One of the Best Explanations of White Privilege You Will Likely Ever Read

 by eodell on Tue Sep 30, 2014 at 08:23:19 AM PDT

"Regarding offended white people

I'm not sure who I'm addressing this to, since all of the black people here and a lot of the decent white people already know this, and the racist whites won't get it, but what the hell.

Dear white racists and your fragile fee-fees:

Relax, I'm white, too. Look, I can do the secret handshake and nudge-nudge, wink-wink. Lemme whitesplain something to you, fellow white men: no one buys your bullshit.

That's because your bullshit runs like this: For historically- and presently-oppressed black people to be treated decently, they must carefully avoid doing anything that could be remotely twisted into behaving like a white racist, even if you're squinting and looking at it from five hundred meters away in a thick fog. Because that would be racist, and therefore hypocritical, and if that's the case, they deserve to continue to be oppressed.

Here's the thing you thick-headed assholes totally fail to get: NO ONE DESERVES TO BE OPPRESSED, PERIOD. You can talk all you want about how it's okay for black people to be mistreated if--- but get this, there is no "if". It's not okay, ever. That's why we call it mistreatment. Your error is to think that it's ever justified, and your active misdeed is to constantly search for a justification. Black people, collectively, are not guilty of anything. In fact, a basic principle of civil society is that we reject the notion of collective guilt. Some individual black people, like individual white people, have done bad things, and in those cases, may deserve judicial punishments. But even those people don't deserve mistreatment from some random white guy on the street. And black people in general don't owe anyone anything as a prerequisite for being treated decently. No one does.

Now I know there are a bunch of you in the back of the room waving your hand and getting ready to launch the argument that it's racist to complain about white privilege. No, it is not. Complaining about white privilege is not the same as assigning collective guilt to white people. White privilege is a pervasive feature of our society and our legal system. It's hard to see if you're white (and you're not looking or actively trying not to look), but it is real, it is powerfully destructive, and if global warming had the kind of statistical support that evidence of white privilege has, Bill O'Reilly would be haranguing FOX News viewers to install solar panels.

And here's the subtle point that you folks either can't or won't grasp. White privilege is especially the responsibility of white people to fix, not because we're all racist schlubs like you are, but because white privilege itself means that we're the ones who have the power to change it. Black people don't have that power, again because of white privilege, and not because they aren't sufficiently careful in the way they phrase their complaints about being mistreated. It's our problem and our responsibility as white people to fix not because whites are collectively guilty, but because it is the responsibility of ALL PEOPLE to fight for decent treatment for ALL PEOPLE. It just happens that, because of our shithead ancestors and a helping handful of historical accident, we white people are the ones who can do something about it. When the finger on the trigger is white, it's pointless to ask a black guy to lower the gun.

And quite frankly, given all the shit that our black fellow citizens have put up with, and all the shit they have to deal with every. fucking. day., if some of them lose their tempers and say things that aren't carefully calibrated to kiss your privileged, hypersensitive asses, well, is that actually surprising? You lose your minds when black people just complain verbally about being kicked. Imagine how tough it would be for you to keep your cool if someone was actually doing something to you instead of just talking.

Finally, yes, I know this is pointless. You want to be offended to fluff your fragile egos, and you want black people to please shut the fuck up and stop harshing your mellow. I hate to break it to you, but as long as people are being murdered by the state, given draconian sentences for crimes that in many cases they haven't even committed, and being held in poverty and privation and a constant state of fear, those of us who actually give a shit about our fellow citizens are going, at the very least, to make some noise about it.

In the meantime, if you can't be bothered to do your duty as an American to protect your fellow Americans with the considerable power at your disposal, at least shut the fuck up and stop making an ass of yourself.

Regards,

Your fellow privileged white guy

And the bright side of the downward thermodynamic spiral is, um..."

"Governments can err, presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales."

Speech before the 1936 Democratic National Convention

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

June 27, 1936

A Rendezvous With Destiny

President Roosevelt:

"Senator Robinson, Members of the Democratic Convention, My Friends: Here, and in every community throughout the land, we are met at a time of great moment to the future of the nation. It is an occasion to be dedicated to the simple and sincere expression of an attitude toward problems, the determination of which will profoundly affect America.

I come not only as a leader of a party, not only as a candidate for high office, but as one upon whom many critical hours have imposed and still impose a grave responsibility.

For the sympathy, help and confidence with which Americans have sustained me in my task I am grateful. For their loyalty I salute the members of our great party, in and out of political life in every part of the Union. I salute those of other parties, especially those in the Congress of the United States who on so many occasions have put partisanship aside. I thank the governors of the several states, their legislatures, their state and local officials who participated unselfishly and regardless of party in our efforts to achieve recovery and destroy abuses. Above all I thank the millions of Americans who have borne disaster bravely and have dared to smile through the storm.

America will not forget these recent years, will not forget that the rescue was not a mere party task. It was the concern of all of us. In our strength we rose together, rallied our energies together, applied the old rules of common sense, and together survived.

In those days we feared fear. That was why we fought fear. And today, my friends, we have won against the most dangerous of our foes. We have conquered fear.

But I cannot, with candor, tell you that all is well with the world. Clouds of suspicion, tides of ill-will and intolerance gather darkly in many places. In our own land we enjoy indeed a fullness of life greater than that of most nations. But the rush of modern civilization itself has raised for us new difficulties, new problems which must be solved if we are to preserve to the United States the political and economic freedom for which Washington and Jefferson planned and fought.

Visit original posting http://www.austincc.edu/lpatrick/his2341/fdr36acceptancespeech.htm for remainder . . .

