Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Gratifying. From Mike Flugennock.

Pakistan closes US supply routes to Afghanistan, threatening war effort

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The United States is in a diplomatic scramble to reopen two key supply routes along the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan that are essential to the US-led war effort and which, as of Tuesday, have remained close for four consecutive days.

Pakistan stopped all traffic from crossing into Afghanistan in reaction to a NATO airstrike that killed 26 Pakistani soldiers last week, a strategy Pakistan has several times before used to force the hand of the United States.

Hundreds of containers carrying supplies for US troops were lined up along the border waiting for permission to enter on Tuesday. Several oil tankers bound for northeastern Afghanistan were sent back to Peshawar, where they are parked in streets and on roadsides, where they could be a soft target for militants.

Concerned that US-led forces in Afghanistan can't afford to go too long with out the essential supplies, US officials have moved quickly to try and mend relations, which were already deeply strained by the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May.

It's amazing, really, how our Empire has converted a country which was once among our most docile and admiring clients into a problem child. Uncle used to be quite popular in Pakistan -- which is one of the reasons why my colleague is here, in New York, at the next aptly-named 'workstation' to my own.

But no more. And it looks as if the longer the Bush/Obama Afghanistan war goes on, the more the Paks are going to hate us -- and quite right, too.

It doesn't get much better than this.

"Liberals are dissatisfied with Obama because liberals, on the whole, are incapable of feeling satisfied with a Democratic president. They can be happy with the idea of a Democratic president—indeed, dancing-in-the-streets delirious—but not with the real thing. The various theories of disconsolate liberals all suffer from a failure to compare Obama with any plausible baseline. Instead they compare Obama with an imaginary president—either an imaginary Obama or a fantasy version of a past president. "

http://nymag.com/news/politics/liberals-jonathan-chait-2011-11/

that's the mutton headed chaitnik writin' there

the liberals begin to devour each other

such are the rations of goo goo guilt

dare we saber toothed pwogs take a bite

out of a fellow travelers hide ?

Courtesy of a kind reader. I wish I had taken this picture, but alas I didn't.

My fellow Lefties, it seems to me, mostly exhibit a very muddled way of thinking about the Credentialling Sector (CS for short). The subject recently came up -- for the thousandth time -- on one of my mailing lists. Sample exchange:

Curly: Before the introduction of fees, the British University system was on the whole a subsidy to a narrowly-drawn group of privileged middle classes.

Moe: So better now to make it really expensive?

Me: Our civilization has its flaws.

Mother-in-law: Oh, so I suppose you'd prefer chattel slavery and human sacrifice, Mr Wise Guy?

Needless to say I weighed in to this effect, and felt the rough edge of Moe's tongue:

It's always amusing when highly educated people demean the importance of formal education for others.... For most people, college is a good experience.

This got me ruminating. There was certainly nothing 'formal' about my education, though I did spend some time at a couple of well-regarded institutions. It was very catch-as-catch-can, and I learned at least as much from my fellow-students as I did from my teachers -- though four or five of those teachers are people that I'm very glad I met.

Moe has a point, though. College was (mostly) a good experience for me too. But that was because I viewed it as an opportunity for shameless self-indulgence, and spent my time and the family's money, such as it was, on things like mediaeval music and Celtic philology. I was fortunately able to treat the credentialling sector as if it were a romp through Arcadia. The degrees meant nothing to me at the time, though of course they did come in handy later on.

I certainly would want anybody to have the same experience who wanted to have it; and I would want it to be entirely unaccompanied by grading and degree-granting and entirely funded by the public purse. Treat it completely as an amenity, like the national parks.

What I very much object to is the credentialling sector's gatekeeper role, and the idea that everybody has to submit to it for, what, sixteen to twenty of the best years of their lives. Unfortunately that seems to have become the essence of the thing in the world we actually live in.

It's a bit like the police and prisons, isn't it? Many of us Lefties probably believe that as a practical matter, almost any society we can envision would need some kind of law-enforcement and some kind of sanctions for bad actors, but then none of us has any use at all for the actually existing police and prison systems. Nobody on the left is interested in the pay and pensions of prison guards and cops.

College used to be a playground for the sons of the elite, and then for a short moment it became a playground for some 'umbler folk like me, if they chose to treat it that way. But now it's a feedlot on the way to the corporate slaughterhouse.

Under those circumstances, fuck it. If it could become a playground again, I'd support it to the hilt. Hell, I'd go back into teaching.

-------------------------

(*) Referred to, in the peculiar thieves' argot of the CS, as "scholarships" and "financial aid".

our two party state strikes me as a far far harder regime to take
than mother russia's present set up

a tammany amerika would be a nicer rougher more invigorating nightmare than this putrifying
two headed dog puke we swim thru here

It's amazing to me how much time and mental energy my Dembo friends spend watching and reading and thinking about the downmarket mud-rassle among the various Republican aspirants, that extraordinary collection of buffoons (with one stuffed shirt for uncomic relief). It hadn't come quite into focus for me before how multiply degrading it is to be a Democrat; not only to you have to hold your nose as regards your own guy, but you feel obliged to dirty your mind with thoughts of people like Herman Cain. I am very much enjoying my own serene indifference to the whole process, even though it seems reasonably likely that one of these buffoons (or perhaps the stuffed shirt) will be the next president.

http://content.ksg.harvard.edu/blog/jeff_frankels_weblog/2011/12/04/the-hour-of-the-technocrats/

couldn't resist posting this up belatedly :
its by that kennedy school magnifico

jefferson t grackle :

"The Hour of the Technocrats has arrived. "

" In desperation from debt crises that their gridlocked political systems have created, Italy and Greece both in November chose new Prime Ministers who are technocratic economists rather than politicians.... One can even describe them as professors: ... It is a mistake to conflate technocrat elites (they are the ones with the PhDs or other advanced economics degrees) with other kinds of elites (the ones with money or power, especially if they got them from their parents). ....Technocrats can play a useful role. One of their advantages is acting as an honest broker when traditional politicians have become discredited or parties are deadlocked. Another is the credibility that comes when they are not motivated by getting re-elected, either because their term in office has been limited in advance or because it is know that they in fact prefer the quiet life back at the university. The most obvious advantage to technocrats comes when the biggest problems facing the country are in large part technical such as proposing economic reforms or negotiating loan terms. A good precedent in Italy is Carlo Ciampi, who took the governing reins in 1993 after Italy was forced to drop out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, but managed to repeal the scala mobile (the wage indexation system), beat down inflation, and re-board the train of European monetary integration....Obvious disadvantages of some technocrats include ..lack of a domestic political powerbase.....
Among current heads of state who could be considered technocrats are President Felipe Calderón of Mexico, President Sebastián Piñera of Chile, and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia. ...it happens that all three received their ivory tower training at Harvard. Calderón took a record three courses from me. Unfortunately, dealing with violent drug lords was not on my syllabus. "

I inadvertently started that old prognosticating hare in an earlier post, by suggesting it was possible that Obie might be a one-term wonder. The smart money is against me.

