The 9/11 Obsession Revisited

 Updated 9:13 PM, Sept. 11


I woke up as usual ten years ago on 9/11, got ready for work, and drove off. No media. When I walked into the classroom, my students yelled out, "did you bring a radio?" As I lay my books and paraphernalia on my desk, they filled me in: planes had driven into the Twin Towers in New York. "We're under attack!! they said. "What are you doing here then?" was my first response. Some jumped up, "we can leave?"" I listened more.


After I got the details, my first reaction was dismay. More acts of violence that didn't have to happen. A lot of innocent people dead because a bunch of other people are angry at still another bunch of other people.  I'm always looking at the symbols and metaphors, and since I teach critical thinking, my first impulse, which I followed, was to get to the board. I wrote down Twin Towers, Pentagon, White House. For me, the symbolism seemed simplistic. "Why these three targets at about the same time?" I asked. The students had no problem in naming what each building symbolized in positive and negative terms. Nor did they have trouble finding the reasons for pathological rage behind the attacks. Keeping everything on the symbolic and metaphoric levels, we spent the morning discussing the pathological violence, on both sides, that put innocent people in a political and an economic crossfire.


It was a 9:30 class, so I don't remember if the buildings had collapsed yet. I think they had. However, my dismay continued with the media blitz that followed. And followed. And followed. And followed.  My friend, Dolly Sloan, a native New Yorker called. We had dinner and went over to a Pen event, I think the next day, in Los Angeles, where I was living at the time. About 20 of us, all writers, sat in a circle and talked about the situation. The topic: what would 9/11 mean for writers? Would writing be the same after 9/11? A lot of people grieved. My friend felt horrified. Most of the people in the room felt violated. 


While I felt dismayed and horrified at the lost lives, I grieved  for what was to come.  "America will never be the same," Dick Cheney promised. At the pen event, I brought up George Bush's instructions that the best thing American could do, while the government reshaped America's homeland security program, was to get out and shop. I don't remember if I said I found that pretty nuts. But I do know Dolly and I had many conversations, sometimes on near opposite sides, on whether the event had the right to reshape America.


 Throughout the media blitz, I felt deeply disturbed by Cheney and Bush's statements. Innocent people dead in a political and economic crossfire, and I'm to shop and to think terrorists attacks will now be a way of life unless----.  The whole situation felt pretty creepy and ominous. I mean the Cheney-Bush Orders. Were these rulers really telling Americans to reshape America in the image they had in mind, which included the act of Americans willingly tossing in their keys to civil liberties in exchange for---wait a minute, is this blackmail?  How pathological is that? What kind of megalomania drives the desires behind these orders? I understood right away the layers of repression and future violence built into Cheney and Bush's Orders. "America would never be the same," Cheney chanted over and over and over. I kept thinking, why shouldn't it be? As tragic as the situation was, I see no healthy reason to change the country's foundation of civil liberties over it. Talk about male hysteria!  You move on. You really move on. You examine what has happened, yes. You really examine it. You make adjustments. You examine your own role in bringing about the tragedy.  But you don't turn in the keys of your freedom. Yet, the media never let go of his chant. In the next century perhaps people will use it to study the art of shaping mass psychology. That chant was to be the closure of the conversation. I don't watch TV much, but the chant was everywhere. And it didn't take long before you could hear it in delis, in hallways, at beaches, and in bedrooms. Did people know what Cheney meant by those words? I wondered what he was up to.But what did my musing matter?  It was too late. Social fear spread quickly. The chants about change and shopping dominated over reason in every action the government took against civil liberties. That and the reminder that terrorists were lurking in every neighborhood. I watched the media mimic Cheney and shape not just ideas but emotions. It was frightening. I kept saying to Dolly, the media blitz is shaping not just which sound bites to speak but which emotions to feel about the event and its aftermath. If I recall, Susan Sontag was one of the few who spoke early on about the agenda to reshape emotions. On September 24, 2001, she writes, "Those in public office have let us know that they consider their task to be a manipulative one: confidence-building and grief management.  Politics, the politics of a democracy--which entails disagreement, which promotes candor--has been replaced by psychotherapy." We thus ended up with a unified emotional response that led us to turn in the keys of our civil liberties. Those not expressing it, were suspects, crazy, or outsiders.


One month after the tragic attacks, my students no longer saw the symbolism or the pathology inherent in power on both sides that led to innocent people killed in a crossfire. Instead, they repeated sound bites they had picked up on TV, in print, over the Internet, or on the radio. The conversation was over. Now it was just a matter of learning the right responses to the event. Now it was matter of hating Muslims. Now it came down to following orders, in unifying around giving up our civil liberties to prove to the terrorists that Americans won't be terrorized.


On September 10, 2011, President Obama said, "They wanted to terrorize us, but, as Americans, we refuse to live in fear. Yes we face a determined foe, and make no mistake — they will keep trying to hit us again. But as we are showing again this weekend, we remain vigilant. We're doing everything in our power to protect our people. And no matter what comes our way, as a resilient nation, we will carry on."


These are sentimental, hollow words, substituted sound bites for the political wisdom that America can't voice because the threads to political wisdom have been burned or buried.  Political wisdom is dangerous because it challenges the status quo. Not that Obama is alone in such responses. Here are a slew of responses from people in power. Obama is simply mimicking the sound bites he's learned.  His words echo Rumsfeld's, who insisted, "he did not close the Pentagon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to send a message that terrorism could not shut down the seat of American defense" (qtd. in Foley). Or, he kept the Pentagon open to show terrorists that America was not afraid. The patriarchy on both sides of this monstrous battle shows muscle but no wisdom. I wonder if Hillary would have stood up against the patriarchy in America and in the Middle East? I wonder how different America would be today if Eleanor Roosevelt had followed into the presidency? It's a thought worth a conversation. It's healthy to speculate. 


So let me try to speculate. If Eleanor had become president, we would have seen the Equal Rights Amendment passed and stronger unions. By the time Hillary became First Lady, Hillary would have easily made history by getting a strong single-payer health care system in place. Because America would have had a more balanced view based on gender, it's more likely females around the globe would be in better positions by the time Hillary became president sometime after Bill. We've been stuck, spinning in the aftermath of the peak of patriarchy for a long time. If we make it to egalitarianism anytime soon, it'll be one of those accidents that get us there. 


I'm reminded of that morning in my classroom when students understood the whole picture. When will America take responsibility in its part in the tragedy? What happened to that clarity as a country? Surely, my students weren't an isolated group of thinkers. They spoke of global imbalances that lead to tragedy and need to be fixed.  


I don't have a conspiracy theory. Nor do I have knowledge of structural engineering. But I do have one question in response to this notion of America's anti-fear stance. Who exactly are these rulers referring to and under what conditions are they demanding this anti-fear stance and defining it? If we are refusing to live in fear, then why the elaborate and intricate system of homeland security created to spy on innocent Americas?  if we are refusing to live in fear, why are people who protest wars or dangerous pipelines, or demand change or equality "watched" or jailed?  If we are refusing to live in fear, then why did the government use the people's tax money to bail out the banks instead of use it to strengthen the country's infrastructures, to prevent the ruin or death of masses of people in floods or earthquakes or other disasters? Why didn't the government use the money to create high-paying jobs or a single-payer healthcare system, Why didn't it use it to prevent damage to the environment? Why didn't it use it to make all levels of education free to everyone?  If the wealthy do not live in fear then why are less women and minorities in powerful positions? If those holding onto the status quo do not live in fear, then why do artists who pose challenging questions get censored or banned?


I beg to disagree with Obama. America and its leaders appear obsessed with its fears, not just from possible terrorists attacks but from financial or market disasters. Not just from political or market challenges but from disagreements, especially challenges rooted in reason. Discussions springing from these fears seem to dominate every media. This fear paradigm in maintaining order is Cheney's World. We live in what we might call Cheney's Fear Paradigm--and we can call it this simply because he lit the match to get it started, and he still fans the fire. Well the current Fear Paradigm, anyway.


I think the people who lost loved ones have every right to grieve and mourn over the tragedy. How many of us pause on the 10th anniversary of the death of a loved one? My guess many of us at least pause. And that's the way it should be. We don't throw a spectacle, hold wakes and burials all over again, bathe our homes with black ribbons over and over, or send revised obituaries to our local newspapers. We don't take off from work or school to mourn all over again. We don't as a nation mourn all of the those who have died before us. We should try unifying around establishing life-giving events: a single-payer healthcare sytem, a share in the profits for all, advancements in medicine against illnesses and for longer lives, and so on.