Fighting for Power or Building Bridges

 Posted on August 23, 2014 by theozarker

 

July 23, 2014

We can argue “’til the cows come home” about whether, percentage wise, per capita, blah, blah, blah more blacks than whites are on welfare, in prison, commit more crimes and so forth. Truth is, white power is the dominant (and pretty much only) power in the United States. And the wealthier the white, the more powerful the white. It is also true, that white power structure has worked mightily – from small town governments to the halls of Imperial power that rule us all – to keep it that way while maintaining an outward appearance of “striving for diversity”. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/opinion/in-ferguson-black-town-white-power.html

Not smart, folks. Not smart at all, because from what I read, twenty years from now – just about the time those full-on effects of Imperial decline really hit the fan – we white folks will be the newest minority in America. And if you are poor and white, (as a whole lot of us will be by then,) I can pretty much guarantee you that your percentage of white power will be equal in value to current black power in the eyes of a white, Imperial power structure intent on maintaining that power and its perks to the bitter end.

I had my first experiences with this when, as a single white parent working at a minimum wage job and trying to finish a bachelor’s degree, I moved into a house in a “white flight” black neighborhood because the white friend who owned the house (but had moved away during that white flight) let me rent it for the amount of the house payment.

Right off the bat, I was warned by horrified white co-workers to always lock my car door if I went anywhere, park under a light as close to the store as possible if I went shopping (even if I were just running in “for a minute”) and to always check the back seat before I locked myself into the car. These warnings were usually accompanied by lurid assurances that a cousin’s niece’s friend (white, always white) was raped by a black man hiding in the back seat of her car, which she had forgotten to lock, in that very neighborhood.

What I found was a pretty typical lower-middle-class and working-poor neighborhood made up of a few white holdouts and young families who had bought because the housing was cheap and a large number of somewhat wary, but basically friendly blacks – some with college educations, some on welfare – who, mainly through their children going to school with my son, introduced themselves, dropped by to visit, brought a dish by way of welcome or invited me over to their house to eat or visit. In other words, pretty normal activities in any Midwest neighborhood where someone new had just moved in.

My first real run-in with the “white power” experience came when I took one of my neighbors – a young, black single mother – to cash her paycheck at the neighborhood branch bank where my own account was.

When we pulled up to the drive-in window, I told the white cashier that I wanted to deposit my paycheck to my account and, pointing to my neighbor, who held up her paycheck, I asked if they could cash her paycheck, too.

The cashier looked at the check through the window and replied, “Sure.”

We signed our checks and I put them and my deposit slip into the pneumatic tube and sent them on their way. In a minute, the tube came back with an envelope containing my receipt and the small amount of cash I’d withheld from my paycheck. Thinking her cash would come next, we waited … and waited …

Finally the cashier looked up and said, “Was there something else?”

My neighbor leaned over and said, “You forgot to cash my check.”

“There was only one check in there,” the cashier insisted.

“No, that’s not right,” I said. “I put them both in there, myself.”

The cashier looked over as another (white) woman came over and asked, “Is there a problem?”

Pointing to my friend the cashier said, “She says she sent her paycheck to be cashed, but she didn’t.”

I tried to tell her what had happened, but she bent down to look at my friend and said, “I’m sorry. We don’t cash checks for people who don’t have an account with us.” Then she walked away.

And that was that. The cashier told us to please move the car, as we were blocking the window. My black friend gave me a resigned nod and we left. I offered her twenty dollars to tide her over until she could borrow money from family. After I knew the bills had been paid, I closed the account and opened one at a bank nearer work – back in White America.

But in forty years since, I’ve never forgotten the encounter with those two representatives of White Power or the realization that, to them, I was just another “black” whose word meant nothing.

It’s not that there were no problems, that everything was hunky-dory for the three or four years I lived there. There were the occasional hurt feelings, black and white. My house was broken into and my old 13 inch, black and white TV stolen – apparently by some black kids down the block according to a black neighbor who told me (accurately) that it would do no good to report the break-in because the police wouldn’t do anything about it. A neighbor – whose son had exchanged words with my son on a couple of occasions – ran over and killed my son’s dog. Whether it was deliberate or not, I still don’t know.

I do know that neighbors have spats, houses are broken into and neighbors do cruel and spiteful things in neighborhoods both black and white, rich and poor. But only in poor, black, or minority neighborhoods I’ve lived in have I seen the constant displays of white power (often including banks toward the white and minority small businesses there) that I’ve described above.

We’d like to think things have changed for blacks. Maybe they have, for a few. But, living in other black and mixed neighborhoods, now and over the years, it really hasn’t for far too many of the poor and working poor – especially minorities, especially blacks.

Over the last two weeks, trying to follow the stories out of Ferguson and the comments attached, I’ve seen the term, “black thugs” so frequently in comment after comment – often referring not just to those looting, but to all blacks – that I’ve frankly come to believe it’s just a newer, more sanitized, but no less hurtful or inaccurate white phrase for “niggers”.

So, as we whites move toward minority status in a country too many of us have always considered “ours”, it seems to me we have choices to make – especially those who understand the economic, geological, environmental and climatological perfect storm coming full bore toward us. We can isolate and arm ourselves against those “others” in a futile attempt to preserve whatever power we think we have against the power structure of a declining empire that will be only too eager to disabuse us of the idea. Or we can do a realistic assessment of our own fears about those others whose minority status we will soon join and begin to make friends with them, now.

There will be disagreements (a lot of them simply cultural differences) that will have to be overcome; there will be people you just don’t care for, for one reason or another; there will also be people who just don’t care for you for similar reasons. And there will be those you want to avoid – whether dangerous or just damned annoying – just like white people you know or run into.

But it has honestly been my experience, in every minority or mixed neighborhood I’ve lived in, that once you’ve made friends and built some trust, they will be as glad to point out the people who are truly dangerous (or truly annoying) as you would be, because they are as tired of being painted with the same broad brush as you also would be.

