dcpopenthread

To The Bush Cabal and the BailOut Barons

2008-10-11T18:00:00Z

(Editor's note: This letter was submitted by Christy. Since nobody knows what to expect tomorrow when the markets open, and the Robber Barons get back to their business of stealing from the poor, this letter is a reminder to us that even though we may be frustrated now, and we have truth on the line as well as peoples' lives, we can still fight for accountability after election day.)

Dear sirs,

I understand you are very busy trying your best for one last great looting spree of the US Taxpayer. So busy, I doubt you will even bother to read this, even though it is a present view of your own immediate future.

We all know you are still involved in election rigging and politicizing the offices of the US Government to ensure republican domination in all aspects of our domestic systems. The questions surrounding 911 are still entirely unanswered. The lies surrounding Valerie Plame and the Iraq war are also still unanswered for. Billions, nay, trillions of dollars have gone missing on your watch. Everything you have touched, you have broken. our military is broken, our soldiers, left behind and forsaken.

]]> Do not believe that we believe you, our leaders, incompetent, because you make it obvious that it was all intentional and planned well in advance. We know you are illegally and immorally spying on your own people without cause and in violation of the US Constitution. The entire world knows you are involved in torture and disaster capitalism. And fear mongering, too and propaganda unlike anything we have seen since the days of the Nazi. You have ruined the reputation of the USA maybe for all the rest of time. You have bankrupted the future of a once mighty empire.

In the meantime... At present... Here at home...

None of your fellow citizens can get adequate health care. Not even the ones with insurance. Because you have so badly corrupted even that, millions of our own people are sick, injured, hurting and dying with not an ounce of relief. Millions of our people are facing homelessness due to the cronyism and corporate welfare dictating the economic policies of our nation. And in the face of it, our jobs are being shipped overseas, making an untenable situation even worse. Our infrastructure and social systems have become complete failures in your hands.

When we are poor you humiliate us and use us as excuses for why you should not bother helping anyone, then you run our economy into the ground and expect everyone else to pay you for it. You put our people on the brink of starvation to greedily feed the Welfare Queens on Wall Street.

I know you do not care about any of that, all you wanted was the money and god-like power, but I will tell you why you should care. History has not yet been written.

You should care, because you guys, Bush, Cheney, and all of your much decorated Secretaries and all your enablers in Congress and even your supporters on Wall Street and Main Street are about to start a Revolution. The hate speech of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh and the countless minions of Bill O'lielly openly call for violence and spout hate speech like the little robot tools they are. Their lies have scorched the nation into ruins. You WILL NOT get away with what you have done.

You can run, but you will not get away with this. You WILL be held to account for the deaths of over a million Iraqis and the death and wounding of our own soldiers. You will answer for all that missing money no matter what final pains you inflict on us in your attempts to escape the judgment of the present. Before you can escape out the backdoor, first you actually have to make it to the door.

There seems to be a consensus among our politicians that we as a people are going to hope for the best in November and that we will then just sit back, and watch you walk away into history dripping in the blood of the innocent. They believe, or seem to believe, that if no one mentions the atrocity of it, the immorality of it, then it will be ok and we will go on as we were before. That we will just forget what happened here, that is what they are hoping for. They hope in vain. History will judge them all as accomplices.

Let Congress pretend if we do not point out the injustice of you, then they will not have to get off of their lazy asses and do their jobs to prosecute you. We all know better. We know many of them stand to profit from the same crimes they are supposed to prosecute. We will have justice. For all. You will be dragged kicking and screaming into history to meet its passing of judgment on you.

I would just like to tell you, you The BailOut Barons.... (!) To you, the Bush Cabal, at the center of this bloody plot to harm our nation repeatedly... (!) You all should be in chains serving prison terms.

Once our economy finishes collapsing, the Revolution you caused will only live long enough to hold you accountable for what you have done to our nation. There will be no other cause except that. And with 300 million people already wanting to see you punished... There is no place on earth that can shelter you from the judgment of history.

DCP reader Christy

Palin Abused Power...report says

2008-10-11T00:28:08Z

Per BRANCHFLOWER:

"I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power..."

PDF

And to give Sarah Palin a bigger migraine, today, the judge ordered her to preserve all her government emails even if sent via her private email account. Now, she is forced to gather all of those and submit them for review.

This isn't a good day to be a Sarah Palin fan but it is a good day if you're an open-honest government fan.

This news is still breaking. So keep you're ears and eyes open for more details.

Four Years Ago...

2008-10-08T00:21:22Z

the second debate was the one where George Bush redeemed himself--to the extent that he did--by looking into the camera and being, if not a leader, at least true to who he was. Right-wingers were so relieved they almost wet themselves. What will John McCain do tonight for his redemptive moment? Enquiring minds want to know.

I am going to watch the debate tonight at my university, and will put my observations here. Feel free to join me on this thread or sip cocoa on a chilly night, eat popcorn, and relax as the economy goes ever downwards...

