In what many fear will be one of the most predictable and uninteresting presidential contests in recent memory, with two political dynasty figures battling for “their turn” to serve as the oligarchs’ corporate puppet in 2016, the first opposition voice in the Republican party has stepped forward and officially announced his intentions to challenge Jeb Bush and seek the Republican nomination:  Ted Cruz.

Many establishment figures in Hillary Clinton’s campaign camp rejoiced at this news, as did some liberal pundits, mistakenly believing that because the Republican primary field will be crowded with far-right conservatives and Tea Party candidates, that Mrs. Clinton will sail into the White House on a white cloud untouched by the dirty fights that will sully the eventual Republican nominee, whom they take for granted to be Jeb Bush.

While it is true that the last Republican primary race for president was filled with many memorable clowns and laughs during their numerous debates – who can forget Governor Rick Perry’s “oops” when he couldn’t name the three federal agencies he would get rid of right away if he became president – any Democrat who thinks they will win the presidency because of the Republican primary fight is a fool.  It was still a hard fought campaign for Obama to win re-election, even after Mitt Romney was caught on camera at a fundraiser characterizing almost half of the country as a bunch of entitled takers, and dismissing them completely.

But as a progressive independent, I envy the Republican party on a couple of important strengths that too many Democrats view as shortcomings.

First, the Republican base is a passionate group that doesn’t settle easily on a candidate that their party’s corporate owned establishment tells them is to be their nominee.  Mitt Romney was always the republican establishment’s pick last time, and as their primaries drew out into a long and protracted fight, they were forced to out spend all the other candidates by incredible amounts in order to secure his nomination.  This time around, they have already shortened their primary schedule and limited the number of debates in order to secure their nominee quickly, being able to swamp the other candidates with huge sums of money at once, and limiting free media exposure through debates.

Second, elected Republicans collectively have more guts and spine than the timid group of cowards who call themselves Democrats, and it shows in the way they campaign and the way they govern.  I have written about this extensively in the past, so I won’t rehash all of the cowardly deeds and political strategies that Democrats used to lose the Senate and the House, and the squandered opportunity that President Obama once offered them briefly when they had the so-called super majority – before he too demonstrated his weakness and lack of an appetite for a fight.  Ask any diehard Democrat today what they don’t like about Obama or their party the most, and they’ll tell you it’s their lack of guts to fight.

So, what is an independent or liberal voter to do to ensure their voices are at least heard in the 2016 race to the White House?

Number 1, and most important:  REJECT HILLARY.

Number 2:  Support another Democratic primary challenger, or vote for a third party candidate.

I realize that there are many progressives, liberals and democrats in general who already break out into a cold sweat at the idea of rejecting outright, from the very beginning, Hillary Clinton.  She is the presumed nominee, the media tells you so, she has raised the most money, she is the wife of a popular ex-president, it’s her turn, it’s a woman’s turn, if she doesn’t win a Big Bad Republican will.  But does anyone actually like her?  And if you answer yes to that, can you tell me why, other than the reasons I just listed?

When it comes to progressive values, such as strengthening the middle class, reigning in the criminal fleecing of America by Wall Street, protecting Social Security, protecting workers from unfair “free trade” policies, not engaging in more wars of aggression, not being a corporate puppet for pharmaceutical and genetic engineering food and seed companies, etc.,..Hillary Clinton is not only lacking in these values, but damn near souless, as her well documented history in politics proves beyond any shred of doubt  for anyone willing to assess her actions objectively.

The first step, and I reiterate, the most important, is to REJECT HILLARY now. There are other good, potential candidates out there, with real values, that have so far been too intimidated by the perceived inevitability of a Clinton nomination to announce their intentions to run.  A firm rejection of Hillary Clinton by the liberal and democratic base now is needed before it becomes too late to build the campaign infrastructure and donor base that will be needed to compete with the mega-dollars of Wall Street and trans-national corporations that are investing heavily in both Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton.  Thanks to the split decision of the Supreme Court that declared that corporations are people too and overturned most campaign finance laws, the upcoming election will be dumbfounding in the amount of money spent to elect the millionaire’s and billionaire’s candidate of choice.

Secondly, please encourage other potential candidates to challenge Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.  While Senator Elizabeth Warren has repeatedly told the press that she is not interested in running for president, there are grass-roots liberal efforts that are engaging in a serious effort to recruit her as a candidate.  Last Sunday the Boston Globe ran four different editorials, one from the Editorial Board, encouraging Mrs. Warren to run.  This unprecedented enthusiasm from the Boston Globe this far in advance of next year’s primaries speaks volumes about the desire and desperation for voters to have a real choice for the next president, instead of Puppet number 1 or Puppet number 2.

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is considering a run as well.  Mr. Sanders, a progressive independent who caucuses with Democrats, has said he is exploring the possibility of raising enough money to run, if their is enough enthusiasm for someone other than Hillary on the left, and whether or not he would seek the nomination of Democrats or run for president as an independent.  Third party candidates have the laws and media stacked completely against them, so it seems likely that seeking the nomination for the Democratic ticket would be his best chance running for the Oval Office.

This brings up another important issue.  Year after year, and election cycle after election cycle, the American public’s cynicism for politics grows, and its enthusiasm wanes to the point of not even bothering to vote.  Given how corrupt our government and political process is, and how very rarely the public’s will is ever carried out by politicians, no matter who they vote for, the frustration is understandable.  It can become hard to convince friends to even bother voting, which is exactly what the real powers and elite owners of the country really want, a disengaged public that grudgingly accepts the puppets they sponsor as the only viable candidates.

The corporate owned media is so fully dedicated to the propaganda of the “two party system” that you would think it was written into our Constitution.   This is demonstrated by their virtual blackout of all candidates who challenge the two party system, and their refusal to allow any third party candidate into the presidential debates.  Independent billionaire Ross Perot once challenged the all powerful media  and two party propaganda machine when he ran for president by buying up unprecedented 30 minute infomercials on his candidacy, and was allowed to participate in the presidential debates.  After winning 17 percent of the popular vote, the corporate oligarchs issued new rules to their sponsored Republican and Democratic parties and their media, and no third party candidate has been allowed in the all important nationally televised presidential debates since Perot’s first run against Bush 1 and Clinton.   Al Gore was so dedicated to not having to share the stage with Ralph Nader, that state troopers actually forced Mr. Nader off of a public college campus in a viewing room of the debates, for which he even possessed a ticket for.  If you are unaware of that gross offense against democracy, that is not surprising – the media barely reported it.  Interestingly, though few seem to notice, the excuse given for only allowing a Republican or Democrat into the debates is that the time and stage is so limited, that only those with a realistic chance of winning should be allowed, otherwise the stage is too crowded.  The networks never have trouble though finding the room for numerous primary debates with numerous candidates sharing the stage at the same time.  Their real motive is clear: give voters the illusion of choice, so long as the candidate is one of the two corporate owned parties.

Polls have consistently shown that Americans view our political system as rigged for the super rich, controlled by corporations, and corrupted by big money.  Polls show many voters see little difference between the two parties.  Yet the media tells us that only a Republican or Democrat can win a presidential election.  So far, through our actions and theirs, they have been correct.  And now, the media is trying to tell voters who can win each of the two party’s nomination.