It’s going to be a scary place here in America as whites lose their majority status and an even scarier place as the One Percent try to maintain control of the declining Empire. Looking at the situation ahead, it’s usually a good idea to have your bridges in place before you get herded toward the edge of the cliff with nowhere else to go.

The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats

By NICK HANAUER

[Source: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#ixzz35r2xaXD3]

Memo: From Nick Hanauer
To: My Fellow Zillionaires

You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries—from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor. Then I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. In cash. My friends and I own a bank. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can’t even imagine. Multiple homes, my own plane, etc., etc. You know what I’m talking about. In 1992, I was selling pillows made by my family’s business, Pacific Coast Feather Co., to retail stores across the country, and the Internet was a clunky novelty to which one hooked up with a loud squawk at 300 baud. But I saw pretty quickly, even back then, that many of my customers, the big department store chains, were already doomed. I knew that as soon as the Internet became fast and trustworthy enough—and that time wasn’t far off—people were going to shop online like crazy. Goodbye, Caldor. And Filene’s. And Borders. And on and on.

Realizing that, seeing over the horizon a little faster than the next guy, was the strategic part of my success. The lucky part was that I had two friends, both immensely talented, who also saw a lot of potential in the web. One was a guy you’ve probably never heard of named Jeff Tauber, and the other was a fellow named Jeff Bezos. I was so excited by the potential of the web that I told both Jeffs that I wanted to invest in whatever they launched, big time. It just happened that the second Jeff—Bezos—called me back first to take up my investment offer. So I helped underwrite his tiny start-up bookseller. The other Jeff started a web department store called Cybershop, but at a time when trust in Internet sales was still low, it was too early for his high-end online idea; people just weren’t yet ready to buy expensive goods without personally checking them out (unlike a basic commodity like books, which don’t vary in quality—Bezos’ great insight). Cybershop didn’t make it, just another dot-com bust. Amazon did somewhat better. Now I own a very large yacht.

But let’s speak frankly to each other. I’m not the smartest guy you’ve ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I’m not technical at all—I can’t write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship. And what do I see in our future now?

I see pitchforks.

At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the 99.99 percent—is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.

But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.

And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.

If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.

Many of us think we’re special because “this is America.” We think we’re immune to the same forces that started the Arab Spring—or the French and Russian revolutions, for that matter. I know you fellow .01%ers tend to dismiss this kind of argument; I’ve had many of you tell me to my face I’m completely bonkers. And yes, I know there are many of you who are convinced that because you saw a poor kid with an iPhone that one time, inequality is a fiction.

Here’s what I say to you: You’re living in a dream world. What everyone wants to believe is that when things reach a tipping point and go from being merely crappy for the masses to dangerous and socially destabilizing, that we’re somehow going to know about that shift ahead of time. Any student of history knows that’s not the way it happens. Revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. One day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the streets, and before you know it, the country is burning. And then there’s no time for us to get to the airport and jump on our Gulfstream Vs and fly to New Zealand. That’s the way it always happens. If inequality keeps rising as it has been, eventually it will happen. We will not be able to predict when, and it will be terrible—for everybody. But especially for us.

***

The most ironic thing about rising inequality is how completely unnecessary and self-defeating it is. If we do something about it, if we adjust our policies in the way that, say, Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression—so that we help the 99 percent and preempt the revolutionaries and crazies, the ones with the pitchforks—that will be the best thing possible for us rich folks, too. It’s not just that we’ll escape with our lives; it’s that we’ll most certainly get even richer.

Nick Hanauer is a Seattle-based entrepreneur.

Who's on First?

By The Ozarker

 [Reposted from The Conflicted Doomer] 

 

 June 21, 2014   

Okay, let me see if I can get this straight. The Saudis (our Sunni friends) trained ISIS (their Sunni terrorists) to fight in Syria (their Shia enemies) and we supported them because they were the “good” terrorists (therefore, friends of our friends) until they went rampaging through Iraq and threatened the (Shia) government (therefore, the Saudi’s enemy, and, if not our friend, at least originally our hand-picked puppets) and to protect that now re-elected Shia government in Iraq, but only if they play nicer with the Sunni and Kurd populations (not sure if they’re our friends, or just not our enemies, yet,) we’re thinking of working with the Shia Iranians (the Shia enemies of our Sunni friends, the Saudis,) who are friends of the Shia Iraqi government (and, therefore, are our enemies, but might become our friends if they cross their eyes and hold their tongues just right) but are enemies of  Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who don’t seem to want to be friends with anyone (except the neo-Nazis in Ukraine – enemies of our enemies, the Russians) and who want to send in the troops – again – and basically bomb, bomb, bomb the crap out of everybody …

So, who’s on First?

Reaping the Whirlwind

By The Ozarker

 [Reposted from The Conflicted Doomer]

May 10, 2014

This will be a short post this week as I have spent most of the day looking at videos and pictures from the terrible Trade Union Building fire that took so many lives in Odessa, Ukraine, over a week ago.

I do not know the people in those pictures and videos, but they are horrifying. There was video of people in a crowd in front of the burning building lobbing more fire bombs into the building, chanting and shouting over and over; video of a man coming to an upper window of the building, only to be shot or shot at by someone in that crowd; one of a man at a back or side door, hustling men armed with sticks and other weapons into the burning building.

There were still pictures of bodies – said to have been found inside the building after the fire. One was of a man on his back, hands curled in agony, with only his head and hands burned; another of a woman with that same pattern of burned head and hands, her skirt thrown up above her naked body and her legs spread as though she had been raped; a third was of a very pregnant woman – said to have been one of the workers in the building – bent backward over her desk with what looked to be a cord of some kind tightened around her neck. The text said she had been strangled to death.