Debt Ceiling Coup 2011 and the Near Limericks that Fell From the Sky

1. Is Paul Krugman Right, Again, Alas?

Has  Obama surrendered to the Republicans, again, alas?
Or do we ache Obama surrenders to no one, alas, again?
Is there anyone to  surrender to alas, alas?

None, all mirrors the same, all words without change, again,
     alas and alas and alas.

Click here for Obama's speech.

I don't now who wrote the following introduction to Krugman's article:

Are people wishing they could write headlines that read  Obama, the Unwise?  Obama, on Call, the Server of the Hole-ly Compromise?  Obama, the Great Democratic Republican Who Ended the Two-party System in a Whimper?  Maybe he's right to auction off, in his own self-interest, the money and rights of Main Street . Who am I to think the people are entitled to a democratic society, or a just and decent lifestyle?  Yesterday, I looked out my window. There it was rolling down the street like the Blob chasing and picking up everyone in its path, the massive new economic and political wheel.  Like the Blob is was really rolling by in hunger. I couldn't believe the way it reshaped people into itself.  Anyway, here's a cogent excerpt of Krugman's article:

Did the president have any alternative this time around? Yes. 

First of all, he could and should have demanded an increase in the debt ceiling back in December. When asked why he didn’t, he replied that he was sure that Republicans would act responsibly. Great call. 

And even now, the Obama administration could have resorted to legal maneuvering to sidestep the debt ceiling, using any of several options. In ordinary circumstances, this might have been an extreme step. But faced with the reality of what is happening, namely raw extortion on the part of a party that, after all, only controls one house of Congress, it would have been totally justifiable. 

At the very least, Mr. Obama could have used the possibility of a legal end run to strengthen his bargaining position. Instead, however, he ruled all such options out from the beginning. 

But wouldn’t taking a tough stance have worried markets? Probably not. In fact, if I were an investor I would be reassured, not dismayed, by a demonstration that the president is willing and able to stand up to blackmail on the part of right-wing extremists. 

Instead, he has chosen to demonstrate the opposite. 

Make no mistake about it, what we’re witnessing here is a catastrophe on multiple levels.
It is, of course, a political catastrophe for Democrats, who just a few weeks ago seemed to have Republicans on the run over their plan to dismantle Medicare; now Mr. Obama has thrown all that away. And the damage isn’t over: there will be more choke points where Republicans can threaten to create a crisis unless the president surrenders, and they can now act with the confident expectation that he will. 

In the long run, however, Democrats won’t be the only losers. What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can’t. For full article, click here.

But it fell from the sky.

2. Less Unemployment Makes  Followers Leaders

Why wouldn't unemployment extensions  be tabled?
Less fat on the stats
Less truth to be had
gives illusion the hope
we'll shop till we drop
And help the one-party system grow stable.


3. America is Not Greece

Watch America set the example
of how to keep the wealthy ample
While the Greeks hit the streets
Americans stay neat

By watching themselves on the Tele.

Biodiversity Shrinkage Mirrors Economic Stasis

It appears that the biodiversity on the planet is shrinking along with the diversity of ideas, attitudes, possibilities and choices instigated by our economic culture. Probably not with intent. But littered with a lot of self-righteousness mostly out of ignorance and greed. Maybe just ignorance as greed is probably more from ignorance than from evil. In fact, I'd be more than willing to argue that all evil is created or steeped in ignorance. According to a recent study on biodiversity plummeting on the planet, our societal and cultural use of the planet may be largely responsible for the shrinking biodiversity:

Overall, humans have direct effects on most of the Earth’s surface: globally, human activities affect ~83% of the land (Sanderson et al. 2002) and 100 % of the ocean, with ~41 % being strongly affected (Halpern et al. 2008). As a result of our appropriation of resources and more direct impacts, an increasing num- ber of species is threatened by extinction (Baillie et al. 2004, Hails 2008, Secretariat of the Convention on Bio- logical Diversity 2010). This loss is occurring in spite of the goods and services that biodiversity provides to humankind, valued in the order of a few trillion dollars annually (e.g. Costanza et al. 1997; the United Nations Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity project [www.teebweb.org], the United Nations – backed Prin- ciples for Responsible Investment project [www.unpri. org]). In addition, several studies indicate that main- taining biodiversity is much simpler than restoring it and that, depending on the nature and extent of our impacts, some damaged ecosystems might never return to their original states, meaning that any imper- ilment or loss could be permanent (Scheffer & Carpen- ter 2003). In the face of ongoing biodiversity loss, the recognized value of biodiversity and the need for steps to maintain or restore it have prompted a renewed effort to develop safeguarding strategies. ( Mora, Sale ).

While the statistics of the documented shrinkage of biodiversity are probably not arguable enough to change the conclusion, we might agree that the underlying complexity of the shrinkage in terms of past, present and future is probably of greater value to understand than is arguing over blame or is fighting over whether we should even care about earthly creatures, including ourselves. Some people think we shouldn't. The earth, they argue will take care of itself. I disagree. Not with the notion but with the attitude, which seems to be a red herring for "I need not take any responsibility for what happens to the planet.



Regardless of which debate takes the lead on this and confuses out the other debates, 1/4 of the earth's mammals are threatened with extinction (Conservation International).

Shrinking Diversity in Economic Culture

One could say that the documented shrinkage of economic diversity (global cost of oil or credit, for example--or general wages) is probably not arguable enough to change the conclusion, yet we might agree that the meaning of the shrinkage in terms of past, present and future is probably of greater value than is arguing over blame or is fighting over whether we should even care about the economic differences that determine a person's survival, or kind of survival, in the culture. Some people think we shouldn't. Some people think we have enough diversity to keep us busy in choosing which clothes to wear or which TV show to watch or which market to shop at. They argue that too much diversity is a pain in the ass.

As the Think In the Now While Accumulating Speed and Money Era, we go against our era the moment we began critically thinking or acting responsibly when it comes to adverse effects on the planet and the creatures that live on it, whether we cause all or any part of the adverse effects. We also go against stepping outside the borders of the notions that bind us to this era. As we can see with the current debt crisis, manufactured or not, we have been forced fed without much resistance that our current top monster combines minus signs with red numbers. Thus, our collective goal in the Think In the Now While Accumulating Speed and Money Era is to keep the government, banks and corporations as far from the minus signs with red numbers as possible. And as we carry this triad on our backs, we have room for nothing much else. Thus other activities or priorities are threatened with extinction.

So what exactly has gone extinct in our Think In the Now While Accumulating Speed and Money Era? Maybe it's better not to know. Maybe it's better to remain culturally deaf and dumb on this issue.

Our Role as Citizens

As mutes, along with prayer, I suggest we race one another to any bank as a Monday and Friday exercise. On Tuesdays, we should race one another to a government building. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, we should race one another to a corporate office. These should be our only civic obligations. Other than praying and racing, we should work at as many jobs as possible to accumulate as much money as we can. These activities, while not particularly diverse in themselves, can be made diverse. We can alter routes, for example. Change buildings. Change times. Wear different shoes. The options to choose from are plentiful. We can write up the names of the contestants on different colored or textured paper. That in itself can get us through a year. Moreover, we can leave Saturday and Sunday open for praying that our government, banks and corporations keep their distance from the minus signs with red numbers. Here too we can create diversity. We can change sites for prayers. We can change the words. We can change the prayer leaders. Thus, we can change the very nature of diversity and save ourselves from extinction unlike the other creatures on the planet who haven't a clue, it seems, to figure out their own diversity plan if the original one isn't working for them. Some argue that these extinct creatures were just not strong enough. Or they say those on the brink of extinction are genetically disadvantaged.

Racing and praying (and working) of course take nothing away from shopping, which still remains our number 1 civic activity in contributing to the maintenance of diversity within our current institutions.

 Think In the Now While Accumulating Speed and Money Era

The Think In the Now while Accumulating Speed and Money Era is the pinnacle height of the me first no matter what thread of civilization woven to its heights and reached by corporate capitalism as a global phenomenon. We created it. Now we have to maintain it, diaper it, clean its ass, and give it billions of gallons of milk (money and labor) to sustain it. If we choose not to, we can probably find a river to drown it or a cancer looking for a host. We can expect to be ferreted out by a roaming clean-up crew. We can expect to spend much of our time looking over our shoulder.

