Sunday, May 13, 2012
The Mason Missile, May 13, 2012
Greetings, freedom fighters!Happy Mother's Day to the sisters!
My friend Fran Metzman has a new book collection out, The Hungry Heart Stories, available now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please look Fran up at www.franmetzman.com, and in the online journal Wild River Review (www.wildriverreview.com).
I have been celebrating Workers Memorial Day, a day to honor workers killed on the job, due to the negligence and stinginess of their employers; and to advocate for greater occupational safety and health rules. Workers have died in the most horrific ways, and the corporations howl in pain when they have to install safety equipment, whining about “excessive government regulation,” etc. The penalties for workers’ deaths, such as OSHA fines, are treated as a loss and they factor it into their budgets; lives are meaningless to these plutocrats, when it comes to the bottom line. For information about Workers Memorial Day, I recommend the Philadelphia Project for Occupational Safety and Health (PHILAPOSH) (I’m on the Board) at www.philaposh.org
I have also been celebrating May Day, i.e. International Workers’ Day, celebrated throughout the world by All workers-except, alas, in the US of A. The corporate-media-political complex took the cruel reality of the Stalinist system ruling the Soviet Union and its eastern European satellites, and turned every challenge to the corporate status quo into a tentacle of the “international Communist conspiracy,” as a way to bring social protest movements under some form of control. Let us continue liberating our minds. For information about May Day, contact www.maydayusa.org.
I often worry about “What if Mitt Romney becomes President?” Here is a man who said “Corporations are people, my friend” –showing he’s NO friend of workers; and whose idea for students struggling with financial aid is to borrow from their parents, who have their OWN financial problems-here is a man disassociated from the concerns of working people, and whose economic program is a rehash of Reagan “supply-side” economics-cut taxes on corporations, while raising spending on the military beyond what is necessary for defending the nation. Ronald Reagan started this program, George W. Bush followed it, and Romney is also.
It is through this program that the gap between the richest and the poorest Americans has grown, and the middle class, to which the poorest at least could hope to get into, has shrunk; that such social services as school, hospitals, parks, police, fire, etc., are understaffed and are allowed to fall apart; and workers are powerless against faulty construction, mine cave-ins, chemical fumes and spills, fire hazards, sexual harassment and abuse, underpayment, and the closing of plants and moving the business to another country, causing entire nations to be pools of scab labor.
Workers are either unemployed or underemployed; they have no money to pay for the necessities as food, utilities, mortgage, etc. Are we expected to accept this forever? Should we believe something won’t burst open?
Romney has talked about his time at his company, Bain Capital, as proof that he can grow the economy better than Obama can. His company bought up failing businesses, let go of workers, sold their assets, and reaped huge profits; THIS is the future of capitalism? Romney talks about creating jobs, but his business model is one of taking jobs away.
Change continues in this country. The Pew Research Center's surveys show that the most positively-thought-of political label is-Progressive. Plus, young people of high-school and college age are move lively to favor Socialism over capitalism. (I capitalized "Socialism" deliberately.) It's a combination of the events in the world, combined with the decades of dedicated work by conscious people working to make a difference-the activists conservatives talk about with hate.
One example of this is in LGBT rights. I remember Gay rights was such a radical idea; it’s a little over forty years after the Stonewall riots, which jump-started the LGBT civil-rights movement. Historically that’s not a long time ago. After the Stonewall riots, coming along with the Feminist resurgence, the anti-Vietnam war and Civil Rights movements, Gays of every demographic group organized along many fronts-political action, academic research, religious acceptance, and legal protection, among others. Alas, there was the inevitable backlash, the attempt to reverse LGBT civil rights gains.
Now, President Obama has come out in favor of same-sex marriage, even after the passing of the anti-same-sex-marriage amendment in North Carolina-a pretty gutsy move on his part. The repeal of the ridiculous military “Don’t-ask-don’t-tell” rule went off well; the military has adapted well to the new reality. The public mind has shifted in favor of full LGBT rights, and that’s great; but I don’t think it should require public permission, or a Gallup poll, to attain your civil and human rights. “No, you may not be permitted to hold a job in spite of your sexual preference/gender/race/religion/whatever.”
It was through persistent work by dedicated activists over a period of time that the public perception of LGBT rights has shifted, as well as perceptions of Gays themselves; we all know someone who’s Gay, whether we know their orientation or not, and we might not care; and many of us live in a municipality with a lively Gay scene and an established “gayborhood,” like in Philadelphia. In the long run, the homophobic war on Gay rights, like the Anita Bryant campaign in Florida in 1977, has failed; LGBT people are NOT going back into the closet, the genie is out of the bottle.
President Obama says he has "evolved" on LGBT issues; so has the rest of the nation, including myself. Such evolution is not something that just "happens," it's the outcome of conscious people causing things to happen, along with the historical situation in the world, and we give shape to the evolution by our work. Let us continue to do so.
Bye!
Thursday, March 29, 2012
The Mason Missile, March 29, 2012
Greetings, freedom fighters! My dear friend Fran Metzman now has a book of short stories out, The Hungry Heart, available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please look it up.
I am experimenting with a new web site through the web hosting service, webs.com; please look up jomason.webs.com and let me know what you think.
I, with my wonderful congregation Leyv Ha-Ir, celebrated Purim, the wild and crazy Jewish holiday celebrating the downfall of Haman (boo!), who as vizier to the Persian King tried to massacre all the Jews in the realm; but his plan was foiled by Mordechai (yay!) entering his beautiful cousin Esther (woo hoo!) into a beauty pageant to be the queen, and Haman’s plot was foiled.
It’s the celebration of the downfall of a tyrant; the world has been full of them, people who have become legends in their own minds, such as Mubarak in Egypt, Ghadaffi in Libya, and Assad in Syria. There are also mental Hamans as well, within our psyches, such as low self-esteem and self-doubts, which we daily must overthrow; I know, I deal with them as well.
Now coming up is the holiday of Passover, the liberating of the Jews from Pharaoh's slavery in Egypt. The traditional word for Egypt in Hebrew is Mitzrayim, “the narrow place,” the place of limitation. There are Pharaohs in the word today-political dictators for one thing, also abusive relationships-as well as internal Pharaohs, like the voice inside you that says, “I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, I can’t do it.” Those dictators and tyrants, inside and around you, also need to be vanquished.
One issue I have dealt with is allowing myself downtime, time of rest and recreation and plain ol’ fun, however you define it; I have often felt guilty about not doing something “productive.” But when we went to school and studied, we twice daily had recess, so it’s not an either-or situation. Having fun and recreation can be a great revolt against the inner and outer Hamans and Pharaohs in the world, you can in effect say to them, “Screw you, I’m not your damn pack mule!”
We are living in a stuck-on-stupid era, where one large, organized, and wealthy political party, the Republican, is appeasing ignoramuses, haters, xenophobes, and religious fanatics, which has become their base and needs constantly to be catered to for votes. Total racists have appeared on the stage of the past Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), and none of the Republican candidates called them out on it, nor do they disassociate from them. They act like the racist nut jobs truly represent the American people, that WE the people are entirely moved by racism, religious bigotry (like against our Muslim fellow Americans), and homophobia (with the crusades against same-sex marriage); it’s THEM that are the elitists, THEM who think we’re so stupid as to think we can’t see the real situation, with the economy.