Bailout May Not Work...

2008-10-05T16:25:56Z

Before you read more about the bailout and we discuss its long-term ramifications watch this video on the banking/credit industry.

Now that you've watched the video, let's talk.

It looks like the financial wizards at the A.P. finally realized what we've been saying all along: A top-down bailout doesn't work! We need a bottom-up solution.

Read their belated words of wisdom and while you do so think about the video clip you just watched on how the banking/credit industry is run:

Washington's financial bailout plan is now law. So the credit spigot will start flowing again, banks will resume lending, and an economic recovery can begin, right?
Wrong. Experts say the most important thing that needs to happen before the $700 billion bailout even has a chance of working: Home prices must stop falling. That would send a signal to banks that the worst has passed and it's safe to start doling out money again.
The problem is the lending freeze has made getting a mortgage loan tough for everyone except those with sterling credit. That means it will take several months or longer to pare down the glut of houses built when times were good — and those that have come on the market because of soaring foreclosures — before home prices start appreciating.

Housing is a critical component to the U.S. economy and by extension the availability of credit. Roughly one in eight U.S. jobs depends on housing directly or indirectly — from construction workers to bank loan officers to big brokers on Wall Street. A turnaround in housing prices would boost confidence in the wider economy and, experts hope, goad banks into lending again.

"Housing traditionally does lead the economy through a recovery. I think it's going to be critical for a sustained recovery in this cycle, too," said Gary Thayer, senior economist at Wachovia Securities.

In my family we have a phrase for that, "No S*** Sherlock."

Look....the rich were stung by the massive de-regulation that they themselves had begged for and received. But we, the middle-class and the poor, were pinched even harder.

Why is this happening?

...because...
1. There has been an ongoing forty year assault on the middle-class and labor unions.

2. There has been a reversal of higher wages to lower wages--particularly in the last eight years.

3. There has been incredibly high high inflation for our basic needs with a President and administration who told us we could help ourselves and the country by "Spending and shopping...or the terrorists win."

4. The average person didn't understand how the banking system borrows money on credit to create loans and then creates more borrowed money in a vicious cycle.

5. We didn't understand how much the de-regulation had created an inflationary housing bubble that would burst and send home values to the floor. So we borrowed against the home we had to pay down debt, or we bought a home that was presented to us as a sure investment in your future! and we, the-oh-so-gullible, payed more than we should have for it!

And now the A.P. admits what we've been saying all along--although they more politely phrase it as "Wait and see..."--

But when you read the rest of the testimonies in the article from people who aren't buying homes or cars and can't get the loans, it's clear that the remedy to bad credit wasn't simply to give more credit to the institutions who created the bad credit!

The correct remedy was one they didn't even put on the table. The correct remedy would have required a concerted effort across the board, beginning with the people on the bottom who are facing acute financial crisis and job losses and wage reductions and who need the bail out to pay on those loans to the same banks who wrote up those loans.

]]> Jobs, wage reductions, rising costs for the staples in peoples' lives have caused good faith loans to go bad.

It's the economy stupid! It's Main Street, not Wall Street--stupid!

From the same article, here's some vomit inducing stats on our economy:

Jobs are another big concern. The stranglehold on credit has choked companies big and small that depend on regular inflows of borrowed money to pay employees and stay afloat.
The Labor Department said Friday that employers cut 159,000 jobs in September, the fastest pace of losses in more than five years. Experts say that number will grow as the effects of the credit gridlock course through the economy in coming days and weeks.

The nation's unemployment rate is now 6.1 percent, up from 4.7 percent a year ago. Over the last year, the number of unemployed people has risen by 2.2 million to 9.5 million.

The unemployment rate could rise to as high as 7.5 percent by late 2009, economists predict. If that happens, it would mark the highest since after the 1990-91 recession.

Boosting employment is critical to kick-starting lending because "if jobs are growing, then incomes are a growing, and if incomes are growing then people are consuming," Reinhart said.

Consumers and businesses have retrenched so much that some analysts fear the economy stalled or shrank in the third quarter that ended last week. The Labor Department report Friday showed wage growth for workers is slowing, meaning they'll be more hard-pressed to spend, especially for something as expensive as a home.

Many economists predict the economy will contract in the final quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of next year. That would meet the classic definition of a recession — two consecutive quarters of a shrinking economy.

So now we have one month until the election and three months until a new President is inaugurated. We are looking at mind-blowing job-less numbers, staggering grocery and gas bills, and a crushing weight of high pharmacy and medical bills. And to make matter's worse, we've had a sudden introduction into the world of high finance an banking by getting clubbed in the head with a bail out bill.

So what's a person to do when the D.C. Congress sends a longer-wider life-line to the wealthiest while they send a tiney-tiny thread to the bottom ninety percent?

Let's hear your thoughts on the bailout and the economy.