I don’t know who did these things. I do know that when the victims of the fire were finally identified by local officials, they were not the “Russian operatives” some of our press reported, but were identified as local Odessians.

I also know, the Empire, along with the EU and NATO, has had its fingers in the pie, there in the Ukraine, for years.  Our Assistant Secretary of State for European affairs, our Ambassador to the Ukraine, at least one Senator, the Vice President and the Director of the CIA have all made trips to the Ukraine to support (or use) the Maidan uprising, make plans as to who we wanted for, or to stand with, our “hand picked” and unelected replacement of the democratically elected Prime Minister, (who we helped oust, in the usual name of “Peace and Democracy”™).

I am not saying we did this particular act. I am saying that everywhere the Empire plants its bloody boots in the name of “peace and democracy”, shit like this, or worse, happens – from the Eastern European countries, down through Africa, the Middle East, Central and South America and Asia. Everywhere we have sown to the wind, they have reaped a whirlwind of internal hatred and violence.

But Russia and China, against whom we have released these latest whirlwinds in our eagerness to “contain” them, control world resources and maintain our worldwide hegemony, are not small and helpless countries on the verge of bankruptcy. They have the power to hurt us back and our imperial allies; they have the power to release their own whirlwinds.

I can’t get those images from Odessa out of my mind; I don’t want to get them out of my mind. As much as I despise the Empire and its ruthlessness, I do love this country. I don’t ever want to see the kinds of pictures and videos that I saw from Odessa being released from some future United States on YouTube.

But unless we can look at those people around the world, that we’ve so arrogantly harmed, with the same horror and heartbreak that we would feel if they were our loved ones, they will be our loved ones one of these days.

No empire lasts forever. Neither will this one. Right now, the Empire is in grave danger of having taken a step to far, of sowing one too many seeds to the wind and unless we find the will to stop them, it will be our turn to reap the whirlwind, this time.

The End of the World as We Know it Will Suck Big Time

 [Resposted from The Conflicted Doomer]

Posted on November 23, 2013    by theozarker

This has been one of those weeks when I felt like banging my head against the wall until all the pain stopped. The gloom, rain and cold set the stage for it, I suppose. But it went so far beyond mere physical discomfort, I couldn’t seem to put it into words.

Maybe it was the week-long buildup to the fiftieth anniversary of the JFK assassination and the sense, looking back, that the assassination was the first blow in the long and merciless death of youthful idealism in this country, the first ratcheting down of the thumb screws on the belief that a nation which could send a man to the moon could also guarantee civil rights and a way out of poverty for all its citizens – indeed, for all citizens of this global community – and that we were, indeed, our brothers’ keepers.

Maybe it’s the slow rot of the “greed is good, I’ve got mine, get yours while you can and to hell with those that can’t” mentality that has taken the place of those ideals over the last fifty years and let the wants of a few run roughshod over the needs of the many.

Perhaps it is the stream of stories about melting starfish, dead dolphins, poisoned bees, fungus-infected bats, over-heating oceans, dying forests, melting ice sheets, stripped soil – the constant hacking away at the chain of life by the one species which promised to be cognizant of his place in that chain, but turned out to be too stupid to understand that breaking free from that chain of life heralds his own death as a species.

Perhaps it’s the juxtaposition of the pictures from the battered Philippines with the “same old, same old” attitudes at the latest climate change conference, in Warsaw, topped off by Secretary of Defense Hagel’s obscene speech in Halifax, Nova Scotia, this week  where he outlined the Military’s new Arctic policy – ending with, “We remember the words of explorer Frederick Cook. After many attempts to discover the North Pole – and after believing he had found it – he wrote: “It occurred to me … that, after all, the only work worthwhile, the only value of a human being’s efforts, lie in deeds whereby humanity benefits.” That is why we look to the Arctic – this new frontier – to help make a better world for all mankind.”

Perhaps it’s the juxtaposition of all of the above with my turning seventy-three, yesterday, that makes me want to grab the nearest numb-nuts by the lapels, smack him across the face a couple of time and scream until his ears ring, “ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? WAKE UP!”

The sun comes out for a moment. Though I am still aware, as always, that the end of the world as we know it will suck big time, I am not ready to close the door, draw the shades and turn out the lights on this one, known grand experiment of the universe. I take my joys where I can. We may bring about our own extinction, but Life? I don’t think so.

Life has always lived at the edges of chaos, fragile, yet surprisingly strong.  If we survive, our lives will change drastically, but Life, I think, will not go gentle into that good night; neither would It rage, I suspect, against the dying of our light.

The Monsters in the Basement

[365 Toy Project: 050/365] The Humans Are Dead (Photo credit: nhussein)

[Reposted from:  The Conflicted Doomer]

 August 17, 2013

This week, in Egypt, the Military turned against a segment of the Egyptian populace and killed or wounded hundreds of people in the name of protecting democracy.


Last February, Senator Lindsey Graham said, the US drone program had killed 4,700 people across the various MENA countries in the name of our war on terrorism.


In the last two years of civil war in Syria and what increasingly looks like civil war in Iraq, thousands of Sunni and Shia Muslims have killed each other, in the name of what I’m still not sure.


Twelve years ago next month, a handful of Islamists murdered 3000 people, mostly Americans, in the name of bringing down the financial and military empire of the United States.


In 1953, the CIA and British intelligence orchestrated a coup against the duly elected government of Iran and helped install the dictatorship of the Shah in the name of oil security.


The list of grievances against various monsters throughout the world could go back through the history of civilization.