On the positive side, the shrinkage in biodiversity may work toward our advantage. It will be less of the unpredictable, which might mean less surveillance on the rest of us, less turning our heads to look over our shoulder, which could result in less doctor visits for wear and tear on the neck or blood pressure.

Super Congress to the Rescue

Do we always have to watch a bunch of neurotic bullies find ways to re-create the public space in their own image, and in particular, in the interests of the wealthy? And do we always have to play the role of a bunch of enablers?  Will this relationship never tire? How many ways can we play this out?

When I heard that the democrat and republican leaders were seriously considering setting up a Super Congress of 12 members (6 from each party) to decide policy issues, in particular, the debt ceiling woes, I was a bit stunned. It seemed so anti-American I had to find out why the idea of a Super Congress was even a consideration. I didn't remember voting on turning the country over to 12 people.

Why a Super Congress?

First, the rationale  for the establishment of a Super Congress is to break the impasse current lawmakers find themselves in finding a solution to the debt ceiling. At least in the public theater space it has created for itself. I can't find the logic in a Super Congress as the solution unless--I just can't find any justification for it.  But with so few options for addressing the debt ceiling on the table, why wouldn't Congress reach an impasse? There are just so many way to rearrange the paltry options it is considering. Meanwhile, the more serious problem is either overlooked, denied or derailed. What is that more serious problem? The problem appears to be in the number of options not in the $$$$ currently associated with social security, medicare and mediCal (Medicaid outside California).

Second, a Super Congress narrows the conversation and keeps out contrary opinions on decreasing entitlements.  More than twelve is a crowd, you know, whether it's a supreme court or a last supper. Twelve then is a good number. It's a number already associated with a higher authority in a lot of people's minds. It feels familiar. It must be right! Twelve works.

The Cloak of the Super Congress and Who it Rescues 

 Who needs all those members of Congress who are accountable to constituents who don't like the paltry options?  Who needs those annoying constituents who want to keep the three entitlements intact and not connected to raising the debt ceiling? Members of Congress need to be rescued from such constituents. A Super Congress can shield all those members who might face pesty or angry voters.  With only the 12 legislators accountable to their constituents, a Super Congress will let the vast majority of current members off the hook. They can go home and get some sleep, or play golf, or go on vacation.  They can say, I wouldn't have voted that way. No sir. Not me.

But just what cloak of rescue does the Super Congress wear?

A little drama: The cloak of fear. If this thing isn't resolved by August 2--we all go down.

 So far Congress, the administration, The Treasury, Wall Street, and even the rating agencies have tried almost every scare tactic to gain control of public sentiment on the issue. They have worked very hard to convince us all that maintaining these entitlements is so dangerous it could lead to the collapse of our economy--once again. Or is that not raising the debt ceiling that can lead to collapse with the only way out the dismantling of entitlements? Face it, these official groups are frustrated. Fear hasn't worked so far to dismantle what the wealthy want dismantled. They expected us to agree, to consider the loss of entitlement a shared sacrifice, to say, yes, yes, of course, it's the only way. We must wean ourselves off of social security, medicare and mediCal while we still can before disaster strikes! Besides, with the current goal  to re-create America in the image of the wealthy, in goals, morals, ethics, economics, religions, fashion, and laws, clinging to entitlements makes no sense. The wealthy have no need for entitlements. As emulators of the wealthy, nor should we.

But we hate to give them up. We've already invested our hard-earned money in them. We're concerned about an uncertain future. Maybe if the wealthy provided us with some kind of Retirement Camps or some soft or innocuous way to die when we get sick. In exchange, we can promise to not cost too much. If they can make these promises, I'm sure we'd give up our entitlements for them.

 Meanwhile, the wealthy will not let us down. They too are thinking up ways to help convince us. More fear to convince us might work. But more fear walks a delicate line. Too much fear or the "wrong" kind of casualties can backfire. Hurt profits. Cause a revolt.  Cost votes. No, the wealthy still trust us. We rarely stir. They are convinced we will give up our entitlements willingly. It's only a matter of time. The deadline helps. Oh my gosh, August 2 is almost here. Thank god the Super Congress promises to rescue us all.

 Of course there might be one glitch. By silencing the vast majority of members of Congress, the Super Congress  of 12 silences the larger than large voice of the people. Some people could get suspicious.  Cause trouble. Create doubt. They could say it sounds like the old Soviet Union or Communist China or old Fascist Italy, or Egypt or Iran, or some other totalitarian regime. No, they have to convince us that it's for our own good, that the way things are set up is just plain outdated. As George Bush said, America would be a lot easier to run as a dictatorship.

The first thing we have been told by the  people who thought up the idea of a Super Congress is that a Super Congress is perfectly legal because nowhere in the Constitution does it say you cannot have a Super Congress. On that thought, the Constitution fails to say you can't create a Citizen's Congress to overrule a Super Congress. Hmmm. Now there's a novel idea. We haven't tried that one yet.

Anyway, there's my first off the top of my head thoughts on this issue.

A Solution to the Debt Problem

Greece: Bailout/Blackmail June 19, 2011

I won't ask the question whether Greece is being bailed out or blackmailed. I believe the answer is self-evident. I will say the stakes are high. If the people go along with the bailout/blackmail through accepting austerity measures against themselves, we all lose not win. Greece becomes the example, and its people lead the way over the bridge to a new Brave New World of acceptance. On the other side? The impenetrable economic field from which you can't escape. Settle in and get used to it.  The Woman of the Dunes will hand you a shovel to do your part. Economic obedience or else expect to end up The Idiot at best in "The Penal Colony." Expect The Trial to be very black and white.

Where are a more conscious Antigone and a smarter Marlowe when you need them?

 It appears that Greece has gotten itself so entangled in the blackmail/bailout scenario, it'll take more than an Oracle hint to decipher the code behind the austerity measures that are about to trick Greece into The Big Sleep, where it is destined to fall in love with its own reflection of Remembrances Past.

It's global now thanks to the rising Euro Currency Union, just another Godzilla and Dracula combo conjured up by the staged or not (it doesn't matter either way) economic crisis to suck the blood of the people's bank accounts, labor, retirement, chances at optimum living and higher principles--or stomp out their resistance-- in short, it's just another monster  duo to eat much of Greece alive--slowly.

It's the same in America, Russia, Japan, Australia, Canada, and so on. And where it isn't, the conjuring is being learned.  Classes are in session. Sit up straight.

 How many "slanted" lights can't we see?

How long before Alice in Wonderland tumbles out of Animal Farm, through the keyhole of false consciousness, past Reality TV and finds her own Midsummer's Night Dream before she arrives in Greece as Superchild? Will we ever see the Death of a Salesman for the last time? The final act of A Doll's House? The end of Madame Bovary? 

At what time of the day do we stand the best chance to outsmart  ourselves  out of the economic habits that have cluttered the global markets with human "perpetual motion machines": mirrored Iagos, Macbeths, Dated Kings and Red Queens, and Mephistos?

 Is Wall Street just another excuse?

Which poet is reading a line from a poem that says, Catch-22 only happens to Oedipus?

I have no answers. I can never figure out why whole nations refuse to make advances in medicine, science, education, creativity, and so on just because there isn't enough money. I don't know why the people don't just Take the Money and Run Back to the Future. Maybe in a parallel universe right now Greece is posting all debts on a magnetic thing of the universe that will Burn After Reading. Maybe a parallel universe is the answer. At least no one will have to take a chance at losing a day's work or getting their cell phone taken away.

As a member of the debilitated race, the race that prefers to hang on crosses, slit one another's throats, or shove people into cages, I wish I myself would stop Waiting for Godot.  I've learned through trial and error that "A Good Man is Hard to Find" in politics, religion or on Wall Street.

And now in the year 2011, it's clear going On the Road is heading toward The Road of the imagination.

Do we have other options? If we want them enough, I supposed we do.  We just have to write them up. But please, no sentimentalism.

