Russell Brand and his Buddy Plato

You may remember that a little while ago I posted "Help Wanted II - `In A Democracy...'". I sought your help in tracing an excellent quote from Plato, to the effect that "In A Democracy, everyone should take a turn at governing - except those who want it."

Excellent idea, you may say.  And you'd be in great company.

I hope to post, imminently, about the kind of ... people... who seek power, in politics and also in the boardrooms of our "great" Corporations. And how they relate to certain historic figures of the last hundred years.  I hope you're intrigued.

Meanwhile, here's another version of Plato's idea, from the Scottish philosopher Billy Connolly, channelled through Russell Brand:

Like most people I am utterly disenchanted by politics. Like most people I regard politicians as frauds and liars and the current political system as nothing more than a bureaucratic means for furthering the augmentation and advantages of economic elites. Billy Connolly said: “Don’t vote, it encourages them,” and, “The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever being one.”

Russell Brand

Plato

The other day I told you about Russell becoming a guest editor of the New Statesman in Britain. Now his effort is out on the newsstands, and, more relevant to us, on the Internet. It's a shining gem, if a little verbose, as Brand-y Baby tends to be.

Some samples:  "I don’t vote because to me it seems like a tacit act of compliance; I know, I know my grandparents fought in two world wars (and one World Cup) so that I’d have the right to vote. Well, they were conned."

"I heard recently Oliver Cromwell’s address to the rump parliament in 1653 (online, I’m not a Time Lord) where he bawls out the whole of the House of Commons as “whores, virtueless horses and money-grabbing dicklickers”. I added the last one but, honestly, that is the vibe."

"There’s little point bemoaning... apathy. Apathy is a rational reaction to a system that no longer represents, hears or addresses the vast majority of people. A system that is apathetic, in fact, to the needs of the people it was designed to serve. To me a potent and triumphant leftist movement, aside from the glorious Occupy rumble, is a faint, idealistic whisper from sepia rebels."

"Materialism and individualism do in moderation make sense. If you are naked and starving and someone gives you soup and a blanket your happiness will increase. That doesn’t mean that if you have 10,000 silken blankets and a golden cauldron of soup made from white rhino cum your happiness will continue to proportionately increase until you’re gouched out, swathed in silk, gurgling up pearlescent froth."

Run don't walk, to read the whole damn thang, here.

Wall Street and the Shutdown

I'm a little late posting this comment on an Open Thread in the Daily Kos - but it's still funny, and to the point....

“CHEERS to friends in "buy" places. Oh, Wall Street, you're so adorable because you're so predictable. On Day 1 of the government shutdown, stocks soared on the confidence that this is no big deal. But when Day 2 rolled around and rainbows hadn’t yet popped up over the horizon, they were selling off their shit faster than Ron Popeil. Lord only knows how twitchy they'll be today. Meanwhile, big business, realizing they've been sleeping with a lunatic, is running into the arms of the boring but not crazy Democrats.”

It comes from this Link:  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/03/1243944/-Open-thread-for-night-owls-A-few-kind-words-for-Mr-Cheers-Jeers

Fighting Monsanto's Frankenfoods in Washington State

Just put a label on food products to tell us what we're eating.

Seems like a simple enough request, doesn't it? After all, most food items bear exhaustive labelling, telling us to the microgram almost, how much cholesterol, carbs, etc, etc, we're consuming.

But Monsanto and their grubby allies in the food business (and Congress) are desperate to prevent voters in Washington State from passing a simple Measure to get that information to shoppers - desperate to the tune of record numbers of Millions of dollars.

According to Food Democracy Now!, "... the Grocery Manufacturers Association is continuing to pile on millions in illegal contributions to defeat GMO labeling. Already, the opposition has smashed the record for the most amount of money raised by a ballot initiative in Washington state history with a $21 million war chest. Last week’s $3.7 million dollar contribution from the GMA and Monsanto’s additional $540,000 proves that they’re nervous about the results and that we have them on the run.

Just like last year in California, the opposition is bankrolled by out-of-state biochemical corporations and Big Food companies and they’re using $21 million dollars to blanket the airwaves with misleading and deceptive ads."

[I've blogged about GMOs before - to read the earlier posts, Please go to the Search box.]

Here's the full communique from Food Democracy Now! - 

"Monsanto and the GMA are running a dirty money campaign to Kill GMO labeling - Help us fight back!

Double your impact today - for every dollar you donate Yes on 522 will receive $2 to win the fight for GMO labeling!

Dear Richard,

All that’s standing between GMO labeling and Monsanto is YOU!

At Food Democracy Now! we wanted to thank you for your incredible willingness to stand strong against the most powerful corporations on the planet and those who are desperate to try to steal our basic democratic rights all in the name of toxic profits.

As we reported yesterday, the Grocery Manufacturers Association is continuing to pile on millions in illegal contributions to defeat GMO labeling. Already, the opposition has smashed the record for the most amount of money raised by a ballot initiative in Washington state history with a $21 million war chest. Last week’s $3.7 million dollar contribution from the GMA and Monsanto’s additional $540,000 proves that they’re nervous about the results and that we have them on the run.

Just like last year in California, the opposition is bankrolled by out-of-state biochemical corporations and Big Food companies and they’re using $21 million dollars to blanket the airwaves with misleading and deceptive ads.

Yesterday, we put out a final call to raise money for Washington and we’re only $8,349 from our goal.