At the CPAC conference, a couple of conservative activists put on a rap show, jumping around in track suits while wearing colonial-era wigs, reminding me of a pre-Civil War minstrel show; the duo let out what sounded like a certain nasty N word, and the Black man working the controls walked out, and the activists insisted they said "knickers." This is in line with Rick Santorum's statement that "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money." Oh, wait, he said he meant "blah" people! Make a racist statement and then deny you said it-What does he think we're smoking, or else what's HE smoking? Is that the mentality of the conservative movement-play up racist sentiments while denying racist feelings? A movement, like an individual, can be, and IS, in denial.
In earlier CPACs the John Birch Society, which accused every worthwhile social movement and Dwight Eisenhower of being “communist“, reemerged from its rock; now it's "white nationalists" like Peter Brimelow, who runs the racist web site VDARE, and Joseph Farah, who runs the web site WorldNetDaily, which STILL, no matter what facts you put before them, insists that Obama was born in Kenya, and is thus not qualified to be President. This is the movement that prided itself on being cold-bloodedly "realistic" about the world, as opposed to the "bleeding-heart, soft-headed" liberals; it has its own news media, and so apparently it has its own news and its own reality.
I hope Obama has given up trying to reason with conservatives; they don't want to compromise or meet half way or get equal time on TV-they want to control us, to smash us. Let's let them know that WON'T happen.
I close with this bit of shameless self-promotion: I, along with other poets in the Philadelphia area, will read my material at the 16th Annual Poetry Ink, to be held April 22 at noon at Robin’s Books/Moonstone Arts Center, 110A South 13th Street, in Philadelphia. I urge everyone within the sound of this newsletter to attend-the arts are for ALL of us. Bye!
I am experimenting with a new web site through the web hosting service, webs.com; please look up jomason.webs.com and let me know what you think.
I, with my wonderful congregation Leyv Ha-Ir, celebrated Purim, the wild and crazy Jewish holiday celebrating the downfall of Haman (boo!), who as vizier to the Persian King tried to massacre all the Jews in the realm; but his plan was foiled by Mordechai (yay!) entering his beautiful cousin Esther (woo hoo!) into a beauty pageant to be the queen, and Haman’s plot was foiled.
It’s the celebration of the downfall of a tyrant; the world has been full of them, people who have become legends in their own minds, such as Mubarak in Egypt, Ghadaffi in Libya, and Assad in Syria. There are also mental Hamans as well, within our psyches, such as low self-esteem and self-doubts, which we daily must overthrow; I know, I deal with them as well.
Now coming up is the holiday of Passover, the liberating of the Jews from Pharaoh's slavery in Egypt. The traditional word for Egypt in Hebrew is Mitzrayim, “the narrow place,” the place of limitation. There are Pharaohs in the word today-political dictators for one thing, also abusive relationships-as well as internal Pharaohs, like the voice inside you that says, “I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, I can’t do it.” Those dictators and tyrants, inside and around you, also need to be vanquished.
One issue I have dealt with is allowing myself downtime, time of rest and recreation and plain ol’ fun, however you define it; I have often felt guilty about not doing something “productive.” But when we went to school and studied, we twice daily had recess, so it’s not an either-or situation. Having fun and recreation can be a great revolt against the inner and outer Hamans and Pharaohs in the world, you can in effect say to them, “Screw you, I’m not your damn pack mule!”
We are living in a stuck-on-stupid era, where one large, organized, and wealthy political party, the Republican, is appeasing ignoramuses, haters, xenophobes, and religious fanatics, which has become their base and needs constantly to be catered to for votes. Total racists have appeared on the stage of the past Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), and none of the Republican candidates called them out on it, nor do they disassociate from them. They act like the racist nut jobs truly represent the American people, that WE the people are entirely moved by racism, religious bigotry (like against our Muslim fellow Americans), and homophobia (with the crusades against same-sex marriage); it’s THEM that are the elitists, THEM who think we’re so stupid as to think we can’t see the real situation, with the economy.
At the CPAC conference, a couple of conservative activists put on a rap show, jumping around in track suits while wearing colonial-era wigs, reminding me of a pre-Civil War minstrel show; the duo let out what sounded like a certain nasty N word, and the Black man working the controls walked out, and the activists insisted they said "knickers." This is in line with Rick Santorum's statement that "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money." Oh, wait, he said he meant "blah" people! Make a racist statement and then deny you said it-What does he think we're smoking, or else what's HE smoking? Is that the mentality of the conservative movement-play up racist sentiments while denying racist feelings? A movement, like an individual, can be, and IS, in denial.
In earlier CPACs the John Birch Society, which accused every worthwhile social movement and Dwight Eisenhower of being “communist“, reemerged from its rock; now it's "white nationalists" like Peter Brimelow, who runs the racist web site VDARE, and Joseph Farah, who runs the web site WorldNetDaily, which STILL, no matter what facts you put before them, insists that Obama was born in Kenya, and is thus not qualified to be President. This is the movement that prided itself on being cold-bloodedly "realistic" about the world, as opposed to the "bleeding-heart, soft-headed" liberals; it has its own news media, and so apparently it has its own news and its own reality.
I hope Obama has given up trying to reason with conservatives; they don't want to compromise or meet half way or get equal time on TV-they want to control us, to smash us. Let's let them know that WON'T happen.
I close with this bit of shameless self-promotion: I, along with other poets in the Philadelphia area, will read my material at the 16th Annual Poetry Ink, to be held April 22 at noon at Robin’s Books/Moonstone Arts Center, 110A South 13th Street, in Philadelphia. I urge everyone within the sound of this newsletter to attend-the arts are for ALL of us. Bye!
Sunday, January 29, 2012
The Mason Missile, January 29, 2012
Greetings, freedom fighters! I have joined my congregation, Leyv Ha-Ir, to celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King-the REAL Dr. King, the man who challenged the status quo, not the sanitized peacenik that is put out by commercial media. Towards the latter part of his life, King opposed the Viet Nam war, and not only challenged racial hierarchies but the economic inequalities that are both cause and effect of racism.
On January 10, 1967, at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, King preached, "I've chosen to preach about the war in Vietnam because I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal."
King, knowing he would be branded a traitor or unpatriotic for speaking out against the Viet Nam war, added, "Now, of course, one of the difficulties in speaking out today grows the fact that there are those who are seeking to equate dissent with disloyalty. It's a dark day in our nation when high-level authorities will seek to use every method to silence dissent. But something is happening, and people are not going to be silenced. The truth must be told, and I say that those who are seeking to make it appear that anyone who opposes the war in Vietnam is a fool or a traitor or an enemy of our soldiers is a person that has taken a stand against the best in our tradition."
Then, at Riverside Church in New York in April of that year-one year to the day he was murdered- King added, "Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land." The government and other opinion-makers tried thus to confine King to Civil Rights, as if that can be separated from the Viet Nam issue. To King, Viet Nam was a further sign of a sick nation governed by sick people, willfully ignorant of the needs of the Vietnamese people.