It is time to challenge our political system and media with passion and conviction, and say HELL NO to continued corporate occupation of our country.

 

 

 

 

Speaker of the House, John Boehner, recently shocked the American public and managed to drive a wedge between the usually united block of Jewish voters and supporters of Israel when he went behind the White House’s back and invited Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give a speech before Congress that sought to undermine President Obama’s nuclear negotiations with Iran.  Not to be outdone, the Senate doubled down on this treasonous behaviour, with 47 Senators, all Republicans, signing an open letter to the Iranian leadership, essentially telling them to not take any deal brokered with the President of the United States, especially Barack Obama, too seriously, explaining in a condescending manner that the way our Constitution worked, these Senators would enjoy decades of entrenched power while U.S. Presidents come and go.

Even though “Bibi” Netanyahu’s speech was predictable, and full of the same, tired, fear mongering rhetoric and saber rattling for war against the evil Iranians that all of his speeches have been over the past decade, the context in which the speech was given, against diplomatic protocol and unusually divisive and controversial in a Congress that is usually bipartisan in its unflinching support for Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and its war crimes, exudes a new air of desperation.   It appears that the prospects of some type of peace negotiation with Iran by the United States, after 3 decades of hostilities, is so unacceptable to Netanyahu’s vision of Israel’s place in the Middle East, that he will risk decades of a near blank check written to Israel by the United States, which has provided the military hardware to continue its murderous siege and destruction the Palestinians and its neighbors in Lebanon.   It also smacks of ungratefulness at the essential diplomatic immunity that the United States has provided Israel over the years at the United Nations, blocking and vetoing action against the many war crimes committed by Israel, the illegal occupation of Palestine, the unauthorized possession of at least 300 nuclear weapons, and a well maintained stockpile of illegal chemical weapons.

Throughout the turbulent recent history of the Middle East, post World War II, the balance of power and the alliances that go with it have been somewhat fluid, but always with one goal in mind, at least from the standpoint of United States policy planners:  U.S. hegemony of the region.  Until the Iranian Revolution of 1978, the Shah of Iran was a reliable, brutal dictator, sponsored by the U.S., who kept the domestic Iranian population in line – subservient to U.S. and Western demands, with control of their rich oil resources within Washington’s easy grasp.  When Iranians wrestled back control of their own resources, the U.S. supported a new favorite dictator, the Butcher of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein, who was given military hardware and chemical weapons to murder Iranians with, compliments of U.S. taxpayer money.  We all know how that worked out.  Today’s friend is tomorrow’s enemy, blowback be damned.

Throughout these changing conditions, the Middle East has remained the center knot in a giant tug of war for strategic control of the world’s energy resources, with world powers fighting for either supremacy, or at the least, relevance.   The so-called civil war in Syria is a proxy war waged by regional and world powers, between U.S. Gulf States allied with the West, and Russia and China.  Throughout this modern history, Israel has risen in military power, and thrived against increasing diplomatic international isolation, thanks to the United States, as a dominant force in the region.  But in the world according to Netanyahu, Israel faces an “existential threat” from Iran, should Iran manage to make a nuclear bomb.  The former Iranian President Ahmajinedad is often misquoted (through mistranslation) as saying that Iran wants to “wipe Israel off the map.”  Israel continues to portray this as Iran’s ultimate goal, to acquire  a nuclear weapon that would allow them to nuke Israel into oblivion.   This logic of course, assumes that the advanced nation of Iran is ruled by single minded, obsessive leaders, so focused on destroying Israel, that they would trade their own existence for the chance to destroy Israel.  As noted, Israel has at least 300 nuclear weapons, more than enough to assure mutual destruction, should the Iranian leaders become so evil and consumed with hatred of Israel that they would sacrifice all of their people and country.

Surely even Netanyahu and hardliners in Israel know that they are crying wolf when they proclaim that Iran is developing nuclear material for the sole purpose of getting a nuclear bomb to destroy Israel with.  So what is it about Iran’s nuclear program, and the prospects of a deal with the West that whips warmongers in Israel and the United States into such a frenzy?  For Israel, one reasonable theory is that Iran, like all countries who become a nuclear power, becomes immune to invasion, and less vulnerable to bullying by other nuclear armed countries.  Israel also hates Iran’s support of Hezbollah in Lebanon, a resistance army in southern Lebanon where Israel has maintained an illegal occupation off and on since 1982.  Beyond that, it could be that Israel fears that if the U.S. and Iran become more friendly towards each other, Israel loses some of its support from it’s enabler, the United States, as their common enemy becomes less of a unifying force militarily and diplomatically.

What is less clear than Israel’s motivations for sabotaging U.S. peace efforts with Israel, is the U.S. Congress’s motivations for not only sabotaging current negotiations, but for an unprecedented public undermining of the President in the middle of negotiations that involve not only the United States, but five other world powers as well:  the other four permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – the United Kingdom, France, China and Russia, plus Germany.  I cannot recall anytime in recent history where the Senate has acted so publicly, interjecting itself into the middle of high stakes negotiations involving the White House and State Department, and other world powers, to deliberately undermine the authority of the President.  One has to wonder if this is more about embarrassing President Obama, or trying to demonstrate their loyalty to Prime Minister Netanyahu and the state of Israel.

It is common knowledge that Israel has some of the most powerful lobbies operating in Washington.  In a controversial academic paper titled  “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” by University of Chicago political scientist John J. Mearsheimer, and Harvard professor Stephen M. Walt, that was published in 2006, a detailed account is documented to show how the Israeli Lobby has influenced the United States to take the side of right wing warmongers in Israel  for years, often times in obvious conflict to the best interests of the United States.  The authors were met with the usual slander of being called anti-Semitic, a version of the same slander that U.S. warmongers use against U.S. doves opposed to military operations by labeling them unpatriotic, or un-American.  These authors are not the first or only prominent Americans to note the overly represented and powerful Israel Lobby and its influence over Congress.  Here is a link to the full paper:  http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/IsraelLobby.pdf

Former President Jimmy Carter authored a book titled “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” in 2006 that was critical of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, and received the same vitriol from Jewish organizations, even resulting in an outrageous class action lawsuit filed against Carter and his publishers. ( http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/jews-still-planning-to-sue-jimmy-carter-over-anti-israel-book/2013/04/10/ )

President Carter had this to say in the Los Angeles Times regarding his book and its reception:

“For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices. . . It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians. . . . What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the United States exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments expressed quite forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land.”   ( http://www.latimes.com/news/la-oe-carter8dec08-story.html )

That is about as close to hearing it from the horse’s mouth that the foreign government of Israel bribes through a corrupt process known as “campaign contributions” American politicians to embrace the foreign policy desires of Israel over the United States.

Now, with an “open letter” from 47 Republican Senators to the Iranian leadership rebuking the Obama Administration and it’s other five global partners in the negotiations, we see first hand the financial and ideological corruption that has led an already disrespectful and dysfunctional Congress to engage in near treasonous acts.

It is worth noting that even as Congress attempts to sabotage and undermine President Obama’s authority with regard to foreign policy, it is at the same time avoiding its clearly Constitutional authority and duty to declare war or authorize military force to use against ISIL, failing so far to agree to President Obama’s new request sent to the Congress in February, as an editorial in today’s New York TImes points out (  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/13/opinion/congresss-duty-on-authorizing-force.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region ).