I admit the Rs are definitely putting their worst foot forward -- as if they were resigned to a McGovern or Goldwater moment. Look how long it took 'em to shut down that fool Cain.

On the other hand, I bet lots of people who turned out in '08 will stay home in '12; but of course the fluoridation loons and the fetus fanciers and the flat-earthers will all show up as they always do. The Dems as usual are counting on fear to drive people into their camp; it will be interesting to see how well it works, especially with the younger folks. I get the sense that they're not quite so fearful as their elders.

Me, I'm hoping for the looniest Republican of the pack, whoever that might be -- somebody who will be for the American presidency what Elagabalus was for the Severans.

take back our homes !

this proto- movement is a hit in the making

i got this by E-MAIL :

From: Rob Robinson

Dear family, friends and acquaintances,

To say yesterday's D6 Occupy Our Homes actions were inspiring would be an understatement. This community organizer/activist was truly overwhelmed by the masses of people representing the community, different ethnicity, different races and people supporting a number of issues.
And what was really positive in my eyes was the mix of community organizations that worked together to make yesterday happen.

Hopefully the energy from the D6 Occupy Our Homes action will carry over into the
Take Back the Land Spring Offensive. Below is some of the press from the NYC action.
Be sure to visit www.occupyourhomes.org for details of actions from around the country.

More details about the Take Back the Land Spring Offensive can be found at www.takebacktheland.org. Take Back the Land was proud to partner with the
Occupy Wall Street Movement, the D6 Coalition and Occupy Our Homes to make
December 6, 2011 a success.

In solidarity,
Rob

hey so what's worse voucherizing lower ED or voucherizing health services ???

i know its an easy choice for me

that is once you fully digest the separation of compulsory schoolin' from force fed learnin'

"December 10: Stand For Freedom March in NYC"

http://www.stand4freedom.org/

"This year, two-thirds of state legislatures have introduced laws that undermine the right to vote. Early voting and Sunday voting are under attack, photo ID requirements will introduce the first financial and document barrier to voting since the poll tax, and racially-motivated bans on ex-felons will wipe tens of thousands off the rolls."

"This effort is unprecedented, it is coordinated, and it is targeted."

"The right to vote is the heart of our democracy. Throughout our history Americans have been murdered for defending this basic human right. We will not let it be taken away from millions today."

Join us on Saturday, December 10th—The United Nations’ Human Rights Day—to proclaim to America and the world:

It’s time to Stand for Freedom. We must protect our right to vote.

Assembly and March Information
10:30 am to 11:30 am: assemble 61st St. and Madison Ave., the Koch brothers' NYC office.

11:30 am: March from 61st St. and Madison Ave. to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza

with the employment of that immortal line
POTUS candidate Newt has produced as fine a retrofit exculpation for wanton adultery
as any true patriot could ever desire

Okay: who is he reminding me of? It's not Gyro Gearloose, it's not Mortimer Snerd, it's not Reddy Kilowatt....

-----------

Image courtesy of a loyal reader who passed it along to me. Wonderful, innit?

(Editor's note: Contributed by one of our readers, Heron Smith, who blogs at trenditionist.com/.)

Engaging Iran

Quite on trend, Western tensions with Iran have been escalating. Israeli politicians- buoyed by recent IAEA reports- have increasingly derided the effectiveness of sanctions, whilst aggression directed toward the British embassy in Tehran has inevitably led to a media fixation regarding to prospects of eventual military conflict. With American presidential elections next year, and leading candidate Newt Gingrich having already paid lip-service to the prospect of regime change, we in the West ought to be extremely concerned. Conflict with Iran is beyond undesirable. The justifications are steeped in hypocrisy, the objective is extremely short-sighted, and the consequences will stretch beyond our generation.

Is it really true that we owe the term 'meme' to this horrible, horrible man, one Richard Dawkins by name? If so, I now feel entirely justified in the deep distrust I have always felt towards this notion, and my instinctive reluctance to use the word.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2011/12/02/the-bomb-buried-in-obamacare-explodes-today-halleluja/

"This is the true `bomb' contained in Obamacare .......the medical loss ratio, that requires health insurancecompanies to spend 80% of the consumers' premium dollarsthey collect -- 85% for large group insurers -- onactual medical care rather than overhead, marketingexpenses and profit. Failure on the part of insurers tomeet this requirement will result in the insurers havingto send their customers a rebate check representing theamount in which they underspend on actual medical care."

"...there is absolutely no way for-profithealth insurers are going to be able to learn how to getby and still make a profit while being forced to spendat least 80 percent of their receipts providing theircustomers with the coverage for which they paid. If theycould, we likely would never have seen the extraordinaryefforts made by these companies to avoid paying benefitsto their customers at the very moment they need it the most."

It is depressing to realize that there are actually Christmas trees in this broad land upon which this tawdry horror will be hung.

And of course it brings painfully home, yet again, what a dismaying piece of shit architecture the US capitol is. Such an embarrassment.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/fist-wisconsin1.jpg

http://labornotes.org/2011/11/anti-union-law-squeezes-wisconsin-teachers

"Wisconsin teachers are feeling the pinch as the consequences of Governor Scott Walker’s anti-union bill set in"

excellent aspects to this abound :

"With dues checkoff gone, collective bargaining outlawed, and unions decertified by default, the new environment has forced WEAC to take an organizing-model approach and get closer to its members.

The union is ratcheting up its activist base by holding more meetings, producing newsletters more frequently, pushing a union message through social networking, and spending more time in one-on-one conversations with members."

my source here is a ghost trot op dedicated to "movement " bottom up unionism
but we pro pie card top downers need the nasty ball crusher now and again to recall our "strategic mission" and its "necessary tactics "

Via IOZ.

Tehran has flaunted the drone’s capture as a victory for Iran and a defeat for the United States in a complicated intelligence and technological battle.

