealth of members of Congress is discrediting the institution.

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Mike Lofgren - Propagandizing for Perpetual War

Published on Tuesday, December 20, 2011 by CounterPunch

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/20/propagandizing-for-perpetual-war/

Are Our Rulers Stupid, or Do They Think We’re Stupid?

by Mike Lofgren

According to the Congressional Research Service, the United States has appropriated $806 billion for the direct cost of invading and occupying Iraq. Including debt service since 2003, that sum rises to approximately $1 trillion. The White House estimates the number of U.S. military wounded at 30,000; the web site icasualties.org states that U.S. military fatalities from the Iraq war now stand at 4484. It is impossible to estimate precisely the numbers of Iraqi civilian deaths, but they are frequently cited as being in excess of 100,000. There are now around two million internally displaced Iraqis in a country of 30 million inhabitants. As United States armed forces (but not up to 17,000 State Department employees, contractors and mercenaries) leave the country, Iraq is plunging into a sectarian and ethnically-fueled political crisis. Even if it survives that crisis and remains a unitary state, it will almost certainly be pulled closer to the orbit of Iran, our bogeyman du jour.

In view of the crippling costs both human and financial as well as the strategic and moral disaster the invasion of Iraq precipitated, what sort of verdict do you think our leaders – leaders representing a presidential administration ostensibly opposed to the invasion and promising hope and change – bother to offer us? While junketing in Turkey on December 17, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told the press the following:

As difficult as [the Iraq war] was, I think the price has been worth it, to establish a stable government in a very important region of the world.

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David Cay Johnston - The Corporations That Occupy Congress

Published on Tuesday, December 20, 2011 by Reuters

http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2011/12/20/the-corporations-that-occupy-congress/

by David Cay Johnston

Some of the biggest companies in the United States have been firing workers and in some cases lobbying for rules that depress wages at the very time that jobs are needed, pay is low, and the federal budget suffers from a lack of revenue.

Last month Citizens for Tax Justice and an affiliate issued “Corporate Taxpayers and Corporate Tax Dodgers 2008-10″. It showed that 30 brand-name companies paid a federal income tax rate of minus 6.7 percent on $160 billion of profit from 2008 through 2010 compared to a going corporate tax rate of 35 percent. All but one of those 30 companies reported lobbying expenses in Washington.

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Thomas Edsall - The Trouble With That Revolving Door

Published on Monday, December 19, 2011 by the New York Times

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/the-trouble-with-that-revolving-door/

by Thomas Edsall

Last week, an inside-the-Beltway newsletter, First Street, published a unique top-ten list. It reveals which former members of Congress are among the most important Washington lobbyists.

The first four on the list — Senator John Breaux, of Louisiana (who served in Congress from 1972 to 2005), Representative Tom Downey, of New York (1974 to 1993), Representative Victor Fazio, of California (1979 to 1999), and former Democratic House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (1977 to 2005) – are all members of the Democratic Party, which historically has represented the bottom half of the income distribution.

These former Democratic members of the House and Senate are on the cutting edge of a revolution in the political culture of the nation’s capitol. Without attracting the attention of the general public, the career path of retired legislators has transformed the thinking of those still in Congress, Democrat and Republican alike.

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URGENT National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 * on Senate Floor

** S 1867 WAS ON THE SENATE FLOOR NOVEMBER 28, 2011 **

the National Defense Authorization Act passed in the House on May 26th by a vote of 322 – 96 with 227 Republicans and 95 Dems voting YES and

90 Dems (progressive coalition) and 6 Republicans voting NAY

Only TWO organizations listed at opposing the Act...”Environmentalists against War” and the Progressive Democrats of America.

with

Interests that support this bill:

•  Defense electronic contractorsDefense electronic contractors (close)

•  DefenseDefense (close)

•  Alternate energy production & servicesAlternate energy production & services (close)

•  ChemicalsChemicals (close)

•  Optical instruments & lensesOptical instruments & lenses (close)

•  Industrial/commercial equipment & materialsIndustrial/commercial equipment & materials (close)

•  Fabricated metal productsFabricated metal products (close)

•  Clothing & accessoriesClothing & accessories (close)

•  Hardware & toolsHardware & tools (close)

•  Small arms & ammunitionSmall arms & ammunition (close)

•  Shoes & leather productsShoes & leather products (close)

•  Textiles & fabricsTextiles & fabrics (close)