Greek Riots and a Dog Called Loukanikos

Click for more on Loukanikos     Click here for news on the riots

There is very little publicity on the riots in Greece. Yet, in Athens, at least 100,000 people and  1 dog are trying to get the attention of the officials who are attempting to implement deeper and deeper austerity measures against people without much to begin with. Of course there's no austerity in the use of tear gas or other measures to silence the voice of reason and the breaking hearts.  No austerity in measures against bankers.  It's so peculiar the entitlement of a small handful of people who have accumulated a great deal of money from consumers and workers and wish to keep it all even at the expense of the death of others.

No Dancing Just Look at Statues

I'm not sure what this video means. But it does show how many people it takes to dance at the Jefferson Memorial before the free speech of dancing at the Jefferson Memorial gets booked as an assault against obedience.

I don't know anything about this new law banning dancing in front of statues. It's quite peculiar, this new law. You wonder how the law came into being? You think of Antigone. You wonder what tragedies might follow? You wonder who Creon is in this new episode of enforcement? What will become of all the contemporary Creons involved? The dancers? At first you laugh with incredulity. Not to mention you want to send both the police and the dancers to dancing school, each for different reasons. You want to send all of humanity to dancing school instead of off to war. But then it calls to mind a line of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in a well-known story featuring cruelty against the other, that "the world has been sad since Tuesday." You worry about all the chicken coops and caves people have been forced into. You worry about provincialism. You worry about flags, pollution and the vulnerability of things absent. You worry about the dead and all those who never reached their potential. You wish the protestors would dance with greater feeling and direction. You wish the pleasure of the police looked other than it does. Somewhere in between these two groups, the police and dancers, you want to go for a long walk and recall the walks of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. You want to hold everyone in your arms as you wish humanity had intersected differently with modernity.

For Video that Shows the Dancers and Police, Click Here:

Update: June 1: Why not compromise? Why not let dancers in twice a week, four hours on a Saturday or Sunday and all day on one week day?

Al Jazeera English: Live Stream on Japan's Tsunami/Nuclear Danger/Earthquake

Al Jazeera English: Live Stream - Watch Now - Al Jazeera English

What's the difference in possible outcome: nuclear bombs versus nuclear plants? Our lives remain at risk as long as we store them or use them. I was listening to the Ed Show today. I will have to track down the authority being interviewed who said, essentially and with complete sincerity, that we could use solar energy to run the entire planet but don't because it's just too expensive. And that ended the conversation as if that notion settled the matter. It reminded me of religious people who say, well, we can't do it because god said so, or the Bible says so. It's incredulous, really, this rationale against ourselves as if it's a reasonable response. Are we really mad enough to put our lives at risk because it cost too much to assure our safety? It's the same argument over and over. The same limitation in thinking. The same acceptance of destruction over safety over and over. It's repetitive now. Habit.

Japan's Nuclear Situation

Take the Money

It's an interesting class war if we can call it that. It's very aggressive on the part of the 1% who have accumulated so much at such a terrible cost to the potential of everyone else.

The other day, someone said  we are living in a misrepresentation of an illusion, so elusive it can only be momentarily viewed as a mirrored image of the real illusion, which is veiled from viewing. The best we can do is try to get a sense of the absurdity of the kind of lopsided condition sold as a social system that cannot be tampered with without grave consequences to the fabric that keeps its people alive. 

The other day someone said, take back the money from the banks.
Close their doors and redistribute the money.
Pay off the global national debts.
Pay for global healthcare.
Pay for global education.
Pay for global infrastsructures.

The Daly Show Finds the Hideout of the Wisconsin 14

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Punitive Shut Down of Barely Noisy Milwaukee GOP Town Hall

A town hall meeting in Milwaukee County (Tosa) abruptly shut down because the organizers perceived the comments from the floor as acts of civil disobedience in need of punishment. 

Here's the local news channel.

Here's the article on it at Huffington Post

Michael Moore visits Madison Wisconsin

Here's the video of Micheal Moore in Madison.  Everyone starts out thanking everyone. I have to say, it's very exciting to see what's happening in Madison.

Best route for people: DO NOT LEAVE

Best route for 14 Democratic Senators: DO NOT COME BACK YET

Walker and Class War in Madison

 UPDATE: March 5, 2011: John Stewart of teachers and their pay in Wisconsin.  To add to the comedy skit on Walker with mother issues, I'd have to add a comedic skit on Walker with early elementary and high school teacher issues.  Now is his chance to get even for whatever grudge he harbors.

  UPDATE: March 4, 2011: A democrat congressman is wrestled to the ground inside the capital.

and here's a page at the Huffington Post with numerous articles on the Wisconsin protests.

and here's a note on the Governor Walker being ordered to reopen the state capital. 

 and here's a Democracy Now! video from Feb. 25 that shows the extent of issues of the protests.

UPDATE: The people in Madison are holding firm as of March 3, 2011. They are a very courageous group of people. They are a fine example of the importance and impact of staying in the streets until one's demands are met. We might even call this The Year of Staying the Streets. It's becoming clear that the protesters are starting to annoy the governor, who is starting to use force (arrests, plants, etc.) to get his way. It's important to watch his tactics. They are rather standard procedure: arrests, plants, inciting violence, lies. In addition, he's threatening to lay off 1,500 state workers if the democratic senators don't return. Not to mention, he plans to arrest them if he can catch them. Such behavior, on the part of the governor, appears to put the burden of the effects of the budget crisis on the shoulders of the senators hiding out in Illinois, the teachers, the nurses, the firefighters, the police officers and other government workers. It's interesting. The governor seems to be saying to the protesters and senators, okay, you've had enough time to express your right to disagree. That's America. You have that right. Now let's move on with my plan. Go back to work or to the unemployment line, whichever place you've been relegated to. I hope both the senators and protesters hold firm and do not give up.

Below is a quoted passage from GreenConsciousness, on Walker's Plan that everyone should be cognizant of. While I have some disagreements with an earlier section of the entry (not printed but you can link to it), I find this part of the passage extremely enlightening and important.

CLASS WAR

Included in the same bill that takes away the right to collective bargaining are measures that would both weaken the state’s “Badgercare” health care program for hundreds of thousands of residents who cannot get regular insurance; and allows the unregulated sell-off of state-owned power plants to the Governor’s corporate allies.

Walker is proposing a $1 billion cut to health care programs that serve the disabled, elderly, and low-income residents currently served through BadgerCare, the state’s Medicaid program.

He plans to weaken the BadgerCare program by reducing legislative oversight.   The Governor wants to allow the Secretary of Health, who came from a recent job at the Heritage Foundation, to be able to change the requirements for enrollment, premium charges, and other basic parameters -- resulting in potential losses of coverage due to lack of affordability, loss of coverage altogether, or losing the federal matching funds that currently account for about 60% of the total funding for the program.  These changes will affect approximately 700,000 Wisconsin residents.

Provision 16.896, which would allow the sale of the state’s heating, cooling, and power plants to private corporations without the solicitation of bids. Adding insult to injury, Walker also aims to strip away the ability of the Public Service Commission to approve or certify this buy-out. In other words, if this bill were to pass, state-owned utilities could easily be bought by corporations as the latter wishes.

The new governor recently proposed a wind turbine siting law that would effectively shut down most wind power production. The new law, if put into effect, would require wind turbines to be set back at least 1,800 feet from any nearby property unless all affected property owners agree to the turbine in writing.

Only one-fourth of Wisconsin’s current wind turbines would ever have been built if this rule had been in place in the past. In other words, 2,250 fewer people would have construction or maintenance jobs, over a million fewer dollars would be flowing to rural communities in the form of land leases, and the 21 manufacturing plants in the state that supply the wind industry would have far fewer orders and would likely be closing their doors.

Other policies that Gov. Walker advanced since coming to power included corporate tax giveaways, the imposition of a two-thirds legislative majority to pass tax increases, the rejection of $800 million in federal funding for high-speed rail, and a “voter ID” law.

Gov. Walker pushed through almost $140 million in corporate tax breaks and spending that benefits large businesses. The Executive Director of One Wisconsin Now, Scot Ross, commented that he was “handing out [millions] in special interest spending to his corporate pals ...

My response

Since corporations are the main beneficiaries of a student's education results, corporations should be taxed to pay for ALL institutions of education. That is, the current taxes for education should be replaced with a corporate tax. Until then, the current taxes should remain as is. We are facing a situation in which the battle for the new consciousness in the global work structure, consumer market and infrastructure are being developed. We have to decide how we wish to restructure these arenas.