"Flaunted", heh. By the rules of the infantile, violently stupid game played in DC, the Iranian military has pwned Obama and his generals. They've been punked, spanked, humiliated, had their nose rubbed in dog shit and "taught a lesson" in which messages have been sent. Their incompetence has been put on display, for the whole world to ridicule, and their fantasy of high tech, full spectrum dominance has been exposed as the foolishness of techno-utopian dorks. They were pushed into their lockers and had their lunch money stolen. The cool kids are snickering at them. They were tricked into wearing their underpants outside their jeans. All this came at the hands of the Iranian military.

If they ever grow up, they're going to feel sick looking back at their idiocy.

House
Senate

The votes are for the 2012 war funding bill, with the Levin/McCain indefinite military detention provision, amended to give the White House discretion over US citizens.

Liberal Democrat Jean 'Nightstick Nellie' Quan, the mayor of Oakland, shares with a university president(*) the distinction of having repressed Occupiers most savagely so far. Of course this makes me very happy. Scratch a liberal and uncover a Fascist, as we used to say in the 60s; to which we might have added, scratch a pedagogue and uncover a cop.

Jeanie is very concerned with fairness, however:

“This is a city that has now been disrupted twice,” Mayor Jean Quan said in pleading again for restraint from demonstrators. “We think it’s unfair to the workers at the port.”

Rome, the reign of Domitian. The impresarios at the Coliseum are always looking for ways to spice up the tired old lions-vs-Christians schtick. So they hit upon the idea of burying a Christian up to his neck in the sand of the arena, then letting the lion loose. Who knows? Might be fun. When all else fails, go for the laughs.

So the chosen Christian is duly buried and the lion let loose. Now the lion -- being a cat, and also probably an old theater hand, and a bit of a ham -- decides to toy with his prey for a while. He makes a few quick leaps and gambols over the luckless Christian's protruding head. But then, amazingly, the Christian superhumanly stretches his neck and adroitly bites the lion right in the balls.

Lion limps away to a corner, mewing piteously. Crowd goes wild, of course. Chris-TIAN! Chris-TIAN!

"Whoa! Timeout!" cries the burly centurion in charge. He strides into the arena and fetches the buried Christian a jaw-shattering kick upside the head. "Fight fair, dammit!"

----------

(*) Linda 'Pepperspray' Katehi, whose Wikipedia entry makes instructive reading:

...She chaired until 2010 the President’s Committee for the National Medal of Science and the Secretary of Commerce’s committee for the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. She is a fellow and board member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of other national boards and committees, including the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board.

In April 2011, Katehi was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences....

[At Davis] Katehi charged a committee with creating a new "Vision of Excellence" for the school. She also launched several blue ribbon committees: tech transfer and commercialization, research, information technology excellence, and organizational excellence.... As of 2009, Katehi's base annual salary was $400,000.

... Katehi launched the Hate-Free Campus Initiative to reaffirm the campus’s values and commitment to one another. The initiative included creation of "Beyond Tolerance Tuesday," collaboration with the Museum of Tolerance, and the creation of a speakers series and the Civility Project, which began with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

http://labornotes.org/2011/12/west-coast-port-shutdown-sparks-heated-debate-between-unions-occupy

"For the second time in a month, the Occupy movement called for mass action to shut down port operations.This time, the occupiers targeted the entire WestCoast. The Occupy Oakland General Assembly unanimously adopted a proposal November 18 calling for the "blockade and disruption of the economic apparatus of the 1% with a coordinated shutdown of ports on the entire West Coaston December 12." ...... Occupiers planned the shutdown without consulting with the union, and the ILWU put out a statement December 6 to its members and supporters disclaiming support for the action ...."The ILWU has a long history ofdemocracy," wrote ILWU President Bob McElrath...... "Part of that historic democracy is the hard-won right to chart our own course to victory.

Members of the Occupy movement interpreted the union's distancing itself as, at best, a legal safeguard against the fines that could result from a workstoppage that violates the contract's strike bar. At worst, they saw it as a product of the union movement's timidity, born of decades of retreat and identification with employer interests

ILWU members and officials expressed alarm at how theport shutdown was called and questioned why the Occupymovements called for action without consulting thepeople that action would affect most"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the story is complex that's clear enough and in general the possible uses of outside actors
as effective union proxy is also clear:

" An independently organized action could allow the ILWU to circumvent the legal minefield set in frontof its own membership"

but

obviously these collisions among the "people" should be avoided if possible and in this case
i'm not sure the action was so urgent it needed to come quickly......
as onne old hand is quoted saying " previous shutdowns took months to prepare...."

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/01/stiglitz-depression-201201

read this vanity fair piee by cousin it stiglitiz !

its the ultimo pwog xmas fantasy

for our colletive national stocking

"... Education ...a highly educated population is a fundamental driver of economic growth.

"... basic research. ..... Without investment in basic research, what will fuel the next spurt of innovation? "

"... the states could certainly use federal help in closing budget shortfalls."

" ... skilled technicians, and initiatives for cleaner and more efficient energy production"

..."roads and railroads to levees and power plants..".

.
"... A banking system ...to serve society, not the other way around."

as a finale joe stomps his foot and blows the goo goo ram's horn :

"That we should tolerate such a confusion of ends and means says something deeply disturbing about where our economy and our society have been heading. Americans in general are coming to understand what has happened. Protesters around the country, galvanized by the Occupy Wall Street movement, already know "

yip---eee !

One of my very favorite people, Rahm Emanuel -- Likudnik, former DCCC chair, former Obie staffer, and now the occupant of Mayor Daley's throne in Chicago -- has joined the ranks of maximum-repression Democrats. Surprise, surprise:

In advance of NATO/G-8, Emanuel to increase fines for resisting arrest

Protesters who descend on Chicago for the NATO and G-8 summits would face extraordinary security measures, including dramatically higher fines for resisting arrest [and] more surveillance cameras ... under a plan proposed Wednesday by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

As extraordinary as the security measures are, Emanuel insisted that they are only temporary and would be repealed after the May event....

The ordinance introduced at Wednesday’s City Council meeting would dramatically increase fines for “resisting or obstructing” the performance of anyone “known to the person to be a peace officer” as well as the fine for assisting someone in escaping from police custody. Minimum fines for those violations would increase from $25 to $200, while maximum fines would jump from $500 to $1,000

Parks, playgrounds and beaches would be closed between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. The current overnight closing only extends until 4 a.m.

The mayor’s plan would also empower Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to “deputize law enforcement personnel,” make cooperative agreements with a host of state, federal and local law enforcement agencies, and forge agreements with “public or private entities concerning placement, installation, maintenance or use of video, audio telecommunications, or other similar equipment.”