Anything else you chip in can help us reach our goal by the end of the day will be spent on getting out the vote in the final hours to win GMO labeling! If we win in Washington, Monsanto knows it's day of deceiving the American public are over!
With your help, we can win this!
Please, Richard – don't miss this chance to have your gift matched by pitching in whatever you can.
Double your impact before time runs out - we need to hear from you today!
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/1007?t=7&akid=1044.198452.h5iBqn
Chip in today to stop Monsanto and the GMA's lie machine. We need to hear from you today! Chip in $5.20, $52.20 or $522 or whatever you can to help win GMO labeling! Today your donation will be matched 2 to 1! Every dollar counts!

“This is the Largest Amount of Money Ever Concealed in an Election," claimed Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson. And unbelievably he’s right!

On Thursday October 24^th, the GMA wrote a check to the opposition for $2.9 million dollars.
Less than 24 hours later, the GMA wrote another check for $877,000
Incredibly, this illegal multi-million dollar donation comes barely a week after the Washington state attorney general’s lawsuit against the GMA, where he alleges that the lobbying front group conspired behind closed doors to illegally launder money for America's largest food companies to keep their brands safe from consumer backlash.
The GMA, and companies that it represents, like Monsanto, DuPont, Pepsi, Coke, Kraft, Kellogg’s and General Mills, have now illegally funneled more than $11 million dollars to kill GMO labeling on Washington.
We have 6 days to show the world that we’re not going to be silent and allow this to happen. The opposition has already raised more than $21 million compared to $6.4 million for the Yes on 522 campaign. At this point, every dollar we can raise can help turn out more voters to win GMO labeling!
Help us get the word out today!
What your contribution today will help accomplish:

• $5.20 will help us reach 10 voters in Washington to defeat Monsanto and the GMA's deceptive ads.
• $52.20 will help us reach 150 voters in Washington.
• $522 will help us reach 2,000 voters in Washington.

Double your impact before time runs out - we need to hear from you today!
http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/1044?t=10&akid=1044.198452.h5iBqn
Monsanto and America’s big food companies already label their products in 64 other countries around the world, why not the U.S.?

Together we can overcome the opposition’s dirty tricks campaign – help put us over the top by giving what you can today!

Dave, Lisa and the Food Democracy Action! Team
Sources:
1. “No on 522 breaks fundraising record for Washington initiative campaigns”, The Seattle Times, October 28, 2013
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/1062?t=12&akid=1044.198452.h5iBqn
2. “Junk Food Lobby Forced to Disclose Donors to Its Secret 'Defense of Brand Strategic Account'”, Huffington Post, October 23, 2013
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/1060?t=14&akid=1044.198452.h5iBqn
3. “Grocers Set Cash Against Labeling: D.C.-Based Group Adds Millions More to Fight”, The Columbian, October 26, 2013

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/1061?t=16&akid=1044.198452.h5iBqn

4. “Attorney General Ferguson files suit against Grocery Manufacturers Association” October 16, 2013

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/1056?t=18&akid=1044.198452.h5iBqn

Food Democracy Action! is a 501(c)4 allied organization of Food Democracy Now!, focused on grassroots lobbying and legislative action.

Donations are not tax-deductible. Thank you for your support!"

Russell Brand, Political Commentator (Right On!), Magazine Editor

Apparently the Huffington Post has a UK edition. Not that I'm prejudiced, of course, but it does seem to have a more urbane (world-weary?) tone than its parent creation of the megalomaniacal once-Republican Arianna Huffington, who famously began her career by shacking up with aged intellectual Bernard Levin, then publishing a book on Picasso that was thoroughly slagged by the critics.

Just goes to show we can all start afresh, if we have unlimited chutzpah.

HuffPostUk, as I now call it, has a nice little piece about the BBC's late-night, at-length Current Affairs show Newsnight, which you can watch on PBS here in the States. They ask, "When did Newsnight, that ageing, late night, sleep-inducer suddenly become the most watchable programme on British TV?"

The main talking head on Newsnight is an irascible but highly intelligent veteran journalist called Jeremy Paxman, famous for snarling at politicians who he believes are guilty of dodging his questions - popularly known as "Paxo".

Yes, Virginia, we need a few dozen like him here.

HuffPostUk continues, "Wednesday’s offering continued the show’s good form, with producer Ian Katz pitting Paxo against the garrulous, unpredictable yet always-brilliant Russell Brand. And the pair played their roles to perfection."

Brand has been invited to be guest editor of the New Statesman, a venerable leftie publication in Britain, sort of an equivalent to the Nation. So of course, Paxman's first question has to be, "Who are you to edit a political magazine?"

Brand's political comments are, in my opinion, right on the money. Indeed, the Tea Party would probably approve of them, if they could just get over their hatred of "liberals".

A sample:

“What will your revolution look like?” growled Paxo from behind said beard.

“I’ll tell you what it won’t be like,” said Brand in a moment of clarity, “a huge disparity between rich and poor, where 300 Americans have the same amount of wealth as the 85 million poorest Americans, where there is an exploited and underserved underclass that are being continually ignored and where welfare is slashed while Cameron and Osborne go to court to defend the rights of bankers to continue to receive their bonuses. This has to be addressed.”   

