Real Heroes Still Live

This woman, Diane Nash, will make you proud to be an American. She is a real hero. Something I can't say about the gutless Democrats that walked with Barack Obama. Then there are the turncoats that brought Netanyahu into the austere halls of congress to disparage and insult the country and its President. More importantly she has solutions for dealing with corrupt elected officials and a government that doesn't work for the people. Unfortunately she conflates "nonviolent campaign" with a "campaign of noncooperation."

Civil Rights Pioneer Diane Nash: I Refused to March With George Bush During Selma Anniversary 

One notable civil rights activist who did not take part in this weekend’s commemorative march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma was Diane Nash, who helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She spoke at an event honoring civil rights foot soldiers and explained her opposition was based on the participation of former President George W. Bush. "The Selma movement stands for nonviolence and peace and democracy and fairness and voting rights. And George Bush stands for just the opposite. He stands for violence and war and stolen elections, and, for goodness sake, his administration had people tortured." She argues it is a "huge mistake for Americans to leave the future of this country in the hands of elected officials. … Suppose we had waited for elected officials to desegregate lunch counters, buses, and to get the right to vote. I think 50 years later we would still be waiting." 

AMY GOODMAN: After President Obama spoke, he walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge along with Michelle and their daughters, Congressmember Lewis, former President George and Laura Bush and few dozen others. One notable civil rights activist who refused to take part in the symbolic walk was Diane Nash, who helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Later in the day, she spoke in Selma and explained why. 

Coordinating Committee. Later in the day, she spoke in Selma and explained why.

DIANE NASH: After the event, there was a—like a march, and photographers. And I was all set to march with them. They had—they placed us—they had me in the front line. And then George Bush came out and got in the march. And I left. I decided I wasn’t marching anywhere with George Bush. The Selma movement stands for nonviolence and peace and democracy and fairness and voting rights, and George Bush stands for just the opposite. He stands for violence and war and stolen elections, and, for goodness sake, his administration had people tortured. I think this occasion was not appropriate for him to be here. I think for him to appear to be leading people involved in the nonviolent movement in this country, for photographs of that to go across the world would make it look as though we have sold out. I think that is an insult to people whose lives were taken—Reverend Reeb, Jimmie Lee Jackson, Viola Liuzzo. It’s an insult to me. And I think it’s an insult to everybody who really does believe in nonviolence.

That being said, I want to mention just a couple of things that I think might be of value as we continue the struggle now. And the first thing is, I think it would be a huge mistake for Americans to leave the future of this country in the hands of elected officials. Elected officials are not going to do what’s necessary in the interest of this country. It’s important—critical, in fact—that citizens take the interests of this country into our own hands, use nonviolence and make the necessary changes. I like to ask—suppose we had waited for elected officials to desegregate restaurants, lunch counters, public accommodations, buses, and to get the right to vote. I think 50 years later we would still be waiting.

My second point that I’d like to bring up is the issue of protest versus a nonviolent campaign. We’ve seen like the Occupy movement a few years ago, and now the hands up movement, and I believe that young people are on the right track. They are taking matters into their own hands. But one thing that I have observed is that I think sometimes we do not know how to differentiate between protest and a movement. In protests, it’s just what the word says: "I protest this. I do not like this." Very often, the powers that be know that we don’t like what’s going on, but they’re determined to do it anyway. On the other hand, a nonviolent movement or a nonviolent campaign starts where you are right now, causes you to set a very clear, concrete objective. And I like to say also that it should be a written objective. Nobody can give you what you want unless you know what that is.

AMY GOODMAN: That was civil rights leader and SNCC co-founder, Diane Nash, speaking in Selma on March 7th, 50 years after the first Selma march that led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

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--Joe

Sellout

Sellout in this instance means:

. a person who betrays a cause, organization, or the like; traitor.

. a person who compromises his or her personal values, integrity, talent, or the like, for money or personal advancement.

From the moment I heard Barack Obama had the Presidency I've waited for this seminal moment – His total betrayal of all the American people that hoped in him and his promises. In this case, however, it isn't just the sell out of American people, but the whole world. The latest revelation here, is that he intends to consolidate and solidify all power and control in the hands of the Oligarchic 1%, even forcing governments to submit to their absolute control.

A segment on Democracy Now this morning Thursday, June 14, 2012: Breaking ’08 Pledge, Leaked Trade Doc Shows Obama Wants to HelpCorporations Avoid Regulations, Amy Goodman says:

“A draft agreement leaked Wednesday shows the Obama administration is pushing a secretive trade agreement that could vastly expand corporate power and directly contradict a 2008 campaign promise by President Obama. A U.S. proposal for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact between the United States and eight Pacific nations would allow foreign corporations operating in the U.S. to appeal key regulations to an international tribunal. The body would have the power to override U.S. law and issue penalties for failure to comply with its ruling.”