Chicago’s Big Brother network of more than 10,000 public and private surveillance cameras is already the most extensive and integrated in the nation....

Shortly after taking office, Emanuel, a former congressman and White House chief of staff, used his formidable Washington clout to lure the NATO and G-8 summits to Chicago.

The historic event bumped the giant National Restaurant Association show to another date and forced the Chicago Police Department to brace and train for an onslaught of international protesters that threatens to wake up the ghosts of the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Concern that the same onslaught of protesters might come here has prompted high schools and colleges across the city and suburbs to either change the dates of their proms and graduations or consider rescheduling.

The mayor has apologized in advance for the inconvenience.

The critics of this ukase, quoted in the news item, mostly concentrated on the idea that such measures might be 'unconstitutional'. How this made me laugh. Talk about weak reeds.

That's the now-late Christopher Hitchens, above, after his famous waterboarding stunt. I rather admired him for doing this; it seemed enterprising and reporterly. (I used to know a TV personality who had himself Tasered on live TV, and though as a personality he was a somewhat mixed bag, I admired that action too. Ballsy.) Now that Hitchens is no more, perhaps it's the best thing to remember him by.

I sorta remember enjoying Hitchens years ago, when he was fun, though he was always a flyweight. Met the guy exactly once; he was quite charming on that occasion. Even after his conversion to Blimpery and hawkery, I found it difficult to get too worked up over him; he seemed like Exhibit A for the inconsequence of the 'public intellectual', an institution perhaps best compared with the public convenience.

Hitch's fellow Muslim-basher Dawkins (*) annoys me a lot more than Hitch ever did, for some reason; perhaps it's because of that smug sense of intellectual superiority he has. Hitch always clearly thought of himself as a clever fellow, but then he was a clever fellow; whereas Dawkins thinks he possesses a world-historical mind, when in fact he's as shallow as an oil slick.

Hitch's and Dawkins' demented frothings about Islam seem odder in the American context than in the British. A surprising number of otherwise tolerant, sophisticated, educated Brits come a bit unhinged on the subject. I wonder how far back this goes. To the siege of Khartoum? Or is it a more recent phenomenon, connected to the much-increased number of Muslims in England over the last, what, forty years? Has this development irritated into activity some long-dormant virus of Anglo-Saxon chauvinism and self-satisfaction?

Hitchen's death has of course aroused plenty of comment on my Lefty mailing lists. One contributor wrote rather amusingly:

Hitchens in his prime was one of the world's best live debaters, and [had a ] unique technique -- bad arguments were a part of it so long as they were completely new. Chess players call these TNs or Theoretical Novelties. His ability to keep generating these and pull them out in debate was unmatched. And while his honest opponent would be thinking, Is there anything to that? What's the best reply? and thus looking like he hadn't thought things through, Hitchens would hit him with a zinger. ...

Anybody can win an argument when they're right. It takes a real artist to keep taking tricks when they're not.

On the other hand, Hitch definitely became less readable when he took his right turn. I don't think this is because the booze caught up with him or anything like that. He was always as good a writer as he ever was. But it's hard to make yourself fun to read when what you're saying is just stupid.

---------------------------

(*) The duo beling collectively referred to as "Ditchkins". I wish I could claim credit for this coinage. I forget who did come up with it.

First Hitchens, then Vaclav Havel, now Kim Jong-Il. Is the Reaper suddenly tired of people who spent their lives trying to give Communism a bad name? Generally speaking, I am no friend to the Reaper, but he seems to be on a roll here. And they do over-abound, these tiresome specimens.

Of the three, I think it was Havel who irritated me most. All that prosing about morality. When you hear somebody talking about morality, it's time to count the spoons.

I vaguely remember him coming to the US, after the Velveteen Rabbitation(*) or whatever they called it, and delivering an obsequious half-hour of abject flattery to that contemptible institution, the US Congress. He was much cheered by the elected soup-hounds. Damning, eh?

But it gets worse. The strangest things happen in New York. I was in a taxi earlier today, and the driver had his radio tuned to NPR -- yes, NPR -- and I had to hear a good quarter-hour of eulogy to Havel by none other than Madeleine "Babykiller" Albright. Now that's really damning. If you ask me.

-------------------

(*)I mean no disrespect to that wonderful book The Velveteen Rabbit, which I used to read to my kids, when they were little. There was never a dry eye in the house. Nowadays, of course, they're tough-minded and unsentimental. I just hope I live long enough to see them become soft-headed and sentimental again, like their dad.

Mike writes -- accurately, I think:

As most of you know, the recent West Coast port shutdowns were a butt-kicking success, especially in Oakland. The minor downside was that it was carried out over the objections of the longshoremen’s union “leadership”. ...

But let’s move on, now, to our so-called comrades at the AFSCME, who recently endorsed Barack “Drone Strike” Obama for another term as El Presidente. AFSCME plans to scarf workers’ dues to the tune of $100 million to help re-”elect” a bloody-handed Wall Street stooge who plans to sign legislation giving the military the right to snatch and detain indefinitely anybody they damn’ well feel like....

I’m no expert, but I think that any successful workers’ struggle in this country is going to be won in spite of the mainstream unions, not because of them.

http://sinkers.org/stage/?p=1039

why bother

fellow progs
job gobs
and even you self isolating black deaf adders
harken unto me:

ohbummer these days is as over exposed as the zionic mini me

seems clear beyond transparency
the national struggle has found its purchase at the local level
and with the corporate target

the dime's worth choice ? the horse race to be next POTUS ?

a sanctimonious fools diversion
shooting eels in a barrel

"The Obama administration is in the middle of a major shift in foreign policy - a "strategic pivot," in the words of the White House - in two regions of the world: Asia and Africa. In both cases, a substantial buildup of military forces and a gloves-off use of force lie at the heart of the new approach."
that's big picture outsider as insider --- the chronic desperate chancer--Conn O'Hammerty writing in the latest ish of counter punch "hard copy"

apres sub vocalizing this piece
your reporter consulted an authority of note
ousted foreign service officer and grad school chum foggy bottom Y

"old underwear owen old and yes once quite soiled.... but now long since washed and dried .... look .this dual pivot was in the cards pre 9/11 .. you helots oughta consider the double down sand trap excursioning of baby bush nothing more then a brief off pattern romp... like central america in the 80's "

"what !"