The interview is pretty funny, but also moving in a way, as truth-telling usually is.  Don't miss it - 

The "Boris" being referred to is Boris Johnson, the hilarious Mayor of London, educated at Eton and Oxford, who once edited the "Spectator" magazine and was involved in massive sexual scandals.  Sample scandal from Wikipedia:  

"In 2004, British newspapers reported that Johnson had had a four-year affair with Petronella Wyatt.^[117] The affair, which had been well hinted at in UK newspaper gossip columns, included passionate London taxi cab rides around St John's Wood during which they would ask the cab driver to insert cassette tapes of Wyatt singing Puccini.^[118]")

Tom Tomorrow's Weirdest Yet!?

Hard to read?  Go here.

Stop Watching Us! Did "Anonymous" Shut Down The NSA?

8.30 pm, Pacific Time, Friday, October 25th -

I first heard it, indirectly, from Russia Today - the NSA has gone offline, and the group "Anonymous" claims to have hacked their computers and shut them down.

Then Huffington Post reported that the NSA is denying that they have been cyber-attacked:

"The website for the National Security Agency went offline Friday, with NSA.gov unavailable during the early evening. On Twitter, accounts associated with the hacker group Anonymous implied that the group may have been behind the attack."

While we await the next step.... check out this cool video (Google won't link to it.)

It's produced by Stop Watching Us.  Here's how they describe themselves:

"StopWatching.us is a coalition of more than 100 public advocacy organizations and companies from across the political spectrum. Join the movement at https://rally.stopwatching.us. This video harnesses the voices of celebrities, activists, legal experts, and other prominent figures in speaking out against mass surveillance by the NSA. Please share widely to help us spread the message that we will not stand for the dragnet surveillance of our communications.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a nonprofit civil liberties law and advocacy center that has been fighting the NSA's unconstitutional spying for years. Learn more at https://eff.org."

This link will also provide you with many more videos and opportunities to demonstrate for your freedom and get involved in the movement.

Forget The Maine! Remember The Powell Memorandum!

Mitch Jeserich's show on KPFK/Pacifica Radio, “Letters and Politics”, just keeps getting better.

Today he had an interview that will make your blood boil, with Marion Nestle - I imagine her surname is not a coincidence. She's the author of a new cartoon-book about the food industry, how it pollutes our food and distorts political processes around the world, its lobbying, freeloading on the taxpayer, propagandizing children to get them addicted to junk - general capitalist corruption - and what ordinary citizens can do about it. The title is "Eat, Drink, Vote" -

For instance, did you know that the Pizza Industry of the State of Maine were able to persuade Congress to over-rule Government regulators, to have a minimal amount of tomato paste accepted as a serving of vegetables in school lunches across the nation? A manipulation of our laws that made them millions of dollars.

If you love the show as much as I do, you can send compliments to Mitch at mitch@kpfa.org. You can listen to the program on the KPFK Archive now (I just checked).

But what really interested me, in addition to Ms Nestle's information, and perhaps will interest those who have learned from this Blog about the Powell Memorandum, was Mitch's introduction to the program.  He laid out some detailed information that I had not heard before, about other measures that the capitalist stooge and Nixon-appointed Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell, introduced with the aim of subverting much of the progress that had been achieved by the American people from the Great Depression forward, including the Glass-Steagall Act, which if Democratic President Clinton had not signed the 1999 legislation which repealed it, might have saved the world from the economic meltdown of 2008.

Powell was, even more than I had realized, a hugely important General in "The War On The 60s". I'm writing to Mitch Jeserich, to try to obtain a transcript of his illuminating comments.  If I manage to get hold of them, I'll be delighted to pass them on to you.  Watch this space!


The blurb on "Eat, Drink, Vote" goes like this:  "What’s wrong with the US food system? Why is half the world starving while the other half battles obesity? Who decides our food issues, and why can’t we do better with labeling, safety, or school food? These are complex questions that are hard to answer in an engaging way for a broad audience. But everybody eats, and food politics affects us all.

Marion Nestle, whom Michael Pollan ranked as the #2 most powerful foodie in America (after Michelle Obama) in Forbes, has always used cartoons in her public presentations to communicate how politics—shaped by government, corporate marketing, economics, and geography—influences food choice. Cartoons do more than entertain; the best get right to the core of complicated concepts and powerfully convey what might otherwise take pages to explain.

In Eat, Drink, Vote, Nestle teams up with The Cartoonist Group syndicate to present more than 250 of her favorite cartoons on issues ranging from dietary advice to genetic engineering to childhood obesity. Using the cartoons as illustration and commentary, she engagingly summarizes some of today’s most pressing issues in food politics. While encouraging readers to vote with their forks for healthier diets, this book insists that it’s also necessary to vote with votes to make it easier for everyone to make healthier dietary choices."

I Argue With Elizabeth Warren

Had an e-mail yesterday from the wonderful Senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren.  She says,

"I'm glad that the government shutdown has ended, and I'm relieved that we didn't default on our debt.
But I want to be clear: I am NOT celebrating"

She was putting out the current Democratic line, about how much the Tea Party/GOP Shutdown cost the economy -

"According to the S&P index, the government shutdown had delivered a powerful blow to the U.S. economy. By their estimates, $24 billion has been flushed down the drain for a completely unnecessary political stunt.

$24 billion dollars. How many children could have been back in Head Start classes? How many seniors could have had a hot lunch through Meals on Wheels? How many scientists could have gotten their research funded? How many bridges could have been repaired and trains upgraded?

The Republicans keep saying, "Leave the sequester in place and cut all those budgets." They keep trying to cut funding for the things that would help us build a future. But they are ready to flush away $24 billion on a political stunt."