Also, King and his group, the Southern Christian leadership Conference (SCLC) in November 1967 started organizing the Poor People's Campaign, dedicated to addressing issues of poverty, employment, and housing for people of all races, going beyond the issues of African-Americans. The Viet Nam war siphoned off money that could have been used for rebuilding cities, schools, transit systems, etc. - to pay for a war against a people that really wanted to engage us, and to prop up a gang of kleptomaniacs passing themselves off as a "government."
King saw that it's not either/or, either issues of class or race or war to work on. The upper classes traditionally tended to dominate the state, and still do to an extent; and they have twisted the work and emphasis of the state apparatus to its advantage, by repressing unions and other forms of lower-class organizing, and adjusting the tax code to favor the wealthy at the expense of the lower and working classes. The personnel to lead the state apparatus-cabinet ministers, military officers, etc. - has also traditionally come from the upper economic and social echelons-people who, in spite of their wealth and connections, are no more advanced that we working folks are.
Of course, the upper classes have been wise enough to create a hierarchy amongst the lower classes, due to race-to have the lower-class whites look down on the descendents of slaves stolen from Africa, sold as cattle, treated as livestock, as inferior to themselves, thus giving lower-class whites a false sense of superiority. Racism and plutocracy both have to be fought at the same time, it's not either-or. The Labor movement, that cause to which I have worked for, is eminently suited to deal with racism among white workers, which I have heard plenty; working-class whites must know their fellow workers, no matter their race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, and their allies, not their enemies.
I take this time to point out the work of A. Philip Randolph, the great African-American trade unionist and democratic socialist. Randolph, like King recognized the intersection of race and class in this country, and believed in the trade union movement as a means of advancement for African-Americans. The A. Philip Randolph Institute carries on his work, encouraging Black participation in unions and encouraging electoral activity. You can find out more about it at apri.org.
2012 marks the fiftieth anniversary of The Other America, the classic study of poverty in this the richest nation on the planet, by the great American Socialist and patriot Michael Harrington. Alas, poverty is still very much with us, even more so, the gap between rich and poor widening, the "middle class" whittling away. I urge everyone within the sound of this newsletter to look up the Democratic socialist of America, the group Harrington founded, at www.dsausa.org.
SOME hope for sanity in our spending priorities: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has announced cuts in military spending, reducing ground forces, Army and Marine Corps, and focusing on Special Ops forces, focusing on quick deployment in case of emergency. Of course the Republicans act like tremendous military spending leads to greater military strength, and defense industries locate their plants in a variety of congressional districts, to make their constituents dependent on the plants for jobs; with cuts in military spending, the thinking goes, people in the plants lose their jobs, and the congress-members lose theirs as will, so the congress-members keep voting for MORE weapons systems that do NO good.
It's clear that the US of A is getting out of the empire business, since the VAST network of bases all around the world is economically unfeasible; we simply CAN'T afford world domination through military means. Consciousness of this fact is seeping through to the public. Let the critique continue-THAT, mutually respectful discussion and debate, is the real patriotism. Bye!
On January 10, 1967, at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, King preached, "I've chosen to preach about the war in Vietnam because I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal."
King, knowing he would be branded a traitor or unpatriotic for speaking out against the Viet Nam war, added, "Now, of course, one of the difficulties in speaking out today grows the fact that there are those who are seeking to equate dissent with disloyalty. It's a dark day in our nation when high-level authorities will seek to use every method to silence dissent. But something is happening, and people are not going to be silenced. The truth must be told, and I say that those who are seeking to make it appear that anyone who opposes the war in Vietnam is a fool or a traitor or an enemy of our soldiers is a person that has taken a stand against the best in our tradition."
Then, at Riverside Church in New York in April of that year-one year to the day he was murdered- King added, "Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land." The government and other opinion-makers tried thus to confine King to Civil Rights, as if that can be separated from the Viet Nam issue. To King, Viet Nam was a further sign of a sick nation governed by sick people, willfully ignorant of the needs of the Vietnamese people.
Also, King and his group, the Southern Christian leadership Conference (SCLC) in November 1967 started organizing the Poor People's Campaign, dedicated to addressing issues of poverty, employment, and housing for people of all races, going beyond the issues of African-Americans. The Viet Nam war siphoned off money that could have been used for rebuilding cities, schools, transit systems, etc. - to pay for a war against a people that really wanted to engage us, and to prop up a gang of kleptomaniacs passing themselves off as a "government."
King saw that it's not either/or, either issues of class or race or war to work on. The upper classes traditionally tended to dominate the state, and still do to an extent; and they have twisted the work and emphasis of the state apparatus to its advantage, by repressing unions and other forms of lower-class organizing, and adjusting the tax code to favor the wealthy at the expense of the lower and working classes. The personnel to lead the state apparatus-cabinet ministers, military officers, etc. - has also traditionally come from the upper economic and social echelons-people who, in spite of their wealth and connections, are no more advanced that we working folks are.
Of course, the upper classes have been wise enough to create a hierarchy amongst the lower classes, due to race-to have the lower-class whites look down on the descendents of slaves stolen from Africa, sold as cattle, treated as livestock, as inferior to themselves, thus giving lower-class whites a false sense of superiority. Racism and plutocracy both have to be fought at the same time, it's not either-or. The Labor movement, that cause to which I have worked for, is eminently suited to deal with racism among white workers, which I have heard plenty; working-class whites must know their fellow workers, no matter their race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, and their allies, not their enemies.
I take this time to point out the work of A. Philip Randolph, the great African-American trade unionist and democratic socialist. Randolph, like King recognized the intersection of race and class in this country, and believed in the trade union movement as a means of advancement for African-Americans. The A. Philip Randolph Institute carries on his work, encouraging Black participation in unions and encouraging electoral activity. You can find out more about it at apri.org.
2012 marks the fiftieth anniversary of The Other America, the classic study of poverty in this the richest nation on the planet, by the great American Socialist and patriot Michael Harrington. Alas, poverty is still very much with us, even more so, the gap between rich and poor widening, the "middle class" whittling away. I urge everyone within the sound of this newsletter to look up the Democratic socialist of America, the group Harrington founded, at www.dsausa.org.
SOME hope for sanity in our spending priorities: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has announced cuts in military spending, reducing ground forces, Army and Marine Corps, and focusing on Special Ops forces, focusing on quick deployment in case of emergency. Of course the Republicans act like tremendous military spending leads to greater military strength, and defense industries locate their plants in a variety of congressional districts, to make their constituents dependent on the plants for jobs; with cuts in military spending, the thinking goes, people in the plants lose their jobs, and the congress-members lose theirs as will, so the congress-members keep voting for MORE weapons systems that do NO good.
It's clear that the US of A is getting out of the empire business, since the VAST network of bases all around the world is economically unfeasible; we simply CAN'T afford world domination through military means. Consciousness of this fact is seeping through to the public. Let the critique continue-THAT, mutually respectful discussion and debate, is the real patriotism. Bye!
The Mason Missile, January 29, 2012
Greetings, freedom fighters! I have joined my congregation, Leyv Ha-Ir, to celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King-the REAL Dr. King, the man who challenged the status quo, not the sanitized peacenik that is put out by commercial media. Towards the latter part of his life, King opposed the Viet Nam war, and not only challenged racial hierarchies but the economic inequalities that are both cause and effect of racism.
On January 10, 1967, at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, King preached, "I've chosen to preach about the war in Vietnam because I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal."