" gulf oil is one thing ..... hell man we got sham project "contain iran" to keep
every one over there around the oil fields honest ... but the pipe lines to the stans ???.... that's side show stuff.... strictly side show ..."

as always he continued on into mockery :

"fuck sometimes i wonder about you pink MNC haters...you're like frat boys into big tits
....given time to digest upheavals and such our blessed limited liability energy boys
ain't that literal or that short sighted ... they look at the whole body its proportions its dynamics ..okay not it's soul ..but who with a job to complete does that anyway ???...
to them the arab spring is evidence the basket case future of that composite region
is long enduring ...and as for us civilizers and crusaders in the service of our country
i can assure you for us --non israeli agents at least -- the anti russian great game
is now about as central as ..well ..'wheel of fortune' to a local station's pre prime time line up

" ... the muslim menace ??..... come on paine ..really now ..the secret master plan of wall street since gorby danced into the spot light has been simple enough for a kitten to grasp:
off load that whole hapless sand storm region from club med to the streets of mumbai onto the stoic shoulders of the two nasty sanctimonious killer states that book end the place
yup
those resolute self serious jag offs that together with the kurds and maronites and assorted other sell out local peoples form a de facto greater co-prosperity
hindu- zionic eternal peace axis
i ask you
in the end isn't it their game to play out ...i mean after all ...isn't it ......??? "
the head wags slowly the hand reaches to the rugged chin

" am i to believe citizen y that 'our inner Uncle ' on advice of upper story lower manhattan .... long ago decided to let those extra fine very special choice humanist nations israel and hindia play the featured armed responder roles in camelstan...??"

" yes ... that is ... at least for the next few decent intervals and bar-ing any unforseeable eruptions and opportunities "

semi-incredulous me: " uhmm let those two just sally on ...go it alone without serious uncle ground forces .. ???"

"again ...yes ... in other words no more quags for us ... not there and NOT for uncle Sam's own sons and daughters "

"why ?"

" Uncle's got bright new ...post kold war strategic goals to pursue of a higher order
then the levant and with His ever more finite armed resources .. the question always arises 'what regions are worth daring the "other" into a direct action they'd have to refuse ??'...actions that might lead uncle himself to stick his own boot tip up a Han ass hole if
say it wonders too far into black africa .....
and of coursegiven their gonzo economy uncle needs .....and i mean right in the bastards own front yard ....to set up some lovely taiwan model hot foot receptions to any chin empire expansion "

there was more ....much more but you prolly got his drift in the first few sentences eh ??

btw here's the less hyperbolic mind of mr conn
reproduced for your delight :

http://earthmart.blogspot.com/2011/12/conn-job-exposes-latest-uncle-gambit.html

"The Senate passed the two-month extension and President Barack Obama's administration indicated it would approve it.."
but
"....the Republican-dominated House, however, rejected the bill in a 229-193 vote on Tuesday."

.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/270328/20111220/unemployment-extension-2012-house-blocks-1yr-deal.htm

------------------------------

now i know we got ourselves anotherholiday season Orthrian cliff hanger goin' here
and god bless the dirty two headed cur for that as uncle Al might say ....

considering we're having another blue blue christmas without much anyway
so if it must be rain why not let it pour ..??

.but pure coal for the job-less stockings this christmas ??....delivered to em precisely and exclusively by the house GOP ???

maybe that comes off too harsh even for tea types

ya ya ya i get the gimmick here
this inadvertent scrooge act ...this heartless stomp on the littlest of the little guys
simply polls well for Dembos ..so they aren't giving in to the quid pro quo ...
a millionaire relief extension..but where's the trap door under all this where's the 11th hour
sneak attack coming from
that silly pipe line gig ??

i hope the Orthrians have a better deeper more long lasting center aisle back stab instore for us humble citizens of the 99.9 then that squalid move

maybe this is an example to ponder in the wake of the Occs
and the no election strategy urged upon them by the confederacy of black-farts :

story fragment from 1870's spain as told by statist tyrant in waiting fred engels

the black flock view de jour :

"political action of any kind implied recognition of the State,
which was the root of all evil, and that therefore
participation in any form of elections was a crime..."

but an election was near the baby republic teetering in its cradle

what is to be done here..how can the circle be squared ???

from a report of the times cited by citizen E :

" the (black seal )International, as an association, should not engage in any political activity whatever, but that its members, as individuals, could act on their own as they thought fit and join the party they chose, in accordance with the.... doctrine of autonomy..."

outcome ?

"...most of the members of the International, including the anarchists, took part in the elections with no programme, no banner, and no candidates, thereby helping to bring about the election of almost exclusively bourgeois republicans. Only two or three workers got into the Chamber, and they represent absolutely nothing, their voice has not once been raised in defence of the interests of our class, and they cheerfully voted for all the reactionary motions tabled by the majority."

E comments
"At quiet times, when the proletariat knows beforehand that at best it can get only a few representatives to parliament and have no chance whatever of winning a parliamentary majority, the workers may sometimes be made to believe that it is a great revolutionary action to sit out the elections at home, and in general, not to attack the State in which they live and which oppresses them, but to attack the State as such which exists nowhere and which accordingly cannot defend itself. This is a splendid way of behaving in a revolutionary manner, especially for people who lose heart easily; "

sound like agit prop not first draft of history well go read up on it then !
start here maybe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Spanish_Republic

union staff hack milly paine
dark op trouble maker and my daughter
fired that line at me the other day

and i've been revolving it in my meme centrafuge ever since
i'm getting a few prelim indications of a pattern
but i turn to you comrades

what is there in this notion:

Clio has many roles for us to play from time to time .

my first reaction is to note that of course its the ' from time to time' bit that is the rub ...no ??

this is a time burdened with possibility
so lots that otherwise might seem senselessly counter productive and only serve to alibi
official crack downs
is now and for a certain indecent interval maybe not only a righteous but a right action

maybe now during this opportune time we need a group or three orbiting around out there
raising a certain petty vandals version of retributive hellfire

we hope we are entering a general mass turn toward disobedience and even outlawry
a time for upping the transgessive ante
maybe now we the people need this quality of nihilistic inspiration
maybe we need a bout of nasty defiant desecrational and purely destructive gestures,,,,

an outburst of dark thunder symbolic acts

-------------------------

surely most of us weebles have nothing against
busting a few fuckin banks glass fronts now do we ???

lets start with that assumption anyway
and maybe work back to some optimal circumstances

hey my mother always claimed
there's a time and a place for everything under the sun

http://26.media.tumblr.com/oAzqy0jJ9lsb14osJZVirOPjo1_500.jpg

http://institute.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2011125122/bitter-editorial-rant-kills-fact-checker-model-ends-politifact-we-know-it

the hord of croaking pwogs are by turns indignant and triumphant over the big lie award winner
at politifacts

yes the GOP was out to destroy medicare as we know it with their infernal voucher plan
say pwogs
how dare you politifax maximus farts call our campaign against this outrage against hapless humanity
an instance of "big lie " time ...in fact the big lie of the year !