Many Americans realize the recent stunt by Senate and House Republicans is not only unhelpful, but downright destructive – and wrong.  It is time that an honest discussion of U.S. foreign policy take place without being held hostage by the smearing and slandering of critics and politicians who, for whatever reasons, have demonstrated a loyalty to the Prime Minister of a foreign state and its national interests over that of the country in which they are citizens and servants of, the United States of America.

 

 

 

 

America’s never ending “war on terror” marches forward with a new twist, with President Obama formally asking congress to pass an authorization bill for the use of military force against ISIL . . .military force that is already being used and has been used for the last 6 months against ISIL, under authority that President Obama claims he already has.  This absurdity is being met with a variety of political opposition from all sides, but perhaps most notable is opposition by Republican war hawks, who are complaining that the authorization that the President seeks but doesn’t need, is too restrictive and doesn’t go far enough.

The end result of the rhetorical debates that are now taking place among politicians and the media, will be the same:  the United States will continue to wage war in Syria, Iraq, Northern Africa, Afghanistan, the Middle East, and anywhere else it deems necessary to defend “freedom” and fight “terrorism.”   President Obama’s new request to the new congress, and all the debate that ensues from it, is nothing more than political theater that will ultimately allow all politicians involved to point the finger at each other, and not take responsibility for any of the blow back that inevitably flows from U.S. interventionism.

As I’ve explained in the past, the war in Syria is a proxy war for control of the energy rich region.  The so-called civil war in Syria, funded by U.S. Gulf State allies and assisted by the U.S. and Western allies,  is now approximately 4 years old.  It is a bloody and brutal conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands, created millions of refugees, and has now morphed into a Frankenstein’s monster known as ISIL or ISIS, who has taken over large territorial swaths in both Syria and Iraq.

When the grand prize of Iraq that the United States went to the trouble to invade under President George W. Bush began to lose control to the new threat posed by ISIL, the United States needed a way to find public support for an expanded war in Syria.  First there was the horror of Syria’s President Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians, which Obama wanted to punish with “punitive” bombings.  Russia and Assad threw a wrench into that plan, agreeing to give up Syria’s chemical stockpile of weapons.  Since a hostile republican congress expressed reluctance at the time, Obama agreed to the dismantling of the chemical weapons.  I predicted on this blog then that it was only a temporary pause in the march to war in Syria.   When ISIL started making gains in Iraq, and beheadings of Western hostages was posted on the Internet, the propaganda campaign on the new dire threat posed by the new group “who is so extreme that even Al Qaeda rejected them” was waged.

War hawks in the U.S., such as Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, began pushing the idea that U.S. ground forces would be needed.  Blame was also cast against Obama, not just by Republican war hawks, but by Former Secretary of State and future presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton.  Their collective criticism and fault blaming lay not with themselves who voted to invade Iraq to begin with under the false pretenses of “weapons of mass destruction,”  but because Obama withdrew from Iraq prematurely (almost a decade later).  Hillary Clinton immediately ran before cameras and reporters after leaving office, claiming that  Obama should have listened to her and other war hawks and supported the mythical “moderate opposition rebels” fighting in Syria.  Of course the reality of this long and sprawling conflict didn’t begin with the U.S. leaving Iraq too soon and not supporting the “moderate rebels;”  it began with the invasion of Iraq and the arming of foreign fighters to overthrow Assad that morphed into ISIL.

Now the U.S. has escalated its military role in Iraq and Syria, training and re-training the Iraq army and the nonexistent moderate rebels in Syria, as well as deploying at least 2400 non-boots-on-the-ground “advisers” and special opps.  This is in addition of course to a massive bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria, or what our leaders and media prefer to call by the more sanitized and civilized term as “air strikes.”  Despite all this, Lindsay Graham has taken to the airways professing his deepest fears of ISIL “coming back here and killing us all at home.”  Speaker John Boehner, when not busy trying to undermine the White House negotiations with Iran on a nuclear deal by collaborating with Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu behind President Obama’s back, is complaining that Obama’s new request for using military force against ISIL is not enough.

In the noise of this political theater, it is easy to become distracted about what it all means, and it is a legitimate question to ask why Obama is asking for authorization for authority he claims he already has, and why war hawks are reluctant to grant him the authority they claim he already has but is not using adequately.

Although the U.S. Constitution specifically grants only congress the authority to declare war, it also makes the President the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.  The result has been, over the course of U.S. history, less official wars declared by congress, and more wars declared conflicts, with policy largely determined by the Presidency.  The last time war was officially declared by congress was World War II.  A backlash against the Vietnam War was the passage of the War Powers Act of 1973, which sought to clarify when and how long a President could wage war without  congressional approval, but in practice it has not changed much.  More common in practice are congressional Authorization to Use Military Force, or A.U.M.F.’s..

President George W. Bush got two of these authorizations.  The first one, used to invade Afghanistan, was in 2001, and gave the President broad authority to wage a global war against Al Qaeda and its associates.  It is this authority that President Obama claims he already has and is using in the campaign against ISIL.  The second A.U.M.F. that President Bush got from congress authorized the invasion of Iraq.  Mr. Obama’s new A.U.M.F. request to congress repeals Bush’s second authorization in 2002 for the Iraq invasion, and his accompanying letter claims to want to “refine” or “repeal” the 2001 authorization (the one he is still using now).

But by claiming he has all the legal authority needed by congress under the 2001 authorization, and by not repealing it, Mr. Obama in engaged in nothing more than smoke and mirrors in his claim that he wants to involve congress in this war decision.  What he is seeking is actually a redundant, newly worded 2001 authorization to wage an endless war on “terror,” with terror being loosely defined as Al Qaeda, ISIL, or “associate” groups, or “successor” groups.  In other words, anybody the White House, past, present and future, decides to subjectively label a terrorist organization, will be fair game, and congressional approval, forget a declaration of war, will not be necessary, just a nice endorsement to help spread the blame around when the blow back and consequences become unpalatable to the American public.

Likewise, congress is more than happy right now to complain about the White House’s strategy and tactics for combating ISIL, without actually voting on official policy. The  war hawks are claiming that Obama’s new request is just political cover pretending that he wants to combat ISIL when he really doesn’t, and that they want a more broad authorization that would allow ground troops.  Obama’s new proposal limits ground troops in Syria and Iraq by not committing them to “enduring” operations – another subjective term that means nothing, should the President decide on a more robust occupation.  Obama’s new request also puts a time limit of 3 year from its enactment, but of course since he still claims authority for his actions already on the 2001 authorization, even were the new authority to be passed, the old authorization after 911 will still be in effect in three years when the new authorization expires. . . a mere 17 years later.

No matter how this new, contrived “debate” between congress and the White House plays out over this neverending war, or what Obama terms America’s “perpetual war footing,” one thing remains clear.  The office of the President will continue to wage war whenever it wants, and sometimes congress will give them the official green light – like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry did on voting for the Iraq invasion – and then blame being “mislead” when it goes wrong, or deferring responsibility and blaming White House management of the conflict from the sidelines.  In the end, Obama only wants the appearance of congressional approval, and congress only wants the appearance of support if it goes right, and the latitude to complain endlessly if its complicated.