Sleight problem

2008-10-02T10:20:57Z

(Editor's note: Today's thread article was submitted by Veritas. Thank you, V!)

President Bush and his Bailout Bunch would have you believe that this whole country, from Wall Street to Main Street, is in the grips of a dire economic crisis. Using the same rhetoric of inflated urgency he employed to ram through the Iraq war resolution and the PATRIOT Act, President Bush is hoping his gut-gripping tales of doom will confuse us all into supporting his bloated bailout ideas.

Judging by the pork-a-thon in the Senate today, and the swamping of the House website Monday by angry constituents, not everyone’s buying it…yet.

Angry folks are marching on Wall Street chanting, “The bailout is bullshit. You broke it; you bought it.” Just-as-angry folks in the Rust Belt and across the country, squeezed by their finances, can’t understand why the “coastal elites” are teaming up with isolationist and Republican economic libertarians to curse a “rescue plan”.

“Let the fat cats go broke!” resonates uneasily with “I can’t pay my bills”. Which President Bush hopes will pull strong enough to pass his handoff (costing every American, baby to grandpa, $2300 each).

Here’s the trick: the economic problems of Main Street and Wall Street are DIFFERENT. SEPARATE. Don’t let the president fool you.

]]>

All across America, families have been squeezed by skyrocketing health care costs, vanishing blue-collar, union jobs, soaring fees for higher education, and company after company eliminating their pensions and shifting their operations overseas. With the dollar devalued and inflation ticking upward, people who didn’t have enough saved for retirement or education searched frantically for higher returns on their money.

They fled to the stock market (encouraged by greedy Congressfolk), where creative brokers are always hawking the next big thing, blowing up bubbles here and there: Latin American stocks, Asian stocks, commodities, real estate investment trusts, banks. Tell me what stocks are hot and I’ll tell you the “crisis” of two years’ time. Taking advantage of deregulation and historically low interest rates, folks looking to make money saw potential in the credit market: specifically, mortgages. It was a classic pyramid-type scheme – every time the mortgages were sliced, diced, and re-packaged, the seller demanded a little extra on the risk premium…a little extra profit. Meanwhile, strapped Americans who were told to Buy Buy Buy in order to save their country from terrorist attacks figured cashing out their rapidly rising equity was a Good Thing (not realizing the banks were conspiring to drive up home prices unnaturally in order to create profits by the mortgages exchanging hands).

So the music stops, which we knew it would for a couple years now, as interest rates inevitably had to rise and as inflation and dollar devaluation – also caused by the unnaturally low interest rates, and the excessive expenditures in Iraq, and the gaping trade deficit, took their enervating toll. All of a sudden everyone was left holding steaming piles of mortgages which, at best, were for amounts far greater than the houses were worth; and at worst, would never be paid back anyhow, because they were made to people with bad credit scores in the first place. Folks, upside-down in their mortgages, walked into foreclosure. Banks panicked.

But NOT because of all the bad debt – because of all the unknowns. How much were those way-overvalued mortgages really worth? The markup on them was obscene – sometimes 100%, 200%, or more, by the time the music stopped. Not all at once, of course, but incrementally, every time they changed hands. Banks started to fail as all their “assets” actually turned out to be nothing but hot air.

And this bailout? It seeks to put the hot air back in the balloons.

Now we turn to ordinary Americans. They are also feeling pain. Admittedly, some of it is related to the banks’ problems. Some folks, particularly those with not-so-great credit (and that is caused by a failure to pay, let us not forget), are having problems getting loans. But those who always pay their bills on time are still barraged by credit offers. Certainly, many investments and 401(k)s are in trouble. But unless our economy is steadily growing (as it most decidedly has not for the past 8 years), it is unreasonable to expect a market based on American companies to grow as well. Home prices are also plummeting – but in many cases, they are just giving back the outsized gains of the past several years.

But the bulk of Americans’ pain is not directly tied to the banks’ problems, and no Bailout Bill aimed at financial institutions will solve their deeper economic issues. We need new industries, more union jobs, better plans (nationally) for pensions and health care and child care, stronger exports, a stronger dollar, a more progressive tax code, and at least a little protectionism in our trade. You know, all the things Sen. Obama talks about. Maybe even another “stimulus” shot in the arm.

President Bush hopes that you’ll conflate your personal economic pain with the deflated greed of hedge fund managers, agreeing to bail out the latter in the belief it will somehow heal your personal economic worries. This is complete hogwash. Let the market crash and burn. Its problems will come out in the wash. Re-regulate certain parts of the market, if you will, to prevent future problems. (That won’t do anything to “solve” the current poutiness.) Have you noticed that the FDIC is working as it should? Banks have failed, but people were still able to retrieve their deposits. There were long lines, but nobody ran out of cash. In fact, the smaller community banks, where they never stopped implementing reasonable lending rules and debt ratios, never tainted by toxic alphabetisms like CDOs and SIVs, are doing fine, continuing to issue credit. What crisis?