Fair enough. The Shutdown was stupid and pointless, like most of these Washington meltdowns that politicians and the Media love so much. And the Tea Party are a bunch of no-nothing thugs and ignoramuses. And it's a total mystery that anyone votes Republican unless they're multi-millionaires.

But I don't buy the inflated numbers. As a "crazy liberal" in our past, Mark Twain, complained, there are "lies, damned lies and statistics".

[A propos of nothing, there's an amusing video here, in which Sebastian Wernicke addresses a TED Conference - Technology, Entertainment, Design - smart people listening to even smarter people, politics not recommended as a topic - on how to prepare the perfect Talk, based on statistics.]

Worthless statistics are particularly on display when it comes to (allegedly) measuring Public Opinion.  As I point out in my Book Proposal, "The War On The 60s",

"... the media bombard the public day after day with a doctored view of some current “event” – terrorism, a candidate’s sex life, a drug scare, crime. Then - they conduct an Opinion Poll, asking people what they think about that event.

All they are really doing is measuring how successful their propaganda has been.

This is especially true during elections, with disastrous results for the notion of rational choices being made by informed voters.

By the same token, those who decide our agenda can stifle a topic that ought to be a major election issue – in the 2010 midterm election, the United States was fighting at least two “hot wars”, yet they were barely mentioned in the course of the campaign. There was nowhere for a citizen who wanted to vote his concern about these million-dollar-per-soldier-per-year exercises, to turn."

Have a nice day!

The Solution To Congress

... aka The Buffett Rule

sent to me by my dear friend Liz Bailey -

"Salary of retired US Presidents . . . . . . . . . . . $180,000 FOR LIFE

Salary of House/Senate members . . . . . . . . $174,000 FOR LIFE

Salary of Speaker of the House . . . . . . . . . . $223,500 FOR LIFE

Salary of Majority/Minority Leaders . . . . . . . . $193,400 FOR LIFE

Average Salary of a teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $40,065

Average Salary of a deployed Soldier . . . . . . . $38,000 ( I think we found where the cuts should be made! ).

Warren Buffet, in a recent interview with CNBC, offers one of the best quotes about the debt ceiling:

"I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.

[RL adds:  I heard another good quote the other day, from Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz: "The whole shutdown is nonsense.  Congress passes laws saying how much money should be spent; Congress passes laws saying how much revenue (i.e. taxes) should be raised. The difference between the two, is the deficit." 

In other words, Congress made the deficit.  My solution to the deficit is simple: Tax the rich and corporations. No problem. Why would the people not vote for that in millions, if politicians had the balls to offer it to them? Remember - `From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs'.]

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971 - before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took one (1) year or less to become the law of the land - all because of public pressure.

Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.

Congressional Reform Act of 2013

1. No Tenure / No Pension.

A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they're out of office.

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do. 

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective 12/1/13. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women. 

Congress made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Don't you think it's time?

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!

If you agree, pass it on. If not, delete.

You are one of my 20+ - Please keep it going, and thanks"

Alison - a Match for Mitch?

Some while ago, I posted "Mitch McConnell, your time is up?"

Alison Lundergan Grimes is the Democratic challenger for the Kentucky Senate seat of "Turtle Man", the horrible Mitch McConnell.

She writes, "Today I am proud to announce that in our first quarter, we raised over $2.5 million -- more than Senator McConnell’s “strongest fundraising quarter to date.”"

and she has a groovy graphic, too -

I refuse to show you a photo of Ms Grimes - she's quite attractive, and you'd think I was being sexist and politically incorrect. But she also has a knack for making fun videos - don't miss this one, made for her run as Secretary of State, with "The Two Grandmas" -

Business (Now) Hates The Tea Party

Bloomberg News, of all people, today have an amusing column by Margaret Carlson, entitled "Boehner to Tea Party: Shut Yourself Down" - 

“Somebody had to take on the Tea Party that has turned Boehner’s tenure as House speaker into a living hell.

Too bad for Republicans, that someone was a Democrat rather than one of their own, which would have signaled that the party is fit to govern. By calling the bluff of a tiny band of burn-the-place-down Tea Party activists leading their colleagues over domestic (the government shutdown) and global (the debt ceiling) cliffs, Barack Obama exposed the fact that they didn’t come to Washington to fix anything, only to tear everything but air-traffic control down.”

Margaret Carlson weighs up Boehner's chances

I leave you to ponder what it means when a business pundit says:

“The meltdown on Capitol Hill doesn’t mean the end of the Tea Party. In fact, most of those lawmakers accurately point out that they are doing what the constituents in their painfully drawn, one-sided, overwhelmingly white, aging, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, science-denying districts want. Still, there are emerging signs -- from declining poll numbers to the breach with the Republican Party’s traditional business allies -- that the act is getting old. Mess with Democratic totems such as Social Security and nutritional programs for pregnant mothers, send Sarah Palin to Washington periodically to pour salt on open wounds, but don’t mess with Treasury bills and the markets.”

The article is here. It's a juicy one. Heh, heh!

 

Shameless Plug For My Lady - OVA Artists

A Robin Riley Creation

This and many other lovely pieces of Art, grand and folksy, are on display at the charming OVA Artists Gallery, Ojai, CA's newest cultural gem.

This Friday evening, 18th October, Ojai Valley Artists invite everyone to "Third Friday” at OVA arts, 108 N. Signal Street, from 6-8:30 p.m. Save the date and put it in your calendar! Music from Take Two, food and wine. FREE!!!"