Here is a link to copy and paste to your browser of Obama’s request for military authorization:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/02/11/us/politics/document-text-of-obamas-resolution-to-authorize-military-force-against-isis.html

 

 

 

 

In perhaps the most dramatic display of tension between the White House and Israel in years, President Barack Obama has drawn a line in the sand and taken a strong public stand against the stunning arrogance of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the traitorous backstabbing by Speaker of the House, John Boehner.

The United States is currently involved in historical, high level negotiations with Iran over their nuclear development program.  While Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for the peaceful development of energy, many western governments fear that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons.  For years now, the United States has engaged in economic warfare against Iran with crippling sanctions.  Also, Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated, and cyber attacks have been waged against Iranian nuclear facilities.  These actions are littered with evidence linked to the governments of Israel and the United States.  The war drums have been beaten continuously in the background by warmongers such as Senator John McCain, Senator Lindsay Graham, and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.  There has been speculation since before President George W. Bush left office, about whether or not the U.S. would launch a “preemptive strike” against Iran to prevent them from being able to make a nuclear weapon.

Despite the ongoing economic warfare, assassinations, and sabotage, the Iranians and Americans have managed to enter into high level negotiations, in which some economic sanctions against Iran have been temporarily lifted, in pursuit of a more permanent solution in which Iran is allowed to develop nuclear material for energy, while being monitored and prevented from reaching nuclear bomb making capability.  Against the backdrop of decades of hostilities between the two countries, this progress is both historical and extremely hopeful for the long term outlook for peace in the region.  Now, Iran and the United States share a common enemy, ISIS.  There are many reasons to continue to pursue the diplomatic negotiations between Washington and Tehran.

To warmongers and neo-cons, and right-wing Israeli leaders like “Bibi” Netanyahu, this peace process is a betrayal of their ideology and philosophy.  They continue to play the fear card of an insane Iranian government who is in pursuit of a nuclear weapon to “wipe Israel off the map.”  Now, outraged at the prospects of peace with Iran, they are engaged in the usual fear mongering propaganda campaigns, but this time, they have crossed a serious red line in terms of how they pursue their political goals.

After the President’s State of the Union Address, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer secretly arranged for Netanyahu to give a speech before a joint session of Congress this March, in which he will criticize the White House’s negotiations with Iran.  Mr. Netanyahu and an army of Israeli lobbyists have been pressuring Congress to undermine current negotiations with Iran by enacting a new round of sanctions.  Obviously, such a reckless move by Congress  while current negotiations with Iran continue, has the likely potential to derail any potential peace deal.  This is exactly what Netanyahu and many warmongers in the U.S. congress want.

During the State of the Union Address, President Obama threatened to veto any legislation enacting new sanctions against Iran, while the current negotiations continue.  In response, in a stunning and brazenly disrespectful political maneuver, John Boehner and Ambassador Dermer broke diplomatic protocol to arrange for Israel’s Prime Minister to address Congress, without seeking White House approval first.  This flagrant disregard for protocol, carried out behind the White House’s back by the Speaker of the House, to invite the leader of a foreign country to address the U.S. congress. for the specific purpose of criticising the President of the United States and persuading Congress to act against him and side with Israel on foreign policy, is just short of treasonous.

The Obama administration is angry, and made clear that President Obama will not meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu when visits.  An official White House snub to the leader of Israel is remarkable, given the long history of close alliance between Washington and Tel Aviv.  What is more remarkable, is the number of republicans and democrats who have come to the defense of the Israeli ambassador, Boehner and Bibi.  Mr. Dermer, before becoming an ambassador for Israel in 2013, was a republican operative in the 1990’s, as well as a U.S. citizen with an Israeli mother.  He has since renounced his U.S. citizenship, is an ambassador for Israel and so close to Netanyahu that he is sometimes referred to as “Bibi’s Brain.”  Having worked in U.S. politics for years, Mr. Dermer is clearly aware of the diplomatic protocols, but obviously loyal to Israel and Netanyahu first.  He had met with Secretary of State John Kerry for over two hours right before arranging for Netanyahu’s upcoming speech to congress, without even mentioning it to Kerry.

A shocking sample of how some U.S. politicians are defending this outrageous undermining of a U.S. presidency was reported in the New York Times recently on January 28th:

    “Matt Brooks, the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said Mr.        Dermer had been “extremely strong and successful” at his most important tasks,        which are to represent Israel’s interests and defend Mr. Netanyahu’s prerogatives      at a critical time for Israel’s security.

   “This administration has repeatedly sought to both undermine and embarrass this       prime minister, and the same Democrats who now profess to be so outraged by         this have been notably silent,” Mr. Brooks said. “When the dust settles on this —       and the dust will settle — I think that he’ll continue to be effective on the range of       issues that are important to Israel’s security.”

It is noteworthy the amount of importance that Mr. Brooks and other U.S. politicians place upon Israel’s security over the United States’ security.  It is well known and documented that the United States government is a pay-to-play “democracy,” in which billions of dollars are spent on bribes to U.S. officials – called “campaign contributions,” or “free speech.”  Most Americans understand that our politicians are sponsored by the Wall Street financial industry, oil companies, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and high tech industries within the Military Industrial Complex.  Perhaps less known is the extent to which a great number of our politicians are sponsored by the powerful pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.  In addition to corporations being people too and allowed to donate (bribe) our leaders for laws and policy written to benefit themselves over the well being of everyone else, the foreign government of Israel is also allowed to lobby (sponsor) our leaders with money and support for the interest of Israel’s foreign policy preferences over the United States.

Israel is a client state of the U.S.   They are the biggest recipient of direct U.S. foreign aid, much of it high tech military weapons, of which the Israeli government regularly uses to murder and torture Palestinians, in addition to continued building of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.  The U.S. is also usually the sole supporter and enabler of Israeli war crimes, and protector of Israel against United Nations actions.  Israel is known to have over 300 nuclear weapons, as well as a stockpile of illegal chemical weapons, perhaps one reason Syria was reluctant to give up theirs.  Were it not for the full financial, military, and diplomatic support of the United States, Israel would not exist and act as it currently does, with near impunity.

It would behove Mr. Netanyahu to remember this arrangement.  Although the United States is a bullying, military world super power, in the end it will act on its interests first, not its allies’ interests.  If Israel mistakenly thinks that it is now the tail that can wag the dog, it could be in for a very rude awakening.  Despite some members of congress being a pro-Israel, warmongering cheerleaders, such actions by Netanyahu and his American puppet John Boehner, do not sit well with many Americans, both conservative and liberal.  New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote an opinion piece yesterday titled “A Bad Mistake,” where he criticized the actions of Bibi and Boehner, and warned of the backlash already taking place.  He used the Fox Propaganda News Channel as an example of this backlash, quoting Chris Wallace as saying:

“To make you get a sense of really how, forgive me, wicked, this whole thing is, the Secretary of State John Kerry met with the Israeli ambassador to the United States for two hours on Tuesday, and Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador, according to the State Department, never mentioned the fact that Netanyahu was in negotiations and finally agreed to come to Washington, not to see the president, but to go to Capitol Hill, speak to a joint session of Congress and criticize the president’s policy. I have to say I’m shocked.”