King, knowing he would be branded a traitor or unpatriotic for speaking out against the Viet Nam war, added, "Now, of course, one of the difficulties in speaking out today grows the fact that there are those who are seeking to equate dissent with disloyalty. It's a dark day in our nation when high-level authorities will seek to use every method to silence dissent. But something is happening, and people are not going to be silenced. The truth must be told, and I say that those who are seeking to make it appear that anyone who opposes the war in Vietnam is a fool or a traitor or an enemy of our soldiers is a person that has taken a stand against the best in our tradition."
Then, at Riverside Church in New York in April of that year-one year to the day he was murdered- King added, "Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land." The government and other opinion-makers tried thus to confine King to Civil Rights, as if that can be separated from the Viet Nam issue. To King, Viet Nam was a further sign of a sick nation governed by sick people, willfully ignorant of the needs of the Vietnamese people.
Also, King and his group, the Southern Christian leadership Conference (SCLC) in November 1967 started organizing the Poor People's Campaign, dedicated to addressing issues of poverty, employment, and housing for people of all races, going beyond the issues of African-Americans. The Viet Nam war siphoned off money that could have been used for rebuilding cities, schools, transit systems, etc. - to pay for a war against a people that really wanted to engage us, and to prop up a gang of kleptomaniacs passing themselves off as a "government."
King saw that it's not either/or, either issues of class or race or war to work on. The upper classes traditionally tended to dominate the state, and still do to an extent; and they have twisted the work and emphasis of the state apparatus to its advantage, by repressing unions and other forms of lower-class organizing, and adjusting the tax code to favor the wealthy at the expense of the lower and working classes. The personnel to lead the state apparatus-cabinet ministers, military officers, etc. - has also traditionally come from the upper economic and social echelons-people who, in spite of their wealth and connections, are no more advanced that we working folks are.
Of course, the upper classes have been wise enough to create a hierarchy amongst the lower classes, due to race-to have the lower-class whites look down on the descendents of slaves stolen from Africa, sold as cattle, treated as livestock, as inferior to themselves, thus giving lower-class whites a false sense of superiority. Racism and plutocracy both have to be fought at the same time, it's not either-or. The Labor movement, that cause to which I have worked for, is eminently suited to deal with racism among white workers, which I have heard plenty; working-class whites must know their fellow workers, no matter their race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, and their allies, not their enemies.
I take this time to point out the work of A. Philip Randolph, the great African-American trade unionist and democratic socialist. Randolph, like King recognized the intersection of race and class in this country, and believed in the trade union movement as a means of advancement for African-Americans. The A. Philip Randolph Institute carries on his work, encouraging Black participation in unions and encouraging electoral activity. You can find out more about it at apri.org.
2012 marks the fiftieth anniversary of The Other America, the classic study of poverty in this the richest nation on the planet, by the great American Socialist and patriot Michael Harrington. Alas, poverty is still very much with us, even more so, the gap between rich and poor widening, the "middle class" whittling away. I urge everyone within the sound of this newsletter to look up the Democratic socialist of America, the group Harrington founded, at www.dsausa.org.
SOME hope for sanity in our spending priorities: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has announced cuts in military spending, reducing ground forces, Army and Marine Corps, and focusing on Special Ops forces, focusing on quick deployment in case of emergency. Of course the Republicans act like tremendous military spending leads to greater military strength, and defense industries locate their plants in a variety of congressional districts, to make their constituents dependent on the plants for jobs; with cuts in military spending, the thinking goes, people in the plants lose their jobs, and the congress-members lose theirs as will, so the congress-members keep voting for MORE weapons systems that do NO good.
It's clear that the US of A is getting out of the empire business, since the VAST network of bases all around the world is economically unfeasible; we simply CAN'T afford world domination through military means. Consciousness of this fact is seeping through to the public. Let the critique continue-THAT, mutually respectful discussion and debate, is the real patriotism. Bye!
On January 10, 1967, at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, King preached, "I've chosen to preach about the war in Vietnam because I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal."
King, knowing he would be branded a traitor or unpatriotic for speaking out against the Viet Nam war, added, "Now, of course, one of the difficulties in speaking out today grows the fact that there are those who are seeking to equate dissent with disloyalty. It's a dark day in our nation when high-level authorities will seek to use every method to silence dissent. But something is happening, and people are not going to be silenced. The truth must be told, and I say that those who are seeking to make it appear that anyone who opposes the war in Vietnam is a fool or a traitor or an enemy of our soldiers is a person that has taken a stand against the best in our tradition."
Then, at Riverside Church in New York in April of that year-one year to the day he was murdered- King added, "Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land." The government and other opinion-makers tried thus to confine King to Civil Rights, as if that can be separated from the Viet Nam issue. To King, Viet Nam was a further sign of a sick nation governed by sick people, willfully ignorant of the needs of the Vietnamese people.
Also, King and his group, the Southern Christian leadership Conference (SCLC) in November 1967 started organizing the Poor People's Campaign, dedicated to addressing issues of poverty, employment, and housing for people of all races, going beyond the issues of African-Americans. The Viet Nam war siphoned off money that could have been used for rebuilding cities, schools, transit systems, etc. - to pay for a war against a people that really wanted to engage us, and to prop up a gang of kleptomaniacs passing themselves off as a "government."
King saw that it's not either/or, either issues of class or race or war to work on. The upper classes traditionally tended to dominate the state, and still do to an extent; and they have twisted the work and emphasis of the state apparatus to its advantage, by repressing unions and other forms of lower-class organizing, and adjusting the tax code to favor the wealthy at the expense of the lower and working classes. The personnel to lead the state apparatus-cabinet ministers, military officers, etc. - has also traditionally come from the upper economic and social echelons-people who, in spite of their wealth and connections, are no more advanced that we working folks are.
Of course, the upper classes have been wise enough to create a hierarchy amongst the lower classes, due to race-to have the lower-class whites look down on the descendents of slaves stolen from Africa, sold as cattle, treated as livestock, as inferior to themselves, thus giving lower-class whites a false sense of superiority. Racism and plutocracy both have to be fought at the same time, it's not either-or. The Labor movement, that cause to which I have worked for, is eminently suited to deal with racism among white workers, which I have heard plenty; working-class whites must know their fellow workers, no matter their race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, and their allies, not their enemies.
I take this time to point out the work of A. Philip Randolph, the great African-American trade unionist and democratic socialist. Randolph, like King recognized the intersection of race and class in this country, and believed in the trade union movement as a means of advancement for African-Americans. The A. Philip Randolph Institute carries on his work, encouraging Black participation in unions and encouraging electoral activity. You can find out more about it at apri.org.
2012 marks the fiftieth anniversary of The Other America, the classic study of poverty in this the richest nation on the planet, by the great American Socialist and patriot Michael Harrington. Alas, poverty is still very much with us, even more so, the gap between rich and poor widening, the "middle class" whittling away. I urge everyone within the sound of this newsletter to look up the Democratic socialist of America, the group Harrington founded, at www.dsausa.org.
SOME hope for sanity in our spending priorities: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has announced cuts in military spending, reducing ground forces, Army and Marine Corps, and focusing on Special Ops forces, focusing on quick deployment in case of emergency. Of course the Republicans act like tremendous military spending leads to greater military strength, and defense industries locate their plants in a variety of congressional districts, to make their constituents dependent on the plants for jobs; with cuts in military spending, the thinking goes, people in the plants lose their jobs, and the congress-members lose theirs as will, so the congress-members keep voting for MORE weapons systems that do NO good.
