Here’s a few bytes of tryptophan-poisoning-antidote, just in case you get too sleepy from gobbling up gobblers…
>>We’ve all seen the photos and videos of the UC Davis pepper spray incident. I confess that I have a certain attachment to this incident since I happen to live in the general area where it occurred. I have a couple of observations:
1. Did you see the Lieutenant (I won’t mention his name - he doesn’t deserve it) hold up the can of pepper spray over his head like he’s doing a touchdown-dance-celebration prior to spraying the protesters, who were sitting down and not posing any threat to him or anyone else? This was done as an extra-judicial punishment, and to “send a message” to everyone else that this is what you get for “disobeying a police officer.” Last I checked, it‘s not the purview of law enforcement to mete out punishment - that‘s a court‘s job.;
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
The men behind the curtain...
Check out this post by Chris Hedges at Truthdig. He, along with tonight's Special Comment by Keith Olbermann, not only point to the extremes that the country's "real owners" are willing to go to maintain control (tear gas, batons, sound cannons, mass arrests, arrests of journalists, etc.), but that the Bloombergs of the world might just be running out of ammunition.
The Occupy movement, with it's approach, is demonstrating just why, and how, non-violence is effective - it exposes the moral and social bankruptcy of the oppressing power. Those with the guns can evict people out of whatever park or building they want, but they can't evict an idea - no matter how hard their media outlets (especially Foxy Noise) try. They can intimidate, handcuff, and throw whatever books they want in either the trash or at the protesters, but ideas that speak to our survival as a people will live on in spite of their efforts.
If the economy gets any worse than it is now, then these protests (and the corresponding response) will seem like a Sunday stroll.
The Occupy movement, with it's approach, is demonstrating just why, and how, non-violence is effective - it exposes the moral and social bankruptcy of the oppressing power. Those with the guns can evict people out of whatever park or building they want, but they can't evict an idea - no matter how hard their media outlets (especially Foxy Noise) try. They can intimidate, handcuff, and throw whatever books they want in either the trash or at the protesters, but ideas that speak to our survival as a people will live on in spite of their efforts.
If the economy gets any worse than it is now, then these protests (and the corresponding response) will seem like a Sunday stroll.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Empathy, Schmempathy...
This post in Democratic Underground speaks to the empathy deficit our American society faces today.
I've noticed over the last three decades, that there seems to be a gradual decline in the awareness of the plight of our neighbors, whether within our borders or outside of the same. Perhaps the concept of us being our "brother's keeper", of seeing the problems of others as our own, is considered passe, "namby-pamby", or quaint, to our current, Ayn Rand-influenced society. So much for the pulpit speeches referring to America as a "Christian Nation". If you have no empathy within you, then you don't have Christ within you - and I include myself in that equation.
I've noticed over the last three decades, that there seems to be a gradual decline in the awareness of the plight of our neighbors, whether within our borders or outside of the same. Perhaps the concept of us being our "brother's keeper", of seeing the problems of others as our own, is considered passe, "namby-pamby", or quaint, to our current, Ayn Rand-influenced society. So much for the pulpit speeches referring to America as a "Christian Nation". If you have no empathy within you, then you don't have Christ within you - and I include myself in that equation.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Quibbles and Bits, After the Scares Edition
More trial-sized, out-of-wrapper offerings, not necessarily left-over from All Hallow’s Eve. Judge the flavor for youself:
>>I’ve been watching quite a bit of Current TV over the last few months, especially now that Keith Olbermann signed on. I miss the viewer-created video “pods” that were the mainstay of the network for years, but I’m also taking a liking to the Vanguard series. You probably won’t find better investigative journalism anywhere on TV, and these guys literally put their necks on the line for the stories they tell. Their recent visits to Juarez, Mexico to cover the ongoing saga of the dominance of the Mexican drug cartels, and the wreckage they leave behind in terms of young lives destroyed, are prime examples of this hell-for-leather mentality. They know the price they might have to pay to get these stories, as well - just ask Laura Ling.
>>I've also been paying whatever attention I can to the Occupy movements (which I wholeheartedly support), and those people putting themselves on the line for something better than the bleak future staring us in the face now. The lesson to be drawn from this, at least from the perspective of the 1 percenters, should be: The most dangerous person in the world is a person with nothing to lose.
