I'm in "Challenge the Establishment" mode, and today I provide another strategic element. Women are at the front of the movement in Iran, and have been through out history.It ain't meThe People are hungry for real change, which is why they voted for Obama, a man whose words, and past deeds, resonated with that desire for changing the established system ... Unfortunately, the Office of the US President is not controlled by Obama, nor his senior staff... it's controlled by the establishment powers that helped put Obama into that office.
It's the people that say
Men are leading the women astray
But I say, it's the women today
Smarter than the man in every way
It's difficult to ponder changing the status quo... the powerful establishment seeks, in general, to maintain the staus quo. Where does one start? Having a strategy helps. Here's a strategy shared with me by a college friend who has committed his life to promoting deep social change.
Ten Percent Blog concludes today's post with an open request for how to help Iranian's challenge their establishment without becoming tools of our own imperialist establishment:Now, I am sick of writing about it, I want to find concrete practical things we can do to help. Suggestions welcome.
One way we can help Iranians challenge their establishment is to challenge our own western establishments… what a “farce.” The inertia remaining from the fairly recent Greek uprisings, which spread around the world, provide a useful asset upon which to build.
On an individual level, we should use our strengths. You are a clear thinker and good writer. You should continue to make use of that strength, while others use their particular strengths.
We need to organize, and can do so in a distributed way… We should keep this impulse alive. My brief blog entry today reflects this impulse. Briefly, it concludes:
“I’m starting to feel like withdrawing all support from Obama, because he’s become the figurehead of a crime syndicate. Does anyone else feel this way?”
.... between a suicide bomber at a funeral and a US Drone attack on a funeral?
Today we hear reports that US drones attacked a funeral in Pakistan killing five militants and 75 civilians. Nice kill ratio. No different than a suicide bomber attacking a funeral... except for what I noted above.
Thanks to LibHom and Ten Percent blogs for drawing my attention to yet another example of Israeli power in the US... or at least that is the appearance.
All Music
I listened to your podcast on the populist right a week or two ago [April 24], and I want to blog about the subject of left populism[...] haven't gotten around to it yet.
Left populism is a point of view that deserves a lot more consideration and support, yet I've read a lot of prose on the left against it.
Ben Tillman, governor of South Carolina and later US Senator, is considered by some to be a right wing "populist" during the populist movement in the late 18o0s. He was part of the agrarian revolt that attempted to change economic policy to help farmers who lost their farms and were forced into share cropping, and unending debt. He never became part of the Populist Party and others think his adoption of Populist Party platform elements, while remaining a member of the racist Democratic Party, took support away from the Populist Party.
At the same time, Tom Watson, of Georgia, was a populist leader who allied with black people, which was taboo at the time. He could be considered "left wing" in some regards. It is said elsewhere that he supported a KKK organization. He served in the US House of Representatives and Senate in the 1890s and was supposedly considered as a running mate by William Jennings Bryan.
No to ImpunityMr. Padilla “has alleged sufficient facts to satisfy the requirement that Yoo set in motion a series of events that resulted in the deprivation of Padilla’s constitutional rights.” -- Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco
Former World Bank Chief Economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz is trying to rally public to check the power of the banks. Stiglitz is featured in Episode 14 of GDAE Podcast if you want to hear him in his own words.It has long been recognized that the US banks that are too big to fail are also too big to be managed.
If they take big bets and win, they walk away with the proceeds, if they fail, the Government picks up the tab.
The Obama Administration has succumbed to political pressure and scare-mongering by the big banks and, as a result, has confused bailing out the bankers and their shareholders with bailing out the banks.
Rewriting the rules of the market economy — in a way that has benefited those that have caused so much pain to the entire global economy — is worse than financially costly. Most Americans view it as grossly unjust, especially after they saw the banks divert the billions intended to enable them to revive lending, to payments of outsized bonuses and dividends
This ersatz capitalism, where losses are socialized and profits privatized, is doomed to failure.
As GM goes, so goes the nation.GM is the number two foreign automaker in China behind Volkswagen, and GM’s plans for the future are dependent on success in China and not in the good old USA!
Obama and Geithner support the legislation, which makes me a little suspicious that it has been given a seal of approval by the corporate establishment. I don't claim expertise on the bill, but its good the issue is getting attention.
“tax havens are engaged in economic warfare against the United States, and honest, hardworking Americans”