Top recipients for ALL supporting interest groups

Name	Amount Received	Vote On Passage
Rep. Eric Cantor [R, VA-7]	$99,950	Aye
Rep. Steny Hoyer [D, MD-5]	$98,000	Aye
Rep. Kay Granger [R, TX-12]	$76,950	Aye
Rep. Bennie Thompson [D, MS-2]	$71,600	Nay
Rep. James Clyburn [D, SC-6]	$65,000	Nay
Rep. Geoff Davis [R, KY-4]	$61,600	Aye
Rep. Bill Young [R, FL-10]	$61,300	Aye
Rep. Michael Rogers [R, MI-8]	$60,800	Aye
Rep. David Camp [R, MI-4]	$55,469	Aye
Rep. Vern Buchanan [R, FL-13]	$54,800	Aye

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h1540/show

Robert Scheer - There Goes the Republic

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/there_goes_the_republic_20111214/

Posted on Dec 15, 2011

By Robert Scheer

Once again the gods of war have united our Congress like nothing else. Unable to agree on the minimal spending necessary to save our economy, schools, medical system or infrastructure, the cowards who mislead us have retreated to the irrationalities of what George Washington in his farewell address condemned as “pretended patriotism.”

The defense authorization bill that Congress passed and President Obama had threatened to veto will soon become law, a fact that should be met with public outrage. Human Rights Watch President Kenneth Roth, responding to Obama’s craven collapse on the bill’s most controversial provision, said, “By signing this defense spending bill, President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.” On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney claimed “the most recent changes give the president additional discretion in determining how the law will be implemented, consistent with our values and the rule of law, which are at the heart of our country’s strength.”

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WashingtonsBlog - The Indefinite Detention Bill DOES Apply to American Citizens on U.S. Soil

Posted on December 14, 2011 by WashingtonsBlog 

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/12/the-indefinite-detention-bill-does-apply-to-american-citizens-on-u-s-soil.html

“Don’t Be Fooled”: The Indefinite Detention Bill DOES Apply to American Citizens

Even at this 11th hour – when all of our liberties and freedom are about to go down the drain – many people still don’t understand that the indefinite detention bill passed by Congress allows indefinite detention of Americans on American soil.

The bill is confusing. As Wired noted on December 1st:

It’s confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas’ Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — “U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority.”

A retired admiral, Judge Advocate General and Dean Emeritus of the University of New Hampshire School of Law also says that it applies to American citizens on American soil.

The ACLU notes:

Don’t be confused by anyone claiming that the indefinite detention legislation does not apply to American citizens. It does. There is an exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032 of the bill), but no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial (section 1031 of the bill). So, the result is that, under the bill, the military has the power to indefinitely imprison American citizens, but it does not have to use its power unless ordered to do so.

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Ralph Nader - Congressional Tyranny, White House Surrender

Published on Thursday, December 15, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/15-0

by Ralph Nader

Paraphrasing Shakespeare, something is rotten in the state of Capitol Hill. A majority of Congress is just about to put the finishing touches on an amendment to the military budget authorization legislation that will finish off some critical American rights under our Constitution.

Here is how two retired 4 star marine generals, Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar, described in the New York Times the stripmining of your freedom to resist tyranny in urging a veto by President Obama:

“One provision would authorize the military to indefinitely detain without charge people suspected of involvement with terrorism, including United States citizens apprehended on American soil. Due process would be a thing of the past….

“A second provision would mandate military custody for most terrorism suspects. It would force on the military responsibilities it hasn’t sought”…. "for domestic law enforcement….”

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Gustav Wynn - 48 Members of Congress Move Towards Prosecution of Wall Street, But Need You

http://www.opednews.com/articles/48-Members-of-Congress-Mov-by-Gustav-Wynn-111213-990.html

December 13, 2011 By Gustav Wynn Dozens of members of Congress are waking up to the "Occupy Wall Street" sentiment sweeping the country. Instead of laying low as the Obama Administration crafts a deal to "sell immunity" to Wall Street firms, some in Congress are rallying behind the six rogue Attorneys General who have been actually trying to do their job and put crooks in jail for robosigning, mortgage origination and securities fraud. It's a great step for the Occupy movement.  Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) has proposed H. Con. Res. 85 to bar any settlement deal that would give Wall Street banks immunity for crimes that she says should be immediately investigated by federal and state prosecutors.  The grassroots response so far has been overwhelming, with over 77,000 signing Baldwin's petition (sign here) and thousands making phone calls to send a message to the banks.