It's clear that the US of A is getting out of the empire business, since the VAST network of bases all around the world is economically unfeasible; we simply CAN'T afford world domination through military means. Consciousness of this fact is seeping through to the public. Let the critique continue-THAT, mutually respectful discussion and debate, is the real patriotism. Bye!
Monday, December 26, 2011
The Mason Missile, December 26, 2011
Greetings, brothers and sisters! I wish everyone a happy holiday, whichever one you do-Hanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Years. Have a blast, celebrate ALL of them!
I am heartily SICK of the whines coming from the rightist contingent about the "war on Christmas," acting like Christians are being repressed and oppressed. (I continue to greet everybody “Happy holidays” - ALL of them.)
This whining comes from a political Christianist movement that has campaigned against Islamic Sharia law being implemented by the law courts in this country, and which demands ALL Muslim Americans, good law-abiding folk, be placed under surveillance; the same damn movement that demands prayer in public schools and who uses their alleged religious beliefs as an excuse to discriminate against lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender people, to prohibit same-sex marriage, and to prohibit LGBT people from military service, based on THEIR version of what they interpret as “Christianity.” Authoritarian/fascist movements, like this one, and like ALL bullies, tend to play the victim and the oppressed party when someone finally stands up to them.
Many of them have found a home in the Republican Party. In the debates of their presidential candidates, they cheered at the idea of an innocent person being executed, and of a person dying from lack of decent health care; and booed a young man in military service (which they supposedly love) serving in Iraq (which they still think was a good idea) simply because he was gay, as he asked the candidates if they would restore the stupid "don't and, don't tell" rule.
What a cliffhanger we’ve been through-with the extension of the payroll tax cut and of unemployment compensation. The House Republicans, Tea Party types, all of a sudden oppose tax cuts-but it was for working people, not for their corporate paymasters funding their campaigns. Do we have to keep going through this, a political movement dedicated entirely to keeping Obama looking bad so he doesn’t get reelected? The main thing is JOBS for working people, so they don’t have to go on welfare and be the scapegoat for federal budget deficits created by no taxes on corporations and unnecessary wars.
I’m still pleased with the Occupy movement; they have taken the media thunder out of the Tea Parties, simply by their organizing, coming together to express outrage at corporate dominance of our politics. The commercial media constantly errs to the right politically, so as not to offend corporate executives or long accepted conventional wisdom; thus the media made such a big deal of the Tea Parties, hyping them as a popular uprising, and not as the Astroturf corporate-sponsored event it has always been. The Occupy movement, however, was brought up over alternative media sites, about two weeks before the mainstream media found it. While we must work to find our way into the media to get our message across, we find we can do without it, using our own networks.
Let’s celebrate the New Year, so we’ll be rested up to fight for the people. Bye!
I am heartily SICK of the whines coming from the rightist contingent about the "war on Christmas," acting like Christians are being repressed and oppressed. (I continue to greet everybody “Happy holidays” - ALL of them.)
This whining comes from a political Christianist movement that has campaigned against Islamic Sharia law being implemented by the law courts in this country, and which demands ALL Muslim Americans, good law-abiding folk, be placed under surveillance; the same damn movement that demands prayer in public schools and who uses their alleged religious beliefs as an excuse to discriminate against lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender people, to prohibit same-sex marriage, and to prohibit LGBT people from military service, based on THEIR version of what they interpret as “Christianity.” Authoritarian/fascist movements, like this one, and like ALL bullies, tend to play the victim and the oppressed party when someone finally stands up to them.
Many of them have found a home in the Republican Party. In the debates of their presidential candidates, they cheered at the idea of an innocent person being executed, and of a person dying from lack of decent health care; and booed a young man in military service (which they supposedly love) serving in Iraq (which they still think was a good idea) simply because he was gay, as he asked the candidates if they would restore the stupid "don't and, don't tell" rule.
What a cliffhanger we’ve been through-with the extension of the payroll tax cut and of unemployment compensation. The House Republicans, Tea Party types, all of a sudden oppose tax cuts-but it was for working people, not for their corporate paymasters funding their campaigns. Do we have to keep going through this, a political movement dedicated entirely to keeping Obama looking bad so he doesn’t get reelected? The main thing is JOBS for working people, so they don’t have to go on welfare and be the scapegoat for federal budget deficits created by no taxes on corporations and unnecessary wars.
I’m still pleased with the Occupy movement; they have taken the media thunder out of the Tea Parties, simply by their organizing, coming together to express outrage at corporate dominance of our politics. The commercial media constantly errs to the right politically, so as not to offend corporate executives or long accepted conventional wisdom; thus the media made such a big deal of the Tea Parties, hyping them as a popular uprising, and not as the Astroturf corporate-sponsored event it has always been. The Occupy movement, however, was brought up over alternative media sites, about two weeks before the mainstream media found it. While we must work to find our way into the media to get our message across, we find we can do without it, using our own networks.
Let’s celebrate the New Year, so we’ll be rested up to fight for the people. Bye!
Thursday, November 24, 2011
The Mason Missile, November 24, 2011
Greetings, freedom fighters! I hope we have all voted in the last election. In the words of my late beloved mentor Harry Hyde Jr., "Vote as you please, but please vote."
A lot of people agree there isn't a lot to vote for, with both parities comprised of the same political class, sometimes jumping from one party to the other, as in the case of Arlen Spector, who was a Democrat before running as a Republican for Senator; then, when the religious-right element took over the party in Pennsylvania, he ran as a Democrat again. Same with Karen Brown, who was a Democrat while running for City Council in Philadelphia, then was tapped by the Republican party leaders to run on their slate for Mayor of Philadelphia.
Do political "parties" mean anything, of are they just bureaucracies trying to get their people into power? I again advocate a LABOR party, of, by, and for workers. My idea is, get Obama reelected, because none of the Republican candidates would be ANY good for working- and low-income people, but in the meantime get to work on organizing a labor-social democratic-socialist party for America, and maybe take some of the Democratic party bodies into it.
The political system can work for us, on occasion. I was delighted with the defeat of the referendum in Ohio that would have taken away collective bargaining rights from teachers; the plan is to demonize ONE class of people, like teachers, civil service employees, and welfare recipients, and make THOSE people, as opposed to everyone else, the scapegoat for the problems caused by capitalism. But the workers, through their unions and reaching out to the rest of the community, defeated the damn thing.
There is also the defeat, defying the expectations of the "left-liberal slanted" news media, of the referendum in Mississippi (!) that would have granted citizenship rights to fetuses, embryos, and zygotes, as a way of stopping abortions. Plus, the citizens of Arizona recalled Russell Pearce, the president of their state senate, advocate for that state's draconian immigration policies, in an election. The citizens of Wisconsin are starting a movement to recall their own governor, who is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Koch brothers.
Mike Check! How delighted I am with the Occupy movement, which started at Wall Street and has spread to cities throughout the world. This is not the same as the “tea party” thing, which is an Astroturf “movement” manufactured by corporations. I am especially pleased that a lot of military veterans are taking the side of the Occupy groups, protecting them from police and other negative elements-even some cops are on their side! The power elite in this country must be in hysterics over the defection of their enforcers.