I was also asked to view another blog, Clarissa's Blog, and respond to the use of the word privilege, which I do use a great deal.

Here's my response though I don't feel the need to post it on Clarissa's blog:

I use the word privilege all the time. So, no, I wouldn't say to you what Clarissa does about the use of the word. This is a crucial word in my vocabulary. Denying how it works to control social behavior might limit one's ability to see its role as an underlying inhibitor of action. Diminishing its broker role seems to suggest one has internalized the dominant view that privilege-- a culturally shaped characteristic of entitlement--plays little or no role in the stratification of classes. Denying that privilege, a recognizable and calcuable condition in the workplace, forfeits one's chance to understand its full implications as a tool in the hierarchical maintenance of the status quo and institutionalized class system can lead to stagnation. Such denial of the social pathology of privilege helps maintain the fragmentation and divisiveness of the working classes, which includes the middle class. To devalue this term thus devalues the opportunity to unite wage earners against the corporate structures of power.

In academia myself, I also now and then respond to circulating emails at the school. The latest email sent out offered sympathy to the protesters in Wisconsin
read:

Wisconsin is not just asking for wage and pension concessions from their public workers. They are using this challenging economic situation which was produced by the banks and Wall Street, as an excuse to dismantle the public worker unions. I realize that many people are facing extremely difficult times with unemployment rates high, gas and food prices high and economic clouds on every horizon. However, teachers and other public workers didn't get us into this situation. It is one thing to ask people to pitch in when we face difficult times. I think it would be totally appropriate for the government and the unions to negotiate some concessions but it is all together different to use these times for specific political agendas - the dismantling of unions. Another assault on the middle class is not what our society needs today. I urge all of us here at ------- College to stand in support of Wisconsin colleagues.

My general response:

Yes, I signed the petition. And yes,I support the workers and unions in Wisconsin. Nevertheless, I wrote the following:

The bill on the table--correct me if I'm wrong--includes making strikes illegal. That in itself should be a reason to head to the streets and an incentive to stay in the streets.Overall, the bill weakens not just union power, which we already know is pretty weak, but also chips away at a vehicle that gives workers any voice at the negotiating table.

The bill if I have this right makes an attempt to put open control of the conversation and workers pay and benefits in the hands of management. That would be okay as long as the rights, pay and benefits of management were decided by the workers.

The bill is meant to reduce the wages and benefits of public employees to the level of wages and benefits of employees in the private sector. I think I have this right. You create a sense of economic instability to unite workers into accepting their own economic derailment in the name of "we're all in this together."

And whose wages and benefits in the private sector are the architects of the bill referring to? My lawyer, also a professional, earns $300.00 an hour.

Teachers should be smarter than to internalize the desires of a governor who runs the political tables in Wisconsin to favor Wall Street and hoarders of wealth and power. Unions too should be smarter. If the unions compromise in Wisconsin, we should all be very frightened.

Isn't a better mantra for all working people as we deepen into the 21st century Catch Up not Pitch In? Shouldn't that be the example workers in the public sector set for workers in the private sector?

Perhaps a better mantra is Catch up NOT Give up.

Wisconsin Goes Corporate in Madison

 Update: The following quotes offered by the governor of Montana expresses why citizens should be very concerned with his view of how to govern and how to problem solve in a crisis situation, contrived or otherwise. Brian Schweitzer (D-Mont) reveals not only the myopic vision of Walker (R-Wisc), but also of Brian Schweitzer and the general rule of governance being shaped today.

"If you are a successful CEO of a company or of a state, the most important thing you can do is to build morale of the people who work for you," said Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D-Mont.), citing his experience bargaining with Montana's public-employee unions, which agreed to forgo a salary increase two and a half years ago to avoid layoffs. "It is the people that work for you that make you successful, and when you do that to morale, you are cutting your own throat."
As for Walker's management style, "Every governor has to use his own model. But I don't know how this one ends in a good way," Schweitzer said. "How long do you think that CEO would keep his job and how successful do you think that business will be?" From an article at the Huffington Post.

 While Brian Schweitzer  believes he is offering words of wisdom in governance, he is starting from a very skewed perspective, that a country should be run as if it were a business or corporation.

That is the error of the late 20th century. This is the inherited political myopia infecting the beginning of the 21st century and halting the real progress we could make at this historical time.

A country is not a corporation. The purpose of a corporation is to make a profit, and in our current profit-seeking climate, to do so regardless of whose body, health, soul, mind, or children you step on to do get it.  Okay, okay, we all know the goals of a corporation, that profits shape and determine how and why decisions are made, how workers are treated, how management conducts itself, how consumers are treated, how research is conducted, how advertisement is shaped, and how governments are considered. A country, on the other hand, is not in the business of making a profit. It is not selling a commodity. It is not for sale on Wall Street to stockholders. A country is an organized body of citizens. The main purpose of a country is to collectively live together in a balanced manner so that the least amount of strife and greatest amount of freedom is possible for everyone. Its issues are outside profit making.

So why should we stock our political offices with those who are trained to run a corporation, are funded by those running a corporation, or believe that a country should be run like a corporation?

I can't see why it isn't obvious that if you turn the country over to the corporate mindset, the rules of governance will be those that satisfy the corporate mindset, even the liberal corporate mindset, which tends to pat itself on the back for not being as cruel to citizens as those on the conservative side. From a distance (in a future era), our limiting ourselves to a corporate worldview will probably appear stupid because of its limitations on the imagination of the entire country--of any country. You get what you vote for.

UPDATE: I find it disheartening that workers in Wisconsin so easily agreed to take on the burden of their pensions and benefits in order to keep bargaining rights as if doing so shows their willingness to pitch in is somehow in the best interests of the country. While I support their steadfastness to stay in the streets, I can't help but feel compassion and disappointment. They seem to be following the lead of Obama, who continues to, in a business-like manner, offer up the better life for the majority, whether in health care or taxes, in order to meet with Congress as if they are board members in some corporate entity whose main goal is to get along so that the corporation can maximize its profits. Meanwhile, he pushes himself into some imaginary higher realm (bringing democrats and republicans together kind of but not really) while millions of people continue to suffer and fall short of their potential.  Wouldn't a country filled with people provided arenas to reach their fullest potential be a better country?

Now that's the appearance. Whether it's intentional or not, Obama's presence is raising the consciousness of the American working people. Alinksy would be on the ground standing with the people if alive.

How come we're not talking about how running America as if it were a corporation is a slap in the face of  the American imagination, which keeps getting buried into advertising slogans and sound bites--and shoved or stored in the pockets of the greedy?

The very wealthy have always stepped on and over the working people in order to secure their wealth and power.  The working people have always been expected to drop their hard earned labor on the doorsteps of the wealthy. This whole idea of the working classes having to carry the corporations on their labor and time is not only an outdated idea, but a tragic one that comes partly from internalizing the ideology of the wealthy and powerful, who see the common person as a tool for money making or in the way of money making.

What is particularly disturbing to me is the vast numbers of women affected by tho loss of these benefits in Wisconsin. Many single women and mothers need those benefits without having to cut into their pay.  Why aren't people speaking out, demanding they not only keep their benefits and pensions as is but get a raise in salary?   Where aren't the workers in the private sector demanding higher pay, pensions, benefits?  Why aren't people in the streets demanding the state tax the profits of the rich to pay for universal health care and pensions? Why would anyone in Wisconsin ever leave the streets until the state changes its corporate agenda and mindset?  And yet, they will. They will get a few crumbs and take their snappy shoes and go home.


The majority of Americas might want to insist they CATCH UP not PITCH IN.

Madison Rallies Over Workers Rights and Compensation

UPDATE MARCH 1: 
Democratic lawmakers are stating that Wall Street Governor Walker must be willing to compromise before they return from their hideout in Illinois. However, is compromise the right approach? Perhaps there have been too many compromises made by working people. Perhaps it's time to catch up not give in.

So far, as of March 1, workers may not be staying in the streets, but they are in the streets in their demand for a decent lifestyle based on  fair share. Madison. Chicago.Across America

I can't help but see this as a woman's issue.

Most teachers and nurses are women, and these working professionals are among the lowest paid professionals in the workforce. If I were doing a feminist comedy skit, I might connect Walker's attitude to his having mother issues.

