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Post-9/11, America's moved steadily toward eroding democracy entirely. Justification given is war on terror hokum. Incrementally, international, constitutional and statute laws have been trashed.
Equity, justice and other democratic values long ago were abandoned to advance America's imperium. On May 26, the House voted to abolish freedom entirely - HR 1540, 322 - 96.
On December 1, the Senate did likewise - S. 1867, 93 to 7. Both versions assure no one anywhere is now safe, including law-abiding US citizens.
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Monday Dec052011
 December 5, 2011
The European Union Times - 2011-11-30
http://www.eutimes.net/2011/11/obama-issues-ron-paul-kill-order-as-russia-prepares-for-war/
The Federal Security Service (FSB) is reporting today that the “secret letter” sent to Prime Minister Putin by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda contains a warning that United States President Barack Obama has issued an executive-level “kill order” against US Congressman Ron Paul over fears this charismatic politician, who many believe could capture the Republican Presidential 2012 nomination, is about to expose to all Americans what can only be described as the largest mass theft in human history. The “kill order” is a metaphor for silencing down congressman Ron Paul in the mass media as if he doesn’t exist.
According to this report, Prime Minister Noda first became aware of this “kill order” after a private meeting with Obama at last weeks ASEAN Summit meeting in Indonesia when the American President expressed his “unconstrained joy” over the toppling of the Greek and Italian governments in bloodless coups by EU banksters who installed to run these countries unelected former Goldman Sachs executives.
Not known to many Americans is that the giant global investment firm Goldman Sachs put Obama into office by being its top donor and after winning the Presidency put so many of its former executives into the US government it is known as the “Wall Street Cabinet.”
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Monday Dec052011
December 5, 2011
By F. William Engdahl
Global Research, December 2, 2011
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27987
Most in the civilized world are blissfully unaware that we are marching ineluctably towards an increasingly likely pre-emptive nuclear war. No, it's not at all about Iran and Israel. It's about the decision of Washington and the Pentagon to push Moscow up against the wall with what is euphemistically called Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD).
On November 23, a normally low-keyed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told the world in clear terms that Russia was prepared to deploy its missiles on the border to the EU between Poland and Lithuania, and possibly in the south near Georgia and NATO member Turkey to counter the advanced construction process of the US ballistic missile defense shield: "The Russian Federation will deploy in the west and the south of the country modern weapons systems that could be used to destroy the European component of the US missile defense," he announced on Russian television. "One of these steps could be the deployment of the Iskander missile systems in Kaliningrad."1 Those would be theatre ballistic missile systems. The latest version of Iskander, the Iskander-K, whose details remain top secret, reportedly has a range up to 2000 km and carries cruise missiles and a target accuracy to 7 meters or less.
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Monday Dec052011
December 5, 2011
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Rebirth-of-Social-Darw-by-Robert-Reich-111201-487.html
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December 1, 2011
By Robert Reich
Social Darwinism offered a moral justification for the wild inequities and social cruelties of the late nineteenth century. If one of the current crop of Republican hopefuls becomes president, and if regressive Republicans take over the House or Senate, or both, Social Darwinism is back.
What kind of society, exactly, do modern Republicans want? I've been listening to Republican candidates in an effort to discern an overall philosophy, a broadly-shared vision, an ideal picture of America.
They say they want a smaller government but that can't be it. Most seek a larger national defense and more muscular homeland security. Almost all want to widen the government's powers of search and surveillance inside the United States -- eradicating possible terrorists, expunging undocumented immigrants, "securing" the nation's borders. They want stiffer criminal sentences, including broader application of the death penalty. Many also want government to intrude on the most intimate aspects of private life.
They call themselves conservatives but that's not it, either. They don't want to conserve what we now have. They'd rather take the country backwards -- before the 1960s and 1970s, and the Environmental Protection Act, Medicare, and Medicaid; before the New Deal, and its provision for Social Security, unemployment insurance, the 40-hour workweek, laws against child labor, and official recognition of trade unions; even before the Progressive Era, and the first national income tax, antitrust laws, and Federal Reserve.
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Thursday Dec012011
December 1, 2011
Thursday 24 November 2011
by: Dina Rasor, Truthout | Solutions
http://www.truth-out.org/pentagon-flunks-another-audit/1322085539
How can you know what to cut if you don't know where the money is going?
The military-industrial complex is in high alert. They can't really believe that the Obama administration will keep its word and veto any Congressional action that would try and get the Pentagon out from the sequestration problem of cutting over a half a trillion from the Department of Defense (DoD) budget over the next ten years. If they are confident it won't happen, they are doing a good job of panicking over the cuts
for public consumption and to protect their turf.
News articles and columns are popping up with various lists of what could be cut to come up with the money, and the DoD is maneuvering to offer up cuts on military pensions and health care, readiness and training budgets to save the required amount of money without touching their holy grail, the overpriced and ineffective weapons systems.
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Thursday Dec012011
December 1, 2011
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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Thursday Dec012011
December 1, 2011
Published on Monday, November 28, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/28-0
by Robert Jensen
Conventional politics in the United States focuses on elections, while left activists typically argue that political change comes not from electing better politicians but building movements strong enough to force politicians to accept progressive change.
Norman Solomon has concluded it isn’t either/or. A prominent writer and leader in left movements for decades, Solomon is running for Congress in the hopes of being practical and remaining principled.
“Since I first went to a protest at age 14 in 1966 -- a picket line to desegregate an apartment complex -- my outlook on electoral politics has gone through a lot of changes,” Solomon said. “First I thought politics was largely about elections, later I thought politics had very little to do with elections, and now I believe that elections are an important part of the mix.”