But attack our true economic crisis, the one on Main Street, in a whole different way, as it deserves. It is, as John McCain would never admit, an issue of strategy and tactics. You can’t use the same hammer every time you need a tool, or think that because strawberries and roses are from the same family that a dozen berries looks good tied up with a ribbon or rose-shortcake with whipped cream is a tasty novelty...and I would hope that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

Yes to Main Street. No to Wall Street.

Here's Something We Can DO...

2008-09-26T13:30:31Z

from Backbone Bill...

OK, Sometimes ya gotta laugh or you choke...

2008-09-24T12:12:41Z

REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

DEAR AMERICAN:

I NEED TO ASK YOU TO SUPPORT AN URGENT SECRET BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH A TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF GREAT MAGNITUDE.

I AM MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA. MY COUNTRY HAS HAD CRISIS THAT HAS CAUSED THE NEED FOR LARGE TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF 800 BILLION DOLLARS US. IF YOU WOULD ASSIST ME IN THIS TRANSFER, IT WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE TO YOU.

I AM WORKING WITH MR. PHIL GRAM, LOBBYIST FOR UBS, WHO WILL BE MY REPLACEMENT AS MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY IN JANUARY. AS A SENATOR, YOU MAY KNOW HIM AS THE LEADER OF THE AMERICAN BANKING DEREGULATION MOVEMENT IN THE 1990S. THIS TRANSACTIN IS 100% SAFE.

THIS IS A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY. WE NEED A BLANK CHECK. WE NEED THE FUNDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.
WE CANNOT DIRECTLY TRANSFER THESE FUNDS IN THE NAMES OF OUR CLOSE FRIENDS BECAUSE WE ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER SURVEILLANCE. MY FAMILY LAWYER ADVISED ME THAT I SHOULD LOOK FOR A RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY PERSON WHO WILL ACT AS A NEXT OF KIN SO THE FUNDS CAN BE TRANSFERRED.

PLEASE REPLY WITH ALL OF YOUR BANK ACCOUNT, IRA AND COLLEGE FUND ACCOUNT NUMBERS AND THOSE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO WALLSTREETBAILOUT@TREASURY.GOV SO THAT WE MAY TRANSFER YOUR COMMISSION FOR THIS TRANSACTION.
AFTER I RECEIVE THAT INFORMATION, I WILL RESPOND WITH DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT SAFEGUARDS THAT WILL BE USED TO PROTECT THE FUNDS.

YOURS FAITHFULLY MINISTER OF TREASURY PAULSON

(actually from my friend Arthur)

How Racist is America and How Is This Used and Perpetuated? Open Thread Version

2008-09-20T20:45:08Z

I have been saving this photo and racist email for awhile as I suspected that America is more racist than it appears, especially in areas where the racism is no longer overt. Now a new study proves my point. America is still a very racist country. This includes a shockingly large percentage of Democrats and Independents.

Here are some of the findings:

]]>

The poll sampled 2777 white Americans and was done by AP-Yahoo News, conducted with Stanford University. One third of white Democrats harbored negative views toward blacks and 40% had at least a partially negtive view (harbored at least one presented negative). This could mean 2-1/2 percentage points who might not vote for Obama, according to the analysis, enough to swing a close race away from him. They also used a model to predict that Obama's support would be at least 6% higher if not for the racism.

Obama was nominated on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, in a nation that enshrined slavery in its Constitution. Bush is unpopular, as is the war, and McCain is old and unqualified. We are going through hard times. 70% of Democrats support Obama, 85% of Republicans support McCain, though there are now more Democrats. Independents may decide the election.

Republicans surveyed were prejudice, but also wouldn't vote for any Democrat, white, black, brown or any other color. Some Democrats also penalize Obama because they value experience over change (mostly older voters.) At least a portion of them planned to vote for McCain. More whites did say good things about blacks than negative. Obama's support among blacks is nearly unanimous.

The poll used a telephone interview and also recorded peoples' responses to black or white faces flashed on a computer screen and apply adjectives to them. Frequently used words inccluded "violent" and "lazy" and "irresponsible." More than a quarter of white Democrats agreed that "if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites." More than a third of Independents used such negative terms and characterizations. More than half of whites combined revealed more negative feelings toward blacks than whites. 59% of Clinton's white backers wanted Obama for President and nearly 17% planned to vote for McCain.