( http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/opinion/thomas-friedman-a-bad-mistake.html?module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=Opinion&action=keypress&region=FixedLeft&pgtype=article )

It is shocking, and outrageous.  If this were any other country donating money to our Congress to divide them against each other and our President for the purpose of influencing U.S. foreign policy to their wishes instead of our own, would it not be called treason?  I have to wonder what President Obama has said behind closed doors to Speaker Boehner since this backstabbing betrayal.  How John Boehner can still call himself a U.S. Representative is beyond me.  Clearly, he represents the interests of the highest corporate bidders as so many of our political leaders do, and in addition to that, the state of Israel, and in particular, their right-wing war machine.

Now, for your entertainment, here is how I imagine the conversation with Obama and Bibi will go, the next time they meet in private.  Obama is played by Joe Pesci, and Bibi is played by Robert De Niro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfGuYeC1KOs

 

 

 

 

 

You have to hand it to our government and media: they have conditioned Americans to not even smell the stench of blatant hypocrisy when it comes to “us” and our “allies.”  Even as Senator Lindsay Graham takes to the airwaves to rally the tribe here in the U.S. to put on our combat boots because we are in a “religious war” by people he claims are motivated by a religion that “require me and you to be killed, or enslaved, or converted” . . . our good friends and allies, the Saudis, who are allegedly helping us fight these radicals in Syria “before they come back home and kill us all” . . .well, these good friends are beating their own citizens for offending their conservative brand of Islam.

A Saudi man named Raif Badawi was publicly beaten last week by a Saudi Interior Ministry official after being found guilty of insulting Islam, because of a website he started called “Free Saudi Liberals.”  He received 50 lashes by cane, and is sentenced to receive 50 a week until he fulfils his flogging part of the sentence: 1000 lashes.  Then, he is to serve a 10 year prison term.

While the Obama Administration was criticized here in the U.S. for not sending a higher ranking U.S. official to participate in the march of solidarity in Paris for freedom of speech and expression following the terrorist attack on the French paper Charlie Hebdo,  Saudi Arabia sent an ambassador to march with them in solidarity.  They were marching to show “solidarity” with the right to offend with free speech, even though the offending speech had been cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad, considered blasphemous by many Muslims.  They did this, after carrying out the first of 20 scheduled beatings of one of its own citizens for expressing differing views on the country’s conservative interpretation of Islam.

How is it possible that with a straight face, they can send a government official to march in France for “freedom of speech” when it brutalizes and imprisons its own citizenry for the practice of less offensive speech regarding Islam?

I guess their government officials are as good at lying or practicing obvious hypocrisy as Western government politicians are.

As I politely pointed out last week on this blog, France and other European countries don’t have the same kind of “free speech” we have here in the United States.  Specifically, they ban what they call “hate speech.”  As French officials proudly marched with proclaimed bravery for freedom of speech and expression, the French government also instructed its prosecutors to aggressively make arrests for people violating their laws on speech.  As a result, a popular Anti-Semitic comic in France named  Dieudonné M’bala M’bala was arrested and charged with “condoning terrorism.”  The New York Times reports that the comic had been arrested in France previously, nearly 40 times “on suspicion of violating antihate laws, for statements usually directed at Jews.”  Now he faces 7 years in prison for a Facebook post that the French are claiming condones terrorism.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/16/world/europe/french-rein-in-speech-backing-acts-of-terror.html?action=click&contentCollection=Europe&region=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=article)

If there is any way to reinforce the perception among Muslims living in France that discrimination against Islam is in the national DNA, then surely jailing a comic for insulting Jews after marching to protect the lives of those who insult Muslims, is the way to go.  Good Job, France.

While CNN has reported on Saudi Arabia’s flogging of a blogger, and other U.S. media outlets have also reported it, it is a safe assumption that the story is still unknown to the majority of Americans.  This is part of the U.S. government and mainstream media’s sophisticated propaganda apparatus, which gives the appearance of a free press, while controlling the narrative that keeps most hypocrisy of the U.S. government and its allies invisible to the average American.

As I’ve pointed out before, U.S. officials regularly sell war on the grounds of “humanitarian” and “moral” obligations to protect the freedom of others suffering under foreign dictators – when they are not selling the war on lies about “weapons of mass destruction” or the desire of ISIS to enslave Americans or come back here and “kill us all.”  U.S. officials do this all the time, with rarely a challenge from the press about the U.S. government’s long and ongoing history of supporting brutal dictatorships world wide.

A screaming example immediately comes to mind:  The often repeated phrase about Saddam Hussein at the time Bush II administration officials were selling us a war based on lies to invade Iraq.  “He is a man who gassed his own people!” they told the American public.  They did this without telling the American public that when  Saddam gassed his own people, he did so with U.S. military aid, including the chemical weapons that were given to him by the U.S. to use against the Iranians.  The U.S. blocked United Nations efforts at the time to hold Hussein accountable.  Because at the time the “Butcher of Baghdad” was one of our guys.

Saudi Arabia has horrible human rights abuses, many towards women.  They are not often spoken of by U.S. officials, but when the U.S, government wants to continue the never ending war in Afghanistan, stories are retold in the U.S. press about how the Taliban doesn’t want to educate women.  It is not told along side stories about how women in the Saudi “Kingdom” are not allowed to drive automobiles.

Senator Lindsay Graham does not explain how “radical Islam” in Saudi Arabia that beats its own citizens and oppresses them politically, is different from the “radical Islam” he claims we are at war with.  To do so would make it hard to justify the billions of dollars in aid, much of military weaponry, that he supports giving to Middle Eastern dictators in Bahrain, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

I suspect that in the coming months, France will pass more restricting legislation that resembles the United States’ cynically titled “Patriot Act,” which has allowed our freedom loving government to assassinate by drone strikes, U.S. citizens abroad deemed terrorists, and the unconstitutional, massive electronic surveillance being carried out by the NSA, as Edward Snowden revealed.  While we still have free speech in the United States, it is being carefully monitored by our government through the unlawful collection of our private emails, texts, and phone calls.  Mr. Snowden is now ironically trapped in Russia, because his whistleblowing “free speech” that exposed our government’s domestic spying program, is deemed “espionage.”  France is already off to a good start, jailing comics for “supporting terrorism.”

Welcome to the new age of fear and Orwellian government.  It’s stench is almost undetectable, and its hypocrisy nearly invisible.

 

 

 

 

The tragic murder of twelve people in France over the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s publication of cartoons offensive to Islam, and the dramatic unfolding of the killing of the suspects by French authorities today, has set off lively debates across the media spectrum, and attracted the usual fear mongering suspects of American politicians eager to exploit this latest act of terrorism.

I believe free speech and freedom of the press to be one of the most important rights we have in the United States, and the murder of journalists, writers, cartoonists, editors, and others, rightfully causes outrage among anyone supportive of this fundamental pillar of free societies.  Various U.S. media outlets have debated whether or not to re-publish the cartoons that inspired the terrorist attack, rightfully concerned over the wisdom and safety of doing so.  There are many people  claiming that the media has an obligation to re-publish the cartoons, as an act of defiance against intimidation by those who wield violence to silence opposing viewpoints.  This position has merit, and I salute those who have the courage to re-publish cartoons that have the potential to provoke more violence.  However, I also respect the restraint shown by news organizations choosing not to show the offensive cartoons.  While speech should never be criminalized, it is also not necessary to deliberately pour fuel to the fire to prove one’s right to do so in the first place.  I understand and support both viewpoints and decisions.