Although “Occupy” is the name of the movement, it is not at all different from the demonstrations in Wisconsin and other states against anti-worker, anti-people governors and state legislators, and the plutocrats paying for them, as well as the “Arab Spring” in the Middle East. I know the Occupy movement won’t last forever, those camps have to come down some time; but the participants have gained a great political education and valuable networks to draw upon. The tents will go down, but not the movement.
I have to bring up the people who are trying to become the Republican candidate for President, so bear with me. Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, are, for a start, trying to be the ideologically pure one against Mitt Romney. All through the year, the news media got into entertainment mode, putting up candidates as a Baskin-Robbins flavor of the month; first Sarah Palin, who quit her non-campaign in the middle, just as she quit as governor of Alaska, deciding to focus on shilling her books and her Discovery channel self-infomercial.
Then we had Donald Trump and his hair-don’t; he had a bit of a boom, getting into the long-repudiated “birther” thing, stating that President Obama wasn’t born in this country. Trump also talked about invading Middle-Eastern countries explicitly for their oil.
Michelle Bachmann was up for a while, a darling of the religious-rightists, particularly the ones around the New Apostolic Reformation movement, which seeks to turn the United States into their idea of theocracy. Her husband Marcus runs this clinic, even though he has no medical background, that is supposed to convert gays into heterosexuals-a discredited practice which brings in for the Bachmanns about $150,000.00 in federal and state funds, including the evil Medicare, one of Michelle’s favorite targets.
Rick Perry has had his ups and down, depending on whether he opens his mouth, looking naturally foolish during debates, bickering with Romney, and acting goofy before the conservative group in New Hampshire. Even more dangerous than a nutcase in the White House (I’m thinking now of Richard Nixon) is the history of Texas sate government under Perry; Molly Ivins had fun mocking their state legislature, but under “Goodhair” Perry it has sunk to a new low of corruption-whole state agencies sold to the corporations charged with monitoring them, in exchange for campaign contributions. You can read Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone at www.rollingstone.com. As Taibbi points out, Perry, like Bachmann, also has hooked up with the New Apostolic Reformation movement.
Herman Cain-His campaign manager babbling slogans while smoking; the sexual harassment (verging on assault) charges; his proud allegiance to the Koch brothers; his proud ignorance about the world outside our borders-enough said.
AND Newt Gingrich, crawling out of the crypt, still passing himself off as an intellectual titan and moral arbiter, while on his third marriage, his infidelities forgiven.
What a difference a year makes. At the start of this year, it was all about Ayn Rand, the “virtue of selfishness” lady, cranker-out of crappy novels and a philosophy to match, all extolling wealthy twits as the master race of all, her works extolled by the tea parties and their plutocratic masters. But the film version of her literary crap-bag Atlas Shrugged failed in its first week of release. I have seen the clips of the rich bastards sitting on the balcony sipping their cocktails watching the proletarians of the Occupy Wall Street movement, wondering what was on their minds-Are they gonna turn on us? Is this the revolution we’ve been afraid of?
Ever since the end of the Second World War, our economic policy has centered around the corporations, making sure they’re protected from the just wrath of the public, seeing they always have a new avenue for more profits, including from social programs. The idea promulgated by both parties was that these “job creators” must be allowed to do what they want, through the miraculous “free market”, and to not tax or regulate them “too much.” But these spoiled darlings have relocate their factories AND their jobs to impoverished countries where the minimum wage is pocket change, the working hours are an eternity, the factories are purgatories, and the companies, with the help of the local government, smash all attempts for workers to organize. (Might they want the same conditions, and the same kind of government, in THIS country?)
In Ayn Rand’s illusion Atlas Shrugged, the billionaire John Galt gathers all the other billionaires to his estate and they go on strike, proclaiming themselves the creative geniuses of the world as opposed to “Moochers” and “barefoot bums,” and they demand their way. I would LOVE for these plutocrats to be placed on an island or some other isolated spot, and let them know we can do quite well without them, thank you very much! Without the workers who make their stuff, the capitalists would be nothing, and we can make them aware of that. On that note, bye!
A lot of people agree there isn't a lot to vote for, with both parities comprised of the same political class, sometimes jumping from one party to the other, as in the case of Arlen Spector, who was a Democrat before running as a Republican for Senator; then, when the religious-right element took over the party in Pennsylvania, he ran as a Democrat again. Same with Karen Brown, who was a Democrat while running for City Council in Philadelphia, then was tapped by the Republican party leaders to run on their slate for Mayor of Philadelphia.
Do political "parties" mean anything, of are they just bureaucracies trying to get their people into power? I again advocate a LABOR party, of, by, and for workers. My idea is, get Obama reelected, because none of the Republican candidates would be ANY good for working- and low-income people, but in the meantime get to work on organizing a labor-social democratic-socialist party for America, and maybe take some of the Democratic party bodies into it.
The political system can work for us, on occasion. I was delighted with the defeat of the referendum in Ohio that would have taken away collective bargaining rights from teachers; the plan is to demonize ONE class of people, like teachers, civil service employees, and welfare recipients, and make THOSE people, as opposed to everyone else, the scapegoat for the problems caused by capitalism. But the workers, through their unions and reaching out to the rest of the community, defeated the damn thing.
There is also the defeat, defying the expectations of the "left-liberal slanted" news media, of the referendum in Mississippi (!) that would have granted citizenship rights to fetuses, embryos, and zygotes, as a way of stopping abortions. Plus, the citizens of Arizona recalled Russell Pearce, the president of their state senate, advocate for that state's draconian immigration policies, in an election. The citizens of Wisconsin are starting a movement to recall their own governor, who is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Koch brothers.
Mike Check! How delighted I am with the Occupy movement, which started at Wall Street and has spread to cities throughout the world. This is not the same as the “tea party” thing, which is an Astroturf “movement” manufactured by corporations. I am especially pleased that a lot of military veterans are taking the side of the Occupy groups, protecting them from police and other negative elements-even some cops are on their side! The power elite in this country must be in hysterics over the defection of their enforcers.
Although “Occupy” is the name of the movement, it is not at all different from the demonstrations in Wisconsin and other states against anti-worker, anti-people governors and state legislators, and the plutocrats paying for them, as well as the “Arab Spring” in the Middle East. I know the Occupy movement won’t last forever, those camps have to come down some time; but the participants have gained a great political education and valuable networks to draw upon. The tents will go down, but not the movement.
I have to bring up the people who are trying to become the Republican candidate for President, so bear with me. Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, are, for a start, trying to be the ideologically pure one against Mitt Romney. All through the year, the news media got into entertainment mode, putting up candidates as a Baskin-Robbins flavor of the month; first Sarah Palin, who quit her non-campaign in the middle, just as she quit as governor of Alaska, deciding to focus on shilling her books and her Discovery channel self-infomercial.
Then we had Donald Trump and his hair-don’t; he had a bit of a boom, getting into the long-repudiated “birther” thing, stating that President Obama wasn’t born in this country. Trump also talked about invading Middle-Eastern countries explicitly for their oil.