The survey was conducted Aug. 27 to Sept. 5. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

Here is a circulating WINGNUT EMAIL & also a picture that was sent to my uncle. Anyone with intelligence KNOWS the racist stereotypes are flawed because there is such a thing as "white privilege" - ie., there is a strong history of exclusion on the basis of race and a continuing power discrepancy in favor of white people, albeit rich white people. That is not to say that minorities and poor white people are not pitted against each other for the benefit of the rich white people, and opening up the Guns, Gods and Gays wedge by the conservative candidates plays directly into this. They are then free to accuse others of being racist and sexist (or unpatriotic) when it is patently ridiculous. It is one of the oldest forms of propaganda, used successfully by Hitler, for example. Slugbug

Proud To Be White (smear email that is popular in America)

Someone finally said it. How many are actually paying attention to this? There are African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, Native Americans, etc......And then there are just - Americans. You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction. You Call me 'White boy,' 'Cracker,' 'Honkey,' 'Whitey,' 'Caveman,' .....And that's OK. But when I call you Nigger, Kike, Towel head, Sand-nigger, Camel Jockey, Beaner, Gook, or Chink, .....You call me a racist. You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you, so why are the ghettos the most dangerous places to live? You have the United Negro College Fund. You have Hispanic History Month. You have Martin Luther King Day. You have Asian History Month. You have Black History Month. You have Cesar Chavez Day. You have Ma'uled Al-Nabi. You have Yom Hashoah. You have Kawanza. You have the NAACP. And you have BET. If we had WET (White Entertainment Television).....We'd be racists. If we had a White Pride Day.....You would call us racists. If we had White History Month.....We'd be racists. If we had any organization for only whites to 'advance' OUR lives,.....We'd be racists. We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Black Chamber of Commerce, and then we just have the plain Chamber of Commerce. Wonder who pays for that? If we had a college fund that only gave white students scholarships.....You know we'd be racists. There are over 60 openly-proclaimed Black-only Colleges in the US, yet if there were 'White-only Colleges'.....THAT would be a racist college.

UPDATE:
I wanted to add a comment I received via email, with an important precaution about interpreting polls of this kind.

There is also a documented Reverse Bradley Effect.Wikipedia

This study relies on telephone contacts, and so disproportionately misses younger voters, who have cell phones only, and are far less racist than their elders.

I Am Here to Kick Ass and Chew Bubble Gum.

2008-09-16T19:28:56Z

I Am Here to Kick Ass and Chew Bubble Gum.

But, before the ass kicking, let us have a moment of reflection as both democrats and just ordinary people. How was your day today?

How many of you went to work today, or the store, or the doctors office, ect., and overheard someone loudly talking about politics? And, let me guess, were they deliberately trying to be overheard repeating lies, distortions, and making untrue historical assertions in a room full of strangers who all sat listening in silence to utter nonsense? Is it just me, or has that also happened to you recently?

Of course you've seen it, we all see it almost every day now as the election swings into its final stretch. People are mad, people are upset, they are talking about it all over. In intense whispers, the beginnings of a true political awakening are stirring. Everywhere we go, suddenly it is hip to be politically engaged. But for some reason, it seems only the assholes that mistakenly believe Iraq hit us on 911, or thinks that our economy is good, are the only ones being heard in the public square on a day to day basis. Why does that keep happening? Where do all these assholes come from?

]]> They are busy making sure everyone in the room knows Clinton is to blame for the Bush economy, and that we should invade Russia because Palin don't like the way they look from her remote island off the coast of Nowhere, and that war is always great and torture is perfectly acceptable and lies are ok as long as we don't have to punish anyone for getting people killed with them.. And they almost always impart all this under the guise of having a 'private' conversation at the top of their vocal range, with some family member or random stranger they put on the spot. And most of them smile at you politely while doing it, daring you to challenge them and never believing you will. You would be instantly judged as 'impolite' to interrupt a 'private' conversation, and no one wants to be seen as rude.

When you heard that asshole sit there and loudly 'discuss' things you knew to be completely untrue, with no intent whatsoever to honestly adhere to historical facts, and insert contrived assertions not even based on reality onto the public around them...What did you do about it?

Did you just sit there, and listen? Did you consider that the people around you might think you rude to interrupt a 'private' conversation, even if it was being conducted in such a way as to make sure the public 'overhears' it ? Did your fists and teeth clench in anger as you sat there, forced into a taboo of silence as lies were being told openly, just feet from you? Did it make you angry? If not, it should have. If it did not, there is something wrong with you.Almost all of us are desperately afraid of speaking up in front of strangers or a crowd. It is a very intimidating experience. Most people will not do it scripted much less ad lib and on the spur of the moment. And we have all been taught to be polite in public, too, so interrupting the private conversations of strangers is generally taboo. The ones spreading these lies among our people, know most are afraid to speak out and they count on the taboo to continue on unchecked. All evil needs to win an argument is for good people to stay silent, and to our everlasting shame, most do.

This must change, and change forever. We must change the way we politic with each other. The sooner it happens, the better off our nation will be. If that persons conversation is dominating a room full of strangers in a public space, then it is no longer considered a 'private' conversation. It has been brought into the public domain of We the People and everyone who is forced to 'overhear' it has just as much right to be heard as the asshole who brought it up in the first place. As terrifying as it is to speak up, you must do it anyway. Not for yourself, but for all of our beloved countrymen who are right beside you also being exposed to these lies with no remission. We must speak up now because our entire nation, our way of life, and our future is under attack from lies within and if unchecked they will destroy us all. Our people are fed lies constantly, and we must speak up and stop them as soon as we hear them spoken.

