VeteransDay Revisited

For this Veteran's Day, I am just republishing the personal portion of my post on the militarization of American society and my experiences related to the Vietnam War, from MARCH 28, 2012 (with a few additions and edits):

- Ron Paul Blasts U.S. Policy in Farewell Address (Added 11/16/12)
-  Oliver Stone on the Untold U.S. History from the Atomic Age to Vietnam to Obama’s Drone Wars (Added 11/16/12)
- Veterans Day Revisited (A Description of the Slow Slide to Fascism in the U.S.)
- Warfare Culture (Added 11/14/12)
- Iris Dement & George Carlin
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Ron Paul Blasts U.S. Policy in Farewell Address

Added 11/16/12

Ron Paul farewell speech to the House of Representatives.

"Why can’t people understand that war always destroys wealth and liberty? Why is there so little concern for the executive order that gives the president authority to establish a 'kill list,' including American citizens, of those targeted for assassination? Why is patriotism thought to be blind loyalty to the government and the politicians who run it, rather than loyalty to the principles of liberty and support for the people? Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it’s wrong." -- Texas Congressman Ron Paul
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Oliver Stone on the Untold U.S. History from the Atomic Age to Vietnam to Obama’s Drone Wars
Added 11/16/12


When looking at the numbers of dead lost, from so many nations in WWII, documented by Oliver Stone in his new documentary, one wonders why it is that only the Jewish dead are presented as a "Holocaust" in the current American mythology.

OLIVER STONE: Generations of Americans have been taught that the United States reluctantly dropped atomic bombs at the end of World War II to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of young men poised to die in an invasion of Japan. But the story is really more complicated, more interesting, and much more disturbing. Many Americans view World War II nostalgically as the "Good" War in which the United States and its allies triumphed over German Nazis and Italian fascism and Japanese militarism. Others, not so blessed. Remember, World War II is the bloodiest war in human history. By the time it was over, 60 to 65 million people lay dead, including an estimated 27 million Soviets, between 10 and 20 million Chinese, six million Jews, over six million Germans, three million non-Jewish Poles, two-and-a-half million Japanese, and one-and-a-half million Yugoslavs. Austria, Britain, France, Italy, Hungary, Romania and the United States each counted between a quarter-million and a half-million dead.

Would we have dropped the atomic/nuclear bombs on Japan if Henry Wallace had been Vice-President, instead of Truman, under Roosevelt?  Would Wallace have fought against the effort to create a "state" of Israel on the lands of the Palestinians as Truman did?  The last question is not answered, but the documentary apparently addresses the first and explains why Truman ended up as President.

OLIVER STONE: The trailer looked pretty epic. From here to here—it’s like a Cecil B. DeMille movie, from 1940s to—it was a big job, four-and-a-half years, off and on. I did do three feature films and two documentaries during that period. But Peter was on the—we started in 2008, and it’s been four-and-a-half. 

We recently discussed Wallace and the bomb in 1997, when he was teaching at American University and I was there in one of his classes. And we talked about making a documentary of about an hour, hour and a half. He’s an expert on the atomic—on weaponry, and especially the atomic bomb. He founded the Department of Nuclear Studies in American—and Wallace is—Henry Wallace, as he can explain to you, is a key to the link: Would we have dropped the bomb? That’s the origin myths of this. Every school kid—still, my daughter in her school, in private school, in good school, is still learning this: We dropped the bomb because we had to, because the Japanese resistance was fanatic, and we would have lost many American lives taking Japan. This is one—there’s no alternative to that story. And we are beginning the process in chapter one, two and three of saying the bomb did not have to be dropped for strategic reasons and also because it was morally reprehensible. But strategically, it made no sense. 

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Kuznick, why? 

PETER KUZNICK: It made no sense because the Japanese were already defeated. They were looking for a way out of the war. United States knew they were defeated. Truman refers to the intercepted July 18th telegram as "the telegram from the Jap emperor asking for peace." The United States— 

AMY GOODMAN: From the Japanese emperor asking for peace. 

PETER KUZNICK: The Japanese, yeah, but that was called—he says "the Jap emperor asking for peace," is Truman’s exact words on that. Everybody else knew that they were militarily defeated and looking for a way out. But the people who knew that the best were the Russians, because they were trying to get the Russians to intervene on their behalf to get them better surrender terms, and also because—their strategy was to welcome American invasion and then to conflict heavy damages and then force better surrender terms. But once the Russians invaded, then that undermined both their diplomatic strategy and their military strategy. So that was what really ended the war. It was not the bombing. We had already been bombing Japanese cities. We had firebombed over a hundred cities. Destruction reached 99.5 percent of the city of Toyama. From the Japanese standpoint, whether it was 200 bombs—200 planes and a thousand bombs or one plane and one bomb didn’t change the equation. But the Soviet invasion fundamentally changed it, and that’s what forced the final surrender.

So... the horrific, unbelievably inhumane bombing of Japan was not necessary, but that's who we are, and have repeatedly been, whether it be in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, or  many other countries since.
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Veterans Day Revisited (A Description of the Slow Slide to Fascism in the U.S.)
I don't watch much TV. I rarely turn it on at my place, much preferring to find news and entertainment on the internet. Tuesday night, at my best and dearest friend's home, I watched PB'S' "News Hour" and two NCIS programs on CBS. The "News Hour" had an obviously propagandistic piece subtly demonizing Syria and the Assad government, ultimately insisting upon Assad stepping aside. The one and only guest on that segment was Andrew Tabler from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a pro-Israeli foreign policy think-tank. WINEP is a simply another propaganda arm of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most incredibly powerful lobby in the US today for the interests of Israel (See Introduction to the Israel Lobby or the  The Israel Lobby for starters). There were no opposing guests to speak for the Syrian state, whose territory on the Golan Heights has been illegally occupied by Israel since the 1967 war (never mentioned on "News Hour"). This is typical one sided PBS and NPR fare, even though they claim to be God's gift for unbiased information to the American public.

 It would have been adequately "fair & balanced," and much more informative and interesting, if they had included someone like Eric Margolis, or any of the AntiWar.com stable of writers, on the same program as and antidote to PBS's (and NPR's) AIPAC/Neocon guest list.

 For another side of the story, see "THE DANGEROUS MESS IN SYRIA GROWS MURKIER" (or What's Left) and listen to Scott Horton's recent interview with Eric Margolis (now old) on Antiwar Radio. In the interview, Margolis states that the US, Britain, France, aligned with Israel and Saudi Arabia, along with right-wing forces in Lebanon, have been infiltrating armed fighters into northern Syria from the beginning, much like the French intelligence did to create the self-serving early Bengazi insurgency in Libya.

 The sound went out on PBS, so I switched to NCIS on CBS. The first hour was the usual, promoting the military police as a profoundly caring, justice seeking organization, just like most cop shows do for the police. The second, NCIS Los Angeles, was different. Like other police and military TV programs I have watched in the past, it ended up promoting not just killing willy-nilly, but in addition, the most egregious violations of Constitutional due process, simply because a Navy Seal Team had decided it was OK to kill a citizen because they thought he was a spy for the Taliban in Pakistan. No court order and no due process needed, because Seal Teams are all about honor and defending us. Ultimately, the powers that be in NCIS gave a wink and a knowing smile, and looked the other way, even though they knew the Seal Team members were involved in an extrajudicial killing of an American citizen on US soil without due process. I guess the message is that we need to forget the Constitution when, not just the Commander in Chief, but even teams of military commandos, decide amongst themselves that an American citizen on American soil needs to be "taken out" without formal charge or trial.

(See also The Permanent Militarization of America By AARON B. O’CONNELL)

 I thought about what a brain-washed and militarized society we have become--as TV has traveled quite a long way from the "I Love Lucy" shows of my youthful days. But hey, that's who we Americans are now--that's what we do--we kill people without regard to their Constitutional rights, or their rights as human beings. We tell only one side of the story. We threaten or make war upon nations and national groups at the command of the governing elites, Neocon think tanks and the corporate and "public" media, whenever they tell us those nations are "undemocratic," "kill their own people" (as we did in the most atrocious fashion during our own "Civil War"), and otherwise need a good thrashing. All this with no regard to the consequences for our own lives or for the lives of the people we attack. Constitutional protections of due process in a court of law, simply don't matter if the Executive Branch, the Military, or some other powerful group decides they don't. They are God.

 How the hell did we get here???? Have we always been this way? Well, sort of, but it keeps getting worse (Are we just going back to the dark ages?).

 Back in the last "just war," WWII, we killed hundred of thousands of civilians by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, and killed many more thousands of innocent women and children, while destroying priceless European architecture, in Dresden, Germany, just to make a point. Afterwards we ignored all that and tried the Nazis for their atrocities during the war crimes tribunals, and made war crimes of the German sort, violations of international law. Since then, only weak nations have been tried for war crimes, even though it is the US and the West that violate those same international laws routinely.

Back in 1967 and '68, I faced a decision. As a poor boy of 17-18, I had fallen into an even deeper poverty than I had known previously, when growing up in a lower middle class family that became divided by separation, and then divorce. When I tried to go off on my own to escape an untenable situation, my brother helped me buy books so I could attend the local community college, during a time when my life and mind were in great turmoil (for reasons I won't go into). In the summer of 1967, a friend and I hitch-hiked to Montreal, Canada, for the world's fair, and on to Boston and New York, and I came home a changed person, even more aware of what I considered to be a dishonorable war against the people of Vietnam, a people who had every right to seek self determination and to fight their own civil war, even if one side was socialist/"communist". In late 1967, if I remember it all correctly, my roommate, another dear friend, and I protested the Vietnam war by inscribing "Hell No, we won't go" on the college lawn (a nearly meaningless and ineffective statement, I must confess). We were two of very few there who spoke out against the War, even though just months earlier we had considered going to Israel as volunteers to help the Israelis in their struggle with the Palestinians. My good friend and roommate was Jewish and at the time we had been overcome by the false pro-Israeli narrative in the popular press. Such was the change in my own personal awareness of American Empire during that brief period of 1967 and 1968.