It is worth noting though, that when a small time Florida preacher planned a Koran burning a few years back, the Obama administration made a quiet appeal for him to not do so, for fear of “endangering the troops abroad,” and most U.S. news organizations were in agreement of not “promoting” this Florida jackass to fame, should his actions lead to violence or riots.  I don’t recall the enthusiasm and call to bravery in support of free speech by the masses to support his Koran burning, to prove how much we love free speech.

It is also worth noting that in the United States, “free speech” is actually much more free than it is in our European counterpart nations.  “Hate speech,” as it is called, is banned throughout many Western European countries, France included.  In the United States, the liberal American Civil Liberties Union, has provided lawyers to protect the hate speech of white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan in the past.  Undoubtedly, many Muslim bashers will point to the terrorist attack on the French newspaper as proof of Islam’s “intolerance” towards Western values, conveniently omitting the hypocrisy of French tolerance towards speech within its borders that the mainstream consider offensive.  In an opinion piece in Politico.com, author Judah Grunstein, who has lived in France for the past fourteen years, points out this distinction between American ideas about free speech, and France’s, writing:

“Put simply, in France, racist and anti-Semitic speech, as well as historical revisionism regarding the Holocaust, is illegal, as is all speech that can be considered an incitement to hate. That is something that very few Americans understand—or approve of.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-free-speech-offensive-114078.html#ixzz3OMIRtFGI

Among politicians in the United States, fear pedaling war monger, Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, wasted no time racing to the microphone to cast the incident as proof of a “religious war.”  Senator Graham, who has recently been sounding the panic horn about how the U.S. must send troops to Iraq and Syria to fight to keep ISIS from “coming back home and killing us all,” had this to say on Wednesday after the attack in Paris:

“We’re in a religious war. These are not terrorists. They’re radical Islamists who are trying to replace our way of life with their way of life. Their way of life is motivated by religious teachings that require me and you to be killed, or enslaved, or converted.”

Mr. Graham’s motivations to portray this and other conflicts in the Middle East as religious wars, with our freedom and safety in the U.S. threatened by a barbaric form of religion unmotivated by actual U.S. foreign policy, is just a continuation of overall U.S. government efforts to rally the tribe to continue to fight an endless “war on terror,” and keep us afraid enough to continue to allow the U.S. government to erode our freedom and civil liberties in the name of, ironically, “protecting freedom.”

Even as Edward Snowden lives in exile in Russia to avoid being thrown in jail forever by the U.S. government, for revealing the truth about Washington’s unconstitutional, Orwellian, massive surveillance program being conducted by the N.S.A, former C.I.A. director Michael Hayden went on NBC’s the “Today” show and characterized the Paris attack as “the high end of the new genre of attacks” composed of “increased sophistication.”   This is following the very popular propaganda flowing from Washington that describes ISIS as “something like nothing we have ever seen before” and as a terrorist group so radical and  violent that “even Al Qaeda rejected them.”

If by sophisticated, Mr. Hayden means using guns to go on a shooting rampage to kill a bunch of innocent people, then it would appear that America has been full of sophisticated home grown terrorists for years.  Mass shootings and murders of innocent civilians are a regular event in the U.S., with the “soft targets” often being school children.  Despite the regularly occurring massacres at the hands of heavily armed gunmen, and despite polls showing that around 90 percent of Americans support a simple law requiring background  checks for all gun purchases – Congress has failed to act.  But when a crazed gunman is a Muslim in another country, we are warned of the “sophistication” of terrorist who threaten our way of life.

So, still no universal background checks to see if a criminal is attempting to purchase an AK-47 at a gunshow, but your emails, phone calls, texts, and other private information are still being collected by the federal government without search warrants to allegedly protect our “freedom”  from the sophisticated threat of Muslim terrorists with guns.  This is worth remembering in the days to come in which other war mongers in Congress will take to the airwaves to exploit the tragedy in Paris to call for more blood, treasure and sacrifice to fight the never ending war on terrorism, and conversation about our own government’s illegal eavesdropping on our free speech, is quietly overlooked.

 

This week marked a historical turning point on the United States’ decades old punishment of the tiny island country of Cuba.  This Wednesday, it was announced that President Obama had ordered full restoration of diplomatic relations with Cuba, and plans to open an American embassy in Havana.  There are plans by the Obama Administration to lift travel restrictions, remittances, allow banking and the export of internet hardware to Cuba, and open up dialogue for more economic exchange and trade.  The embargo the U.S. has had on Cuba for the past 54 four years that began under President Eisenhower, still needs congressional action to be lifted entirely, but President Obama is reported to be using broad executive authority that will significantly weaken the current embargo.

The narrative told by mainstream American media, particularity the television news, begins, as American foreign policy propaganda often does, in the middle of the story, where the United States is of course the good guy, and generally offers no historical context.  In this case the narrative given in soundbites is “Communist revolutionary leader Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba in 1959, and relations with the United States deteriorated quickly, leading President Eisenhower to quickly enact an embargo. . . ” And then the Cuban missile crisis is mentioned, and opponents of renewing relations with Cuba, from politicians like Mark Rubio to Cuban dissidents, making claims of how Obama is caving into a dictator, etc.

The news doesn’t explain how the United States has spent considerable resources over the past twentieth century and spilled plenty of blood in it’s quest to dominate Latin America and control it’s natural resources.  The devastated countries of El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti, and others, all have the footprints of U.S. imperialism.  Over the past century the United States has waged proxy wars throughout Latin America, arming and training terrorist groups who murdered and tortured vast populations.  President Ronald Reagan supported, illegally behind Congress’s back, the Contra terrorists (called “freedom fighters” by U.S. officials) in an effort to overthrow the popular democratically elected Sandinista government.  A U.S. backed coup under President George W. Bush tried unsuccessfully to overthrow President Hugo Chavez, another democratically elected President of Venezuela, because he had the audacity, much as the Iranians did in the 1950’s, to assert the authority of his country to take control over their own oil.  In short, the United States has a long history of supporting brutal dictators across the globe, so long as they serve Washington’s interests.

Until 1898, Cuba was a colony of Spain, before control was taken over by the United States.  Up through 1958, there were oustings and coups of leaders in Cuba, military interventions by the United States, and dictators supported by the United States.  When Castro seized power, he quickly moved to bar U.S. control over Cuba, nationalizing American corporations that ultimately led to the U.S. embargo, and the five plus decades since.  In the 1960s. President Kennedy resided over a failed U.S. sponsored  invasion known as the “Bay of Pigs.”  After that, Kennedy and subsequent U.S. Presidents and the C.I.A. waged a vicious war of terrorism, sabotage. and assassination plots against Fidel Castro and Cuba, and even considered faking terrorists attack against the U.S. to blame on Cuba, such as blowing up a U.S. ship launched from Guatemala and blaming it on Cuba, as a pretext for a full military invasion.  Hundreds of Cuban civilians were killed in U.S. sponsored covert terrorist attacks against various Cuban targets.   Yet in the official U.S. narrative that completely ignores documented facts and history as if they do not exist, has kept Cuba on it’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.  One has to wonder if the U.S. official who came up with that label for Cuba had a good and hearty laugh at the absurdity of the terrorist state, labeling it’s victim a State Sponsor of Terrorism.