Let me repeat that, AS SOON AS YOU HEAR THEM SPOKEN THEY MUST BE CONFRONTED.We must speak up because who else will? We have been fed so many lies very few even realize they are lies anymore. We can no longer allow lies to become reality simply because they are forced upon our people unchallenged. It never should have been tolerable or acceptable in the first place.

The next time you hear that asshole excusing John McCains every lie with his POW status while daring anyone to challenge it,... challenge it! Don't wait, just do it! Don't you dare sit there silent and angry anymore while it happens right in front of you.

Speak up, step up, stand up, and refuse to let them pass until they address the false information they are passing along.

We should not allow political liars to openly practice no more than we would let a religious charlatans among us selling our children magic beans to save their souls. Put a piece of gum in your mouth ( so you won't lock your clenched jaw), and kick their ass with a simple 3 step plan.

Speak up, Step Up, Stand Up.

1) Excuse me sir, but you know that is simply not true, right? I'll tell you how it is false.
2) Now that you know it is untrue will you correct your position to adhere to the facts?
3) If you will not correct said position, even after you can demonstrably be proven wrong, I have no choice but to believe you know the truth, and are simply disregarding it to deliberately assert false information into the PUBLIC conversation.

If you reach step 3, there is no longer a need to continue with the conversation.

There is no way to have a good faith debate with someone who is willing to lie. Let that room full of silent strangers silently judge the merits of the argument. Even if they stay silent this time, they will think about such things, and just perhaps, with your example, the next time they will not remain silent either. If the person you challenge reacts badly, let the public see it.

Let them see the true nature of those trying their level best to spread lies among them. Trust in the presence of many to make up their own minds and defend your right to present your argument with every right and protection the asshole was allowed to be heard under. 99% of those strangers around you are good smart people, just trying to get through their day like everyone else.

Their presence, their goodness will be your shield. The truth is your weapon. You have all you need to engage the darkness that has infected our body politic.

Protect the People, and they will protect you in turn. With love even. You do not have to dodge bullets for them or even sacrifice your normal routine, just speak up and protect them when you know they are being lied to. Show them you will not let them be used in such a way, even if they are strangers to you. Expose the charlatans for what they are even as they are in mid-trick.

I can not give any of you the enormous courage and will it takes to do such a brave thing as confronting lies in public. I have no secrets to make it less scary, nor can I even pretend that it will turn out well, because those you will confront are the nastiest type of propagandists there are, ones trying to avoid blame. They usually respond badly to being challenged. But we must not be afraid of doing the right thing simply because liars may get their feelings hurt and be exposed as liars. It is not 'impolite' to expose them, it is your duty to your nation to do so.

All I can say is that I hope you will at least think of these words the next time you are sitting there clenching your teeth and fists. I hope you will remember that you do not have to stay silent, you do not have to remain afraid, you do not have to listen to lies.

Speak up! Step up! Stand up! And take our country back from these lying assholes!

Our Candidates on the Economy

2008-09-16T02:05:10Z

McCain.

Watch. Listen.

Obama.

Watch. Listen.

]]> Biden.

Watch. listen

Palin.

Watch. Listen.

Do what you gotta do, folks!

Negative Campaigns

2008-09-14T11:04:31Z

Yesterday, my brother and I were having a discussion on mudslinging and negative campaigns. Then weirdly, right after that discussion, I heard the host of Ring of Fire discussing how even juries respond to negative attacks more than they do to facts and evidence.

So I thought it would be an interesting discussion to bring here.

When my brother and I talked, we had to define a few things:

1. What is mudslinging?
2. Does mudslinging have to have truth in it?
3. What is a negative attack?
4. Does a negative attack have to have truth in it.
5. What is scorched earth attacks?

Why is mudslinging, scorched earth, and negative attacks so much more effective than just the facts?

So, what do you think about those questions?

My Thoughts on September 11, 2008

2008-09-11T15:48:10Z

Editor's note: This article comes to us via Karen's friend Jenny.