Years ago, in therapy dealing with the effects of the rape and other abuses of my childhood, I once described the process to my therapist as, crouching against the wall of a room with glass floors over a basement full of monsters and realizing the only door out was on the other side of the room. I spent a good deal of the first year or two trying to figure out a way to get across that fragile floor without falling through and waking the monsters.


It didn’t work, of course. At some point in all that tiptoeing around, the glass broke and, bruised and bleeding, I had to confront those monsters in the basement. After all, I had created them.


By that, I don’t mean the things done to me by the man who ran the Children’s Home or, later, the physical and emotional abuses by my stepmother were not monstrous and dehumanizing. Abuse of power is monstrous because it is so dehumanizing. But long after both were out of my life, the monsters I had created as a child held sway over my life as an adult, leaving me in grave danger of abusing others over whom I held power and so, repeating the cycle.


Perhaps it is different for others who’ve embarked on that journey, but for me, the only way to defang those dehumanizing monsters I’d created was to reverse the process and humanize them again. I did not do that to excuse their behavior; it was inexcusable and, in the eyes of the law, some of it was criminal. I did it to regain my own humanity, my own power. It is as close as I have been able to come to what Christians call forgiveness. I suppose that is what is meant by “reconciliation”. And seeing them as humans who did monstrous things to gain or retain a power they didn’t believe they had, reconciling myself to the fact that justice is not always served because justice is meted out by humans who are not always just, I could commence the struggle to maintain my own humanity and find the power that comes with that humanity.


We cannot reconcile with monsters; monsters must be destroyed. And that, it seems to me, is where we find ourselves, today - living in a world full of monsters, abusers against whom we are powerless, with whom we cannot reconcile, who must be utterly destroyed even if it means destroying ourselves.


The monsters have many names. The Government. The Church. The Military. Bankers. Corporations. Oil Companies. Christians, Muslims, Democrats, Republicans, terrorists, drug addicts, criminals, him, her, you, me …


But in truth, the monsters have only one name – human being. And human beings who abuse other human beings do so to maintain the illusion of power against the monsters in their own basement. Whether you’re running a government or just trying to stay afloat in a world in decline, we cannot tiptoe across the glass floors in our own selves in hopes of avoiding the monsters in our basement.


All human beings do stupid, cruel and, sometimes, inhumane things. Sometimes human beings are brought to justice for what they do; sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes the monsters are of our own making; sometimes they’re forced on us to prop up someone else’s need for power; sometimes we just accept the monsters others create because they serve our own fears of powerlessness. But in a world where everyone becomes a monster to service someone’s fears, no one remains a human being.


We live in a world of huge perils, but they are perils created by humans, not monsters. If we have a hope of navigating those perils, we each have to fight for our humanity and the power that comes from that struggle. Lest we all become the monsters in someone's basement.

Dying Veteran Writes On Behalf Of Thousands As He Tears Into Bush And Cheney In An Open Letter

This is honest. This is important. This is going viral.

Via truthdig.

"A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney

From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.
I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens,along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness."

Organizations to Consider Joining . . .

 

 

Welcome 2013!

                                                                     

Tis the season . . .

Looking for someone to blame? Congress is a good place to start!

By Charley Reese

(This column originally ran in the Orlando Sentinel on March 7, 1995. Former columnist Charley Reese retired from the Sentinel 10 years ago. His final column ran on July 29, 2001.)

Politicians, as I have often said, are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Everything on the Republican contract is a problem created by Congress. Too much bureaucracy? Blame Congress. Too many rules? Blame Congress. Unjust tax laws? Congress wrote them. Out-of-control bureaucracy? Congress authorizes everything bureaucracies do. Americans dying in Third World rat holes on stupid U.N. missions? Congress allows it. The annual deficits? Congress votes for them. The $4 trillion plus debt? Congress created it.

To put it into perspective just remember that 100 percent of the power of the federal government comes from the U.S. Constitution. If it's not in the Constitution, it's not authorized.

Then read your Constitution. All 100 percent of the power of the federal government is invested solely in 545 individual human beings. That's all. Of 260 million Americans, only 545 of them wield 100 percent of the power of the federal government.

That's 435 members of the U.S. House, 100 senators, one president and nine Supreme Court justices. Anything involving government that is wrong is 100 percent their fault.

I exclude the vice president because constitutionally he has no power except to preside over the Senate and to vote only in the case of a tie. I exclude the Federal Reserve because Congress created it and all its power is power Congress delegated to it and could withdraw anytime it chooses to do so. In fact, all the power exercised by the 3 million or so other federal employees is power delegated from the 545.

All bureaucracies are created by Congress or by executive order of the president. All are financed and staffed by Congress. All enforce laws passed by Congress. All operate under procedures authorized by Congress. That's why all complaints and protests should be properly directed at Congress, not at the individual agencies.

You don't like the IRS? Go see Congress. You think the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agency is running amok? Go see Congress. Congress is the originator of all government problems and is also the only remedy available. That's why, of course, politicians go to such extraordinary lengths and employ world-class sophistry to make you think they are not responsible. Anytime a congressman pretends to be outraged by something a federal bureaucrat does, he is in fact engaging in one big massive con job. No federal employee can act at all except to enforce laws passed by Congress and to employ procedures authorized by Congress either explicitly or implicitly.

Partisans on both sides like to blame presidents for deficits, but all deficits are congressional deficits. The president may, by custom, recommend a budget, but it carries no legal weight. Only Congress is authorized by the Constitution to authorize and appropriate and to levy taxes. That's what the federal budget consists of: expenditures authorized, funds appropriated and taxes levied.

Both Democrats and Republicans mislead the public. For 40 years Democrats had majorities and could have at any time balanced the budget if they had chosen to do so. Republicans now have majorities and could, if they choose, pass a balanced budget this year. Every president, Democrat or Republican, could have vetoed appropriations bills that did not make up a balanced budget. Every president could have recommended a balanced budget. None has done either.