As belligerent politicians like Senator Mark Rubio and others proclaim their love of freedom and longing for freedom for the Cuban people from what they call a brutal dictator, and accuse Obama of bowing to a dictator and sending a sign of weakness to brutal dictators world wide, the press seldom interjects any questioning of their statements or challenges to their assumptions, or fills any facts or historical context.  It goes unmentioned that the U.S. considers many current world dictators its allies, and has a robust history of supporting and arming some some of post World War II’s most brutal dictators, from Suharto of Indonesia to Saddam Hussein of Iraq.  So it is no surprise that many Americans have only a vague idea of what this latest turn in history regarding Cuba is about.  Instead, they are made aware that there is a debate between U.S. leaders who think we can help bring freedom to Cuba through normalized relations, and leaders who claim that they love freedom too much to ever normalize relations with Cuba so long as a Castro is in power.

It is long past due, the move to normalize relations with Cuba.  The Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union fell, China is our biggest trading partner and still a communist country.  Cuba’s real crime was being 90 miles too close in the same Northern Hemisphere as the United States, and choosing to run its own affairs instead of taking orders from a U.S. puppet dictator.  Their close proximity has inspired a much greater wrath and longer period of revenge than usual, and ending this long stalemate it is the right thing to do morally and economically.  The Pope certainly thought so, and he deserves credit as well for nudging Obama and Raul Castro to come to the negotiating table.

 

 

In one of the most stunning capitulations to date, President Obama has pressured enough spineless Democrats to support Republicans in ramming through a spending bill that contains, among many harmful plans, a special provision that undoes one of the most important regulations enacted by the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law that was enacted as a response to the Great Recession, to prevent future banking crises and bailouts.

Threatened with another government shutdown tonight at midnight, 57 House Democrats voted against the majority of House Democrats and their leader, Nancy Pelosi, to essentially give back to big banks, the right to gamble F.D.I.C. insured deposits in the risky derivatives market.  What is shocking about this giveaway to a small handful of “too big to fail banks” on Wall Street – the perpetrators of the financial crisis of 2008 that caused the Great Recession and nearly led to the collapse of the global financial markets – is not that the provision was written by Citigroup lobbyists, which it was, but that it was aggressively lobbied for by the Obama Administration, who made rounds of high level phone calls from Obama’s Chief of Staff and others, to House Democrats, pressuring them to accept the spending bill as a “compromise.”

Just a refresher:  the Dodd-Frank financial regulations act was enacted after Obama took office, for the purpose of preventing large banks from recklessly investing tax payer insured deposits into the investment side of the banks’ high risk ventures – derivatives in particular.  It was the bundling of high risk real estate loans that were falsely sold in the derivatives market as secure, collateral backed loans, that led to the near collapse of the financial markets.  The government bailed out the big banks to the historical tune of almost 700 billion under threat of another Great Depression.  After the original Great Depression, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was enacted to make banks more secure.  One of it’s key features was to keep the deposits made by ordinary citizens from being gambled away by high risk investments of the banks.  Ordinary deposits were guaranteed by the Federal government, a firewall against bank runs in bad economies.  The major push by big banks for deregulation began under Ronald Reagan, but arguably the most damaging deregulation was enacted under President BIll Clinton, who undid the Glass-Steagall rule separating the commercial side of banking from the investment banking side.  The derivatives market, a new form of investment invented by the banks, boomed, with very little oversight or regulation.  Since then, there have been predictable bubbles, leading to crashes, that the federal government has had to step in and bail out, to keep the financial markets functioning, and the economy from collapsing.

Republicans fought tooth and nail against President Obama and Dodd-Frank.  The bill was finally approved, but not before much of the law’s teeth and regulatory powers were gutted from it  Now, President Obama and his administration have joined pro-Wall Street, screw-everyone-else on Main Street Republicans, in undoing the meaningful and necessary provision in Dodd-Frank to prevent federal government insured gambling by derivatives and hedge fund managers at the big banks.

Perhaps this should come as no surprise, given that President Obama received more campaign money from Wall Street than John McCain did.  Perhaps, given the enormous amount of money donated to him by the big banks to help elect him president, it is no coincidence that President Obama immediately filled his cabinet with Wall Street insiders such as Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, among others.

Through all of this, President Obama has been able to talk out of both sides of his mouth at once.  He tells voters that he is changing the rules of Wall Street to prevent future financial disasters, and at the same time he is actually lobbying members of his own party to vote to dismantle those very rules.  On top of that, President Obama, and his apparent, impotent lap dog, Senator Harry Reid, are saying publicly that they are not happy with that provision in this current spending bill, but that it is a compromise that will be even less attractive when Republicans take control of the Senate as well in January.

This pathetic excuse for actually pushing reluctant Democrats into supporting this debacle of a spending bill, fails to take into account the fact that Speaker John Boehner lacked enough Republican votes in the House to pass without significant support from House Democrats.  Tea Party factions and other Republican obstructionists in the House were voting no on the spending bill for different reasons, primarily because they wanted to defund the Department of Homeland Security in retaliation for the president’s recent executive actions of immigration.  So the Republicans actually needed Democratic support of the spending bill to avoid a government shutdown, and once again, boom! President Obama and Harry Reid rolled over for Republicans, although this time it remains unclear if Obama sincerely regrets the rollback of the banking rules, or if that is just lip service.

Obama has always been a weak an ineffective “negotiator” when it comes to budget showdowns, willing to undermine his own party and betray his campaign trail promises.  Just recently though, it appeared with his executive action on immigration, that President Obama was going to spend his last two years in office fighting for his declared principles and exhibiting backbone against Republican obstructionism.  What a disappointing and short lived fantasy that turned out to be.

In addition to the “compromise” in the spending bill on banking regulation that the President is leading his party to support, are other provisions meant to undermine existing laws, such as a provision to allow even bigger individual donations to politicians running for office (though thanks to the Supreme Court, it is unclear how much this will matter anyways), and prohibiting the Environment Protection Agency from regulating lead content in fishing tackle and ammunition, not to mention cuts in the budget to the already underfunded agency.  For a more extensive list of the giveaways to republicans and special big money interests, see the New York Times list:  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/13/us/key-points-from-the-spending-bill.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news.

There are good Democrats fighting the Wall Street sponsored Republicans and President Obama.  Nancy Pelosi has had the backbone to stand against the White House, and Senator Elizabeth Warren, a bold and tireless crusader against the injustice and power of the financial industry, rightfully opened her statements on the Senate floor with the question: “Who does congress work for?”  Sadly, President Obama, most of the Republicans, and enough Democrats work for the billionaires and millionaires and giant corporations.  I offer this video of her, to show you how a real politician stands up for the majority of Americans, when the majority of Congress and the President, do the bidding of the Big Banks:

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/12/10/elizabeth-warren-fellow-liberals-rail-against-bank-provision-in-spending-bill/

 

Behind the widely broadcast dramatic images and videos of riots and nationwide protests against recent police killings of unarmed black men, lies a greatly underreported movement of low wage workers that yesterday set a new record of protests and strikes in over 190 cities across the country in what the New York Times called ” the largest labor protests in the nation in years.”