In another skit, we can situate Walker at the ovens of patriarchy, which must be fueled at any cost.

On the serious side, kind of, several years ago, I had the chance to sit in, as an observer, on a negotiating contract meeting, in a college in Oregon. This is true. It was my first encounter with unions and management. Management came in with no notes. Nothing. A pen, I think. Not even paper. Maybe, a small pad of blank paper that never gotten written on. The union president and chief negotiator came in with not only piles of notes but charts. Management had nothing to say. It didn't even doodle while the union built its case for a cost of living increase, etc. It was clear management planned to say no, which it did, to whatever the union people wanted.

That too deserves a comedy skit.

Progressive Spark, Feingold in Wisconsin

 UPDATE: POSTED A BETTER LINK ABOUT THE SITUATION IN WISCONSIN

Perhaps Egypt nudged Americans to wake up a little from their restless sleep and find the open streets forum. Perhaps it took the middle east demonstrations for Americans to finally get it that the only real platform of power for citizens under any kind of economic system is the streets.

Yet, have Americans learned from Egypt it isn't just flooding into the streets for a day or two that brings about real power and change?  Have workers understood the impact of flooding into the streets in very large numbers and staying put until your demands are met?  We will have to stay tuned to what happens in Madison, Wisconsin. The key is not only in numbers but, crucial, also in staying.  What lasting effects can a sudden but short presence in the streets have on  the comfort of the status quo or the deciders of the cash balance sheets?

Sudden but short demonstrations pass. Things return to the pathological "normal."  Borders get more secured. Years pass.

Moreover, the pathological normal tends to get reactively worse. Those deciders, self-appointed through accumulated piles of money, demand casualties (deaths, incarcerations, beatings). It likes clean and orderly streets to conduct its business in.


What am I getting at here? Holding on or getting back to is our current pathological normal. While corporate profits are rising at an alarming rate, workers, public and private, for the most part, are fighting to sustain what they have.To sustain or to get back to should not be the driving issue here. To equalize should be the issue. That should be the goal of the new century. Already we are eleven years behind our potential in this.  Workers and management should stand equals across the table from one another in the 21st century. Without workers, management cannot accumulate profits. Workers in fact need to catch up to management  in the profits column. That should be a given by this historical time. In our "as in" work condition, that's the premise from which all workers should begin negotiating their pay and their benefits today.

 I'm not sure exactly why workers continue to accept the dominant system of employer decides all, but it's apparent, by the systematic economic upheavals, that the corporate takeover of America is clearly frightened of workers. The last thing the bankers and others in power positions  (See George Carlin) want is for American workers to realize their real untapped power to stand as equals and make "this is the way it is" demands over their own economic conditions. The scales have been so tipped against workers for so long that meeting in some arbitrary middle should be on hold for a very long time. It should be all catch up from this day forward. Collective bargaining does little more than afford an arena for that untapped power to come into play. It's up to the workers in their unions to make it happen. It's up for all workers to organize into collective bodies called unions in order to stand face to face with management on equal grounds at the table to determine their catch-up terms. And if you don't like the word unions, make up another name for it, or put together another collective power structure that generates a voice that lays out the terms to catch up.

While, yes, it's refreshing to see so many people at the state capital in Madison, Wisconsin, we should also note the implications.  I'm 100% in support of what is taking place. But one or two days in the streets is not enough for workers to hold onto what they have. More importantly, it isn't enough for workers to finally once and for all gain control over their pay and benefit levels in exchange for their labor and time.

Egypt has now provided a fine example of how to get started.

Mubarak Resigns: Egypt Rejoices, America Watches

Now that Mubarak says he's resigned and the army has stepped in to maintain order, Egypt is celebrating the exit of Mubarak. It's really uplifting to see so many people in the streets. It's quite inspiring to witness the momentous power in the single act of large numbers of people staying in the streets until their demands are met. It speaks to how real change is made. In this sense, Egypt has left President Obama, who promised real change, behind. The people of Egypt, without a leader telling them what to do, have demonstrated just how real change comes about in the people's interest, and how to bring it about quickly, during the current era, to end suffering. Staying in the streets was a heroic act on the part of the Egyptian people. Now that Mubarak has left office,  President Obama said Egypt will never the same. That was the same thing that George Bush and Dick Cheney said after 9/11.

 What's the difference? It may be telling.

Egypt's never the same means the promise of broader freedom and dignity, lower prices in every day necessities, and greater opportunity for more people. It means the chance for a stronger labor movement and a means to lessen the monetary gap between owners and workers. And it means a window of opportunity for women to group together and push themselves toward equality in family, state and personal matters. In fact, if women are to rise to their potential as the new arena takes shape, they must step forward together into leadership roles to lift all women up with them. America's never the same has meant the rationalization for greater restrictions on freedom and dignity, greater police surveillance, wider unchecked corruption in government, more wild west unregulated corporations, additional constriction in economic growth for most, weaker labor unions, broader freezes on opportunities, less opportunities for women, and a growing malaise in spirit in which a general citizen's identity and contribution to the greater society is primarily shaped by his or her consumerism.

Can America learn from Egypt? Perhaps. Perhaps its citizens can learn why it's important to remain peaceful in the streets if its citizens ever decide to visit Wall Street. Perhaps its citizens can learn why it's important to not leave the streets once you get there until all of your demands are met without compromise. Perhaps its citizens will come to find it important to go to Wall Street and demand Wall Street hand over the banks to the people, so the people can use the profits to build their roads, improve their schools, build rails and clean energy devices, engage in sky's the limit research in heath and science, provide no limit medical care for all, get the homeless off the streets, protect animals, end oppression against women and minorities, promote art centers, take care of its lost youths and those down on their luck, and yes, uplift all the citizens into real opportunities so they can try to reach their potentials. I'm just not sure what else we should all be doing other than living under the best conditions for each of us to reach our greatest potential. We can have that arena now. But it means engaging in actions that bring about real change.

Latest blogs on Egypt: Negotiations

 Update:

BBC evening news
 "Egypt's opposition groups say government proposals on how to end the political crisis are not enough."


USA Today reports on    Aljazeera

Best sites

 CommonDreams offers several sources, including Twitter, Al Jazeera, and Democracy Now!

 The Huffington Post dedicates one page to the week in review.

 The Guardian in UK offers analysis beneath the video. Scroll down for the articles.

Live Al Jazeera

Here's Al Jazeera's coverage at commondreams.org.

And here's Democracy Now! on the issue.

What Do Bankers Wants?

Simon Johnson is the co-author of 13 Bankers, out in paperback on Monday.

As are many people, Simon Johnson is concerned with the newly appointed Bill Delay given free and unlimited access to President Obama's right ear. The disappointment is in the inevitability of the numbers--- of the large number of people who will continue to fall deeper into depression or debt, confusion or anger because of the continued concern over officials providing an arena for bankers, in particular, to sustain and increase their profits. It would be a good idea to increase the power of Elizabeth Warren instead.  Freud wondered what women want.  We might get further in understanding how our modern world functions by analyzing what bankers want instead. Of course, once we find out, then what? Then we know. If it turns out banks do rule America, and Bill Daley has come to ensure their ownership of the country, we have to ask ourselves if we support his task and that ownership.  What comes after that answer? I'm sure the list of answers is long. But having an answer is a start to take an active role in the world we help create every day from the time we get up till the time we get up again the next day and so on.  And taking an active role in helping to design one's own community as well as one's own country is a responsibility that everyone capable should participate in, in the 21st century, don't you think? 

In his article "The Bill Daley Problem" Simon Johnson writes:

Bill Daley, President Obama's newly appointed chief of staff, is an experienced business executive. By all accounts, he is decisive, well-organized, and a skilled negotiator. His appointment, combined with other elements of the White House reshuffle, provides insight into how the president understands our economy -- and what is likely to happen over the next couple of years. This is a serious problem.

This is not a critique from the left or from the right. The Bill Daley Problem is completely bipartisan -- it shows us the White House fails to understand that, at the heart of our economy, we have a huge time bomb.

Until this week, Bill Daley was on the top operating committee at JP Morgan Chase. His bank -- along with the other largest U.S. banks -- have far too little equity and far too much debt relative to that thin level of equity; this makes them highly dangerous from a social point of view. These banks have captured the hearts and minds of top regulators and most of the political class (across the spectrum), most recently with completely specious arguments about why banks cannot be compelled to operate more safely. Top bankers, like Mr. Daley's former colleagues, are intent of becoming more global -- despite the fact that (or perhaps because) we cannot handle the failure of massive global banks.