We have annual deficits and a huge federal debt because that's what majorities in Congress and presidents in the White House wanted. We have troops in various Third World rat holes because Congress and the president want them there.

Don't be conned. Don't let them escape responsibility. We simply have to sort through 260 million people until we find 545 who will act responsibly.


Reposted from http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2011-07-11/news/os-ed-charley-reese-545-column-07111120110711_1_congress-votes-deficits-bureaucracy

Save Yourselves by theozarker

Look away! Look away! (Photo credit: Norm Walsh)

August 25, 2012

This week, in politics here, President Obama has apparently put pressure on the Eurozone not to boot Greece out before the November elections, lest the effect on our markets make the prez look bad and hurt his chances of reelection.  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/obama-asks-eurozone-to-keep-greece-in-until-after-election-day-8076852.html

And as Obama and David Cameron warned Syria of interventions if they brought out the chemical weapons in their civil war, Vladamir Putin warned them, again, not to interfere in Syria.

While all of this smacks of the political gamesmanship and hubris typical of imperial leaders and will probably be about as effective in actually changing anything for the better as King Canute commanding the tides not to rise, for sheer unadulterated crazy, the Republicans won hands down this week.

In Texas an elected Republican judge of Lubbock county worried on a local radio interview that if Obama was reelected we might have civil war.

"He’s going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the U.N., and what is going to happen when that happens?"[ Judge] Head said. "I’m thinking the worst. Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe. And we’re not just talking a few riots here and demonstrations. We’re talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy."

"Now what’s going to happen if we do that, if the public decides to do that? He’s going to send in U.N. troops. I don’t want ’em in Lubbock County. OK. So I’m going to stand in front of their armored personnel carrier and say, 'You’re not coming in here'." http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/24/13458896-weird-week-in-lubbock-judges-civil-war-comments-make-republicans-cringe?lite

Meanwhile, here in Missouri, our own Republican crazy, Todd Akin, is still hopping around on one foot trying to get the other foot out of his mouth, after his insulting and inaccurate remarks about women who have been “legitimately” raped being able to shut down their bodies to prevent pregnancy.  (Yes, I know, all you dear fundamentalist Christians who still support him, the man merely misspoke and has asked our forgiveness. I don’t care.  He’s still an idiot.)

And the RNC is looking forward to a great convention in Tampa next week in spite of the fact that the convention center where it will be held is right on the gulf only six feet above sea level and tropical storm Issac is expected to turn into a category one hurricane before hitting Tampa either full on or with a hefty glancing blow. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/23/republican-convention-hurricane-preparation_n_1826533.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

“[Republican Governor Rick]Scott partially activated the state Emergency Operations Center. “Obviously, we are hoping Isaac doesn’t hit Florida, but we must take every precaution,” Scott said in a statement Thursday evening. “That’s what we’re doing on a state level, and it’s what everyone should be doing on a family and personal level. If you haven’t already, get prepared and get a plan.”

The warnings offer little comfort to the more than 50,000 visitors expected in Tampa beginning Sunday for the four-day convention, which runs from Monday to Thursday.

"Monday are Tuesday are definitely in jeopardy," said meteorologist Bill Karins on MSNBC Thursday. "I don't see any way possible that Tampa's going to be completely missed at this point."”

So, there you are.  To which I say, “Go ahead on, you crazy bastards.  There’s nothing to perk up a slow news day like the image of some nutty politician being flattened by a UN personnel carrier, an irate rape victim or a hurricane.”

Yes, I’m tired to death of all the slick, sick politicians with their imperial schemes and crazy ideological fantasies.  Not a one of them has the intestinal fortitude to tell the American people that the American Dream they prattle on about is deader than the proverbial doornail.  We have allowed them to murder it with ideology, cronyism and greed and we, like the unlucky Floridians in Tampa, are facing a hurricane – this one of our own making.

The global economies, including our own, continue to wobble and weave as the whole system slides toward a new, lower energy state.  The financial world bobs up and down, grabbing onto every word from our own Fed and the other central banks like the kitten in the “hang in there, baby” poster. Our bought politicians promise us energy independence and a return to greatness, knowing full well that all of the oil and oil precursors that we can scavenge from the last places on earth will leave us nowhere near the energy levels we had at our own peak back in the early seventies.  And that,  as energy demand rises yearly in the developing world while the giant oil fields level out and decline, not even our “one hundred years” of gas and coal will save us.

All the while, the glaciers and ice sheets melt, our coastal sea levels rise, our forests and grasses burn and our bread basket and those around the world crumble to dust under increasingly harsh droughts.  Food prices are rising, leaving  billions around the world at the mercy of commodities traders who don’t give a damn whether those billions starve or not as long as they make money.

Apparently, the only man in America with the guts to tell the truth, this week, was the psychopath in charge of agriculture commodities trading at Glencore, the world’s largest commodities trader.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/well-make-a-killing-out-of-food-crisis-glencore-trading-boss-chris-mahoney-boasts-8073806.html

Glencore's director of agriculture trading, Chris Mahoney, sparked the controversy when he said: "The environment is a good one. High prices, lots of volatility, a lot of dislocation, tightness, a lot of arbitrage opportunities.

"We will be able to provide the world with solutions... and that should also be good for Glencore."

Read between the lines, folks.  Whoever wins the election in November, whatever they promise, do you honestly believe that, when our turn comes to pay to play, these people will worry about saving us over saving themselves?

The main purpose of this blog has been to let people know that we are already on the path of the next leg down on our long descent toward collapse and to urge people to prepare every way you can for that.  The window for preparing is closing.