Here's the link to the Gallery's website:  http://ojaivalleyartists.com/

So Cool! Instant Access to My Posts

I'm not much of a techie, as you know - what can you expect from an English Major?  However, I just googled The War On The 60s, and up came links to all the Posts on the Blog - very handy for those who missed one or two....

Here's the Link:  https://plus.google.com/116754171248675787521/posts

Bernie Sanders, Truth-Teller, on the Koch Bros and Paul Ryan's Blackmail

For your Sunday Morning delight - some straight talking about what's happening in Washington: excellent commentary from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders -

On the 12th day of a government shutdown, Senate Republicans on Saturday made the crisis worse by blocking a measure to raise the debt limit so the country can pay its bills. Within days, the Treasury Department expects the government will run out of borrowing authority and default. One of the immediate impacts could be a significant increase in interest rates on mortgages, credit cards, student loans and other debts owed by ordinary Americans. Yesterday, the Republicans were demanding that in order to reopen the government and pay our debts the Affordable Care Act had to be repealed. Today, they are demanding concessions on Social Security, Medicare and other programs. The leader of this gambit is House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, the 2012 candidate for vice president who ran on a ticket that lost by 5 million votes. “It is imperative that Republicans stop holding the American people hostage and let us reopen the government and pay our bills. Frankly, given the enormous problems facing this country, it is beyond belief that we have wasted weeks debating whether, for the first time in our history, the largest economy in the world should default and plunge the world into a severe financial crisis,” Bernie said.

VIDEO here

Bernie Sanders' website, with more informative Videos, is here.

AND it links to a Report from the Reuters News Agency - "Richest 1 Percent Hold 46 Percent Of The World's Wealth" - which you can read here.

Call The Media On Its Failure to Cover Politics Properly

I just received this - not sure if it's too late for you to sign the Petition.

However, I strongly urge you to click on the link** below, for an excellent summary of the failings of the Media coverage of the Shut-Down.  Important for anyone who follows Media and its role in democracy.

(Sorry, the link doesn't want to let me copy it into this Blog directly.)

Enjoy!

"Thank you so much for signing my petition telling TV networks to accurately report the fact that Republicans are solely responsible for the government shutdown. More than 150,000 people signed the petition, which will send a strong message to reporters and journalists that they need to do a better job covering the government shutdown.

I'll be delivering the petition signatures later today to CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS.

Before I deliver the signatures, can you help amplify the campaign by sharing it with your friends and colleagues on Facebook, Twitter, or by email?

**Click here for a share page that makes it easy to spread the word about the petition.

With the Republicans' shutdown shenanigans continuing in full swing we need to keep building pressure on the media to accurately report on what got us into this mess in the first place.

Thanks again for joining this campaign.

Digby

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com"

Who Says "Occupy!" Went Away?

Just like "All the Hippies Became Yuppies", which is one of the crazy-making lies that was never challenged, and which led me to start work on my Book Proposal, "The War On The 60s", we have grown used to hearing claims that "Occupy!" was just a flash in the pan, a movement with no program that vanished into thin air at the first crack of a cop's baton.

Well here's where some of those heroes are now -

This just in from the Publicity department of The Nation:

"I wanted to alert you to author and activist Wen Stephenson’s new reported cover story for The Nation, “The Grassroots Battle Against Big Oil,” and to see if you’d be interested in discussing a possible interview: http://tnat.in/pHgww

Traveling north of Houston, Stephenson talks to Tar Sands Blockade, the frontline of activists connecting to fight against the Keystone pipeline in the belly of the beast, Texas. These mostly young, radical climate and social-justice activists (many of them Occupy veterans) have banded with both local environmentalists (such as TEJAS –Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services) and conservative landowners fighting TransCanada’s use (and abuse) of eminent domain.

It’s been a year since they launched, and you’ve got to read what these activists have to say.

About the Author:Contributing writer Wen Stephenson is an independent journalist and climate activist, at work on a book about the climate-justice movement. He helped launch the grassroots network 350 Massachusetts and serves on the board of Better Future Project, a nonprofit in Cambridge, Mass., dedicated to building the climate movement. A former editor at The Atlantic, where he co-created and edited TheAtlantic.com, and at The Boston Globe, where he edited the Sunday "Ideas" section, he was most recently the senior producer of NPR's On Point. He has written about climate, culture and politics for The Boston Phoenix, Grist, Slate, The New York Times, and the Globe. On Twitter: @wenstephenson.

Want to Ban Fracking?

 - at least in Ventura County, maybe later in all of California?

Claire Wilson has a Petition for you -

Fracking is a toxic method of oil and gas extraction that involves blasting vast quantities of water and toxic chemicals deep underground--and it's endangering countless Californians' health, safety and livelihoods.

But Big Oil has plans to massively expand fracking in a huge section of the state -- roughly 1,750 square miles from Southern to Central California, from Modesto to San Diego County.

Claire Wilson started a campaign on CREDOMobilize.com, which allows activists to start their own petitions. The petition, which is to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, asks the following:

Fracking is an inherently dangerous threat to our air, water and health. Ban fracking now.

Tell the Ventura County Board of Supervisors: Ban fracking now.

Despite the clear risks posed to Californians by the oil industry's plans to frack our state, legislation that would have placed a moratorium on fracking died in the Assembly and Governor Brown appears eager to encourage the expansion of this toxic industry.

That's why we have to take matters into our own hands and ban fracking at the local level. Cities and counties in California have broad authority to ban fracking, and we should pressure our elected officials to step in where the state government has so far failed to act.

