Category: American Empire

I am always amazed that someone as young as me can have so many grandchildren to be proud of. At last count I have 9 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren. I am proud of each of them for a variety of reasons.

Today, in talking to my oldest grandchild – Josh – I told him how much I missed his grandfather, particularly during this voting season. Bob was an activist and very involved in all political functions. Josh blew me away when he told me that, “Grandpa is living through me. I am doing what I know he would do, and am actively working on Obama’s reelection.”

He sent me an article that I would like to share with you, because Josh, at the age of 28, is becoming aware of the strength and failure of politicians today. In his own words:

When America made me proud.

Near the end of George W. Bush’s 2nd term I became a “Proud American”. I felt the passion that our ancestors must have felt when they learned of a country where their vote counted. People were talking politics everywhere, Republican and Democrat.

House Republicans say they’re going to fix controversial provisions in Obama’s defense spending bill. Don’t believe it.

By Adam Serwer / Mother Jones / May 4, 2012

Facing a serious civil liberties backlash, Congress is considering changing a controversial counterterrorism law it passed last year. Yet the leading fix, backed by House Republicans, may not be a fix at all.

Last year, during consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act, Congress came close to authorizing the indefinite detention of American citizens captured on US soil who were suspected of terrorism. Ultimately, the House, the Senate, and the White House agreed on a compromise that would let federal courts decide whether such detentions were constitutional. That is, when confronted with the knotty question of whether the US government can detain its own citizens within the nation’s borders without charging them with a crime, Congress decided not to decide.

American Enterprise Institute And Brookings Must-Read: ‘The Republicans Are The Problem’

By Joe Romm / ThinkProgress / April 28, 2012

Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann tell the media “a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality.”

Two leading political scholars — representing the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the centrist Brookings Institution – have published a must-read article, “Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.”

Editor: This rant is from John M Williams, our good friend, former OBcean, former writer for the original OB Rag, who now sits in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, and works as an English instructor. He has, on occasion, even written his column, “Riyadh Calling”. Here is his rant – America from outside.

From Stitt-on-Schink, Republic of FarVonna

Do you not ponder how things came to this?

By “this,” I mean:

1. Corporations are people.

2. Habeus corpus is no more.

3. Once labeled a “terrorist,” one, regardless of any thing else, can legally be killed anywhere on the planet. The “right” and “might” of the Federal Government of the United States of America (FGUSA) to “defend freedom, democracy, and the American way” knows, respects, acknowledges no boundaries. In fact, the FGUSA routinely shrugs off the death of innocents while in pursuit of its own safety and targets. Oh yeah, they do sometimes (for the cameras) say, “Sorry.” and send a check. Check any news service virtually any week if you dispute this claim. My advice here is: Don’t be a target.

Editor: Here’s a disturbing report about how New York police raided the homes of activists preparing for the May Day protests on the day before.

By Adrian Chen / Gawker / April 30, 2012

A day before Occupy Wall Street hopes to shut down New York and cities across the country in massive May Day protests, the NYPD visited at least three activist homes in New York and interrogated residents about plans for tomorrow’s protest.

Hundreds of San Diegans rallied and marched today – May Day – in solidarity with janitors and teachers here – and joining a global May Day and Occupy joint focus in demonstrations around the nation and world.

Major protests were also held in New York City, Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco and up to a total of 135 cities across the U.S. Corporate media reports on these demonstrations – the first major wave of Occupy Wall Street protests in months – focused on some trashing and violence – plus arrests – in Seattle, New York City, and Oakland.

The day of rallies and protests in San Diego began at City College in downtown. There was another rally sponsored by mainly labor groups at the Civic Center Plaza at the noon hour – with a march from there to two local banks a couple of blocks away: Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

Meanwhile, teachers and their supporters were rallying up at the edge of Balboa Park in front of Roosevelt Middle School in protest of teacher and budget cuts. After hearing speeches – including one from mayoral candidate Congressman Bob Filner – the crowd marched to the Education Center.

Occupy actions planned on May Day are tied to the generations-long movement for the eight-hour day, to immigrant workers, to police brutality and repression of the labor movement.