Michelle Bachmann was up for a while, a darling of the religious-rightists, particularly the ones around the New Apostolic Reformation movement, which seeks to turn the United States into their idea of theocracy. Her husband Marcus runs this clinic, even though he has no medical background, that is supposed to convert gays into heterosexuals-a discredited practice which brings in for the Bachmanns about $150,000.00 in federal and state funds, including the evil Medicare, one of Michelle’s favorite targets.
Rick Perry has had his ups and down, depending on whether he opens his mouth, looking naturally foolish during debates, bickering with Romney, and acting goofy before the conservative group in New Hampshire. Even more dangerous than a nutcase in the White House (I’m thinking now of Richard Nixon) is the history of Texas sate government under Perry; Molly Ivins had fun mocking their state legislature, but under “Goodhair” Perry it has sunk to a new low of corruption-whole state agencies sold to the corporations charged with monitoring them, in exchange for campaign contributions. You can read Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone at www.rollingstone.com. As Taibbi points out, Perry, like Bachmann, also has hooked up with the New Apostolic Reformation movement.
Herman Cain-His campaign manager babbling slogans while smoking; the sexual harassment (verging on assault) charges; his proud allegiance to the Koch brothers; his proud ignorance about the world outside our borders-enough said.
AND Newt Gingrich, crawling out of the crypt, still passing himself off as an intellectual titan and moral arbiter, while on his third marriage, his infidelities forgiven.
What a difference a year makes. At the start of this year, it was all about Ayn Rand, the “virtue of selfishness” lady, cranker-out of crappy novels and a philosophy to match, all extolling wealthy twits as the master race of all, her works extolled by the tea parties and their plutocratic masters. But the film version of her literary crap-bag Atlas Shrugged failed in its first week of release. I have seen the clips of the rich bastards sitting on the balcony sipping their cocktails watching the proletarians of the Occupy Wall Street movement, wondering what was on their minds-Are they gonna turn on us? Is this the revolution we’ve been afraid of?
Ever since the end of the Second World War, our economic policy has centered around the corporations, making sure they’re protected from the just wrath of the public, seeing they always have a new avenue for more profits, including from social programs. The idea promulgated by both parties was that these “job creators” must be allowed to do what they want, through the miraculous “free market”, and to not tax or regulate them “too much.” But these spoiled darlings have relocate their factories AND their jobs to impoverished countries where the minimum wage is pocket change, the working hours are an eternity, the factories are purgatories, and the companies, with the help of the local government, smash all attempts for workers to organize. (Might they want the same conditions, and the same kind of government, in THIS country?)
In Ayn Rand’s illusion Atlas Shrugged, the billionaire John Galt gathers all the other billionaires to his estate and they go on strike, proclaiming themselves the creative geniuses of the world as opposed to “Moochers” and “barefoot bums,” and they demand their way. I would LOVE for these plutocrats to be placed on an island or some other isolated spot, and let them know we can do quite well without them, thank you very much! Without the workers who make their stuff, the capitalists would be nothing, and we can make them aware of that. On that note, bye!
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
The Mason Missile, September 6, 2011
Greetings, fellow freedom fighters! I hope everyone has enjoyed Labor Day, the day honoring the American worker and the institution he/she has formed, the Trade Union movement, for the empowerment of workers and other low-income people. I am also active in the movement to revitalize May Day as a workers' holiday in this country. We can have both May Day AND Labor Day, we deserve it!
There are efforts by Republican state governors in to keep unfavorable voters from voting. Wisconsin's chief idiot Scott Walker signed a voter ID bill prohibiting people who don't have state ID cards or driver's licenses from voting--and VERY conveniently closed ten Department of Motor Vehicles offices where people could get their IDs. This is a deliberate attempt to prevent African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, college students, and seniors from voting, or making it inconvenient to apply for a form of ID. Similar laws have been introduced in Ohio, Kansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Colorado, Montana, and Texas; there has also been cases of "voter caging," where voting officials challenge a voter's qualification to vote, thus intimidating the potential voter.
All this has been done in the name of "voter integrity" and "fair elections;" this, from the party of 2000, the party of voter fraud in Florida, of voters who would have voted against George DUH Bush purged from the rolls, where voters were intimidated by police, where the votes of the Supreme Court mattered-voter integrity, indeed! The idea is to prevent low-income, poor and working people-the same people-from voting and seeking their empowerment, thus skewing the state in favor of the wealthy and corporations.
The cat popped out of the bag when conservative writer Matthew Vadum wrote, "Why are left-wing activist groups so keen on registering the poor to vote?...Because they know the poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits by electing redistributionist politicians. Welfare recipients are particularly open to demagoguery and bribery." And here's the kicker-"Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals...It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country-- which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote. ... Encouraging those who burden society to participate in elections isn't about helping the poor. It's about helping the poor to help themselves to others' money."
SO--Wealthy people and corporations, that allowed this economic catastrophe to occur due to their ignorance and greed, that get trillions of dollars of federal money because they're "too big to fail", are productive, while working and low-income people, who work for money and spend it at local stores, thus boosting the economy, and leeches? Wonderful logic! And it's worded so that the villain is "some one else, not you nice people".
In the ‘seventies, the New Right movement, through the direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie, concocted the line of “producers,” working people and corporations, as opposed to “non-producers,” government, universities, welfare recipients, etc., to give a “populist” look to the movement; fascist movements in Europe also tried to look “revolutionary,” to appeal to the masses. Now the “populist” facade has fallen off the plutocratic edifice that is contemporary conservativism. If the conservatives are such populists, why are they trying to keep people from voting?
Forty years ago, President Richard Nixon declared a "war on drugs," mainly as a way of fighting the cultural changes of the 'sixties, like the anti-war and civil rights movements, and the general realization that the nation's political and economic elite is NOT perfect, that we don't have to look up to them. (Anyway...) Nixon's formed a commission, headed by former Pennsylvania Governor Raymond Shafer, to look into the effects of marijuana and other drugs, and the appropriate measures to take towards them. The commission, after serious research, told Nixon what he did not want to hear -- "No significant physical, biochemical, or mental abnormalities could be attributed solely to their marihuana smoking," and, "No verification is found of a causal relationship between marihuana use and subsequent heroin use." Thus, "The Commission feels that the criminalization of possession of marihuana for personal [use] is socially self-defeating as a means of achieving this objective . . ." The commission, obviously, did not want to encourage marijuana or drug use, but neither did they want to make it a crime.
But Nixon wanted to create a scare among the American people about minorities and anti-war activists, and he rejected his own commission's report. Forty years-the War on Drugs goes on. A war that lasts forty years? What are the casualties and the costs? As a propaganda move, Nixon must have thought this was a stroke of genius--have an enemy that has no nationality, no physical form, that is an abstraction, like drugs; and history shows that when you have a war, anyone who doesn't go along with the "war" is a traitor or a coward, and thus can be smacked down, either by public opinion or police terror.
(By the way, I recommend the biography of Nixon, The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon, by Anthony Summers, which goes through Nixon's own issues with drugs and alcohol; was Nixon projecting his own addictions on others, so that he didn't have to face his own? He would neither be the firstor the last person to do so.)