Local bans on fracking may also be one of the most effective strategies for winning change at the state level. If a wave of cities and counties in California reject fracking, it will put increased pressure on Governor Brown to ban fracking in all of California.

Will you join Claire and urge the Ventura County Board of Supervisors to ban fracking in Ventura County?

Thank you for your support.

Zack Malitz, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

"Romans invented Jesus"

"On Oct. 19, self-professed Biblical scholar Joseph Atwill is planning to make public some very flammable allegations. At a day-long symposium called "Covert Messiah" in London, England, he's set to unveil purported evidence that Roman aristocrats manufactured Jesus Christ - a claim that, if substantiated, would devalue the core of the Christian faith.

A press release announcing the purported new evidence claims that Atwill has discovered "ancient confessions" that purportedly prove that Romans invented Jesus Christ in the first century. He has long argued that the faith system was used as a political tool to control the masses -- something he says is still going on today.

"I present my work with some ambivalence, as I do not want to directly cause Christians any harm, but this is important for our culture," he said of the alleged debunk - one that he believes will eventually be universally accepted.

"In the release, Atwill said that governments often create "false histories and false gods" and that this is often done in an effort to secure social order.

Rather than a theology, Atwill believes that Christianity was concocted as a government project that was used to control Roman citizens. During a time in which Jewish residents were waiting for their Messiah, he says they were a constant source of insurrection, leading the Romans to seek out an equalizing and tempering force.

"When the Romans had exhausted conventional means of quashing rebellion, they switched to psychological warfare," Atwill explains in the press release. "They surmised that the way to stop the spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity was to create a competing belief system."

And that's when Jesus was allegedly created - a man who advocated peace rather than violence. Atwill contends that the Christ that billions embrace never actually existed and that he is a "fictional character."

He bases his theory on a study of "Wars of the Jews," a book by Josephus, a scholar who provided insight and documentation first-century Judea."

You can read the rest here....

Just One Thought About Ye Shutdowne

If the USA were* a Parliamentary system, like Britain, Canada, Australia, et al, the Prime Minister would call a General Election right now, which would be held in THREE fucking WEEKS!   The Party which is in the right/most popular, would win a large majority, and would get to sort out the current mess, leaving the remaining MPs of the losing Party to re-think its policies on the Opposition benches.

Doesn't sound so bad, does it?

(*Subjunctive of the unfulfilled condition, as not understood by many modern writers, including best-selling novelists - grrrrrrrrrr!)

Want More On The Koch Brothers?

If you're really that keen - and as a responsible member of a Functioning Democracy (Harr!) maybe you should be....

There's a good summary of the Political activities of the Koch brothers at Wikipedia.

You should also know about A.L.E.C. - the American Legislative Exchange Council

 - on Wiki here

and "exposed" here.

Oh, and Daily Kos's analysis of their lies about the Shut-Down, "Koch Brothers Abandon Tea PartyGovernment Shutdown Strategy".

How To End The Shut-Down

I trust I get credit for resisting writing about about the Damn Shut-Down - so far.

But now, when even the Koch Brothers, who funded the whole thing, are running from their brain-child (see The Guardian here) we have the exit route in front of us.

Daily Kos Campaigns invite us to Petition Our Elected Representatives for Redress of Grievances, thus -

"House Republicans shut down the government and there’s no end in sight. John Boehner is too scared of the Tea Party extremists in his own party to bring a funding bill up for a vote—even though there are more than enough Democrats and moderate Republicans to pass one.

But House Democrats just found a way to get around Boehner.
Democrats can force a vote on a clean funding bill and reopen the government if 218 representatives sign a “discharge petition.” With 200 Democrats on board, we only need 18 Republicans to sign on and cut John Boehner’s legs out from under him—and 21 House Republicans are already on the record saying they’d vote for a clean funding bill.
It’s time for these Republicans to act.

Join Daily Kos, Democracy for America and Campaign for America's Future by telling House Republicans: Sign the discharge petition and end this shutdown now.

Petition Text

Our Message to House Republicans

To House Republicans:
The government shutdown has been train wreck for the American people. Vital services have been shut off and 800,000 working people furloughed at a time when the economy is still weak.

It’s time to end this shutdown. Join House Democrats and sign the discharge petition to bring a clean funding bill up for a vote."

You can sign the Petition here.

Wigging Out: Michele Bachman And Other Nuts

Picture of The Week (so far) -

The leaf is on the fig tree, the squirrel is in the woodshed, the nuts are in the Congress.

(The caption came from the Daily Kos, not from me.)

The Kos's writer, Hunter, tells us:

"Leave it to Michele Bachmann, who I will remind all of America is still an actual member of Congress and not a crazy person with 20 cats who calls C-SPAN every evening to inform the hosts as to what legislative ideas her cats have given her today, to take this new theory to its only logical conclusion: the End Times are upon us.

"This happened and as of today the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists," she said. "Now what this says to me, I’m a believer in Jesus Christ, as I look at the End Times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God’s End Times history.”"Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, Maranatha Come Lord Jesus, His day is at hand," Bachmann added. “When we see up is down and right is called wrong, when this is happening, we were told this; these days would be as the days of Noah.”

So it's the best of all possible news, America: it's the apocalypse! Praise the secret Muslim Barack Obama for unleashing it!" 

Read the whole article, here.

"We believe in talks...."

"We believe in talks. But the Government's taken no serious steps to approach us."