 To make a long and very personal story short, after the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive in January, 1968, a new draft of 48,000 men was announced in February. I faced the loss of my college deferment and ended up in the Army. I could have gone to Canada, but had no support or wherewithal to do that, and did not wish to saddle my Army-Airforce father with having a son who chose not to serve. I was not, and could not truthfully claim to be, a conscientious objector to all wars in the religious sense, because I was, and still am, essentially an atheist. Atheists, after all, couldn't possibly have strongly held moral and ethical convictions--Godless people are lost souls and excluded from the possibility of morality.

 In my induction papers, I told the Army that I would not participate in any war that was not similar to World War II, and the attack on America at Pearl Harbor, which appeared at the time to be a truly defensive war. They took me anyway, but after my father's early death, just after my 20th birthday, I engaged in various forms of resistance. It was a long, difficult, problem-filled rocky road that eventually kept me out of the much more threatening and problematic Vietnam War, and which left me with an honorable discharge, thanks to military friends who favored my sentiments. My life was eventually deeply affected by my choices, especially when I faced bosses who had served willingly and had killed innocent Vietnamese as if it were the honorable thing to do. Even though I received an honorable discharge, I most often had to truthfully state the facts of my Army experience in job applications, and particularly in cases when the boss was a Vietnam vet, it did not serve me well. They had their own bitterness, and revenge to exact on those who opposed the war and who questioned the ultimate value of their service.

 In any event, the fruitless and destructive Vietnam War produced many more war crimes against innocent civilians, including the dropping of napalm on villages and the massacre at Mai Lai.

 The point of this story, is that we all face choices, and as a nation, we need to create choices with more productive outcomes. Unfortunately, if Americans choose to not willingly participate in thoughtless, often criminal, always destructive and murderous, US wars against any defenseless nation, targeted for dubious reasons by our government, there can be a heavy price to pay. Others make a different choice, and they too, will live with it the rest of their lives, even if they are economically and socially rewarded for it. The targeted nations, however, live in a hell that most of us cannot even imagine.

 Most often, in the absence of an equitable draft, now (morphed into and) referred to as the "volunteer Army," it is the poor, due to their circumstance, and other people with few options, who end up fighting these rich men's wars. Without an equitable draft, one that would not permit the purchase of college deferments by the wealthy, low income people are sucked in by what is really a "poverty draft" in order to find income producing work and the self esteem so easily bestowed upon them by the upper classses and the one percent--those who will never have to risk their lives doing the devil's work--and who can live their often successful lives as if the wars never happened.

 To the other veterans I offend: In a world of media propaganda and lies, I understand why you did what you did, and the honor you were seeking. I also understand and most honor those war veterans who came to realize the falsehoods that drove them to war, and the shame some feel for killing innocents, but mostly I understand the contempt they must feel for the officials and government who stole their lives to send them into wars based upon falsehoods, as currently is the case in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 It is time for all, veterans and non-veterans alike, to wake up to the carnage, cultural dysfunction, and reactionary "terrorist" hatred, that we Americans are inflicting upon the world through our senseless wars. They leave us and other nations impoverished and serve no one other than the military-industrial complex, the one percent and their global war on the national self determination of others. Too often today, the "State" of Israel, which was imposed upon the Palestinians and Arabs in 1948, and which has been violating international laws and the rights of Palestinians ever since, is the ultimate beneficiary, while we pretend it is in our national interest.

 In fighting the ever widening wars on "terror," which are the logical result of our own aggressive, oppressive, and wildly destructive wars on many nations, and beyond the important issue of degrading our own ethical and moral principles, we have decimated our own Constitutional rights to privacy and due process as American citizens, thus enabling the current slide into fascism. Today, President Obama thinks nothing of killing American citizens without judicial warrant simply on the advice of questionable advisors, while allowing the killing of others in foreign lands who resist, including many civilians, with drones directed from afar. He is cheered on by even more savage and "right-wing" militaristic Christian fundamentalists, and AIPAC oriented Republicans, who would likely be even more improvident and immoral were they in the oval office.

(Good Lord, did I write this in Baker City, Oregon, the heartland of right-wing, militaristic, mindlessly patriotic, relentlessly religious, not to mention classist, American culture?  Yep.)
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Added, 11/14/12

An American Legacy: Her Deadly Warriors-in-Chief
By Gary Brumback 

Excerpt. . . .

• 3. Warfare culture. The triumvirate is adept at creating and sustaining a culture in which continuous military interventions is accepted and expected. Besides relying on spreading lies (e.g., WMDs), half truths and propaganda through corporate-controlled mainstream media, on infiltration into the educational system at all levels, and on entertainment (e.g., war movies) the triumvirate has mastered the art of what we psychologists call “operant conditioning”, continuously pairing a negative or less favorable item with a more favorable one until the former becomes more like the latter. That explains, for example, why basketball fans will without reservation watch a game played on an aircraft carrier

• 4. Upside Down Incentives. CEOs and U.S. presidents are addicted to them. An upside down incentive, as you can probably guess, is one that rewards bad behavior and/or punishes good behavior. Never having to worry about being prosecuted as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court because it is an absolutely feckless entity and because the U.S. refuses to be a signatory member of it is the most egregious upside down incentive for a U.S. warrior-in-chief.

• 5. Global enticements. Globalization is the contemporary euphemism for imperialism. The globe is one giant opportunity for market expansion, resource exploitation and political manipulation. The prospect of installing or protecting dictatorships in the pretext of spreading and defending freedom is just too much of a temptation for CEOs and U.S. presidents alike to resist. The duplicitous and hypocritical Ike with his farewell address warning of the very military industrial complex over which he had presided was a supreme master of secret military operations carried out by the CIA to replace democratically elected presidents with dictators who protected corporate investments and operations and opened up for them rich resources like oil and minerals.

• 6. The powerful corpocracy. The first five circumstantial factors are all part and parcel of this sixth one, the powerful corpocracy. It took me about 10 years to study and then write a book about what the corpocracy is, what it does, and how it can be ended and democracy reclaimed. A U.S. president is a member of the corpocracy and is influenced by it, especially when it comes to making decisions about military interventions.

• See article for rest._____

Iris Dement Wasteland Of The Free

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George Carlin - It's a big club and you ain't in it

Baker City Birds--Vaux's Swift

[Edited May 25, 2012]
The Vaux's Swift

Yesterday, as I traveled west during "rush hour" on Campbell, to its intersection with Main Street, I noticed a large swarm of birds over the intersection and the beautiful old home on the south west corner, at 2419 Main. Recognizing them as Vaux's Swifts, which I normally only see in much smaller groups, most often flying over local forests, I pulled into the parking area at Bisnett Insurance to see if they were going to do their thing and fly down the chimney at the two story home to roost for the night.

Large, loose counter-clockwise swirl of swifts over a fine old home and chimney at 2419 Main Street during "rush hour." Photo includes a minor fraction of the swifts present.

I vaguely remembered that the home had been mentioned by others as a sometime roost site, and was excited by the thought that the spectacle was about to happen on such a congested corner, right here in Baker City at "rush hour." It was about 3:55 PM on a cloudy, somewhat rainy day, and as I approached the corner with an older camera that I carry for other purposes, the smell of exhaust fumes from the traffic was evident to even my somewhat insensitive nose. I wondered what the effect would be on the birds as they circled over the home and exhaust-filled intersection.

They seemed unperturbed by the traffic and exhaust fumes, as they continued to circle counter-clockwise in a large, loose, swirling swarm of swifts, approaching the chimney on the old home, but then shying off entry to join the circle once again. At about 4 pm, when I was watching from the north east corner of the intersection, some of the birds in the group dropped straight down into the chimney, while others flew back into the swirl. Within about two or three minutes, most of the birds had literally dropped into the chimney on succeeding passes.

I was able to get a few photos with a small lens on the old camera as they went in.
Swifts approach from the upper left and drop down into the chimney. Not exactly the crowded vortex seen with larger groups, but you get the idea.

Here are two more photos of the swifts dropping in to their communal roost site:
Small group of swifts dropping into chimney

The last few of another small group as they entered the chimney. You can see the wings of the last few birds of the group as they enter.

I was able to talk to the occupants of the home, Nanci Sheppard and Thommy Whitlock, and they told me that they have come to roost since April of 2005, and enter the chimney roost early if it is cloudy, like yesterday, but roost around dusk when it is sunny. They circle for about twenty minutes. Another observer told them there have been about 300 birds in recent weeks. They also said that they do not hear the birds in the chimney from within the house.

They stated that the swifts come in during the migration north in spring, late April and early May, and at least some will stay for perhaps a month and a half, and then head north and elsewhere. The birds used to also roost at a chimney in a home on Valley Avenue, but since that chimney was closed off, they come to their home. They appreciate the birds and keep the chimney open (and without a fire below) so that they have a place to roost during migration. They usually return to migratory communal roosts, such as this one, on the way south in Oregon around August. Only a relative few are around in winter.

As for spraying by County vector control of the swift's food supply, mosquitos and other flying insects within the city and surrounding environs, they "hate it," but think they understand the need for mosquito control also.

The 1940 edition of Oregon State College's Gabrielson and Jewett publication, titled "Birds of Oregon," described the communal roosting scene of a much larger group in an East Portland, Oregon, chimney:

"The sight of this company of rapidly moving birds circling about the chimney like a large whirlpool, with the birds in the vortex dropping like plummets into the chimney, excited much interest among local bird lovers who made many trips to watch the performance."