What's amazing in all of this is that, Barack Obama started this project within SIX months of his inauguration.

This is one of the reasons he treats the Occupy Movement, and the Arab Spring movement with such duplicity and disdain. Even so, here is a recent Facebook posting:

Despite police crackdowns and mass arrests, the Occupy movement has spread to many major US cities as well as to Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Portugal and other countries.

Unfortunately, the Occupy movements across the world have not yet come to understand that it is way too late for them. The Oligarchy have totally looted all value, money, property and home value, self-worth, and human rights from the 99% of all populations. In the meantime take a good look at Egypt. Whatever the Egyptians believed they had achieved, this is the reality – nothing changes, maybe only the faces of the dictators. (Democracy Now Headlines – Thursday, June 14, 2012)

Egypt Expands Detention PowersBefore Elections
Egypt’s ruling military government has expanded the powers of state forces to detain civilians just days ahead of the country’s runoff election. In a joint statement, more than a dozen Egyptian rights groups said the decree effectively reimposes martial law and reinforces suspicion the upcoming transfer of power to a civilian government "will only be phony and won’t prevent the military from remaining a major player in political life."

Once these people realize they've been sold out and that there is no recovery they'll just walk away. You can't elect a government of people owned and controlled by the one percent if don't vote. You can't fight wars if no one fights. When money has no value, neither do the taxes they collect. Wall Street and the 1% will be as devoid of value as their worthless dollars.
[Picture Source]

--Joe

The Third Alternative – Don't Vote

Stay home!

In his speech “Beyond Vietnam” Martin Luther King spoke about his belief that Americans had a choice to make. He offered that “choice” 45 years ago. History reveals a “choice” was made, but was it the one Martin Luther King hoped would be made?

If anyone bothered to listen to President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech last night you would know or see firm evidence that a decision was made alright, but not the one Martin Luther King hoped for. What he hoped for was: "If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream." The choice he offered then and still viable today was: “nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.”

Forty five-years is one long day, but here we are at it's end, five minutes before midnight. The choice is still available, but who to choose to lead the way? Americans are being forced to decide in a few months who will be President of the United States. Leading Republican contenders' choice is obvious – “violent co-annihilation.” Ron Paul being the exception here, but he has the “winnable perception” problem. Then there's the standing President and his record speaks for itself – he's as much of a corporatist warmonger as the Republicans. So, what do peace-loving, patriotic American voters do? Waste their vote? The question is, who or what are you voting for?

Every one of these candidates, from the lowliest dog-catcher to the President of the United States is totally corrupt-to-the-gut and that is precisely what you vote for. Everyone gets exactly what they vote for. Which makes every voter liable and accountable for everything they do, every law the deliberately violate, and every individual human the murder or cause to be murdered.

For the first time today I heard someone with some experience in this voting process answer the American Voters' dilemma – how to chose the way of peace and absolve themselves their blood guilt. Democracy Now has a pertinent interview with Ralph Nader on President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech: "He Says One Thing and Does Another": Ralph Nader Responds to Obama’s State of the Union Address. This is the link for the complete interview.

You may not agree with Amy Goodman or Ralph Nader, but there is one thing you cannot disagree with them on - Democracy works!

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph, you have written a new book called Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win. People may be listening to you right now and agreeing with a lot of what you are saying, and also saying, "What is the alternative here? Mitt Romney? Newt Gingrich?" What is your response to that? 

RALPH NADER: Well, this is the book, and I’m going to drop it off at the White House soon. I think he should read it, because the left is not making any demands on Obama because they’re so freaked out by the Republicans and their crazed rhetoric on their debates. Well, if that is going to continue for 2012, that means the corporations are pulling on Obama and the Democratic Party. The Republicans are pulling on Obama and Democratic Party, because they’re getting all the media, because they have a vibrant primary process, and there’s no primary challenge to Obama, so the progressive agenda is not getting any media at all, week after week. 

So the alternative, Amy, is for the left, such as they are — progressive, liberal people, I like to call them "justice seekers" — to make demands on Obama, to make demands for improving the rights of labor, improving the rights of small farmers, improving the rights of small business, the environmental demands that need to be made, the crackdown on corporate crime, a whole panoply of corporate reform agenda, the kind of crackdown on these global corporations that have abandoned America and shipped jobs and industries to fascist and communist regimes who know how to keep workers in their place.But there is no pull, because they’re so freaked out by the Republicans. So, one can really say the Republicans could sit around in a smoke-filled room and say, "Let’s be even more crazed. Let’s be even more corporatist." This will create a good vacuum for the Democrats to move into, because both parties are dialing for the same corporate dollars, and it will bring the left to their knees, because they’ll say, "We’ve got nowhere to go." 