The system that led to the crisis of 2008, and the recession that has so severely damaged so many Americans, encouraged excessive risk-taking by major private sector financial institutions and, yes, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other Government Sponsored Enterprises (although these were most definitely not the major drivers of the crisis).

See the link for the entire article.

American Espionage Act of 1917 and Julian Assange

UPDATE on March 10, Julian Assange is concerned about getting "extradited to the United States" under the unconstitutional Espionage Act of 1917-1918.  The American Rosenbergs were executed under the enforcement of this act on falsified charges. I guess the government executed the Rosenbergs to give people one more reason to fear the Russians as well as give the country a vivid lesson in how to avoid becoming a scapegoat by having ideas contrary to those in power. Not that the Russian officials weren't as crazy as the American officials. Just different approaches to enforcements against the freedom and rights of individuals. Not that the Rosenbergs gave anything to anyone or wanted America to become Russia. In the newsclip from Democracy Now!, Joe Biden accuses Julian Assange of being "closer to a high-tech terrorist" than was Daniel Ellsberg, who exposed the Pentagon Papers. What an odd statement to make. Daniel Ellsberg became a hero of the American people for his expose. I think we have to stand behind Julian Assange's expose in order to support the free speech of journalists.

We have to ask ourselves the questions that get evoked by Biden's accusations? What does the accusation mean in context of democracy? Free speech?  Modern governance?  Should a vice president use the word terrorism with such confidence? Should anyone in or out of government? What effects do his words have on the general population? On those who want transparency in government? In those who promote democracy? Promote free speech? Peace? We have to ask the hard questions, the ones that make us uncomfortable.

I'm not so sure the government can ethically demand secrecy under the name of national security or wars each time it gets embarrassed or angry or feels threatened by an act of free speech. But those are its buzz words during our lifetime. War. Terrorism. War. Terrorism. War. Terrorism. In engaging in a constant war on terror, the government has assumed the right to be right on any subject in the name of national security.  Voicing such accusations against acts of free speech journalism is poor global leadership. It shows a lack of political wisdom. We have to move on from the habit of bullying one another into submission or obedience.

The monarchies in the past stated there existed a natural order that must never be questioned or disrupted. Of course, the kings and queens and nobles were at the top of the ruling order and determined their own privileges that included most of the money and land. What was in it for them? I mean psychologically as well as socially? We have to begin looking at all the facets of the questions and our own answers.

Colbert has the right idea in making fun of the international manhunt against Assange.

Here's the Democracy Now! video again on the latest on this situation.

Here's a series of videos again on Daniel Ellsberg's website.

Austerity of Spirit--Question of the Day 12-21-2010

In the spirit of freedom and peace, and in a desire to live in a world without wars and out of control surveillance, how can we as a global humanity--if we insist on money buys all for now-- give the wealthy and powerful elite enough of their own money to live on in luxury, forfeiting only their excesses,  so that the rest of us can take the excessive amounts of money and use it toward improving humanity: to end poverty, oppression, and exploitation world wide; to upgrade infrastructures, improve schools,  protect animals, advance medicine and science, aid the outcasts, protect women and children,  replace the prisons with centers or even hospitals and promote the arts and crafts?  When are we going to find that greed and myopic terrorism on the many by the few is a dying rope of the past we have to disentangle from everyday lives, once and for all, and lay to rest?

Paul Krugman: When Zombies Win

Paul Krugman says, "When historians look back at 2008-10, what will puzzle them most, I believe, is the strange triumph of failed ideas. Free-market fundamentalists have been wrong about everything — yet they now dominate the political scene more thoroughly than ever."

Musing On The Obamaesque Compromise--Obama's Tax Cut for the Rich

It's true, I don't find us as a very advanced civilization. I'm talking about the contemporary world. Not just because of the never-ending wars, the cheating and slander, the cruelty, the exploitation, the greed and the body scanners at the airports. But for two even worse conditions. First, because of the irrationality that force-feeds our collective imagination. It comes in ads and in sound bites. Every time I check to see what's going on outside, I hear the same narrative: can't get a car, can't get a house, can't get groceries, can't have kids, can't fly a plane, can't go to school, can't go to the doctor, can't go on vacation, can't explore space, can't  do adequate research to cure our current diseases, can't create art, can't do an archaeological dig, can't clean up the pollution, can't run for office, can't fix the economy. The repetition is driving me crazy. So is the rationale behind the can'ts. It's always the same: can't do it, not enough money. 

I can't help but suspect something inherently absurd, comic and tragic, at the base for this kind of thinking.

Reductio ad Absurdum

 It makes so little sense to me, I hope I'm in some other dimension looking in on a me (yes, a me)  in this dimension, one doing research on the irrationality of a civilization that stubbornly forfeits benefits to itself by clinging to an arbitrarily created stop and go sign, money. I hope I never see the benefits of this kind of stop sign. It will surely mean I have gone mad.  Why would any social group not want all of its members maximum security and health, education and freedom in order to explore and excel without fences or prisons? Surely doing so could only improve the society, don't you think?

Why is it we believe that without money some of us can't get cured, can't get a house, can't own a library of books? Why is it we can't conduct medical research to the edge of what is possible, we can't individually set ourselves on a life long program of study without unwanted interruptions even though the materials to do so exist, we can't devote our lives to individual creative pursuits even though the materials to do so exist?

Why is it we can't travel the world easily even though the means of transportation exist?  How frustrating for us as a modern civilization to invent a system in which all but a few must hold back from pursuits because they do not have the money to go forward. It seems to take no time to put up opportunity toll booths, It seems to take no time to maintain a wide network of intersecting toll booths that require everything one owns now and in the future. We are jammed packed at the toll booths, an invention of our own making. Worse, we are crowded into hundreds of them at a time. What kind of narrative to live out is that?

I'm trying to understand the benefit to maintaining a system of toll booth just inches apart. At this stop and go rate, I'll never get out of my neighborhood.

Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the odd one out here.Maybe I should figure out a way to get everyone else's money and make it mine and mine alone.

My Dream

It goes back to my frequent recurring dream as a child, perhaps. It started very early, probably around nine or ten years old. Maybe even younger. The dream continued through my late teen years. Sometimes it still returns. I find myself in the middle of a highly structured environment in which  everyone in some sense, which is unclear in the dream, is the same. I think in clothes. Everyone must wear the same clothes. Or live by some code that is imprinted in their lives in some way. Meanwhile, anyone  not in uniform, so to speak, is on the list of people to find and redress.  I'm one of the people on the list. Soldiers are scouring the city for people on the list. I don't think the soldiers are ordered to kill us. But to clothe us in some uniform, which then makes you passive. My first instinct is to get away, to find safety in the familiar families I know. I must get away from my parents, whom the soldiers have already clothed. I run to a friend's house for safety. But no matter whose home I run to for safety. It's always the same. The soldiers have already been there. The household is clothed in the uniform. What follows is also always the same. The families tell me the soldiers are coming for me, but I still have time to get away. So, I take provisions and leave. I go to the next place and find the same situation. My journey from family to family repeats itself until I awake. A few times I believe I was caught. But in those dreams I hesitated either out of sentimentality or out of uncertainty. Luckily, in the dream, I always manage to find a route out from captivity.

The dream now strikes me as my struggle to keep my imagination intact.

Obama's Compromise

So what does this musing have to do with Obama's latest signing, his tax cut for the rich? I'll get there by the end of this.

Like a lot of people I watched Obama's joy at being able to say he compromised in a bi-partisan manner as if the act of getting his signature on anything--a ghost pen of the health care reform--remained the goal without too much consideration for the content as long as it didn't backfire. He got his picture taken shaking hands with the republicans. The Washington Times called it a "a giant end-of-year victory."  I guess when he said, during the campaign, he wasn't going to work on "Maggie's Farm no more," that he meant him personally. I thought he was talking about the country. I thought he meant the country wasn't going to work on Maggie's Farm anymore.--at least it seemed he wanted to try to swing the country in that direction.

So, now I wonder will Obama leave behind a legacy as the Compromist who Redefined Compromise?