A local bird expert, perhaps it was Joanne Britton or Anne Frost, described the birds in flight to me some time ago, as "cigars with wings." In the photos above, you might also find the silhouettes of birds that are significantly larger and do not fit the description. They are likely interested avian predators, like the sharp-shinned hawk or American kestrel, and at other times even ravens or crows (R rated video below), looking for an early evening snack.

Videos:

Thousands of swifts at http://wdfw.wa.gov/wildwatch/vauxcam/video/evening_return.wvx

brutal crow cafe


The "Birds of Oregon" (1940) describes the bird as:

". . . a strong flier, its oarlike wings sending the slender body through the air at astonishing speed. Often the bird appears to work the wings alternately, and again, in orthodox fashion. Its speed far surpasses that of the swallows with which it often associates in migration, enabling the swift to dart past the swallows with no apparent effort."

Vaux's Swifts, "pronounced 'Vawks' rather than 'Voh,'" was brought to the attention of European American society by the short-lived famous American naturalist and Quaker, John Kirk Townsend (1809-1851) with a description in 1839 (He originally thought he was describing the eastern Chimney Swift.) See the new "Birds of Oregon," (Marshall, Hunter, & Contreras, 2006). Another local bird of sage brush and juniper, the Townsend's Solitaire, also bears his name.

These aerobic acrobats are not an uncommon sight in the forests of the Blue Mountains, including the Elkhorn and Wallowa Mountains in Baker County, but they range over much of the North and South American continents. Our bird, the northern subspecies, Chaetura vauxi vauxi, is larger than the southern subspecies, but both are smaller than their eastern cousin, the Chimney Swift. While they will roost and nest in chimneys, they are often associated with tall hollowed out snags of conifers, most especially in our region, in the commonly rotted out cores of an old grand fir.

They are somewhat dependent on old growth forests, which have been in severe decline historically, and their nests are affixed to the inner surfaces of chimneys and probably more often, to old hollow trees. Both the nest structure of twigs, and the nest connection to the inner wall, are cemented together by a "sticky saliva."

Vaux's Swift, clinging to brick wall. (Photo from the Washington Division of Wildlife Services.)

Bull and Beckwith, 1993, report that the primary diet is made up of Homoptera (Hemiptera), that is flying aphids and whiteflies, and their relatives (43%), along with prodigious quantities of Diptera (mosquitos, flies, gnats and midges--27%), along with many mayflies (18%) and other flying insects. (The sources I was able to access do not indicate whether the determination was made by weight or by numbers of insects.) In any event, their diet is a testimony to their value, from the perspective of humans hoping to be rid of mosquitos, so the effects of arial spraying of insecticides on their health and survival needs to be considered.

Conservation status in north east Oregon is uncertain. The new "Birds of Oregon," (Marshall, Hunter, & Contreras, 2006) states that:

"In 1990, Bull( 1991) observed about 100 swifts using a roost in a hollow tree all summer in ne. Oregon and suspected they were not nesting because nest sites were not available. In ne. Oregon, conversion of stands dominated by grand fir to an earlier seral stage dominated by ponderosa pine would probably further decrease the number of nest and roost sites because all nests and roosts located in this area were in grand fir trees (Bull 1991, Bull and Cooper 1991). Large diameter grand fir trees typically contain extensive heartwod decay which creates hollow chambers suitable for nesting; this same phenomenon rarely occurs in ponderosa pine. . . . . Additional research is warranted. . . ."

Other well known communal roosting sites in Eastern Oregon, according to the new "Birds of Oregon," (Marshall, Hunter, & Contreras, 2006) include:

"La Grande (4th and Adams), . . . Pendleton (318 S. Main), . . . Union (Union High School)."

5/25/12--Mary McCracken, of La Grande, reported seeing the the swifts circling the old Elgin High School in Elgin last night.

As the birders like to say--"good birding."

Odds & ends: Warming, Supreme Court Polling Negatives, Rancher Slush Fund, War in Context, etc.

Busy with Spring so just some articles of recent interest, hopefully.
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Yesterday, Jay Hanson's America 2.0 mailing list sent out an article stating that the U.S. Has Hottest 12-Month Period on Recordduring the last year. Democracy Now! also carried the story in their headlines today, albeit the last one.

The story was from the NOAA Satellite and Information Service:

"12-month period (May 2011-April 2012)
The 12-month period (May 2011-April 2012), which includes several warm periods for the country — second hottest summer, fourth warmest winter, and warmest March — was the warmest consecutive 12-month period for the contiguous United States. Twenty-two states were record warm for the 12-month period, and an additional 19 states were top ten warm. The 12-month running average temperature for the contiguous U.S. was 55.7 degrees F, which is 2.8 degrees F above the 20th century average."

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The Pew Research Center released a poll stating that the Supreme Court Favorability Reaches New Low.

Public assessments of the Supreme Court have reached a quarter-century low. Unlike evaluations over much of the past decade, there is very little partisan divide. The court receives relatively low favorable ratings from Republicans, Democrats and independents alike.

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PEW also notes that:
Most Swing Voters Favor Afghan Troop Withdrawal
Support for U.S. Troop Presence Hits New Low

Public support for maintaining U.S. forces in Afghanistan has reached a new low. And as the general election campaign begins, swing voters, by nearly two-to-one, favor removing U.S. troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible.

Nearly two-thirds (65%) of voters who say they are certain to support Barack Obama in the general election favor a rapid U.S. troop withdrawal. But support for a troop pullout is nearly as extensive (59%) among swing voters — those who are either undecided in their general election preferences, lean toward a candidate or say they may still change their minds. Swing voters make up nearly a quarter (23%) of all registered voters.

Voters who express certainty about voting for Mitt Romney in the fall are divided over what to do about U.S. troops in Afghanistan: 48% favor removing them as soon as possible, while 46% support maintaining U.S. forces there until the situation has stabilized.

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On Tuesday, former labor Secretary Robert Reich offered up a critique on the economy and former President Clinton's errors:

Former Labor Sec. Robert Reich on Clinton’s Errors of Crippling Welfare to Repealing Glass-Steagall

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich critiques President Obama’s handling of the economic crisis and the Clinton administration’s repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, a key deregulatory move that ended the separation of commercial and investment banking and is widely seen as having helped lead to the financial collapse. The Clinton administration also presided over a drastic transformation of U.S. welfare laws, throwing millions off of welfare rolls. "I went outside of the White House, walked back to my office along Constitution Avenue, expecting I would see signs. ... There are a lot of people who were concerned about that issue. But there was nobody on the streets. It was deafening. The silence was deafening," Reich says of the day Clinton signed the change into law. He notes this is when he realized, "if people who are concerned about the increasing concentration of wealth and power in this country are not mobilized, are not visible, then nothing progressive is going to happen." Reich is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has written 13 books, including "Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future." His latest, an e-book, is just out: "Beyond Outrage: What Has Gone Wrong with Our Economy and Our Democracy, and How to Fix Them."

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From The Wildlife News via NorthEast Oregon Ecosystems:

Conservation Groups and Livestock Interests Work to Create a New $25 Million Rancher Slush Fund
The Wildlife News
May 8

Recently we were informed of a new effort by two conservation groups, a Native American tribe and livestock interests “to secure $25 million from the upcoming 2012 Farm Bill to help livestock producers reduce the risk of livestock losses to grizzly bears, wolves, black bears and mountain lions.”

This taxpayer money is meant to “reduce the impacts that carnivores can have on livestock producers” although how the funds’ effectiveness would be monitored is unclear.

There is no doubt about the need for ranchers to incorporate non-lethal, preventative livestock husbandry practices into their grazing management regimes in order to prevent conflict with wolves and other native predators.

The question that needs to be answered is who ought be responsible for the costs of needed animal husbandry ?

See: http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2012/05/08/conservation-groups-and-livestock-interests-work-to-create-a-new-25-million-rancher-slush-fund/

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Website Worth Reading:

War In Context

Game over for the climate
by NEWS SOURCES on MAY 10, 2012
James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, writes: warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.”

If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.

Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.

That is the long-term outlook. But near-term, things will be bad enough.. . . . .
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In preparation for war against Iran, U.S. set to give Israel largest grant of military aid ever
Posted By News Sources On May 8, 2012 @ 2:40 pm In war against Iran | 3 Comments

Following a decision by the U.S. House of Representatives Defense Appropriations Subcommittee which just approved over $948 million in funding for Israel’s anti-missile defense programs, Israel will receive a record $4 billion in military aid in 2013.

The Jewish Press reports [1]: Approximately $679 million of the funding will go to the Iron Dome, thanks in large part to legislation initiated last month by Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Howard Berman (D-Calif.), chairwoman and ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, respectively.

The remaining $269 million will go to Israel’s other anti-missile initiatives: the short-range David’s Sling ($149.7 million), and the current long-range Arrow anti-ballistic missile system and its successor the Arrow 3 ($119.3 million). These projects, unlike the Iron Dome, are joint Israel-US projects.

While the increase in funding for the Iron Dome was expected, with the Department of Defense stating in March that it “intends to request an appropriate level of funding from Congress to support such acquisitions based on Israeli requirements and production capacity,” the funding for the other projects represents an increase of $169 million over the Obama administration’s proposed number.

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Article printed from War in Context
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Preview of "Wild Things"

Connecting the Dots on Climate Change

When you click on the link to the Connect the Dots Day, the description of the photo can be found just to the photo's upper left side.
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A note from Bill McKibben at 350.org

From: "Bill McKibben - 350.org
Subject: Amazing images.
Date: May 6, 2012 9:20:06 AM PDT

Dear Friends,

This is a thank you note, a thank you note to the whole planet.

Except for the hours when I went out to the events nearest my home in Vermont, I’ve been by the computer, transfixed by the images streaming in.