]]> My Thoughts on September 11, 2008I can never wake up on Sept. 11 without remembering living in Ithaca, New York, and painting in my garden that morning, back when I didn't need to go to work before noon, back when my rent was $250 a month and I made $12 an hour working part-time as a secretary and back when I lived with and amongst a tribe of intelligent, liberal mostly overeducated and underemployed friends. This was also back when I didn't even know the field of landscape architecture existed!Now, I am a practicing landscape architect (and have watched over the years as memorial designs have been chosen for the World Trade Center, for Flight 93 and for the Pentagon - which opens today), and I pay $865 a month in rent in an affluent southern town in a state that is rallying for Sarah Palin. Every day since her nomination I have had conversations with colleagues, friends, and strangers that are becoming increasingly surreal. We have been waging war in Iraq for five and a half years. No evidence of any collaboration between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda was ever found. The Iraq Survey Group determined that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program ceased in 1991. The United Nations High Commissioner estimates that the war has left 4.7 million Iraqis refugees (16% of the population.) As of this morning my country has spent more than $575 billion dollars on an invasion justified by lies and manipulation that has left over a million people dead. And about three quarters of the entire global population agrees that this is wrong. How has that made us any more secure? Does that matter? "Victory is in sight!" What would victory even look like? Why were we there in the first place? To feed the military industry, to control oil? Because Americans want cheap gasoline, cheap food and cheap goods at Walmart. Who can blame them? Many of them have lost their jobs, or have demoralizing and low-pay jobs, have lost or are losing their houses, can't afford good health care, can't afford child care, and work most of their waking hours. I think the idea that young men who serve tours believing that they are serving their country and the betterment of humankind is a tragedy. McPalin is preying on the worst, not the best, in us. They are actually succeeding at making destroying our environment, our country, our world and our lives for cheap fuel, cheap goods, and cheap excuses seem sexy and just darn sassy, so long as a hottie like Sarah can represent those things as well as all of us with vaginas. And speaking of VAGINAS... read on to see Eve Ensler's thoughts on Sarah Palin. I saw Eve Ensler perform her Vagina Monologues in Baltimore about a decade ago, and performed in the show myself as part of her enormous VDay initiative that has raised over $50 million to support education and initiatives that address violence against women. ...and if the word vagina makes you uncomfortable, let me guess... like Palin much? *added bonus at the bottom, an excerpt from this morning's Washington Post that really captures the joie de vivre in Virginia right now. Drill, Drill, Drill I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country choose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Eve Ensler For Working Moms, 'Flawed' Palin Is the Perfect Choice (?)Marc Fisher-We don't live in an age of looking up to authority anymore. We don't cotton to the idea that there are people who are our betters. In this time of "American Idol," bedroom bloggers and the belief that experience, knowledge and education don't necessarily mean a whole lot, Palin is a symbol, a statement that anyone can make it if he or she really tries.
-"She's just as flawed as we are," Tweddle said. "It's not the fact that she's a woman but the way she does it all. And let me tell you: There're more American parents with unwed pregnant teenaged children than American parents with Harvard grads. She's real."
-In this hyperdemocratized society, the national conviction that anyone can succeed is morphing into a belief that experience and knowledge may almost be disqualifying credentials.
-This is where culture wars, identity politics and self-suffocating academic theories of deconstructionism have led us: Authority is suspect. Experience is corrupting. Ignorance is strength?
Next will be "war is peace." Or have we already heard that one?

Reason 1,896,267 why we need News Media, not EnterTAINT-media

2008-09-08T15:25:00Z

And reason 1,896,268, too.

Palin will sit down for multiple interviews with Gibson in Alaska over two days, most likely Thursday and Friday, said McCain adviser Mark Salter.

Political interviews are never done like this. Because it makes the questioning entirely at the discretion of the person being interviewed and their handlers. The interviewer has to be on their best behavior, at least until the last of the 'multiple interviews' because otherwise the subsequent sittings just won't happen. For a political journalist to agree to such terms amounts to a form of self-gelding. The only interviews that are done this way are lifestyle and celebrity interviews. And it's pretty clear that that is what this will be.

It will be unwatchable.

Hat-tip to Talking Points Memo for both cringe inducing instances of the Corporate EnterTAINT-media's race to the bottom.--where the bottom line is the buck and where 'fair and unbiased' is a figment of their imagination.

Vic's Story From the RNC March

2008-09-03T12:06:52Z

Hi, folks --

Sorry I couldn't post sooner, but my day job continually interferes with my political activities...

Anyway, I was in downtown St. Paul when the RNC protesters came through. I brought a video camera to capture any misdeeds either by police or by protesters.

There were many different groups, but the largest had held their gathering on the Capitol lawn earlier in the day. They were marching for peace, billing their protest as "family friendly," which, from everything I saw was very accurate. As they came down from the capitol into downtown, many of the other groups joined them. Most of them peaceful and respectful.

Unfortunately, there was a handful of self-titled "Anarchists" who had alerted the media and the police that they intended to do harm to property and/or people that they deemed unacceptable. Ironically, the Anarchists had placed a small blurb in the newspaper to point out how organized they were. I desperately hoped to find one of them and thrust a dictionary in their face with the definition of 'anarchist' highlighted... but alas I was not given such an opportunity. They wore black masks and makeup to cover their faces because they are immensely proud of their activities.