I don't even know if we can really call the Obama compromise-like compromise Obamaesque. But I think it has something to do with the The Washington Times calling it a "giant end-of-year victory."  If I recall, the Healthcare-like healthcare bill was billed as a giant victory, too. Maybe it's the "like" part that makes it Obamaseque. With all due respect, Obama seems like a decent persona who wants to  please, wants to make history as the president that got the two major parties in Washington to shake hands. It's not a very noble goal but it's a goal to give meaning to his presidency.But is that what we need right now? Aren't there more urgent matters?  That said, how can we say this tax bill is tax reform? How can we agree it's more helpful than harmful outside the chambers in Washington? Maybe the best headline we can give it goes something like Obama the Compromist Signs into Law a Very Obamaesque Compromise-like Compromise. Another Republican Victory.

I'm all for lower taxes. I'm all for less government in people's lives. I don't care about bi-partisanship. That sounds like more of a goal of a corporate board. What about balance? Movement that loosens the traffic jams at the toll booths? Most of these jams last a lifetime. It's insane. Here is another analogy. If there's too much water in one pail and not enough in the other pail, then use the water in the full pail to pour water into the near empty pail. I guess that makes me a rather simple thinker. But the truth is billionaires did not accumulate their billions alone. Moreover, most of it sits in pails being useless. Ironically, workers and consumers, jammed at the toll booths, made it possible for those fortunes. That alone should give a hint as to the best way to proceed. If the government is too timid to tax the very wealthy, then the workers and consumers should make the needed adjustment. And now I'm getting to the point about money.

The Con Job--Terms, Words, and the Quick Shift

How we define money and its value may be the greatest con job civilization has done on itself. Sometimes I wonder, is the con job abstract, out of our control, done by the vortex of history itself on the present? Or is it a con job by the few on the many? In either case, it's a disservice to the dignity of civilization. And the tax bill signed into effect sadly enables the con job. It keeps the money in the already full pail in the pail. It keeps millions of Americans unable to get through the toll booths to better their lives. Jammed at the toll booths.

Let me put this yet another way: What's the pathology of creating two pools of money in a single society in which one pool, the greater of the two, cannot be used for the betterment of the society that everyone shares--even though the money derived from the people who can't use it?

I'm talking about the massive pool (hoarded by 2% of our people). What genius came up with the notion that the money to better the society can only come from the tiny pool (held by the other 98%)? I'm trying to understand the deeply embedded irrational that governs the norm.

I thought everyone helped advance American society. I mean that in the strictest sense.

But there's something else. And here I seem to wander off again but I'll tie it in later. The passage of this particular tax bill seems very Presidentesque. It's in the word Compromise. Presidents get to redefine terms or words.  George W. Bush got to redefine safety and national security because he was the president who ruled in the name of national security once he got into office. During his campaign he got to define the term or slogan compassionate conservatism because that's what his campaign promised.  Kind of an oxymoron once we start looking for compassion in the decisions made by George W. Bush. But never mind, the slogan was only meant to propel him into the White House, where he would quickly get to redefine more crucial terms such as freedom, torture, war, privacy, patriotism, terrorist, etc. Like George W. Bush, Obama gets to carry on the tradition of redefining terms on his own terms to make his agenda work in his favor. Like candidate George W. Bush, candidate Obama had a campaign slogan he got to define : "change we can believe in." Most people know the connotations associated with Obama's slogan.

Bush is gone. And the term compassionate conservatism is buried in his campaign material. I don't remember if he ever used the term once he got into office. I think not. I think it rose from the ashes of the campaign and transformed into "you're either with us or against us." That slogan allowed for the redefinition of the terms national security, freedom, war, etc. Obama is our present presidentesque figure. He too had a campaign slogan. What happened to his campaign slogan, "change you can believe in?" Has it transformed into the slogan, "this is what compromise looks like"?  That slogan allows for the redefinition of tax reform.

 What is the Meaning of Compromise?

I think we can safely assume that the word compromise is undergoing  a Quick Shift in connotative meaning. It's very presidentesque right now. If compromise means, "a middle way between two extremes," as it is generally thought of in negotiations, then the President and Congress did not engaged in a true compromise.  Instead, they engaged in a compromise-like compromise. Clearly, there is no balance in the figures themselves if you create two columns and head one the Wealthy Ones and the other the Other Ones. The Other Ones get just enough to keep them from feeling discontent to rise up and take action against the imbalance. The Wealthy Ones get what they asked for. I guess these parcels represent the value of the two groups.  And that gets back to this money problem we have.

Maybe it's me. Maybe I just can't see the sanity in the division of America into two economic classes in which one class, the smaller one, has the majority of wealth and power, and the other one, the one with the majority of people in it, has the leftovers in wealth. I just can't see the benefit in that kind of system.

Under the current ill system, I don't mind political compromising if higher principles are not compromised and if it doesn't cause hardship among the general population. I don't consider financial loss among the wealthy a hardship. I once gave private lessons to someone very, very wealthy. After she was robbed for over several million dollars worth of things that she kept in an uninsured bank vault, I felt alarmed at her violation. But when  I noticed nothing in her personal world or even business world had changed let alone collapsed, I learned a lesson about money. She was emotionally distraught but not thrown into financial hardship by any definition. You could even call the things stolen spare change.

If  the rulers of America want these two classes (the Wealthy and the Other) to remain fixed, then they should come out and say so. You have to say, America is made up of two classes, the Wealthy (who get privileges and an open arena to excel) and the Other (everyone else who get to sink or swim). While you can't call that democracy, you can make up some other term for it and revise the Constitution to include this fixed stratification of classes. You might then redefine the pursuit of happiness or equality as the right to move from one class to the other through economic status, and leave it at that. Once out in the open, maybe we can divide up the country, so those who want to live under this two-class system can do so under their own free will. Those who don't can gather together and invent some other way of living.

On the other hand, if you want a democratic system for all, you have to get rid of the two-class system. Why not  start by redefining the value and use of money.  If taxes won't do it. then maybe unions can help out. Cut the work week in half while increasing salaries 500% for all workers, which will help create jobs and security for all. Think of the robberies, suicides, scandals,and murders that single act could prevent. Use a lottery system, to give bank confiscated homes to people who don't have homes or who have lost theirs. That would get the stress pockets off the books of the banks. Think of all the flags that would wave. Trust me, the banks won't notice the loss in profits.

Another good start is to practice ethical behavior, as a country, according to  the UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights of 1948. The United States agreed to follow the articles set forth, so I'll assume each administration knows the commitment America made.

We all know the narrative. We all know the conundrums chasing their own tails in Washington. We all know things can only get worse if we continue in the direction we are going, have been going for a very, very long time.

The Concession Compromise

But back to Obama. I regret his hope and his weakness. I regret the way he has missed the sinister motivations of the powerful group of Republicans, the ones who rule no matter which party is in office. I regret the wall he faces and can't free himself from. I keep thinking about that compromise Obama said he made. Obama made a point of saying "this is what compromise looks like."  It was a very telling statement. Very presidentesque, for sure. The Republicans called it a victory, the Democrats didn't know what to call it. But for the rest of us, things aren't much different with its passage. It's true the unemployed get an extension. But the probability is high that they would have gotten it anyway--in some kind of emergency bill. If a president can send billions overnight to a war zone, it can send a few million to people who are stuck unemployed. No ruling group that wants to stay in office would allow millions of people to be thrown into the street for--yes--not having enough money.

ADDED MARCH 10: Things are getting very different since Obama decided to work with the Rupublicans. Wisconsin, for example, is now stripped, until further notice, of its union rights. In Michigan, things are worse. What does it mean to be a worker in the 21st century? Workers are the ones who should decide for themselves, and they should have the right to strike and negotiate on equal footing at the table.

The Redefiner

To say "this is what compromise looks like" is to define or redefine the term compromise to mean what you say it means and want it to mean.  And to suggest that the act of compromise, even in this limitedly defined way, is good just because it exists on your terms, seems to bespeak Change without Change. Everyone must take the responsibility seriously for whatever position he or she is in at any given time. So, in presidentesque fashion, is Obama redefining the word compromise so that his change is change we can believe in? Either way, the people should be thinking about how to really restructure the money system so that we allow for, which we can today, abundance for all Americans.

EDITED FOR ERRORS 12-24-2010