From every corner of the earth people have been doing their best to Connect the Dots on climate change. And their best has been pretty amazing — we have photos from beneath the ocean waves and from high-altitude glaciers, from the middle of big cities fighting sea level rise and remote deserts battling drought.



Click here to see the amazing photos from the day: www.climatedots.org

We’re going to need you soon to fight the political battles that will make use of these images, but for the next day or two just relax, and enjoy the feeling of solidarity that comes from knowing there are millions of people thinking the same way, harboring the same fears and, more importantly, the same hopes.

On we go together.

With such gratitude,

Bill McKibben

P.S. There's still time to submit photos for our slideshow and compilation video -- just send your best photo as an email attachment to photos@350.org. Make your city and country the subject line of the email, and put your story and description in the body. So many thanks in advance!

For more information on climate change, see 350.org

Bradley Manning show trial & May Day

Here are two pieces, both with Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, on the important "show trial" of Bradley Manning, the brave young soldier who is accused of releasing whistle blower information (“aiding the enemy” ) to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. Manning allegedly is responsible for allowing the American people to understand the depth of the depravities committed by the US military in Iraq, and for releasing other information about US foreign policy shenanigans.

The first piece is Ratner's article about the Manning trial printed last week in the UK's Guardian, and the second is an interview on Scott Horton's Antiwar Radio from today, where Scott and Michael Ratner discuss the article. The interview is well worth listening to.
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Bradley Manning: a show trial of state secrecy
The US government's suppression of all accountability and transparency in prosecuting the WikiLeaks suspect is totalitarian

On 24 April, a hearing in one of the most important court martial cases in decades will take place in Fort Meade, Maryland. The accused faces life in prison for the 22 charges against him, which include "aiding the enemy" and "transmitting defense information". His status as an alleged high-profile whistleblower and the importance of the issues his case raises should all but guarantee the proceedings a prominent spot in major media, as well as in public debate.

Yet, in spite of the grave implications, not to mention the press and public's first amendment right of full and open access to criminal trials, no outside parties will have access to the evidence, the court documents, court orders or off-the-record arguments that will ultimately decide his fate. Under these circumstances, whatever the outcome of the case, the loser will be the transparency necessary for democratic government, accountable courts and faith in our justice system.

In the two years since his arrest for allegedly leaking the confidential files that exposed grand-scale military misconduct, potential war crimes and questionable diplomatic tactics, army private Bradley Manning has been subjected to an extremely secretive criminal procedure. It is a sad irony that the government's heavy-handed approach to this case only serves to underscore the motivations – some would say, the necessity – for whistleblowing like Manning's in the first place.

The most well-known of the leaked files, a 39-minute video entitled "Collateral Murder", depicts three brutal attacks on civilians by US soldiers during the course of just one day of the Iraq war.

Collateral Murder - Wikileaks - Iraq

The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-sight, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

See: Bradley Manning: a show trial of state secrecy
The US government's suppression of all accountability and transparency in prosecuting the WikiLeaks suspect is totalitarian for rest of article.
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Scott Horton Interviews Michael Ratner
Scott Horton, May 02, 2012

Michael Ratner, President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, discusses his article “Bradley Manning: a show trial of state secrecy;” Manning’s quasi-public trial (which is open to observation, yet vital evidence and court documents are withheld from the media and public); why the NY Times is just as guilty of “aiding the enemy” as Manning and WikiLeaks; how President Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta made a fair trial impossible; and how you can support Bradley Manning in his time of need.
MP3 here. (15:33)
Michael Ratner is President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

You can support Bradley Manning by visiting the Bradley Manning Support Network.
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Yesterday there were many May Day protests in Major Cities across the US. Just Google the May Day protests, or go to Democracy Now!
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The Occupy Guitarmy with Tom Morello

State Police Confirm Death of Probable Wolf Was A Crime

The Oregon State Police just sent out this alert of local interest. Note that killing a state endangered species is not a felony (only a Class A misdemeanor) in Oregon. How serious is that? While the genetic tests for wolf confirmation have not been completed, the update does strongly suggest that the animal was an endangered wolf.

Update: Investigation Into Possible Wolf Death in Union County

Oregon State Police (OSP) Fish & Wildlife Division, with the assistance of Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife (ODFW), is continuing the investigation into the death of a possible wolf found mid-March in northeast Oregon's Union County. Genetic tests to confirm if the animal is a wolf are still to be completed and the ongoing investigation confirmed the death is a crime. OSP is seeking public tips to help solve the case.

On March 16, 2012 at approximately 8:30 a.m. OSP Fish & Wildlife Senior Trooper Kris Davis received a call regarding the discovery of a possible deceased wolf on private property about 6 miles north of Cove, Oregon. Davis and Sergeant Isaac Cyr responded and contacted the property owner and person who reported finding the deceased animal to Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife that morning.

After taking possession of the 97-pound animal, OSP took it to a local veterinarian for x-rays. The initial examination didn't confirm a cause of death. A necropsy confirmed the cause of death was the result of a criminal act. The actual cause is not being released at this time but the investigation indicates the animal [an earlier update said "the wolf"] had been dead about one week.

Wolves are protected by the state Endangered Species Act throughout Oregon. Except in the defense of human life or with a special permit, it is unlawful to kill a wolf. Doing so is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine up to $6,250.

Anyone with information regarding this investigation is asked to contact Shttp://www.blogger.com/enior Trooper Kris Davis at (541) 963-7175 ext. 4673 or email kris.davis@state.or.us.

### www.oregon.gov/OSP ###

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See Also:

Oregon Wild: Oregon Wild Press Statement on Likely Wolf Poaching

Sneak Cat Blog: Oregon State Police confirm animal believed to be a wolf killed in March a “criminal act”

State police seek tips on who killed wolf in northeastern Oregon's Union County
Published: Wednesday, May 02, 2012, 10:44 AM

The Economic Crisis and the "Formula For Fraud"

Understanding how deregulation of banks helped caused the present economic calamity.
[Edited 4/18/12]
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During the current economic crisis, millions of homeowners have lost their homes through foreclosure, over 1.9 million in 2009 and 2010 alone. Almost everyone knows someone who has lost their home or who is currently at risk. The banks who made and encouraged the bad loans, and who sold them off as triple A rated, but nearly worthless, bundled, complex securities, and who are arguably most responsible for the economic collapse, have been bailed out. Little has been done to help those foreclosed upon, or homeowners in distress.

Back in 2010-2011, Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, (Right-to-Rent Would Ease Foreclosure Mess ) suggested the following:

"There is a simple alternative that involves no government money and no new bureaucracy. We could temporarily change the rules on foreclosure to allow homeowners the right to stay in their home as renters for a substantial period of time (e.g., 5 years) following a foreclosure.

During this period, they would pay the market rent as determined by an independent appraiser. They would have the same rights and responsibilities as other tenants, with the exception that they could not be evicted without cause. The lender would own the property and would be free to sell it, although the former homeowner would still have the right to remain as a tenant even if the home is sold.

This policy accomplishes several important goals. First and foremost it provides housing security for homeowners who got caught up in the middle of the bubble. These people can be blamed for having made a mistake by buying homes at bubble-inflated prices. But this mistake is small compared with the mistakes made by the banks that made hundreds of billions of dollars of bad and often deceptive loans.

We were willing to give these banks trillions of dollars of loans at below market rates. Allowing foreclosed homeowners to stay in their homes as renters seems a rather small concession in comparison. This right-to-rent provision can also be narrowly structured so that it only applies to owner-occupied homes of less than the median value that were bought during the bubble years. This will ensure that it is not exploited by wealthy homeowners or investors."

The banks and Congress didn't listen to Dean Baker, CEPR, and other economists who felt similarly.

So now, unfortunately, NPR reported on April 16, 2012, that instead, banks are selling thousands of seized homes to "big-time investors" so that they can rent them out at what ever price the market will bear, to, in many cases, the people who have been turned out of their homes.

Another article by NPR, City Rents Rise As Buyers Wait Out Housing Bust
by JIM ZARROLI

notes that:

"There's very little supply, there's lots of demand," he says. "People have been staying in the rental market longer 'cause they're not comfortable jumping into the sales market or they don't have the necessary down payments, so all of those things have been factored into a very tight and successful rental market."

That pattern is being repeated in many other parts of the country. Chris Herbert, research director of Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, says rents rose more than 5 percent last year in Seattle, Chicago, Minneapolis, Boston, Pittsburgh and other cities. Herbert says the increases reflect growing demand for rental properties."

"In 2011, there was growth of a million renter households across the country, while homeowner households fell by 350,000," Herbert says. "So in one year to have growth of a million renters, that's a number we haven't seen in a long time."

A million renter mystery?

But wait, where did a million renters come from? Dean Baker in the article mentioned above, notes that:

"We are virtually certain to see at least a million foreclosures in 2011 and comparable numbers in 2012 and 2013. Many more homeowners will lose their homes through distressed sales."

If homeowner households only fell by 350,000 in 2011, what about the million or so who were put out of their homes in 2011 alone by foreclosures? (Not to mention the few million in previous years of the current recession.) Did NPR count them? Are they homeless, living with parents or friends, or are they, like the millions before them, seeking rentals? NPR doesn't bother to make a connection between rising rents and a few million foreclosures. That's par for NPR's uninformative, mind-easing course, which is; every thing's fine: "People have been staying in the rental market longer 'cause they're not comfortable jumping into the sales market or they don't have the necessary down payments, so all of those things have been factored into a very tight and successful rental market."

At least the Huffington Post notes that:

"The practice of turning foreclosed homes into rentals is becoming so popular that the Federal Reserve issued guidelines earlier this month for banks to use when they're flipping foreclosures into rentals. But the practice also faces criticism: Namely, some are concerned that the very banks and agencies responsible for the housing crisis in the first place will now benefit from their own questionable practices."