Yes, he said that.  Who do you think "he" might be?  A fat, lazy, half-crazed, power-mad bigot?

Yep.

A loony who thinks God wants him to persecute women?

Yep again.

A moron who doesn't care how many people suffer, or even if the whole edifice of society comes crashing to the ground, as long as he gets what he wants?

Yep, yep, yep.

"He" is...

Not who you might be thinking....

The BBC reported today, that "The leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, has spoken exclusively to the BBC's Ahmed Wali Mujeeb as debate rages in Pakistan about whether the government should enter into talks with the Taliban.

Hakimullah said that he was prepared for ''serious'' talks, but the government had to sit with them and hear them ''present their conditions.'"

Here he is: 

There's nothing backward about these people - is there?

Hey! It's John Lennon's Birthday!

Here's how IMDb.com describes it:

"John Winston (later Ono) Lennon was born on October 9, 1940, in Liverpool, England. In the mid-1950s he formed his first band, The Quarrymen (after Quarry Bank High School, which he attended) who, with the addition of Paul McCartney and George Harrison, later became The Beatles."

(Read the full entry here.)

Attention Bob Dylan Fans

The redoubtable Jon Wiener, the UC Irvine historian who fought through the Supreme Court to force the FBI to release the John Lennon files, will have on his KPFK Radio show today at 4 pm the amazing Sean Wilentz, leading Dylan expert, to discuss and listen to a new Dylan CD - impossible as that may seem!

Here's how Wiener describes the program -

"Today/Wed 4-5pm on KPFK 90.7FM (& streaming live at kpfk.prg): Bob Dylan: Another Self Portrait 1969-1971: 35 previously unreleased tracks. After Blond on Blond and then Nashville Skyline, Dylan was done with fitting into other people’s categories. While the sixties were crashing, he retreated to Nashville and Woodstock to play with musicians who loved the sweet and weird old songs as much as he did. We’ll listen to key cuts and speak with SEAN WILENTZ, the official historian-in-residence at the official BobDylan.com website and author of Bob Dylan in America.

Valerie Plame, CIA Whistle-blower

Also: VALERIE PLAME is the former CIA officer who was outed in 2003 by the Bush White House after her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, challenged Bush’s rationale for invading Iraq. Now she has a new book out, her first work of fiction – it’s titled Blowback. We’ll speak with her about fact and fiction about the CIA."

The Powell Memorandum and Other Conspiracies

In my earlier post today, I Want to Meet a Tea Party-er!, I mentioned my interesting car-pool ride to Santa Barbara. On that journey, the subject of The Powell Memorandum came up.

Written in 1971 for the US Chamber of Commerce by Lewis F. Powell, a corporate lawyer and tobacco lobbyist, the Powell Memorandum is almost unknown, yet it could fairly be described as the blueprint for our present state of society.

In this Blog a while ago, I shared an extract from my Book Proposal, "The War On The 60s", in which I described the infamous Memorandum and its effects. For those who may not have seen it, I'm reproducing it today as a separate Post.

Now I've come across another document, another chunk of what we might call the "Anti-Constitution", created by our Con-Founding Fathers....  This one was written by none other than Roger Ailes, President of Fox News

Roger Ailes, Con-Founding Father

You can learn more about the Ailes document in this extract from an interesting new Documentary, "The Brainwashing of My Dad", made by Jen Senko (you can skip the ad, thank goodness) -

The Documentary is discussed in today's "Daily Kos", here.  This is how "Kos" describes the film:
"When the filmmaker's parents moved to a place where her father had a long solo commute to work and started listening to Talk Radio to alleviate the boredom, her family saw him change from a non-political Democrat to a radicalized, angry Right-Wing Republican. What happened to Dad?"

How We Got in this Mess: the Powell Memorandum

From April 25th, 2013 -

How We Got in this Mess: the Powell Memorandum

I'm grateful to Paul Kaskiewicz, for putting me on to this several years ago.

The Powell Memorandum  (an excerpt from the Proposal for my Book, "TheWar On The 60s")

Part 1:

Between 1967 and 1972, the percentage of the public who looked favorably on business fell from 75% to 25%....

In 1971, Lewis F. Powell, a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a huge organization that still represents the interests of business today. It's a document that's almost never mentioned in public discourse, but which outlines a sweeping plan that would be a major counter-offensive against the “threat” of the 60s.

Lewis F. Powell, appointed by Nixon to the Supreme Court

With the combined arrogance and paranoia that seem to be trademarks of a privileged elite, Powell believed that “the American economic system is under broad attack”. Almost everyone was hounding poor corporate America – not only “Communists, New Leftists and other revolutionaries”, but “the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and... politicians”.

Powell had the remedy: Though American business was "plainly in trouble", “the time has come -- indeed, it is long overdue -- for the wisdom, ingenuity and resources of American business to be marshaled against those who would destroy it.”

The poor, beleaguered business community, hemmed in though it was by powerful enemies, could still muster the support of “the Chamber's... strategic position, with a fine reputation and a broad base of support. Also... there are hundreds of local Chambers of Commerce which can play a vital supportive role.”

In the smooth language of diplomacy, and with many a Uriah Heep caveat about the sacred freedoms of academic study and free speech, Powell proposed that Big Business should establish panels of “professional advocates”, propagandists to be financed by business through the US Chamber of Commerce, to masquerade as disinterested scholars, as well as “a Speaker's Bureau, which should include the ablest and most effective advocates from the top echelons of American business.”