A forty year war; and the drugs keep coming into the country, and people still keep taking them, after all the arrests and propaganda. What's wrong with this picture? Is the government serious about stopping drugs? Are officials taking bribes to let the drugs in? Doesn't this remind us about the "noble experiment of Prohibition, where liquor was banned from legal sale, so criminal cartels made money from illegally selling the stuff, abetted by paid-off public officials? People's hypocrisy added to this, taking the booze while opposing repeal of Prohibition, because that was what nice respectable people believed.
Back in 2009, the "tea party movement"--founded with corporate money, in the manner of an "Astroturf" movement founded by public relations firms--made its debut by sitting in the front rows at congressional town hall meetings and threatening congress-members over the debate on health insurance; typical of totalitarian thugs, which the right-wing has degenerated into!
Now, the tables are turned; the Republican congress-members elected through the tea parties have faced criticism from constituents for their attempts to end such popular programs as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and the failure to create jobs--the preposterous political game playing about the raising of the debt ceiling, I‘m sure, didn‘t help things. Paul Ryan (Wisconsin), Ben Quayle (Arizona), and Chip Cravaack (Minnesota) had to hold meeting that people paid to see them; Jim Renacci and Steve Chabot of Ohio prevented cameras at their own town meetings; Dan Lungren of California was criticized for supporting the Bush tax cuts for the rich; Dan Webster of Florida threatened to kick out a constituent for calling for tax increases on corporations, and has put out a “watch list“ of activists who would DARE to question their elected officials; and Herrera Beutler of Washington had NO town meetings at all.
Whether or not the Democratic party leadership, from the President on down, is willing to take on the Republican-corporate-conservative onslaught is another matter; are WE willing to do so? That’s the key, and I believe we’re starting to do so. Let’s keep up our fight, and we’ll keep on winning, and we’ll have the confidence in ourselves to fight for our freedom. Bye!
There are efforts by Republican state governors in to keep unfavorable voters from voting. Wisconsin's chief idiot Scott Walker signed a voter ID bill prohibiting people who don't have state ID cards or driver's licenses from voting--and VERY conveniently closed ten Department of Motor Vehicles offices where people could get their IDs. This is a deliberate attempt to prevent African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, college students, and seniors from voting, or making it inconvenient to apply for a form of ID. Similar laws have been introduced in Ohio, Kansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Colorado, Montana, and Texas; there has also been cases of "voter caging," where voting officials challenge a voter's qualification to vote, thus intimidating the potential voter.
All this has been done in the name of "voter integrity" and "fair elections;" this, from the party of 2000, the party of voter fraud in Florida, of voters who would have voted against George DUH Bush purged from the rolls, where voters were intimidated by police, where the votes of the Supreme Court mattered-voter integrity, indeed! The idea is to prevent low-income, poor and working people-the same people-from voting and seeking their empowerment, thus skewing the state in favor of the wealthy and corporations.
The cat popped out of the bag when conservative writer Matthew Vadum wrote, "Why are left-wing activist groups so keen on registering the poor to vote?...Because they know the poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits by electing redistributionist politicians. Welfare recipients are particularly open to demagoguery and bribery." And here's the kicker-"Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals...It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country-- which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote. ... Encouraging those who burden society to participate in elections isn't about helping the poor. It's about helping the poor to help themselves to others' money."
SO--Wealthy people and corporations, that allowed this economic catastrophe to occur due to their ignorance and greed, that get trillions of dollars of federal money because they're "too big to fail", are productive, while working and low-income people, who work for money and spend it at local stores, thus boosting the economy, and leeches? Wonderful logic! And it's worded so that the villain is "some one else, not you nice people".
In the ‘seventies, the New Right movement, through the direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie, concocted the line of “producers,” working people and corporations, as opposed to “non-producers,” government, universities, welfare recipients, etc., to give a “populist” look to the movement; fascist movements in Europe also tried to look “revolutionary,” to appeal to the masses. Now the “populist” facade has fallen off the plutocratic edifice that is contemporary conservativism. If the conservatives are such populists, why are they trying to keep people from voting?
Forty years ago, President Richard Nixon declared a "war on drugs," mainly as a way of fighting the cultural changes of the 'sixties, like the anti-war and civil rights movements, and the general realization that the nation's political and economic elite is NOT perfect, that we don't have to look up to them. (Anyway...) Nixon's formed a commission, headed by former Pennsylvania Governor Raymond Shafer, to look into the effects of marijuana and other drugs, and the appropriate measures to take towards them. The commission, after serious research, told Nixon what he did not want to hear -- "No significant physical, biochemical, or mental abnormalities could be attributed solely to their marihuana smoking," and, "No verification is found of a causal relationship between marihuana use and subsequent heroin use." Thus, "The Commission feels that the criminalization of possession of marihuana for personal [use] is socially self-defeating as a means of achieving this objective . . ." The commission, obviously, did not want to encourage marijuana or drug use, but neither did they want to make it a crime.
But Nixon wanted to create a scare among the American people about minorities and anti-war activists, and he rejected his own commission's report. Forty years-the War on Drugs goes on. A war that lasts forty years? What are the casualties and the costs? As a propaganda move, Nixon must have thought this was a stroke of genius--have an enemy that has no nationality, no physical form, that is an abstraction, like drugs; and history shows that when you have a war, anyone who doesn't go along with the "war" is a traitor or a coward, and thus can be smacked down, either by public opinion or police terror.
(By the way, I recommend the biography of Nixon, The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon, by Anthony Summers, which goes through Nixon's own issues with drugs and alcohol; was Nixon projecting his own addictions on others, so that he didn't have to face his own? He would neither be the firstor the last person to do so.)
A forty year war; and the drugs keep coming into the country, and people still keep taking them, after all the arrests and propaganda. What's wrong with this picture? Is the government serious about stopping drugs? Are officials taking bribes to let the drugs in? Doesn't this remind us about the "noble experiment of Prohibition, where liquor was banned from legal sale, so criminal cartels made money from illegally selling the stuff, abetted by paid-off public officials? People's hypocrisy added to this, taking the booze while opposing repeal of Prohibition, because that was what nice respectable people believed.
Back in 2009, the "tea party movement"--founded with corporate money, in the manner of an "Astroturf" movement founded by public relations firms--made its debut by sitting in the front rows at congressional town hall meetings and threatening congress-members over the debate on health insurance; typical of totalitarian thugs, which the right-wing has degenerated into!
Now, the tables are turned; the Republican congress-members elected through the tea parties have faced criticism from constituents for their attempts to end such popular programs as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and the failure to create jobs--the preposterous political game playing about the raising of the debt ceiling, I‘m sure, didn‘t help things. Paul Ryan (Wisconsin), Ben Quayle (Arizona), and Chip Cravaack (Minnesota) had to hold meeting that people paid to see them; Jim Renacci and Steve Chabot of Ohio prevented cameras at their own town meetings; Dan Lungren of California was criticized for supporting the Bush tax cuts for the rich; Dan Webster of Florida threatened to kick out a constituent for calling for tax increases on corporations, and has put out a “watch list“ of activists who would DARE to question their elected officials; and Herrera Beutler of Washington had NO town meetings at all.
Whether or not the Democratic party leadership, from the President on down, is willing to take on the Republican-corporate-conservative onslaught is another matter; are WE willing to do so? That’s the key, and I believe we’re starting to do so. Let’s keep up our fight, and we’ll keep on winning, and we’ll have the confidence in ourselves to fight for our freedom. Bye!
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