By Jacob Remes / AlterNet / April 27, 2012 |

American general strikes—or rather, American calls for general strikes, like the one Occupy Los Angeles issued last December that has been endorsed by over 150 general assemblies—are tinged with nostalgia.

The last real general strike in this country, which is to say, the last general strike that shut down a city, was in Oakland, California in 1946—though journalist John Nichols has suggested that what we saw in Madison, Wisconsin last year was a sort of general strike.

International Press Inform that the Main Issues Were Cuba, Legalization of Drugs, and the U.S.’s Isolation from South America

by JEC / Special to the OB Rag / April 25, 2012

Would I sound naïve – perhaps pedantic – to say American media is censored? I just had one those “moments” when information falls in your lap by chance. Like an overheard comment, the authenticity is powerful. As it happened I was in Cartagena, Columbia on Saturday, April 14th, in the midst of the “Summit of the Americas”. I was on the cruise ship “Rotterdam” just after passing through the Panama Canal.

The Summit of the Americas was ever present; helicopters in the air, speed boats cruising the harbor. The streets were nearly lined with police/troops most often holding automatic weapons. Reportedly over 90% of all police and security forces of the entire country where in Cartagena to protect the 33 heads of states. Two small bombs exploded the night before getting everyone in the proper mood.

But what do Americans know?

The Secret Service sex scandal and that’s about it. It was the lead story on the Nightly News Monday night (4/23/12). I’ve heard nothing but the 24/7 drum beat since I returned five days ago – sex, sex, sex – seems to serve as the filler for America media.

By Frank Rich / The New Yorker / April 22, 2012

The first 25 conservative donors to give $1 million or more to super-PACs this cycle, either on their own, with their families, or with companies that they or their families control. Others have likely given millions more to 501(c)(4)s, “social welfare” groups that are not required to disclose their donors. (Based on filings through February 29.)

Sheldon Adelson, casino developer, his wife, Miriam, and their family

$16.5 million: Gingrich

_____

Harold Simmons, leveraged-buyout pioneer, his wife, Annette, and his holding company, Contran Corporation

$15.4 million: Crossroads, Perry, Gingrich, Santorum, Romney

By Frank Rich / The New Yorker / April 22, 2012

If you want to appreciate what Barack Obama is up against in 2012, forget about the front man who is his nominal opponent and look instead at the Republican billionaires buying the ammunition for the battles ahead. A representative example is Harold Simmons, an 80-year-old Texan who dumped some $15 million into the campaign before primary season had ended. Reminiscing about 2008, when he bankrolled an ad blitz to tar the Democrats with the former radical Bill Ayers, Simmons told The Wall Street Journal, “If we had run more ads, we could have killed Obama.”

It is not a mistake he intends to make a second time. The $15 million Simmons had spent by late February dwarfs the $2.8 million he allotted to the Ayers takedown and the $3 million he contributed to the Swift Boat Veterans demolition of John Kerry four years before that. Imagine the cash that will flow now that the GOP sideshows are over and the president is firmly in Simmons’s crosshairs.

I jump at every chance available to me to soften the racist and xenophobic noise that emanates from Arizona incessantly.

Why? Because when you’re subjected to second class citizenship as I was as a child in the Grand Canyon State your life’s dreams are filled with images of a better world, a world where all people are treated with dignity as human beings who are deserving of love.

So, along these lines, two dear friends of mine, Marjorie Cohn, attorney, professor of Thomas Jefferson Law school, author of several books (her latest, “The United States and Torture: Interrogation, incarceration and Abuse”), Angela Garcia-Sims, retired educator and educational consultant extraordinaire, and I have put together a panel to discuss the implications of SB1070, Arizona’s racial profiling law. The United States Supreme Court will hear arguments regarding this sad piece of legislation on Wednesday, April 25.

Our panel on the matter will take place

Monday, April 23, at 7:15 pm to 8:45 pm in Room 323 at

Thomas Jefferson School of Law,

1155 Island Avenue, San Diego.