These pundits would “insist upon equal time on the college speaking circuit. The FBI publishes each year a list of speeches made on college campuses by avowed Communists. The number in 1970 exceeded 100. There were, of course, many hundreds of appearances by leftists and ultra liberals....”

Powell then made the astounding claim that among the flood of Communist outpourings on American campuses, “There was no corresponding representation of American business”.

No business schools? No capitalist Law taught? No supply-and-demand Economics lectures? No “Defense” research done in University laboratories, or new products developed with public money for the benefit of Corporations?

Hah!

Not only Universities should benefit from this intellectual generosity: “Action programs in the high schools should be considered, which could be run by local chambers of commerce”, but control “should be retained by the National Chamber.”

(As a teacher in California I saw how these programs have worked out, when my students were addressed by a lecturer from a large Bank, who told these young teenagers they should take out Credit Cards as soon as possible, in order to show that they could make their monthly payments regularly, and thus establish “Good Credit”.)

Rising to his paranoid theme, and sounding like Senator McCarthy, the disgraced Chairman of the red-baiting House Un-American Activities Committee of the early 50s, Powell went on: “The national television networks should be monitored in the same way that textbooks should be kept under constant surveillance. This applies not merely to so-called educational programs (such as "Selling of the Pentagon"), but to the daily "news analysis" which so often includes the most insidious type of criticism of the enterprise system”.

Similar campaigns would cover all media.

Two months after writing his Memo, Lewis Powell was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Nixon. His Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court when it was leaked to columnist Jack Anderson.

Jack Anderson -

“The incestuous relationship between government and big business thrives in the dark”

But Powell's proposals fell on fertile ground; the Chamber, and other corporate activists, built a powerful array of institutions intended to change the public's understanding of Business and society. These organizations are now household names, because we see them every night on TV, always presented as though they were disinterested institutions of learning - the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, and dozens more....

Powell's panacea paid off handsomely in the 1980s, under the Reagan Administration's "hands-off business" philosophy. And it continues today stronger than ever, with the anti-regulation lunacy of the Republican front-group, the “Tea Party” - not satisfied with the “magic of the market”, which has destroyed huge sectors of the world economy, they think that if financiers and businessmen are allowed to do whatever comes into their angelic little heads, we'll all miraculously grow rich.

We can see now that Powell's thinking has been influential beyond his wildest dreams; now we have a Supreme Court that has given us a judgment laughably known as “Citizens United”, which hands over our entire election system to the Corporation with the biggest pocket-book, under the claim that secretly funding politicians is the same as free speech.

I Want to Meet a Tea Party-er!

One of the strange things about Blogging, is that one has almost no idea who is (or might be) reading what one writes.  The few people who have told me they read "The War On The 60s", tell me they love it.

That's great - but....

One of the biggest problems we have in our current discourse - take a look at Congress right now - is that we tend to talk only to those who agree with us.

Last week I had the pleasure of car-pooling to Santa Barbara with a lovely group of Liberals, led by a local activist named Bill Haff, to watch Robert Reich's new Documentary "Inequality For All".

Bill is pursuing a project which I think is wonderful: he wants to set up meetings with Tea Party members, to discuss how we all view the world, our beliefs and principles (I'm putting words in Bill's mouth), and whether we might be able to find common ground for the good of us all.

I would love for that to succeed, and I'd love to take part.

So, here's the nub:  Is there one, or many, Tea Party supporters in the Ventura/Santa Barbara/Ojai area, who would like to have a friendly chat with some of us crazy Progressives, to try to understand each other's points of view?

If you are reading this, and your world-view is Conservative, Republican, Tea Party, Libertarian, or.... you tell me - and you are interested in such a discussion, please e-mail me at thewaronthe60s@gmail.com.

Thankyou!

Richard.

Do You Know Alan Watts? (UPDATED!)

He delivered (recorded!) some of his brilliant wisdom on KPFK Pacifica Radio this morning!

You can hear it on the KPFK Archives here.

For those who are new to this brilliant thinker and speaker, you have a treat in store, which has changed many lives.

Extracts from Alan Watts' radio broadcasts were played on Mitch Jesarich's brilliant radio program, "Letters and Politics".  He covered the insanity of absolute belief-to the-death in any philosophy, and discussed the work of Carl Jung, the giant in the fields of Psychology and Ethics.

Don't miss it!

Speaking of Our Health - see "Gasland II" - FREE - in Ventura, Sunday

Courtesy of the good people at our local branch of Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions - 

October Meeting: Gasland 2

2013-09-12 12:21:45

In this explosive follow-up to his Oscar®-nominated film GASLAND, filmmaker Josh Fox uses his trademark dark humor to take a deeper, broader look at the dangers of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the controversial method of extracting natural gas and oil, now occurring on a global level (in 32 countries worldwide).
In view of the recent controversy surrounding the passage of SB 4 and the future of fracking regulation in our community, this film is a “must see”.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

3:00 to 5:00 p.m.

E.P. Foster Library Topping Room

GASLAND PART II, which premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, shows how the stakes have been raised on all sides in one of the most important environmental issues facing our nation today. The film argues that the gas industry’s portrayal of natural gas as a clean and safe alternative to oil is a myth and that fracked wells inevitably leak over time, contaminating water and air, hurting families, and endangering the earth’s climate with the potent greenhouse gas, methane. In addition the film looks at how the powerful oil and gas industries are in Fox’s words “contaminating our democracy”.

http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/