See also:
Rentals Continue to Outshine Purchase Market, Home Values Still Plagued By Foreclosures
Foreclosure re-sales challenge previous peak in February, According to February Zillow Real Estate Market Reports

"The rental market remains a bright spot in the housing market, where many markets, especially hard hit ones, are experiencing significant annual rent appreciation and drawing the attention of investors. Converting distressed and vacant properties into rental units will reduce the oversupply of homes and speed up the recovery process."

Not to mention making rich people wealthier. Recovery? Recovery for who? Certainly not for the millions tossed out of their homes. Sounds like recovery for the 1 or 2%.

When you consider the reasonable alternative promoted by Dean Baker, i.e., to allow people to stay in their homes as renters, and the current reality that people's homes are being auctioned off at fire-sale prices to wealthy investors who charge increasing rents, that really says all you need to know about who the government cares about and who they are responsive to.

So why are all these people being foreclosed upon and how did the economic crisis come about in the first place?

William Black, "Formula for Fraud":

I’m going to quote from George Akerlof and Paul Romer’s famous article, or, at least, an article that should be famous where the title says it all: 'Looting: The Economic Underworld of Bankruptcy for Profit.' So, the bank fails or, in the modern era, is 'bailed' out, but the CEO walks away wealthy. And this is what Akerlof and Romer wrote about 20 years ago:

"Neither the public, nor economists foresaw that savings and loan deregulation was bound to produce looting, nor, unaware of the concept, could they have known how serious it would be. Thus, the regulators in the field who understood what was happening from the beginning found lukewarm support, at best, for their cause. Now, we know better. If we learn from experience, history need not repeat itself.'

(c. 8:22) “George Akerlof was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001. So, you might think economists would pay attention. You might think, since this article was written nearly 20 years ago, that the textbooks would mention fraud and looting. They don’t just ignore everyone here. They ignore Nobel Prize winners in Economics.

“So, what, again, was this lesson? It was the regulators in the field, the little people, not the fancy people, who understood from the beginning that deregulation would lead to massive looting. And it was the economists that ignored them. And after we had proven that it was fraud, after we had sent over a thousand elite bankers and their cronies to prison, after a Nobel Prize winner warned about it, after all those things, they ignored it and produced crisis after crisis, including the one we experience now.

(c. 9:59) “So, what did we know out of that savings and loan crisis, that was widely described at the time as the worst financial scandal in U.S. history? And we have a history rich in scandal. Here is what the national commission that investigated the causes of the crisis reported:

"'The typical large failure [grew] at an extremely rapid rate, achieving high concentrations of assets in risky ventures... [E]very accounting trick available was used... Evidence of fraud was invariably present, as was the ability of the operators to 'milk' the organisation.'

(c. 11:04) "That means to loot the organisation. But, speaking of milk, [Applause] the frauds I’m describing are in no way limited to the Unites States; they exist in every country. And they are common enough to explain; and they are old enough to explain what Balzac was saying because many of the wealthy become rich through precisely the scandals, the fraud, I will describe.

“In criminology, we call them financial super predators when we’re being lyrical. When we’re writing journals, we call them ‘control frauds,’ which is boring. Control fraud occurs when the person who controls a seemingly legitimate entity, like Parmalat, uses it as a weapon to defraud. And they can often use this weapon with impunity. In finance, accounting is the weapon of choice.  And these accounting frauds cause greater losses than all other property crimes combined, yet economics, again, never talks about it.  Worse, when many of these frauds occur in the same area, they hyperinflate financial bubbles, which is what causes financial crises and mass unemployment.  It makes the CEOs wealthy, produces Balzac scandals, and destroys democracy."

"William Black is Associate Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.  He is a lawyer, academic, and former bank regulator and the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry."

The speech is highly recommended for those who still believe, after all the economic collapses we have repeatedly been experiencing, that deregulation is the answer.

Guns and Butter
"Formula For Fraud" with William K. Black from the first Italian economic Summit on Modern Money Theory in Rimini, Italy. How to become a billionaire - the four necessary ingredients in the recipe for fraud; the three sure consequences of banking control fraud; gutting of the underwriting process; Gresham's Law; The Business Roundtable; hyperinflation of a bubble.

Guns and Butter - April 4, 2012 at 1:00pm

Click to listen (or download)

Transcript Here

Today’s show has been ‘Formula for Fraud.’  William Black is Associate Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.  He is a lawyer, academic, and former bank regulator and the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry.  

“Please visit the University of Missouri, Kansas City New Economic Perspectives blog at www.NewEconomicPerspectives.org.  Visit the website for the first Italian Summit on Modern Money Theory at www.DemocraziaMMT.info.
Transcript by Felipe Messina for Media Roots and Guns and Butter

[Here is an outline of the recipe for bank fraud, by William K. Black, so please click this link if you are looking for an outline of the transcript of the speech. It is digestible if you have a general knowledge of the players and "economics" (god forbid!) and read it while listening to the speech, but the speech transcript is an easier read.]

Two Tidbits, one quite funny, the other less so. . . .

Republicans Reveal that Entire Presidential Race was a Prank
April Fool’s Day Announcement Brings Practical Joke to an End

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – In an April Fool’s Day announcement that took the political world by storm, the Republican Party revealed today that its entire presidential race had been an elaborate prank.

“April Fool!” exclaimed former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum at a press conference in Washington, where they were joined by fellow merrymakers Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain.

Moments after revealing that the GOP primary had been one long practical joke, Mr. Santorum explained the rationale behind staging such a complicated and expensive prank.

“A lot of Americans are suffering right now and need a good laugh,” he said. “I think my colleagues and I can be justifiably proud of the entertainment we provided – even if it meant me wearing these ridiculous sweater vests.” See http://www.borowitzreport.com/2012/03/31/republicans-reveal-that-entire-presidential-race-was-a-prank/ for rest of a very entertaining post.

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George Galloway: Why I won't condemn attacks on UK soldiers in Afghanistan; If you don't mind my saying so, that's a very silly question. . .

George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a British Respect Party politician, author, journalist, and broadcaster, and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bradford West. He was previously an MP for the Labour Party, for Glasgow Hillhead and then its successor constituency Glasgow Kelvin from 1987 until 2005. He was expelled from the party in October 2003, the same year that he came to national attention for his opposition to the Iraq War.

(From Wikipedia)
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OK, Three Tidbits
Tongue-cutting at Al Jazeera
By Glenn Greenwald

April 05, 2012 "Salon" -- I’m currently conducting interviews as a follow-up to the rather acrimonious debate that erupted this week from my argument that “terrorism expertise” is not an actual discipline, but rather (like the term “terrorism” itself) just another instrument for legitimizing the violence of the U.S. and its allies, delegitimizing the violence of their Muslim adversaries, and dressing up state propaganda with the veneer of academic neutrality (for an example of how this works, see this New York Times article this morning on the different approaches taken by the U.S. and French governments to “fighting terrorism,” by which the article exclusively means: Muslims). One reason I think this discussion is so important is because the manipulation of the term “terrorism” this way permits and bolsters (even if unintentionally) an extremely ugly, destructive, and toxic worldview, one which the Editor-in-Chief of Commentary Magazine, John Podhoretz, vividly expressed last night on Twitter when discussing the firing of Keith Olbermann by Current TV: (See LINK for rest.)

A Description of the Slow Slide to Fascism in the U.S. by Rocky Anderson

[Edited 3/30/12]

I don't watch much TV. I rarely turn it on at my place, much preferring to find news and entertainment on the internet. Tuesday night, at my best and dearest friend's home, I watched PB'S' "News Hour" and two NCIS programs on CBS. The "News Hour" had an obviously propagandistic piece subtly demonizing Syria and the Assad government, ultimately insisting upon Assad stepping aside. The one and only guest on that segment was Andrew Tabler from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a pro-Israeli foreign policy think-tank. WINEP is a simply another propaganda arm of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most incredibly powerful lobby in the US today for the interests of Israel (See The Israel Lobby for starters). There were no opposing guests to speak for the Syrian state, whose territory on the Golan Heights has been illegally occupied by Israel since the 1967 war (never mentioned on "News Hour"). This is typical one sided PBS and NPR fare, even though they claim to God's gift for unbiased information to the American public.

It would have been adequately "fair & balanced," and much more informative and interesting, if they had included someone like Eric Margolis, or any of the AntiWar.com stable of writers, on the same program as and antidote to PBS's (and NPR's) AIPAC/Neocon guest list.

For another side of the story, see "THE DANGEROUS MESS IN SYRIA GROWS MURKIER" and listen to Scott Horton's recent interview with Eric Margolis on Antiwar Radio. In the interview, Margolis states that the US, Britain, France, aligned with Israel and Saudi Arabia, along with right-wing forces in Lebanon, have been infiltrating armed fighters into northern Syria from the beginning, much like the French intelligence did to create the self-serving early Bengazi insurgency in Libya.

The sound went out on PBS, so I switched to NCIS on CBS. The first hour was the usual, promoting the military police as a profoundly caring, justice seeking organization, just like most cop shows do for the police. The second, NCIS Los Angeles, was different. Like other police and military TV programs I have watched in the past, it ended up promoting not just killing willy-nilly, but in addition, the most egregious violations of Constitutional due process, simply because a Navy Seal Team had decided it was OK to kill a citizen because they thought he was a spy for the Taliban in Pakistan. No court order and no due process needed, because Seal Teams are all about honor and defending us. Ultimately, the powers that be in NCIS gave a wink and a knowing smile, and looked the other way, even though they knew the Seal Team members were involved in an extrajudicial killing of an American citizen on US soil without due process. I guess the message is that we need to forget the Constitution when, not just the Commander in Chief, but even teams of military commandos, decide amongst themselves that an American citizen on American soil needs to be "taken out" without formal charge or trial.