Our political system has been corrupted beyond repair by both parties.  Our courts have sold our political system to the highest bidders.  The corporate and financial PACS and the politicians they have bought will tell you the most outrageous things, promise you the most outrageous things and do the most outrageous things – not for our benefit, but for theirs – in their drive to get or retain power.

They will not only stand by and watch the world burn, drown or starve to keep their power, they will do anything to profit from those atrocities to maintain the wealth that buys that power and tell you it is necessary in a “free market” system.

Do not let the politicians hornswoggle you.  Whoever gains power this November, we are on our own.  Whatever they do to address the problems we face will be the minimum they have to do to maintain their power and status and will be at a price – financial, political or military – most of us would not be willing to pay.

We must get prepared - personally, locally and regionally - and stand together however much they try to drive us apart.  If you are not prepared, read through the sections at the top of this blog.  Read through the blogs at the blog rolls to see how others are doing it. Look at your own lives, your families, your neighbors; be honest about both the strengths and weaknesses.  Use the strengths and work at the weaknesses, but get prepared, now.

The plotters and their manipulations get more desperate; the loonies get more strident; the black swans circle the lake for a landing.  Now is the time.  SAVE YOURSELVES.

 

theozarker | August 25, 2012 at 1:28 pm | Tags: Climate change, collapse, current events, Peak oil, Politics, self sufficiency, the financial system, World economy | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/pUh1L-GY

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Help the Lakota Sioux Save Their Sacred Black Hills Land! -- TAKE ACTION!!

Why this is important

Pe' Sla is an area in the Black Hills of South Dakota (just west of Rapid City, South Dakota, United States) that is considered by the Lakota Sioux people to be the Center and heart of everything that is. It is part of our creation story, a sacred place. We perform certain ceremonies at Pe' Sla which sustain the Lakota way of life and keep the universe in harmony. But almost 2,000 acres of Pe' Sla is privately owned and could be auctioned off on August 25, 2012 to the highest bidder.

The seven bands of the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota Oyate (people) aka Oceti Sakowin (Great Sioux Nation) have a collective effort to buy as much of Pe'Sla as we can at this auction (although we also believe that the land cannot be owned and that our sacred places were illegally taken by the United States). Yet we are trying to work within the current U.S. laws to regain custody of our sacred sites and prevent future road and industrial development.

Our sacred ways must be protected and passed on to our future generations so that our children may live. This area of the Paha Sapa (Black Hills) is also home to many plants and animals who should also be protected. In fact, many consider that the area should possibly be a historical site, which would also assist in protecting it from future development as well. As Lakota people, our ancestors prayed here, at Pe' Sla, at certain times of year, when the stars aligned. We cannot go elsewhere to pray. We were meant to pray here.

We have a group of young professional Native people that are dedicated to the promotion of education, health, leadership, and sovereignity among our indigenous Nations. Our goal is to assist in any way possible the purchase of Pe' Sla by a collective effort of the seven bands of the Oceti Sakowin (Great Sioux Nation) - the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota people. All proceeds from this campaign will go towards that effort. This area would be open to tribal nations for ceremonial purposes. The plants, animals, water, and air in the area would be respected and honored.

For more information please visit:

http://www.indiegogo.com/PeSla-LakotaHeartland

http://www.lastrealindians.com/2012/08/10/for-immediate-release-pe-sla-the-heart-of-all-that-is-help-save-the-lakota-heart-land/

We are hoping to buy as much of the land that is being put up for auction as possible. The total amount of land is 1,942.66 acres which is in 5 tracts (300 - 440 acres each). It is diffcult to say how much this land would be sold for as developers may increase the true western "value". The Rosebud Sioux Tribe has designated $50,000 for the purpose of purchasing Pe' Sla land. By contributing to the effort of all the Sioux Tribes, we aim to purchase at least some of the tracts, if not all. Many of the Sioux Tribes continue to exist in poverty and do not have a thriving casino-based economy as the media may have portrayed. Yet we continue to fight for what is sacred, because it matters!

"Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children." Chief Sitting Bull, 1877

PLEASE SIGN HERE!

This is my body (Not yours)!

A video originally posted on Vimeo shows several women speaking on behalf of their bodies and their lives. The campaign is asking other women to contribute their own monologues. Each women declares, in turn "This is my body, not yours," as they speak out against measures being taken to strip women of basic human rights. The video portrays women of all colors and backgrounds, each speaking about their control of their own lives and bodies . . .

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ThisIsMyBody

My Finances

July 10, 2012

An Explanation from Mitt Romney

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) – Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney today released this letter to the American people:

Dear American Person:

As many of you know, in recent days my opponent has spread the rumors that 1.) I have refused to make my tax returns public and 2.) I have hidden my money in bank accounts in Switzerland and the Caymans.  These two rumors, while true, have made me look very bad.  So I thought I would take this opportunity to explain my finances in terms even a poor person could understand.

Let’s say you met the love of your life, and you wrote her a series of passionate love letters.  In these letters, you told her how you intended to protect her, cherish her, and always keep her safe.  And then let’s say somebody went and told you that you had to make those love letters available for the world to see.  If you’re even half the man I am, you’d say, “Heck no.”

Well, in my case, the love of my life is my money.  (If you don't believe me, ask Ann.)  And my tax returns are like my love letters to my money, detailing the lengths to which I’ll go to keep my precious money from being taken away from me.  If you think I should make those love letters public, then I’m sorry, my friend, but you don’t believe in love.

Now, let’s say you asked the love of your life to marry you, and you’re fortunate enough that she said “yes.”  Should someone be able to force you to spend your honeymoon in a ratty room at some Motel 6, where God knows what crackheads and whores slept before you?  Or should you be allowed to take your bride to a five-star Swiss chateau, perhaps, or an exclusive beach on Grand Cayman?  I think you can see where I’m going with this.