head poodle of this non partisan neutral nit wit outfit buffy Adair
reacted in print alas with shameful ill considered foolishness
why counter the expected left of center salvo with such a graceless arrogant stuff shirt pot shot ??

which naturally enough brought forth yet another salvo this time however full
of chortling and posed anguish ahh you bastard
you gave them pwog big foots a self satisfying morning with that pecksniff act ..

chortle example :

"Today Politifact Editor Bill Adair probably ruined his outlet's chances of ever being taken seriously again as an objective debunker of political spin. What a shame. "

what a "shame" ??? give me a break cowhead

"There's a glaring need for somebody to play that role" ?
really ?
a glaring need ?.... for an " objective debunker of poitical spin.."?
...unicorns are less imaginary then objective journalists asshole

but that aside...
this is a line i can really get behind and hump :

".. Politifact was in a unique position to ...(be an objective debunker)...
--- trumpet blast please ---
"... Its parent newspaper is owned by a foundation..."

a foundation no less ...a foundation that paragon form of bourgeois humanism

now that
".... should relieve them of some of the pressures
that for-profit publishers place on editors"

get it ??

non profit ops are objective ops ...like brown eggs are fresh eggs
write that down for future reference will u

file it under
"telling samples of pwog-prig new speak..."

why folks
if these long suffering conscience riven and goo goo driven
shirt and tie pwogs ever had their way with the "ecomony"
you can bet your last dollar
all corporations yes all of em ...no matter how venal ...hell even porn flick makers
would get their "profit balls" clipped off ...err or better yet
never allowed to grow a pair in the first place

now that's objectifying and uhmm ..... then some !!

topshelf pwogs arise
neuter the for profit corporations
even if its only in your dreams

neuter the fuckers
even as you've neutered yourselves

http://jacobinmag.com/winter-2012/the-strike-and-its-enemies/

its a long term syndrome:
union pie cards craving snug, sealed room, closed door negotiations
with " their corporate peers"
and fearing and loathing wide open, toe to toe strikes like...well like
house cats hate lakes....... even lakes full of fish

you may ask yourself " how the hell did we get here from 1946 ???"

ahh ' 46 what a rising that was brothers and sisters
like the roar of a "new age dawning" ..... an age of union militancy

t'was not to be ..

in fact quite the opposite ...we never got that high again ..never ...not even once
the early 70's saw an echo but ....general direction ?

union strength : down down ...DOWN THE DRAIN !!!!

Why ? lots of whys really . So well ... Its prolly not a bad personal improvement goal
to slap together your very own --- hugely special and individuaized--
" inner narrative " of this complexly grim
and utterly endless
bummer of a story .

There are scores of useful sources to "consult "of course .
today U might start here
by reading this BOOK review from the cutting edge e-rag " jackoff "

'The Strike and Its Enemies'

http://jacobinmag.com/winter-2012/the-strike-and-its-enemies/

tidbit:

" a little book published this year by Joe Burns, a union negotiator in Minneapolis, demystifies what is probably the most tangible element in modern labor’s aura of lifelessness: the virtual disappearance of the strike..... At the center of Burns’ story is what he calls “the traditional strike,” which was the heart of trade union activity from the beginnings of labor history until its virtual disappearance after the 1970s. The crucial characteristic of the traditional strike — its sole reason for being — is that it forces capital to stop production. Although this fact may seem slightly obvious, its significance for both workers and radicals has been largely forgotten"

and note this you dark pink farts:

"...in telling the story of the strike’s disappearance, Burns... reveals...
young radicals who scorn unions and the aging bureaucrats who run them
have more in common than one might think."

--------------------------------------------------
ambitious ??
here's another review/ interview
with the author of a recent one union case study

http://www.bethstollman.info/2011/12/20/qa-with-we-are-the-union-author-dana-cloud-4/

http://health.newamerica.net/blogposts/2011/disease_creep_how_were_fooled_into_using_more_medicine_than_we_need-61818

we suffer from massive disease creep !

markers for a disease are overwhelmingly less then fully predictive and yet we plunge ahead
flooding the problem with preventatives

as a nation we spend gillions every year on pre emptive medicatings surgeries etc
hell our disease fighting system is like the GWOT technique of baby bush
pre-emptive attacks in search of internal WMD's

and as this delightful article points out :

"Disease creep, or our drive to catch disease early, and the counterintuitive nature of waiting for symptoms, are pushing more and more of us onto medicines we may not need. In addition to “pre-heart disease,” which is in effect what having elevated cholesterol amounts to, we now have pre-hypertension and pre-diabetes. We catch cancers too early to know if they are ever going to cause a problem. And we put a million stents a year in people’s hearts – yet elective stent placement offers no benefit at all in terms of reduced heart attacks or deaths. Nearly half the population in the U.S. is taking at least one prescribed drug, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than one in ten is taking five or more medicines. Yet we are sicker and don’t live as long as people in Canada or England – or 35 other nations where they generally take fewer medicines and undergo fewer tests."

gillions baby gillions for pre-emption but not one dime for common sense

no money in that gig

a sage over at the dougout :

"I hope everyone remembers that in the original greek, the root of school meant "leisure." Students, like the whole workingclass, need more time to loaf. That should be the very center of leftstruggle. More time to loaf. It would even make a good revolutionary slogan. "

right up father smitherington's ally

People who know Robert Naiman tell me he's a nice well-meaning guy, but he just put up, on Arianna's vanity site, one of the dumbest exercises in lesserevillism I've seen in a while. It's got all the ingredients:

Shouldn't the fact that the Iraq war was a consequence of George W. Bush becoming president, although that consequence was not apparent in 2000, inform how we judge the likely consequences of Mitt Romney becoming president?

No one can say that a war with Iran would be a certain consequence of Mitt Romney becoming president... [but] Who wants to roll the dice?

It doesn't seem terribly likely to me that either Romney or Obie will attack Iran, for what that's worth. But it's far from clear that either is less likely to do it than the other.

Of course we quickly segue from predicting the future (and postdicting the past) to an advanced graduate seminar in Crackpot Realism:

Should there not be a Super PAC explicitly devoted to educating Americans about the danger that Mitt Romney becoming President will lead to more war? Shouldn't such a Super PAC be formed now? Why wait until September to start educating and mobilizing Americans against this? Might that not be too late? Why wait to defend the city until the barbarians are at the city gates? Shouldn't we try to stop the barbarians from reaching the city gates?