I thought about what a brain-washed and militarized society we have become--as TV has traveled quite a long way from the "I Love Lucy" shows of my youthful days. But hey, that's who we Americans are now--that's what we do--we kill people without regard to their Constitutional rights, or their rights as human beings. We tell only one side of the story. We threaten or make war upon nations and national groups at the command of the governing elites, Neocon think tanks and the corporate and "public" media, whenever they tell us those nations are "undemocratic," "kill their own people" (as we did in the most atrocious fashion during our own "Civil War"), and otherwise need a good thrashing. All this with no regard to the consequences for our own lives or for the lives of the people we attack. Constitutional protections of due process in a court of law, simply don't matter if the Executive Branch, the Military, or some other powerful group decides they don't. They are God.

How the hell did we get here???? Have we always been this way? Well, sort of, but it keeps getting worse (Are we just going back to the dark ages?).

Back in the last "just war," WWII, we killed hundred of thousands of civilians by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, and killed many more thousands of innocent women and children, while destroying priceless European architecture, in Dresden, Germany, just to make a point. Afterwards we ignored all that and tried the Nazis for their atrocities during the war crimes tribunals, and made war crimes of the German sort, violations of international law. Since then, only weak nations have been tried for war crimes, even though it is the US and the West that violate those same international laws routinely.

Back in 1967 and '68, I faced a decision. As a poor boy of 17-18, I had fallen into an even deeper poverty than I had known previously, when growing up in a lower middle class family that became divided by separation, and then divorce. When I tried to go off on my own to escape an untenable situation, my brother helped me buy books so I could attend the local community college, during a time when my life and mind were in great turmoil (for reasons I won't go into). In the summer of 1967, a friend and I hitch-hiked to Montreal, Canada, for the world's fair, and on to Boston and New York, and I came home a changed person, even more aware of what I considered to be a dishonorable war against the people of Vietnam, a people who had every right to seek self determination and to fight their own civil war, even if one side was socialist/"communist". In late 1967, if I remember it all correctly, my roommate, another dear friend, and I protested the Vietnam war by inscribing "Hell No, we won't go" on the college lawn (a nearly meaningless and ineffective statement, I must confess). We were two of very few there who spoke out against the War, even though just months earlier we had considered going to Israel as volunteers to help the Israelis in their struggle with the Palestinians. My good friend and roommate was Jewish and at the time we had been overcome by the false pro-Israeli narrative in the popular press. Such was the change in my own personal awareness of American Empire during that brief period of 1967 and 1968.

To make a long and very personal story short, after the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive in January, 1968, a new draft of 48,000 men was announced in February. I faced the loss of my college deferment and ended up in the Army. I could have gone to Canada, but had no support or wherewithal to do that, and did not wish to saddle my Army-Airforce father with having a son who chose not to serve. I was not, and could not truthfully claim to be, a conscientious objector to all wars in the religious sense, because I was, and still am, essentially an atheist. Atheists, after all, couldn't possibly have strongly held moral and ethical convictions--Godless people are lost souls and excluded from the possibility of morality.

In my induction papers, I told the Army that I would not participate in any war that was not similar to World War II, and the attack on America at Pearl Harbor, which appeared at the time to be a truly defensive war. They took me anyway, but after my father's early death, just after my 20th birthday, I engaged in various forms of resistance. It was a long, difficult, problem-filled rocky road that eventually kept me out of the much more threatening and problematic Vietnam War, and which left me with an honorable discharge, thanks to military friends who favored my sentiments. My life was eventually deeply affected by my choices, especially when I faced bosses who had served willingly and had killed innocent Vietnamese as if it were the honorable thing to do. Even though I received an honorable discharge, I most often had to truthfully state the facts of my Army experience in job applications, and particularly in cases when the boss was a Vietnam vet, it did not serve me well. They had their own bitterness, and revenge to exact on those who opposed the war and who questioned the ultimate value of their service.

In any event, the fruitless and destructive Vietnam War produced many more war crimes against innocent civilians, including the dropping of napalm on villages and the massacre at Mai Lai.

The point of this story, is that we all face choices, and as a nation, we need to create choices with more productive outcomes. Unfortunately, if Americans choose to not willingly participate in thoughtless, often criminal, always destructive and murderous, US wars against any defenseless nation, targeted for dubious reasons by our government, there can be a heavy price to pay. Others make a different choice, and they too, will live with it the rest of their lives, even if they are economically and socially rewarded for it. The targeted nations, however, live in a hell that most of us cannot even imagine.

Most often, in the absence of an equitable draft, now referred to as the "volunteer Army," it is the poor, due to their circumstance, and other people with few options, who end up fighting these rich men's wars. Without an equitable draft, one that would not permit the purchase of college deferments by the wealthy, low income people are sucked in by what is really a "poverty draft" in order to find income producing work and the self esteem so easily bestowed upon them by the upper classses and the one percent--those who will never have to risk their lives doing the devil's work--and who can live their often successful lives as if it never happened.

To the other veterans I offend: In a world of media propaganda and lies, I understand why you did what you did, and the honor you were seeking. I also understand and most honor those war veterans who came to realize the falsehoods that drove them to war, and the shame some feel for killing innocents, but mostly I understand the contempt they must feel for the officials and government who stole their lives to send them into wars based upon falsehoods, as currently is the case in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is time for all, veterans and non-veterans alike, to wake up to the carnage, cultural dysfunction, and reactionary "terrorist" hatred, that we Americans are inflicting upon the world through our senseless wars. They leave us and other nations impoverished and serve no one other than the military-industrial complex, the one percent and their global war on the national self determination of others. Too often today, the "State" of Israel, which was imposed upon the Palestinians and Arabs in 1948, and which has been violating international laws and the rights of Palestinians ever since, is the ultimate beneficiary, as if it were really in our national interest.

In fighting the ever widening wars on "terror," which are the logical result of our own aggressive, oppressive, and wildly destructive wars on many nations, and beyond the important issue of degrading our own ethical and moral principles, we have decimated our own Constitutional rights to privacy and due process as American citizens, thus enabling the current slide into fascism. Today, President Obama thinks nothing of killing American citizens without judicial warrant simply on the advice of questionable advisors, while allowing the killing of others in foreign lands who resist, including many civilians, with drones directed from afar. He is cheered on by even more savage and "right-wing" militaristic AIPAC oriented Republicans who would likely be even more improvident and immoral were they in the oval office.

In the article below, Rocky Anderson, former Mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah, asks us to reconsider the guiding principles we have historically held dear, how they have been undermined in recent decades, and how we might restore them. I agree with much he has to say, but disagree with notions that would invite endless immigration to a finite nation with many long-term issues, both physical and social. It's a long read, but well worth your while.
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An End To Authoritarianism and Plutocracy in the United States: It's Up to Us

By Ross C. "Rocky" Anderson
Hinckley Institute of Politics

March 28, 2012 "Information Clearing House" ---

Let us consider the fundamental guiding principles for the United States of America -- freedom, equal opportunity, compassion, and security.

Then let us consider how those principles have been severely undermined, and how we, the American people, can restore them so that once again our government is of, by, and for the people, rather than a tool of oppression cynically utilized for the benefit of a small, powerful, abusive, elite political and financial class, to the detriment of the vast majority of U.S. citizens, as well as billions of people around the world.

We often hear it said that the United States is the greatest nation in the world. What exactly is meant by that? And is it true? The more important question is: Can we, the American people, make this, once again, a great and proud nation -- a nation that lives up to its original promise? We can achieve that -- if only we will.

Who are we as a people, what do we really believe in, and just what does our nation stand for? How far have we drifted away -- or, rather, bolted away -- from what we once were? And how do we, once again, attain greater freedom, more equal opportunity, compassion, and security for all?

These questions have never been more vital to consider and confront. Our nation has been transformed in just a few short years -- virtually unrecognizable in fundamental respects when compared to the republic that once proudly proclaimed a constitutional system of checks and balances, the rule of law, and constitutional protections of due process, restraints on war-making, and a truly balanced system of separation of powers among three co-equal branches of government.

We are at a nation-changing -- even world-changing -- fork in the road. We can continue on the path of becoming more totalitarian, even fascist, with an imperial presidency that continues to accrue to itself unprecedented tyrannical powers; more greedy as a nation and as a people; less capable to compete on a global stage; more empire-building and war-mongering; less equal under the law; more divided, in terms of income and wealth, between a tiny elite financial aristocracy and the rest of our citizenry; more cruel toward men, women, and children, here and abroad, who are not part of the elite political and financial classes; and less secure, as a nation and as individuals, now and in the future.

Or we can turn things around radically, becoming more free and respectful of the fundamental rights and interests of people in the U.S. and elsewhere, with restraints on executive power -- and accountability for abuses of that power -- as contemplated by the founders and by our Constitution; more generous and helpful as a nation and as a people; more capable of competing with other nations, their students, and their workers; more cooperative and friendly toward other nations; more committed to liberty and justice for all; more prosperous, with a strong, healthy middle class, capable of living rewarding lives through equal opportunity; kinder and more compassionate toward our own citizens, immigrants, and men, women, and children in other nations; and more secure in our homes, our communities, and our nation, presently and in the future.

The second sentence of the Declaration of Independence sets forth the general guiding principles of the founding of our great nation:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

There could be no stronger affirmation of our nation's guiding principles of freedom, equal opportunity, compassion, and personal, familial, community, and national security.

These guiding principles ring loudly in the first sentence of our Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The guiding principles, then, set forth in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution are that people -- all people, not just citizens of the United States -- are created as equals, they all have unalienable rights, including the right to life, the right to liberty and the right to pursue happiness, that we seek to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility (that is, peace), provide for the defense of our nation (that is, security), promote the welfare of everyone, and secure liberty not only for us, but for later generations -- "our posterity".