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Sherwood Ross - America's "Democratic Dictatorship": The Defense Authorization Act will Destroy The Bill of Rights

By Sherwood Ross

Global Research, December 11, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28158 The grim face of totalitarianism is emerging in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) now before Congress This bill is the last mile post on America’s sad, well-traveled road to the butcher shop of dictatorship. We have been headed that way for some time and, with a little help from Congress, we’ll arrive there shortly, putting an ugly end to the American experiment. The Senate December 1st passed the bill by a vote of 93-7. In the name of “defense,” NDAA underwrites $662-billion for continued U.S. aggression in our many foreign wars while, on the domestic front, it incinerates the last surviving shreds of the Bill of Rights. According to the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU), it authorizes presidents “to order the military to pick up and imprison people, including U.S. citizens, without charging them or putting them on trial.” (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) So much for Amendment VI to our Constitution that “the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial.” Just destroying your protection against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment means the bill’s authors Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and John McCain of Arizona don’t have to bother with junking anything else. Once you’re imprisoned you won’t need any other “stinkin’ rights.” The ACLU charges the provisions of NDAA “were negotiated by a small group of members of Congress, in secret, and without proper congressional review (and), are inconsistent with fundamental American values embodied in the Constitution....(our) fundamental freedoms are on the line.”

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Statement from Office of Senator Bernie Sanders - Sanders Files ‘Saving American Democracy Amendment’

Published on Thursday, December 8, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/08-6

Vermont Senator Calls for Constitutional Amendment to Protect Democracy from Citizens United

Statement from Office of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

WASHINGTON – Warning that “American democracy in endangered,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today proposed a constitutional amendment to overturn a Supreme Court ruling that allowed unrestricted and secret campaign spending by corporations on U.S. elections.

Warning that “American democracy in endangered,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today proposed a constitutional amendment to overturn a Supreme Court ruling that allowed unrestricted and secret campaign spending by corporations on U.S. elections. The first constitutional amendment ever proposed by Sanders during his two decades in Congress would reverse the narrow 5-to-4 ruling in Citizens United vs. the Federal Elections Commission. In that controversial decision almost two years ago, justices gave corporations the same First Amendment free-speech rights as people.

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Dave Johnson - License to Profit -- Legalized Corruption in the US Congress

Tuesday 6 December 2011

by: Dave Johnson, Truthout | News Analysis

http://www.truth-out.org/license-profit-legalized-corruption-us-congress/1323198914

Are members of Congress corrupt? Perhaps we should define the term. There is the terrible, "legal" corruption of pay-for-play campaign contributions, with wealthy donors and big corporations paying to get tax cuts, subsidies, special laws and "access." This is part of why our government is responsive to the agenda of the 1 percent and their corporations only.

Even worse, there is the new "Citizens United" form of corruption, enabled by conservatives on the Supreme Court who ruled that corporate money is "speech." Now, corporations can threaten elected officials: If they don't get what the corporations want, they can put up so much money to oppose - which in today's campaigns mean smear - that official in the next election; so that the person won't be able to be elected to any office again.

But the blatant, in-front-of-our-faces "legal" corruption of the current campaign finance system is about raising and spending millions of dollars to get a job that pays relatively little, notpersonal profit. It has the appearance of bribery, with corporate interests pouring huge amounts of money into the process. Of course, corporations don't do this for the good of the country; they do it out of profit interest. Why else would a corporation do it? By definition, offering something of value to a government official with the intent to influence what that official does is bribery, but in this case it is legal, because what's offered is considered "speech."

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Glenn Greenwald - Congress endorsing military detention, a new AUMF

SALON.COM   THURSDAY, DEC 1, 2011 5:00 AM ESTHTTP://WWW.SALON.COM/2011/12/01/CONGRESS_ENDORSING_MILITARY_DETENTION_A_NEW_AUMF/SINGLETON/#COMMENTS

BY GLENN GREENWALD

(updated below – Update II)

A bill co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin and GOP Sen. John McCain  (S. 1867) — included in the pending defense authorization bill — is predictably on its way to passage. It is triggering substantial alarm in many circles, including from the ACLU – and rightly so. But there are also many misconceptions about it that have been circulating that should be clarified, including a possible White House veto. Here are the bill’s three most important provisions:

(1) mandates that all accused Terrorists be indefinitely imprisoned by the military rather than in the civilian court system; it alsounquestionably permits (but does not mandate) that even U.S. citizens on U.S. soil accused of Terrorism be held by the military rather than charged in the civilian court system (Sec. 1032);

(2) renews the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) with more expansive language: to allow force (and military detention) against not only those who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks and countries which harbored them, but also anyone who “substantially supports” Al Qaeda, the Taliban or “associated forces” (Sec. 1031); and,

(3) imposes new restrictions on the U.S. Government’s ability to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo (Secs. 1033-35).