Yesterday, fast food workers carried out  another round of one day strikes in an organized movement to raise the national minimum wage to 15 dollars an hour, this time joined by other low wage workers from retail stores and gas stations, as well as home health-care workers who joined in on the protests in September.  The movement of low wage workers seeking a raise began two years ago with walkouts from restaurant employees in New York City, and has since grown into an organized national movement, supported in part by the Service Employees International Union. Similar strikes have been mounted against Walmart over the years, and against other retail stores, particularly during the holiday season which has seen a push of Black Friday into the day of Thanksgiving.

The significance of these protests, and the impact they are having on the national debate, and policy, has been important and measurable.  A mis-reading of the recent Midterm election results has conservatives boasting of America’s rejection of “liberal” policy ideas from the Obama Administration and Democrats.  Their optimistic interpretation of the election results leaves out two glaring facts that cannot be ignored: Republicans won control of the Senate and gained House seats with the lowest voter turnout in a Midterm since 1942, and (2) even more important, voters in very red states and Republican leaning states, such as Arkansas and Alaska, voted yes on  ballot initiatives to raise their state’s minimum wage.  The ballot initiatives were necessary, because ironically, the Republican lawmakers that these voters support, have been vocal opponents of raising the minimum wage, and have of course, towed the conservative party line of always rejecting an increase in the federal minimum wage whenever it is pursued.

It would be a stretch to suggest that these ballot initiatives in red states, as well as recent legislative action by local lawmakers in the cities of Seattle and San Francisco to raise their minimum wage to 15 dollars an hour, would have occurred without the pressure coming from this new labor movement.  At the federal level, the Democrats have pitifully fought (unsuccessfully of course) to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour – a much lower goal than that of what is now called the “Fight for 15.”

Other industrial, wealthy nations comparable to the United States have a “livable wage” instead of a minimum wage.  These other nations also have universal healthcare for their citizens, greater pay, more worker’s rights, more holiday and vacation time, more affordable or near free college education, and a stronger social welfare infrastructure all around.  In the U.S., such ideas are routinely demonized as “socialism.”  And the more moderate of the two corporate sponsored political parties that dominate American politics, the Democrats, have failed to make an effective case to the voters and failed to enact better policies for the people when they are in power and have the chance.

All the major rights that Americans too often take for granted, such as child labor protection, women’s right to vote, and civil rights for minorities, have been won through the willingness of the people to stand together and fight the entrenched power systems of the elite and uber wealthy minority.  With our broken political system damaged even further through the irresponsible ruling of the Supreme Court that undermined what was left of our inadequate campaign finance laws, it is no wonder that the majority of our citizens have lost interest in showing up on election days to exercise our “freedom” of selecting our own government.  Most voters recognize that candidates on the ballot box more often than not, represent a “choice” that the all powerful corporations have allowed as sponsored options.

When fast food workers first started demanding a raise to 15 an hour with the option of unionizing, the industry executives, their P.R. wing, and the political propaganda machine of the extremely rich and privileged, balked and portrayed it with the usual disdain and pack of lies about how it would hurt the “job creators,” small businesses, and the economy.  They also immediately dismissed the idea of 15 an hour as grossly over ambitious and unrealistic.  The wet mop excuse of the people’s party, the Democrats, meagerly and with apprehension pursued the poverty wage increase to $10.10 an hour.  Some Democrats (in name only) in red states, openly rejected the call for raising the minimum wage.  It makes you wonder if some of the bigger cowards in the Donkey tent who lost their Midterms after campaigning on how much they had in common with Republicans, are scratching their heads and wondering how over 70 percent of voters in red states approved a ballot measure of raising their state’s minimum wage.  It also makes you wonder how frightened the multi-million dollar executives from America’s largest employers of poverty wages such as McDonald’s and Walmart are now becoming.

The poverty wage, billion dollar corporations are so far still sticking to their script of misinformation and lies.  In an article yesterday (December 4) in the New York Times titled “Strong Voice in ‘Fight for 15; Fast-Food Wage Campaign,” quotes Brad Jones, a spokesperson for a business trade group in Missouri, as warning :  “They’re not looking at your independent pizza guy, your deli on the corner, your little bar and grill,” and “If these folks have to increase their wages by $5 an hour, it’s really going to be detrimental to them.”  Mr. Jones reportedly also warned that restaurants wouldn’t be able to hire as many young workers at entry level jobs if 15 an hour became law.

Yes, the P.R. spokespersons for the large, billion dollar corporations are still pretending to care about “small business owners” on the corner, even as their giant chains such as Walmart continue their takeover and economic destruction of independent businesses of small towns across America.  And they still prop up the myth of the young “entry level” worker who would be harmed if the greedy workers who depend on their slave wage jobs as their source of income get their way.  They even warn of the dire consequences of the rising costs for consumers that would accompany a move into a living wage instead of a minimum wage.

What they don’t tell you and don’t want you know, is that their enormous profits, enormous share of the market, and millions of workers who work for them trying to earn an honest living, are in reality subsidized by the taxpayers. A large number of food stamp recipients and other “welfare” dependents are their employees who cannot make ends meet and live on the wages they are paid.  Apparently, this simple concept has yet to reach the more hostile-towards-the-poor Tea Party voting block of the Republican party.  Far too many low and middle income people in this country still blame poverty on the laziness of the poor, still portrayed as “welfare queens” gaming the system.  Far too many  Americans are clipping their coupons to spend at Walmart and complaining of having to pay taxes to support those “who don’t wanna work,” not realizing that the cashier ringing up their purchase is often times the beneficiary of their tax payer funded food stamps.

I salute the bravery of the underpaid and poor in this country who are risking their job by going on strike and protesting their government subsidized, profitable, billion dollar corporate slave masters.

It’s bad enough that the fast food industry is pedaling unhealthy food choices that are partly behind the nation’s costly rise in obesity and diabetes; and  its bad enough that retail giants such as Walmart have forced American middle class-paying manufacturing jobs overseas by squeezing the sweat shops in Bangladesh to abuse their workers ever further for a chance to sell their clothing to the American markets.  What is worse than bad is that enough Americans are still voting against their own best interests and supporting corporate sponsored politicians who are custom designing our Third World economy in the world’s wealthiest nation.

The silver lining in all of this is that the workers are finally realizing that the only way things get better for the average person in our country is through a popular struggle and uprising, a fight that is long and hard and in the end usually only yields most of what was sought, always a day late and a dollar or two short.  And then, even as these victories are won, the “owners” of the country, the smallest minority who own the vast majority of the wealth and capital and control the government, continue with a sustained and determined effort to roll back hard fought progress.

Please, support the low wage workers of this country and their struggle for a livable wage and fair working conditions.  Let’s also hold accountable the corrupted and bought politicians, and share on social media, at the dinner table, the water cooler and the local watering hole, your belief that America deserves better than an economy which funnels the vast share of the pie to the top one percent, leaving millions of hard working people working for them while not earning enough money to afford housing and food.