In conclusion: if refusing to release my tax returns and having foreign bank accounts is wrong, I don’t want to be right.  I did it all for love.  And as your President, I promise I will never, ever come between you and the thing you love.  Unless you’re gay.  (Laughing Out Loud.)

Vote for Me,

Mitt Romney

Get a free subscription to the Borowitz Report here.

Our War Dead and the Dead of Our Wars

 

May 26, 2012

This is Memorial Day weekend, a time when we Americans remember our dead – especially our war dead. And in this decade-plus of perpetual war, which started with a terrorist act (not an act of war) that killed nearly 3,000 civilians here, another 6,500 American military personnel have died in our two wars. Add to that the journalists, NGOs and other American civilians who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have lost around 10,000 Americans to these wars. That’s a lot of deaths to remember this Memorial Day.

However, that is not the extent of the dead of our wars. Although we do not remember the deaths of enemy military on our memorial day, we might do well to at least remember the civilian deaths, since it was our own civilian deaths on 9/11 that were used to justified the two wars we were in for most of this decade. Estimates on Iraqi civilian deaths range from 68,000 to 100,000; add to that an estimated 4,000 civilian deaths in Afghanistan and, with our drone campaigns, in Pakistan and Yemen. These may not be “our” war dead, but they are most certainly the dead of our wars. And, like our own civilians on 9/11, they did not ask for what happened to them; they were ordinary mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and children living ordinary lives when they were attacked. We do not know the exact numbers of these dead (as we do our own) for they are the collateral damage – the two most disgusting words in the English language, as far as I’m concerned – about whom General Tommy Franks famously said, “We don’t do body counts.” Yet their loss has caused the same anguish to their loved ones and friends that our dead have caused us.

So, why would I feel it important to remember these dead of our wars on our day of remembrance for our war dead? 

First, because they are fellow human beings and there is a grave danger to our own humanity when we dismiss them, as our government would, as collateral damage. I’m convinced that a good part of our own internal strife over these wars comes from our unwillingness to come to grips with this. Look deeply into the eyes of our returning combat veterans and you will see this same strife, even in those who deeply believed in these wars. This is the human cost of war – not only to our “enemies”, but to ourselves.

Second, even as we remember our own dead from these wars, the Empire is fully ready to go on to the next war with Iran. We have surrounded that unlucky country with military bases over the last few years, filled the Arabian Gulf with warships and shipped billions of dollars of new arms to Israel even though Iran has not attacked us, does not have one single nuclear bomb and does not have the means to deliver it, if they were capable of building one in the next few years. Yet, with all our angst about being “dragged” into war once again, we ordinary Americans never stop to ask ourselves how it is, that an Empire that is truly unwilling could be dragged anywhere.

Why? Because we cannot, will not, see these dead of our wars in the same way we see our war dead – fellow human beings, brothers, sisters, family. And until we do, we will be constantly propagandized to send our own into the meat grinder of the dying Empire’s wars. The toll of our war dead will go ever higher, as will the dead of our wars across the world. The human cost of war will continue to rise as the financial costs mount until –perhaps with this next war – the Empire  finally collapses and we, too,  have become the dead of our wars. Who will be left to mourn our war dead, then?

[Reposted from original article:  Our War Dead and the Dead of Our Wars]

 

Save the Internet - the pressure is working!

Update: 22 January 2012

US Senate leaders are backing away from a vote this week! But they're refusing to kill the bill, hoping our pressure will die down. Let's show them they're wrong.

Posted: 18 January 2012
Today could be the day we save the free Internet.

The US Congress was poised to pass a law allowing the US to censor access to any website around the world. But after we delivered our 1.25 million strong petition to the White House, it came out against the bill and with public pressure at boiling point even some bill backers are switching sides. Now, the Wikipedia led blackout protest has rocketed the public campaign to the top of the news.

We are turning the tide. But the dark forces of censorship are trying to revive the bill right now. Let’s bury it for good today. Sign this emergency petition to save the Internet now and if you've signed already, scroll down to contact politicians and companies pushing for censorship and tell them to drop the bill. Then send this to everyone.

Let’s tell the bill's supporters to kill the bill!

Stop Internet Censorship -- TAKE ACTION!

Stop internet censorship!

CREDO is joining hundreds of organizations in a one-day strike against internet censorship. We're doing this because the Senate is poised to vote on a bill that would end the internet as we know it.

If it passes, the "Protect IP Act" (and its companion bill in the House, "SOPA") could put people in jail for uploading a video to YouTube and would severely limit our right to free speech.

This bill has been rushed through Congress because big corporate interests like Comcast, Pfizer, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have spent millions of dollars lobbying for this censoring legislation.¹

This legislation gives corporations and the government the ability to determine what information you can consume on the internet -- a dangerous practice which, when committed by the Chinese and Iranian governments, is denounced by the American people and almost all of our elected representatives.

Internet companies including Google, Mozilla, Facebook, and Twitter, say that "the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities, private rights of action, and technology mandates that would require monitoring of web sites."²

Right now, only a small number of Democratic senators are standing up to corporate interests and voicing opposition to the bill. And the only way we can stop this outright attack on the free internet is to have more senators commit to vote against the legislation. No matter whether your senators are Republicans or Democrats, it is important that you urge them to take a stand for internet freedom.

We need your senators to come out in opposition to this bill and vote against internet censorship.

Tell your senators to protect our free and open internet and oppose the Protect IP Act.

1."Five things to know about SOPA," The Washington Post, 11-16-2011.
2. "Mozilla Fights for the Internet's Future," Mozilla Blog, 11-15-2011.