There are several very revealing aspects to all of this. First, the 9/11 attack happened more than a decade ago; Osama bin Laden is dead; the U.S. Government claims it has killed virtually all of Al Qaeda’s leadership and the group is “operationally ineffective” in the Afghan-Pakistan region; and many commentators insisted that these developments would mean that the War on Terror would finally begin to recede. And yet here we have the Congress, on a fully bipartisan basis, acting not only to re-affirm the war but to expand it even further: by formally declaring that the entire world (including the U.S.) is a battlefield and the war will essentially go on forever.

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Peter Van Buren - No Free Speech at Mr. Jefferson’s Library

Posted on November 27, 2011, Printed on November 28, 2011
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175472/

George Orwell, Philip K. Dick, and Ray Bradbury Would Have Recognized Morris Davis's Problem 

By Peter Van Buren

Here’s the First Amendment, in full: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Those beautiful words, almost haiku-like, are the sparse poetry of the American democratic experiment.  The Founders purposely wrote the First Amendment to read broadly, and not like a snippet of tax code, in order to emphasize that it should encompass everything from shouted religious rantings to eloquent political criticism.  Go ahead, reread it aloud at this moment when the government seems to be carving out an exception to it large enough to drive a tank through.

As the occupiers of Zuccotti Park, like those pepper-sprayed at UC Davis or the Marine veteran shot in Oakland, recently found out, the government’s ability to limit free speech, to stopper the First Amendment, to undercut the right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances, is perhaps the most critical issue our republic can face. If you were to write the history of the last decade in Washington, it might well be a story of how, issue by issue, the government freed itself from legal and constitutional bounds when it came to torture, the assassination of U.S. citizens, the holding of prisoners without trial or access to a court of law, the illegal surveillance of American citizens, and so on.  In the process, it has entrenched itself in a comfortable shadowland of ever more impenetrable secrecy, while going after any whistleblower who might shine a light in.

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Andrew Bosworth - The Road towards a Police State in America

Defense Authorization bill allows for military detentions of American citizens in the US.

By Dr. Andrew Bosworth 

Global Research, November 28, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27907

Preparing for the Final Takedown?

There is a shocking piece of legislation working its way through Congress. A Defense Authorization bill for 2012 allows for military detentions of American citizens on American soil. These can be indefinite detentions, with no trial.

The American Civil Liberties Union statement (more of an alert) on November 23, 2011 deserves special attention:

“The U.S. Senate is considering the unthinkable: changing detention laws to imprison people — including Americans living in the United States itself — indefinitely and without charge.”

“The Defense Authorization bill — a “must-pass” piece of legislation — is headed to the Senate floor with troubling provisions that would give the President — and all future presidents — the authority to indefinitely imprison people, without charge or trial, both abroad and inside the United States.”

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Washington's Blog - Congress to Vote on EXPLICITLY Creating a Police State

By Washington's Blog

November 27, 2011

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27886

If You Thought Police Brutality Was Bad … Wait Until You See What Congress Wants to Do Next Week The police brutality against peaceful protesters in Berkeley, Davis, Oakland and elsewhere is bad enough. But next week, Congress will vote on explicitly creating a police state. The ACLU’s Washington legislative office explains: The Senate is gearing up for a vote on Monday or Tuesday that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans. The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even people in the United States itself. *** The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world.

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Peter Dale Scott - The Doomsday Project and Deep Events: JFK, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11

By Prof. Peter Dale Scott

Global Research, November 22, 2011

Asia Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 47, No 2, - 2011-11-21

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27806 

"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency [the National Security Agency] and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."

       -- Senator Frank Church (1975)

I would like to discuss four major and badly understood events C the John F. Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11. I will analyze these deep events as part of a deeper political process linking them, a process that has helped build up repressive power in America at the expense of democracy.

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