It is for each generation to exercise conscientious diligence in sustaining those guiding principles. Sadly -- tragically --, those who were to have represented our interests in Washington, particularly during these past ten years, have severely undermined those principles. And we, the people, have not sufficiently spoken out and acted to return our nation to the principled course set by the Founders. But we can -- if only we will.

After World War II, the U.S. and its allies prosecuted and convicted Germans for war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Tribunal. The chief prosecutor was United States Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson. He made it clear that aggressive war -- that is, a military attack by an aggressor nation against a nation that has not attacked, and is not preparing to attack the aggressor nation -- is a crime, as reflected in a treaty to which the United States is a signatory, the Kellogg-Briand Pact. He emphasized that if the criminal prohibition against war is to have any meaning, it must be applied to all nations, including, as he said, those sitting in judgment at Nuremberg.

The illegality of aggressive war has been reinforced by the U.N. Charter, which expressly prohibits a military attack by one nation against another unless the target nation has itself illegally attacked, or was about to illegally attack, the other nation.

Instead of continuing the proud tradition of the Nuremberg principles, and complying with the Kellogg-Briand Pact and the United Nations Charter, the United States, during the Bush administration, engaged in the blatantly criminal act of invading and forcibly occupying Iraq, a nation that posed no risk of harm whatsoever to the United States. It was the sort of crime for which people were tried and convicted at Nuremberg. Two Secretaries-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan and Boutros Boutros-Ghali, agreed it was a clear violation of international law -- yet no one has been held to account.

Making illegal war is the most serious crime because it purports to legalize mass murder, severe injuries, mass property destruction, and societal mayhem. Compounding this most serious crime in our invasion and occupation of Iraq, it was committed in blatant violation of the War Power Clause of the United States Constitution, which provides that Congress has the sole prerogative to decide whether to take our nation to war.

Congress cannot avoid its highest responsibility by unconstitutionally delegating to the President the authority to make the decision. However, that is exactly what Congress, in cowardly derogation of its constitutional duties, has sought to do repeatedly.

President Johnson lied to our nation about Vietnam in order to get Congress to allow him to make the decision as to whether we should make war against the North Vietnamese. Likewise, President Bush lied to our nation about Iraq in order to get Congress to pass the resolution allowing him to decide whether to make war against that nation, which had no involvement whatsoever in the attacks on 9/11. Our nation was deceived -- and we were betrayed -- all at an astounding cost in lives, tragedy, and national treasure.

In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Congress's abdication of perhaps its most important constitutional role was so pathetic that all but a handful of U.S. Senators (including our present Secretary of State) didn't even bother to walk to a secure room in the Capitol Building to read a National Intelligence Estimate, which made clear, contrary to what President Bush and his administration were telling us, that much of the U.S. intelligence community disagreed with claims about Iraq developing a nuclear capability and about its possession of weapons of mass destruction. In fact, just a few months before 9/11, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell independently stated that, following the first Gulf war, Iraq's weapons had been destroyed, it had not re-armed, and it didn't even pose a danger to its neighbors. Senator Bob Graham, who urged his colleagues to read the National Intelligence Estimate, went so far as to warn, correctly, that the security of the people of the United States would be put at great risk if we attacked Iraq, saying to his colleagues that, if they voted to allow the president to make the decision to go to war, blood would be on their hands.

More than a million innocent Iraqis killed, more seriously injured, and vast hatred and hostility generated throughout the Muslim world toward the United States, making us much less safe for generations to come -- all on the basis of lies. Had Congress done its fact-finding job and met its constitutional responsibility to determine for itself if war against Iraq was justified, none of it would ever have happened.

Several presidents since Truman have unconstitutionally made war against other nations, and several Congresses have unconstitutionally sought to delegate their war decision-making power to the president. So where have the courts been to make certain that the War Power Clause of the Constitution is followed? That is, after all, how our constitutional system of checks and balances is supposed to work.

The sad answer that strikes at the heart of our Constitution is that the courts have checked out, making excuses for dodging the question, most often in the form of the court-made "political question" doctrine. The Congress and President both violate the Constitution -- and the courts say, "Sorry, it's a political question and we can't -- or, rather, won't -- do anything about it." In other words, the War Power Clause essentially has been ripped out of our Constitution -- leading to the incredibly dangerous point where one person -- the President -- can make the decision as to whether our nation goes to war. That takes us one giant step closer to the tyranny our Founders sought to prevent.

Our nation's proud tradition has been that we do not torture -- and we do not permit torture. George Washington ordered his troops to refrain from torturing British soldiers, even when the British were committing such atrocities against colonial soldiers. The Lieber Code forbade torture during the Civil War. The U.S. has court-martialed our own servicemen for torturing, including water boarding -- during the 1900 conflict in the Philippines and during the Vietnam War. Numerous high-ranking members of the military, including Utah's own Brig. Gen. (ret'd) David Irvine, have uniformly called for enforcement of the absolute prohibition against torture, arguing persuasively that torture is productive of misinformation because torture victims will say anything in order to avoid further torture; it creates far more hatred and more enemies; and it creates a more dangerous situation for our own servicemen and servicewomen. Also, of course, it is fundamentally immoral, blatantly illegal, under both international and domestic law, and dehumanizing and demoralizing to those who engage in the torture.

We know now that President Bush and others in his administration authorized the use of torture. Unbeknownst to us at the time, on the day before President Bush was at the Opening Ceremony for the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympic Games, he signed a memorandum stating, directly contrary to what the Supreme Court later ruled, that the Geneva Convention protections against torture would not apply to people detained in the so-called war on terror. His authorization of torture, and the authorization by others in his administration of torture, constitute war crimes, under the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture, as well as under laws passed by Congress, including the War Crimes Act of 1996 and the federal anti-torture statute.

When President Obama said concerning those war crimes -- and about the federal felonies committed by those who engaged in warrantless surveillance of Americans' communications -- that there should be no accountability for the crimes because, in his words, we should look forward and not back, he dangerously contributed to the further deterioration of the rule of law in our nation. His virtual granting of immunity, notwithstanding the requirement in the Convention Against Torture that all signatories must prosecute torture as they do other serious offenses, is completely contrary to all applicable laws -- and characteristic of a dictator who believes that he is the law. It is another major ratcheting up of the imperial presidency -- and another momentous degradation of the rule of law and our constitutional system, in which the president and other members of the Executive Branch are to be constrained by the law and by the other two branches of our government. That evisceration of the rule of law by President Obama and a Congress that has timidly fallen in line with the assertion by the Bush and Abama administrations of unprecedented executive powers take us one more giant step closer to the tyranny our Founders sought to prevent.

President Bush was not only a "decider," he was an innovator. For the first time in our nation's history, we fought a war, then two wars -- and, at the same time, instead of raising revenues for the wars, he and the complicit Congress gave enormous tax breaks to the very wealthy. It was as if we took out credit cards in the names of our children and charged the costs of the wars on them, while enriching the very rich even more. It was a continuation of a reckless pattern of pandering by so-called conservatives -- aided and abetted by Democrats. Between 1979 and 2006, the top incremental tax rate on earned income was cut in half; capital gains taxes were cut by almost as much; and corporate taxes were reduced by more than 25%. Of course, not many corporations pay according to even that rate because of all the loopholes and deductions their lobbyists have pushed through Congress over the years.

If the Bush tax cuts had been allowed to expire in 2010, as promised, for people with incomes over $200,000, federal revenues would increase approximately $140 billion during this year. That would be sufficient to cover basic health care needs for those without coverage in the United States. What would the impact be on those making more than $200,000 a year? It would reduce their aftertax incomes, on average, by about 4.5%.

When offered the choice between health care for all or an elimination of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, Congress and the President have chosen less taxes for the wealthy.

The corrupting influence of money in our political system -- the massive campaign contributions that essentially put Congress and the White House on retainer to the wealthy -- has contributed significantly to what I call the Great Chasm. One of many examples is what Washington politicians -- those who are supposed to be representing all of us -- did for hedge fund managers. Our tax laws now allow hedge fund managers, some of whom make more than a billion dollars a year, to have most of their earnings taxed at the capital gains rate, 15%, while middle class working men and women pay a significantly higher rate. That loophole alone costs the federal government more than $6 billion in lost revenue, which would be enough to provide health care to three million children.[1] Almost $2 billion of that tax boondoggle goes to 25 people.[2]

Over the past decade, the incomes of the middle class have fallen, while those in the top 1 percent have enjoyed, on average, an increase of 18% in their incomes. And what incredible incomes they are! The top 1 percent in the United States are paid about 25% of the total income -- and they control a whopping 40% of the total wealth. The disparity in income and wealth between the small privileged class of the economic aristocracy and the rest of us in this nation has never been as great as it is now since the 1920's, on the eve of the Great Depression.

This is not something that just naturally happens because of market forces. It happens because of politicians serving the elite financial aristocracy to the immense detriment of the public interest.

How did we build a strong, healthy middle class and a prosperous economy following the Great Depression -- and what is taking us back now to the gross inequality and tremendous insecurity for most people reminiscent of the Gilded Age?

As Paul Krugman[3] describes, in the 1920s, there was a vast political polarization and an enormous income and wealth disparity -- very much like today. However, political reform -- public policy geared toward making life better for the vast majority of Americans -- made all the difference. There was a vast narrowing of the gap between the wealthy and the rest of the nation -- what Krugman calls "The Great Compression." It was entirely the opposite from today's Great Chasm.

Incomes for the very wealthy actually decreased from the 1920's to the 1950's, while the incomes for middle class families about doubled. The middle class also had greater security, with employers offering new benefits like health insurance and retirement plans. The federal government also provided unemployment insurance and Social Security for retirees.