I particularly love the deeply conservative, even Blimpish, barbarians-at-the gates metaphor. The barbarians are not at the gates. The barbarians run the city. Every Senator is a barbarian, every Praetorian is a barbarian, every proconsul and curule aedile and prothonotary is a barbarian. It's barbarians all the way down. Even before the barbarians won, the anti-barbarians were barbarians themselves.

Naiman understandably wants to prevent the more barbarous barbarians from taking over. But he seems to overlook the fact that the less barbarous barbarians are getting more barbarous every day, half a pace or so behind the barbarissimi.

It's a kind of freeze-frame view of the world. The Naimans are like the opposite of T. Rex -- they can't see motion.

i say there's
lots of valid answers to that ...of course there are

the greatest country on earth's providential orthrian swindle ??

why folks isn't it built right into the system ??

we the weebles
will always get the likes of that tidiously blatant
' two ways to no where' false set of options
or some other equivalent shambolee
some other "culture specific"
forced non choice ballot boxing tournement

-------------------------

fuck in fact baby some such" rig a gig" is a "wildly over determined"
"product" of any possible up to dated
corporate dominated modern market based society

---------------------------------

i'd just like to point out

one strand of possible real but largely submerged causation here today:

the election of POTUS next
as just another 'relative and absolute'
"weighing of mass forces"

---- background moment----:

in each electoral contest
( as complex as the array of apparent brand based
alternative outcomes that float on the surface )
in the final event
will boil down to a few decisive real dime's worth of differences
ie just a few notable cola v uncola choices that will "objectively weigh the pollity at that moment

and its from these implicit choices
expressed by the masses ( and the intensity of their expression)
between alternative future paths for "the system "
that "the system's " keepers and guardians
can and will sense for themselves
the span of action-re action both open to them
and collectively judged to be better for the mid term stability of the system itself

-- ie needless to say
the actions/ reactions in these dimensions are indeed
more or less pre- constrained by the specific framings of the two possible outcomes ---

now as to the real choice next fall

well there isn't much f one this time so far

why ??

take one option
say if its a romney v ohbummer battle

this will amount to less of a choice space
then ohbumer gingrich
in fact no choice space worth sweating over at all really

but here's where you better separate yourself
from the crack pots

if on the other hand it is a gingrich type scare crow barry faces

yup
say gingrich gets the nod .....

do we pwogs panic retrench circle the wagons
unite like so many chicken littles behind ohbummer
cackle into line behind the barry re elect crowd
say along side the senile pop front crones like the CP webb-ster-ites ??

i say no

i say we can trust the pissed off majority ...in the present context

the people that vote will do the right thing ...like in 1964

even so
either way

say the GOPers win the white house and it is a gingrich on a rogue mission

like the neo con mission after '00
only domestically aimed

well citizens just look at the outcome of the '10 elections

that GOPer reactionary landslide led to what ??

a bold over reach by the corporate guided "policy right ."
.
the win drunk dopes saw an opportunity to smash the pub sec unions
and took it

but
suddenly we pwogs had an openning
an openning called madison
and i submit occ wall street came of this hubris too
came of this over reach

the wall occ movement was a for sure for sure
after the corporate backed romping of winter '11

after that
we had real mass based push back

union pie cards forced into an alliance with raw progs

something not achieved even after '68

and its just while viewing this drama
these events after the GOPer landslide in '10
that we can make the decisive determination
about '12

and here i think is how we make this determination

...by the answer to one underlying question

does the corporate state today ...here and now ...
have room to reform itself ??

you know in this present conjuncture
ie this present global stag

or

must the state already pushed to the limit of its range
now simply react flail out at us weebles with a destructive fury ??

i submit there is indeed room enough here ... room enough for progressive reforms

and its precisely the soft handed multi level " state " reaction to the Occ
that i offer as exhibit A

so ??

well so we go for it we push harder .... we take the road taken by the left in summer/ fall '68

we kick as hard as our ability to raise hell allows

and at both heads of the orthrian hegemony

kick at ohbummer directly ??

well you know my take there
and its just tactics

my take
we have limited forces so why bother
one way or other

i say forget the national horse race all together
but u go ahead kick away

and either way "contest wise "

whether its romney v barry or barry v filll in the blank
headless dark horseman
nothing at stake but the specific choice it produces for fight back
after the election not b4
the next tactical stage ??

well imagine "the worse "
imagine if we get a gingrich as gop candidate
..he can't win anymore then goldwater in 64

the masses know theres a national reformation to be done here
and more imnportantly from the corporate suite view of this
unlike the always sited bruning dilemma

today a reactionary fantic need not win
not in this national system not with this ample room for reforms
not here and not now

re electing barry over a rightest scoundrel
will not threaten corporate hegemony but might improve the job class pottage flow

and per chance if we get romney as nom ... well that prez dispensor wax head
may be personally revolting to bare for 4 to 8 far worse then gingrich or perry even
or donald trump for that matter

but regardless of taste in the mouth
romney at the largest can only "be"
a wind up phoney remake of a nixon

which means as with the 68 choice
nixon v hump
barry v mit
would be as wallace suggsted at the time
only the thinest of dimes difference of a choice

and i say only
because if my generation of pink swine made a biggest strategic blunder
it was over personalizing "the enemy " of progressive reason and enlightenment

nixon was no anti christ

the hump and nixon were blood brothers two heads jutting out of the same kold war body

deposing the one head after 6 years of struggle was not a victory for the good fellahs
just the inevitable outcome of a shrewd guardian class "scape goat " deflection diversion scam

yup
forget about who's potus next time and maybe the time after that

fight hard enough and we'll get a potus
facing mass demands he/she can't refuse to accept
ala lbj and NIXON !!!!

--- look back at the de facto "DOMESTIC " policy of nixon its continuity you see with the great society not a reversal that had to await reagan --

so sisters and brothers i say
stay on the beam
stick with blocking the flow
at a thousand different points
stay oriented toward the streets and squares
from wall street to the local city "green"

and stay aimed at the corporate hq behind the "multi level gubmint puppet show "

okay maybe add a taste of 1930's razzle dazle

maybe hit the job floors
maybe occupy a few of them ...next time

I was rather severe on Robert Naiman a couple of posts ago. In a subsequent email exchange he has expressed a more interesting point of view than I gave him credit for. Among other things, he is a Ron Paulite, with qualifications of course:

[Paul] is against the wars. That's why I am supporting him: to undermine the pro-war consensus in the Republican Party, which is a key obstacle to efforts to end the wars.