]]> Anyhow, a tremendous number of people were crammed into downtown St. Paul. Many of them, like me, were there to document events for the sake of posterity. I'm guessing if you added up the protesters, the police, the viewers (like myself), and wandering RNC delegates, the number approached a couple hundred thousand people. Maybe more. It's difficult to estimate because people were not all in one location. They were literally on every street for blocks on end - cross streets included. So it's hard to know for sure. But it was a lot. That there were not more direct conflicts is simply astounding to me. Too many people, too much energy, too many cameras, on a day that was way too hot...

I heard horror stories about the behavior of some of the anarchists, and I witnessed some of the resulting havoc - a destroyed police car, smashed windows on Macy's storefront - but I did not see any real physical violence. The police who were on the protest route stood quietly by and watched the marchers pass, without so much as pointing a water pistol at them.

Now, I am a dedicated Democrat, as have been all the generations of my family before me... but I deeply resent the idea that some 20 year old with a black mask on his face is going to decide that our Republican guests can't walk in or out of the convention center or their charter bus - or whatever - without fear of having urine thrown at them, or bricks or some other piece of garbage. I'm sorry - it's not just a free country for Democrats (like me) or morons (like anarchists). It's a free country for everyone, and that means that Republicans get to have their convention without fear of getting a brick to the head.

One 80 year old delegate was actually taken to the hospital when their bus had a brick thrown through the window. That's just wrong. Period.

Besides, to the degree that Republicans are allowed to get their message out freely, Democrats usually jump in the polls. So the next time you're at a political gathering, and it's all going swimmingly except for a bunch of masked anarchists, my advice is this: just grab them and pull their masks off. I guarantee they'll run like the cowards they are.

RNC Arrests

2008-09-02T01:04:52Z

Carol posted in the previous thread the information that Amy Goodman had been arrested at the RNC. Amy Goodman, as many of you know, hosts the Democracy Now show.

According to the Pacific Radio website, Amy and the whole crew were detained and as of yet, there is no further information.

Here's the video of her arrest. (I'm trying to figure out what is swinging from her neck. Is that a press pass?

In light of this happening, I contacted our own Polly Sigh to see if she is safe or if she needed the DCP to bail her out.

Polly is safe and will be posting more information tomorrow.

]]> In the meantime, she told me that there were anarchists who were provoking fights and she described an attack on a police officer too. I will let Polly give her detailed story tomorrow.

But from what I can gather, there are definitely some preemptive arrests happening and there are also people provoking violence at the RNC.

McJoan at Kos has now placed a diary up that describes some of these events as well. Per McJoan:

Glenn Greenwald, I-Witness Video, Feministing, and FireDogLake have been reporting from Minneapolis about the excessive and unprovoked actions of the FBI and the Minneapolis police. Here's Glenn, today:

As the police attacks on protesters in Minnesota continue -- see this video of the police swarming a bus transporting members of Earth Justice, seizing the bus and leaving the group members stranded on the side of the highway -- it appears increasingly clear that it is the Federal Government that is directing this intimidation campaign. Minnesota Public Radio reported yesterday that "the searches were led by the Ramsey County Sheriff's office. Deputies coordinated searches with the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments and the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

Today's Star Tribune added that the raids were specifically "aided by informants planted in protest groups." Back in May, Marcy Wheeler presciently noted that the Minneapolis Joint Terrorist Task Force -- an inter-agency group of federal, state and local law enforcement led by the FBI -- was actively recruiting Minneapolis residents to serve as plants, to infiltrate "vegan groups" and other left-wing activist groups and report back to the Task Force about what they were doing. There seems to be little doubt that it was this domestic spying by the Federal Government that led to the excessive and truly despicable home assaults by the police yesterday.

So here we have a massive assault led by Federal Government law enforcement agencies on left-wing dissidents and protesters who have committed no acts of violence or illegality whatsoever, preceded by months-long espionage efforts to track what they do. And as extraordinary as that conduct is, more extraordinary is the fact that they have received virtually no attention from the national media and little outcry from anyone. And it's not difficult to see why. As the recent "overhaul" of the 30-year-old FISA law illustrated -- preceded by the endless expansion of surveillance state powers, justified first by the War on Drugs and then the War on Terror -- we've essentially decided that we want our Government to spy on us without limits. There is literally no police power that the state can exercise that will cause much protest from the political and media class and, therefore, from the citizenry.

Note that there have been reports of semi-violent protest at the convention by anti-war protesters--apparently not the "Food not Bombs" students that have been under police and FBI surveillance for weeks, or the FBI and police raids against them might have actually turned up evidence that they intended to do more than non-violent protests. It's difficult to to sort out what really happened and who is responsible when there is such a provocative and heavy-handed police presence.

It is difficult to sort out the reality vs the online reports. Clearly, something is happening at the RNC in MN.

Perhaps Polly can enlighten us more tomorrow. She's planning on giving us her take and also planning on scouring the MN papers to see what they've said.

For now, I recommend that we stay calm and wait for more information before we leap to any conclusions.