It all equated to a major economic democratization of American society, with much narrower differences between the pay for executives and line workers, and much narrower differences between employees with formal education and manual laborers. Just the opposite of what we're experiencing today.

Much of the Gilded Age class consciousness was gone by the 1950s. And now it has returned. Many of the wealthy turn their backs on the quality of public education as they enroll their children in private schools. Many of the wealthy live only among themselves, providing for their own security, as they isolate themselves in gated communities. Only the best in medical care for the wealthy, while 50 million people go without basic health care coverage -- and, even if the Obama plan is fully implemented 23 million men, women, and children will be without essential medical coverage, unlike any other nation in the developed world. And 700,000 bankruptcies each year are attributable to enormous medical bills -- again, a tragedy unknown throughout the rest of the industrialized world.

Much of the change came about because of taxes. In the 1920s, the top income tax rate was only 24%. The top income tax rate rose to 63 % during the first Roosevelt administration, and 79 % in the second. By the mid-fifties, the top tax rate had risen to 91% -- and that was under the Republican administration of Dwight Eisenhower. Today's top tax bracket -- applicable only to income in excess of $388,000 -- is only 35%, yet listen to the wealthy and their lapdogs in Congress howl when anyone has the temerity to suggest that perhaps they should pay their fair share to help reduce the accumulated debt and tremendous interest burden we will hand off to our children and later generations -- and to lend a hand up to those living in poverty, including 22% of our nation's children.

The average corporate tax rate increased from less than 14% in 1929 to more than 45 percent in 1955 and 48% in 1979. Today's corporate tax rate is 35%, but the average corporation pays no more than 15%, and many corporations, like General Electric, taking advantage of massive loopholes and deductions corporate lobbyists have pushed through Congress, pay nothing at all.

The same thing happened with estate taxes -- what the Republicans, with the aid of the spin-meister Frank Luntz, would have us call "death taxes." Estate taxes went from 20% in the 1920's to 45%, then 60%, then 70%, and up to 77%. Today, the estate tax, applicable only to estates in excess of $5.12 million, is 35%. Yet listen to some of the wealthy whine -- as if their descendants are somehow entitled to more than $5 million without any taxation, while 22% of the children in the United States live in poverty.

If, following the 1920s, taxes accounted for the decrease in wealth for the very rich, what accounts mostly for the increase in wealth and income for most of the rest? In large part, it was the union movement. By the end of World War II, more than a third of nonfarm workers were union members. Strong union advocacy means higher wages, better benefits, and a rippling effect that raises wages for others. It also brings into focus the disparity between the pay of top executives and average workers.

Also, during the war, the Roosevelt administration set wages and, given the values of that administration, it tended to set the wages in such a way that the lower paid workers received more increases than others.

The increase in taxes for the wealthy, a strong union movement, and wage controls that shrunk the gap between the wealthy and the middle class led to a much more equal distribution of the total income for thirty years -- as well as unprecedented prosperity. Just the opposite of what we're experiencing today.

The gross inequalities today are alarming -- and tragic. As of 2007, the top 10% owned 84% of the financial wealth in the United States.[4] The bottom 80% owned just 7% of all financial wealth.

Between 1983 and 2004, in large part because of tax cuts for the wealthy and the defeat of labor unions, of all the new financial wealth created in the U.S., 43% of it went to the top 1%. Ninety-four percent of it went to the top 20% -- meaning that the bottom 80% received only 6% of all new financial wealth generated in the United States during the strong economic years of the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s.[5] In short, as working people produced more because of greater efficiencies, they shared in almost none of the gains -- while investors and top executives took almost all of it.

One factor contributing to this gaping disparity is yet another outrage: the average executive pay as compared with the average factory worker pay. CEO pay by 102 major companies was about 40 times that of average full-time workers in the U.S. By the early 2000s, CEO pay averaged 367 times the pay of the average worker.[6] In 2007, the ratio between CEOs and factory workers was 344:1, while in Europe it was about 25:1.[7]

What can we, the American people, do? First, recognize that the Democratic and Republican Parties are a democracy-destroying political duopoly, which has joined forces in shafting the vast majority of Americans, who are struggling every day to just get by, while serving politicians' campaign contributors, including Wall Street bankers, for-profit insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry, hedge fund managers, for-profit colleges (many of which are owned by investment banks), and anti-union forces. These Democrats and Republicans deregulated the financial industry and looked the other way while financial institutions and their officers engaged in wholesale fraud -- all of which led to the economic melt-down from which we are still reeling, while the perpetrators are still lining their pockets with multi-million dollar bonuses, derived from government bail-outs.

They are the same duopoly that has caved to the fossil fuel industry in failing to provide essential international leadership to prevent the most catastrophic consequences of climate change. They have become so craven that President Obama even vetoed the EPA's effort to reduce the emission of ground level ozone and has now paved the way for the southern leg of the Keystone XL Pipeline and vastly expanded offshore oil drilling.

They are the same duopoly that thinks so little of our democracy that they have made it almost impossible for any new party or independent candidate to get on several states' ballots -- and, through their total control of the Presidential Debate Commission, which hijacked the presidential debates from the League of Women Voters, have prevented any non-plutocratic voices from being heard by the electorate during presidential debates.

In short, each of us can say: "We're not going to take it any more. We have drawn our line -- and won't budge from it.

We won't support anyone who disregards our Constitution and the rule of law.


We won't support anyone who tortures, authorizes torture, or opposes accountability for those who torture.


We won't support anyone who targets U.S. citizens for assassination.


We won't support anyone who will not work to stop the insane and inhumane incarceration of 2.3 million people, many of them for non-violent offenses -- an incarceration rate far greater than any other nation on earth and which is applied with a vengeance toward African-Americans and Latinos.


We won't support anyone who fails and refuses to face up to the need for rational, compassionate immigration reform.


We won't support anyone who will not commit to provide our students with an equal opportunity to obtain a higher education and equip themselves to be competitive globally with students and employees in other nations.


We won't support anyone who asserts the power to kidnap and indefinitely detain people, including U.S. citizens, without charges, trial, assistance of legal counsel, or right of habeas corpus -- perhaps the most subversive, anti-American stance ever taken by a Congress or a President in our nation's history.


We won't support anyone who takes, or purports to authorize a president to take, our nation to war without a finding by Congress that war is justified -- and without compliance with the U.N. Charter, to which the U.S. is a signatory.


We won't support anyone who allows the continuation of Bush's budget-busting tax breaks for the wealthy.


We won't support anyone who makes it more difficult for working men and women to organize.


We won't support anyone who continues to allow multi-national corporations to profit by depriving U.S. workers of their jobs while exporting millions of jobs with nearly slave conditions in other nations.


We won't support anyone who refuses to implement programs like the Works Progress Administration to hire millions of people to build up our nation's rapidly deteriorating infrastructure.


We won't support anyone who refuses to strengthen, rather than undermine, the safety nets provided by Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare.


We won't support anyone who fails to provide crucial leadership on climate change and a thriving clean energy economy.


We won't support anyone who refuses to commit to do everything possible to rid our government and electoral system of the corrupting influence of money.


And we won't support anyone who refuses to join the rest of the industrialized world in providing a health care system that costs much less, produces far better medical outcomes, and is available to everyone.

For those who are cynical, for those who are resigned to not being able to overcome the corruption and perversity of the influence of money in our plutocracy -- that is, government of, by, and for the wealthy --, I urge you to find inspiration in our own nation's long history of progressive social movements, as well as from recent examples in the Arab world.

Major movements, such as the anti-slavery movement, the women's suffrage movement, the labor movement, and the civil rights movement, all succeeded because of the tenacious, passionate commitment and activism by people, organized at the grass roots level. And there was a lot of money aligned against many of them -- yet they prevailed.

Consider also that people in the Arab world -- for instance, in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya -- recently organized, utilizing the democratized means of communication offered by social media, and succeeded in overthrowing long-time oppressive dictators. So, too, can the people of the United States, organize together, take a principled, courageous stand, and overthrow the corrupting influence of money in our government, including our electoral system, and achieve the restoration of the rule of law, a recommitment to fundamental constitutional principles, the reestablishment of the system of checks and balances essential to our republic, and a recommitment to the core values that will make this country great again: freedom, equal opportunity, compassion, and security.

Ben Franklin was approached by a woman as he was leaving the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. She asked him, "Doctor, what do we have -- a monarchy or a republic?" Franklin responded, "A republic, ma'am, if you can keep it."

It's up to us. If we don't take action, and insist on a return to the practices and policies that reaffirm our most fundamental values, our republic and all it stands for could be lost forever. However, if we will, we can restore our republic and breathe life once again into our Constitution and recommit to all that can make this nation once again what the Founders, and those who have given their lives for our freedoms and values, intended and expected. Rocky Anderson's 2012 Presidential Campaign Website www.voterocky.org

NOTES

[1] Paul Krugman, The Conscience of a Liberal (W.W. Norton & Company: New York London: 2007), p. 250.
[2] Id.
[3] Paul Krugman, The Conscience of a Liberal.
[4] "Financial wealth" means net worth minus the value of one's home.
[5] G. William Domhoff, "Wealth, Income, and Power," www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html?print, citing E. N. Wolff (2007) "Recent trends in household wealth in the United States: Rising debt and the middle-class squeeze. Working Paper No. 502. Annandale-on-Hudson, NY: The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.
[6] Paul Krugman, supra, at 142.
[7] G. William Domhoff, supra.

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Michael Franti - Bomb the World

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Iris Dement Wasteland Of The Free

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"War" by Edwin Starr (Original Video - 1969)

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Peter Paul & Mary - Blowin in the wind