This axiom is the biggest reason for the passage of the New Deal and the Great Society programs - people who are housed, fed, and clothed, and have their basic needs met, have a much less propensity to protest than those that have little, or none, of the above. Our economic system, and thus American society, was relatively stable from that period up until now (save for the 1960s, perhaps - people don't like to be lied to about the reason for going off to die in a war which had little, if anything, to do with us. BTW - "domino theory" = bullshit). I suggest another visit to Naomi Klein's tome The Shock Doctrine, for a reminder or two as to what happens to populations when their wealth is taken from them and handed over to oligarchs, all in the name of "free markets." John Perkins tells a similar tale in his classic Confessions of an Economic Hitman. I also suggest taking a closer look at the last thirty-plus years of history of violence in the Middle East. Honestly - if the chief export of Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia were rutabagas, would we have troops there, not to mention military bases the size of the Vatican? Oil is why where there and why the plan is to stay there - we know it, and the citizens of those countries, sure as hell, know it. It's yet another example of a country's natural resources confiscated by a country with superior firepower and the fruits of those resources being reaped by oligarchs. This same, sad, freaking story has been told before, in episodes going back hundreds of years before Naomi Klein's book - ask our First Nations people on this continent, and the Aboriginal populations in Australia and elsewhere.
>>As for Move Your Money day - I've been banking at credit unions for about sixteen years now, for the very reasons that many in the Occupy movement give for doing so. Plus, the interest rates on loans are generally better, free checking and minimal fees, and your money is protected, just like at a bank. Check 'em out - you'll be glad you did.
More later, I'm sure. Hell, you might even see me holding up a sign and marching in the near future if this bullshit keeps up. There's no indication that it won't.
>>I’ve been watching quite a bit of Current TV over the last few months, especially now that Keith Olbermann signed on. I miss the viewer-created video “pods” that were the mainstay of the network for years, but I’m also taking a liking to the Vanguard series. You probably won’t find better investigative journalism anywhere on TV, and these guys literally put their necks on the line for the stories they tell. Their recent visits to Juarez, Mexico to cover the ongoing saga of the dominance of the Mexican drug cartels, and the wreckage they leave behind in terms of young lives destroyed, are prime examples of this hell-for-leather mentality. They know the price they might have to pay to get these stories, as well - just ask Laura Ling.
>>I've also been paying whatever attention I can to the Occupy movements (which I wholeheartedly support), and those people putting themselves on the line for something better than the bleak future staring us in the face now. The lesson to be drawn from this, at least from the perspective of the 1 percenters, should be: The most dangerous person in the world is a person with nothing to lose.
This axiom is the biggest reason for the passage of the New Deal and the Great Society programs - people who are housed, fed, and clothed, and have their basic needs met, have a much less propensity to protest than those that have little, or none, of the above. Our economic system, and thus American society, was relatively stable from that period up until now (save for the 1960s, perhaps - people don't like to be lied to about the reason for going off to die in a war which had little, if anything, to do with us. BTW - "domino theory" = bullshit). I suggest another visit to Naomi Klein's tome The Shock Doctrine, for a reminder or two as to what happens to populations when their wealth is taken from them and handed over to oligarchs, all in the name of "free markets." John Perkins tells a similar tale in his classic Confessions of an Economic Hitman. I also suggest taking a closer look at the last thirty-plus years of history of violence in the Middle East. Honestly - if the chief export of Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia were rutabagas, would we have troops there, not to mention military bases the size of the Vatican? Oil is why where there and why the plan is to stay there - we know it, and the citizens of those countries, sure as hell, know it. It's yet another example of a country's natural resources confiscated by a country with superior firepower and the fruits of those resources being reaped by oligarchs. This same, sad, freaking story has been told before, in episodes going back hundreds of years before Naomi Klein's book - ask our First Nations people on this continent, and the Aboriginal populations in Australia and elsewhere.
>>As for Move Your Money day - I've been banking at credit unions for about sixteen years now, for the very reasons that many in the Occupy movement give for doing so. Plus, the interest rates on loans are generally better, free checking and minimal fees, and your money is protected, just like at a bank. Check 'em out - you'll be glad you did.
More later, I'm sure. Hell, you might even see me holding up a sign and marching in the near future if this bullshit keeps up. There's no indication that it won't.
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