... what I am doing is not actually campaigning for him, but using him as a hook to push an antiwar agenda.

... I suspect that some of the "liberals" who are apoplectic about Ron Paul are really *New Republic* liberals, who hate his opposition to the Empire but are hiding behind faux concern about his domestic policies.

Robert Naiman has set a foxlet among the henwoodery on my lefty mailing lists. He writes:

[I'm] cheerleading for the 8,400 Democrats and independents who, according to Public Policy Polling, are planning to vote for Paul in Iowa to protest against the war.

8,400? Is that all? More people live in my zip code.

And really, aside from the war, the guy is a racist reactionary.

The 8,400 number, of course, is the projected number of Iowa caucus participants who are expected to vote for Paul because of his anti-war stand. Since the total number of participants in the caucus is somewhere on the order of 100K, this is hardly an insignificant quantity.

What's more interesting, of course, is the shallow schematism of 'racist reactionary'. Guy's a racist reactionary. Stop thinking immediately. Next case.

There are a number of angles form which one could approach this. Example: Of course he's a racist reactionary. They're all racist reactionaries. But he's the only racist reactionary who's an anti-war racist reactionary. Doesn't that make him a significantly lesser evil?

Another contributor to the list observed that most racist single institution in American life is the "drug war," and the Paul is against that too. Now the drug war does a lot more actual harm to black folks in the US than any number of David Dukes or Willis Cartos; but of course Obie is solidly behind the drug war, as all the respectable candidates are. So really, who's the racist here?

Damn good point, I'd say.

Here's a fun piece:

Academic Publishers: Suicide Bombers Against the Academy

I lost my marbles the other day when I saw this article from Cambridge University press offering to rent me some academic articles:

For just £3.99, $5.99 or €4.49, users are now able to read single articles online for up to 24 hours, a saving of up to 86 per cent, compared with the cost of purchasing the article.

Of course, you can’t save, print, or do anything with the article except read it on line, then it disappears. What useless crap! Say you’re doing some research and you need a citation. $5.99 might be OK if you only needed one article. But the average academic article has 20-100 citations. And honestly, a good article is not something you read once and have done with it – you need to check it a few times and do some re-reading to absorb it. So this rental is really just a ‘teaser’ – it’s just enough access to decide if you really need to have something, after which you have the privilege of buying one of these articles for $30-$75. Yes, that’s really how much they charge! For one fucking article!

... Let me call your attention to American hero Aaron Swartz of hacktivist group Demand Progress, who downloaded 4 million articles from JSTOR from the MIT servers using anonymous logins and automated programs. JSTOR and the university freaked out and called the cops, and now Swartz faces federal charges and up to 35 years in prison. Not for disseminating the information, just for downloading it. But ‘theft is theft’ said the MIT administration. JSTOR bills itself as a harmless public repository of knowledge - as long as you don't want too much of it.

The copyright zealots who make it their business to restrict access to the world’s artistic, musical, and visual patrimony are perverts. Two hundred years ago these guys would have been hanging hungry people for stealing food. Under the logic of copyright, the miracle of the loaves and fishes would be theft from the bakers and the fisherman, and Jesus and his disciples criminals who should pay $1 million per loaf illegally downloaded from heaven. Who cares if we can make an infinite amount of bread, and a lot of people are hungry? Think of the rights of the bakers!

http://newunionism.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/is-a-new-unionism-developing-in-israel/

doin' a WAC job on neo liberalism

"The Workers’ Advice Center WAC-Maan (WAC) was established in the mid-1990s. It was set up outside the framework of Israel’s largest trade union federation — the Histadrut — and was openly opposed to neo-liberalism. WAC has sought to combine social struggle with the struggle for peace and against the occupation, together with the fight against discrimination on a national basis...While capitalism in the ’90s was promising growth for all, WAC defended workers who were being pushed to the margins. Confronting insular Jewish and Arab nationalistic and religious trends, which developed after the second intifada (in 2000), WAC argued for a new model of partnership on a class basis between Jewish and Arab workers"

the piece has some nuggets one might chew ....

evaluation??

not my beat of course i post this because for once i found something that both interested me
and
might feed the anti izzy sharks here at SMBIVA

http://dissentmagazine.org/atw.php?id=644

the occ has to face the ballot boxing ahead
.here's a line :

" We are here to make the caucuses a true representation of democracy..."

and some soaring by another ..on cable tv no less

"We are here tonight to overthrow money-power with people power."

not sure about the timing implied here eh ?? oddly tinker belle ish to me ..
obviously the occ is in no position to "make " anything happen
"caucus "wise or for that matter primary wise either " .. at least not yet

i've noticed this b4 with occ speak
no modulation of the rhetoric
even where there can be a certain silliness in the extent of the claims

self righteous sometimes gets ahead of itself and an " intention " or two
becomes by the power of declamation alone a four square " is "

however i must admit if this mode of oration goes on at length its impact only improves

example:

"...We are here tonight as citizens and patriots to preserve our democracy from the corrupting influence of Wall Street and big corporations. We are here tonight to raise our voices in defense of the American dream. We arehere tonight to restore the American politicalsystem and American society, to make it human-centered, not profit-centered. We are here tonight to follow through on the vision of our founders and the vision of the great American social movements of the past, the movements that ended slavery, gave women the right to vote, ended racial segregation in our communities, established safe working conditions and good wages for hard-working Americans and their families. We are here tonight because our political leaders are no longer able to lead us. Now is the time for us to lead, for the people of the United States, the 99 percent, to rise up, and restore America, to recreate it, truly, as a nation of opportunity, equality, and justice."

and then there's this :

"We are not here to disrupt the caucus....The real disruption is how much money Wall Street
has put into our political system."

yes the disruption has already happened ...
democracy,
the people choosing their leadership from among themselves
is already disrupted corrupted rendered null and void

this is righteous witnessing for the 99%

testimony for the people's prosecution so to speak
the bassis for a counter nullification

a declaration of the people

"this two party one master farce is utterly bogus from beginning to end "

with that line
the dance has at least and at last begun !!!!

Guantanamo Bay: coming soon to your neighborhood. Mr Hope and Change just signed today -- rather quietly -- a military spending bill which includes authorization for the military to 'detain' anybody, anywhere, and indefinitely -- including Amurrican citizens -- whenever it pleases.

Of course Obie says he won't use the power thus thrust upon him. What a guy.