Solomon argues that when the left has treated elections as irrelevant, the result has been self-marginalization that helps empower the military-industrial complex.
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Wednesday Nov302011
November 30, 2011
By Dave Johnson, AlterNet
Former President Bill Clinton’s new book, Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy, is a book for policy wonks and politics junkies. Progressives will love his defense of government. They will be outraged by his buying in to conservative/Wall Street arguments about Social Security. We will roll our eyes at the long, detailed, brilliant arguments for and against a wide range of policy ideas. We will hate his support of trade agreements without mentioning what they have done to manufacturing jobs. And we will be sad that this book didn’t come out just a month later, so you could see if the Occupy movement changes the way he sees things.
This book is timely and full of good ideas for helping grow the economy and create jobs. But its timeliness is also disappointing, because our political system is so dysfunctional that none of these ideas will be implemented. And while the ideas are good, they are also incremental just when we are coming to see the need for transformation.
Right Time, Wrong Time
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Wednesday Nov302011
November 30, 2011
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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Tuesday Nov292011
November 29, 2011
http://www.truth-out.org/policy-making-billionaires-privatizing-public-policy/1322410134
Saturday 26 November 2011
Over the past 30 years, as the gap between wealthy and poor grew ever wider, total philanthropic giving almost tripled, according to annual estimates published by the Giving USA Foundation and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. In an age of widening partisanship and plummeting trust in government, this outpouring of philanthropy has produced a distinct breed of philanthropist: The policy-making billionaire.
Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, has invested more than $13 billion in public health initiatives around the world through his foundation. William E. Conway Jr., a founder of the Carlyle Group investment company, is planning to give away $1 billion of his personal fortune, and is said to be considering how his money can aid in financing major infrastructure projects.
“What’s going on at a broader level is a sense of, ‘Hey, we can be much more effective and efficient than government in doing things,’ ” said Leslie Lenkowsky, a professor of philanthropic studies and public affairs at Indiana. “And it’s become more pervasive in recent years.”
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Monday Nov282011
November 28, 2011
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-First-Amendment-Upside-by-Robert-Reich-111122-196.html
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November 22, 2011
By Robert Reich
When the freedom of speech goes to the highest bidder, moneyed interests have a disproportionate say. Now more than ever, the First Amendment needs to be put right side up. Nothing less than the future of our democracy is at stake.
You've been seeing this across the country " Americans assaulted, clubbed, dragged, pepper-sprayed " Why? For exercising their right to free speech and assembly -- protesting the increasing concentration of income, wealth, and political power at the top.
And what's Washington's response? Nothing. In fact, Congress' so-called "supercommittee" just disbanded because Republicans refuse to raise a penny of taxes on the rich.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court says money is speech and corporations are people. The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision last year ended all limits on political spending. Millions of dollars are being funneled to politicians without a trace.
And a revolving door has developed between official Washington and Wall Street -- with bank executives becoming public officials who make rules that benefit the banks before heading back to the Street to make money off the rules they created.
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Monday Nov282011
November 28, 2011
Counterpunch.org November 22, 2011
by DAVID SWANSON
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/22/the-last-whistleblowers/print
Whistleblowing in our federal government may soon be a thing of the past, not because whistleblowers face more vicious retribution than ever before — although that is true; and not because important acts of whistleblowing now result in fewer reforms and less accountability than they used to — although that is also true and is getting closer; but fundamentally because the actions against which we need whistles blown are publicly acknowledged.
How would one expose war or indefinite imprisonment or assassinations or drone attacks or wiretapping or profiteering or bribery or massive money transfers to Wall Street? I understand how, even a few years ago, such things could be exposed by courageous whistleblowers. I understand how retired officials who missed their chance at being timely whistleblowers can now expose the steps through which these crimes have been normalized. But I have a hard time understanding how one would leak to the media or reveal on one’s blog what has been openly acknowledged, legalized, formalized, and normalized.
Starting from the model of whistleblowers, one is tempted to suggest that we begin supporting those individuals who will resist immoral orders and assignments: resisters instead of whistleblowers. But we have one whistleblower for every 100,000 or so government employees informed of the abuses exposed. We are likely to have infinitely fewer inside resisters. Clearly we need a different model. We need to all be whistleblowers, since we all know about the crimes. We need to insist on viewing policies differently, rather than viewing different policies. We need to expose what happens where the bombs land and the defunding of human needs hit home. And we need to organize massive resistance from outside the government, with the potential for creating massive resistance within the government as well.
I expressed my concerns and raised these questions to some of our most praiseworthy whistleblowers at an event Monday evening in Washington, D.C.
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Monday Nov282011
November 28, 2011
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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Monday Nov282011
November 28, 2011
Published on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/22-1
by César Chelala
A widespread perception that Congress people respond increasingly to special interests has received additional support from a person who knows something about it. In a cynical interview with Lesley Stahl, from “60 minutes” Jack Abramoff, one of the most notorious lobbyists in recent times, explains the tactics that he used in dealing with people in Congress. In addition, he gives a chilling assessment of recent reforms intended to change this situation.
Infamous Washington D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff reveals how he kept hundreds of Bush-era congressional staffers in his pocket. In 2011, it was estimated that there were over 13,000 registered federal lobbyists based in Washington, DC. They spend huge amounts of money on their work, up to $3.5 billion in 2010 according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Their competence as individuals, groups or corporations to lobby the government is protected by the right to petition clause in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
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