Well, the reason why this speech was so failing, especially in foreign and military policy, the reason why it was so failing is because Obama doesn’t have to worry about tens of millions of people who call themselves progressives or liberals, because they have signaled to him that they got nowhere to go. Well, I think if they believe they got nowhere to go, that they don’t want to vote for a third party or Green Party, they can at least, in April, May, June, hold his feet to the fire and present him with a set of progressive demands, in order to tell him that they do have a place to go: they can stay home. And that’s what hurt the Democrats in 2010. People can just stay home.

There's your choice, folks. What it really means to practice 'non-violence' and peace. In other words: Practice what you preach or stay home. Let's see who has the guts to make the right choice.

--Joe

Martin Luther King, Jr. Speaks To You

On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his Beyond Vietnam speech. In many ways it is more appropriate today, not just because Barack Obama is President of the United States, but because his words really focused on our time today. Here is an excerpt:

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam writes, "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on..." We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.

In that "Beyond Vietnam" speech he gave America and Americans the "choice." Make the right "choice" then, he said, "If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

If you possess any doubt that Americans FAILED to make the right "choice," consider the words of leading Republican seeking to be President, Mitt Romney. His words mirror the status quo of his Republican contemporaries and Democratic cohorts lead by Barack Obama. The stark possibility that any of these Republican men, including the current President Barack Obama representing this country in the future makes me believe it is already too late. Here is an excerpt Martin Luther King, Jr.'s words for today, compliments of Democracy Now and Amy Goodman:

REV. DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: After 1954, they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which could have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered.

Also, it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva Agreement concerning foreign troops. And they remind us that they did not begin to send troops in large numbers and even supplies into the South, until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands.

Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the President claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the North. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor, weak nation more than 8,000 miles away from its shores.

At this point, I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called "enemy," I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else, for it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after the short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long, they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America, who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.

This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote: "Each day the war goes on, the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism,” unquote.

We continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play.

The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways.

In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war and set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva agreement.

Part of our ongoing — part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under the new regime, which included the Liberation Front. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We must provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country, if necessary.

Meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task, while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative method of protest possible.

These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.

Now, there is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter that struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality —- and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing clergy— and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. So such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.

In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression, which has now has justified the presence of U.S. military "advisers" in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago, he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay a hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." We in the West must support these revolutions.


It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism. With this powerful commitment, we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain."

A genuine revolution of values means, in the final analysis, that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft-misunderstood, this oft-misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man.

When I speak of love, I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response, I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I’m speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the First Epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another; for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.”

Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says, "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word," unquote.

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam writes, "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on..." We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.

We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Now, let us begin. Now, let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter — but beautiful — struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated:


Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God’s new Messiah,
Off’ring each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever
Twixt that darkness and that light.
Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet ’tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong:
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above his own.


And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

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If you would like to read the complete speech you can go to: Martin Luther King, Jr.: Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence - Picture source.

--Joe

Finally!

For some days now, I was spending my free time doing things productive and beneficial. Which in my case requires, among other things, taking a news vacation. In other words no blogging, no newspapers, no emails, no computers, no TV, no radio, no fear-mongering and no imminent end of the World. So, when I began to catch-up on the latest local happenings as reported in the Times-Standard newspaper, I eventually worked my way around to one of my "favorite" Sunday word-meister's commentaries. To my surprise, after weeks of "whatever," low and behold there was FINALLY something worth reading. I am, of course, talking about Dave Stancliff's Sunday, June 12, 2011, "As It Stands: Food conspiracy of government and chemical companies grows every year" - FINALLY!

I'm not sure his string will last. Yesterday's "Remember to honor/humor Dad today, just because" said more about him then it did about Fathers (Day) or the serious lack thereof in America today than it did about him and his "slobbishness." Anyway, fathers are always good to talk about as long as you have nice, positive things to say about and, if you can, to them.

Back to Stancliff's conspiracy theory, he starts out by saying:

Who would have ever guessed a food fight would bring together the alternative health left and the Tea Party right in opposition against anything? But the Food Safety Modernization Act (S510) accomplished that feat when President Obama signed it into law on January 4th. 

Basically, the act precludes the public's right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. 

This strange alliance of ideological enemies is not that surprising because both sides fear the total control and power government can achieve by regulating our food supply and taking away our ability to feed ourselves. [Continue... ]

Stancliff's commentary is timely and pertinent when you consider what it means to a people when they lose their right and ability to be self-sustaining - able to feed themselves. Most American's sat on their hands as the big Agra-business conglomerates, the IMF, World Bank and Free Trade Treaties gutted one nation's ability after another to feed its people. A good example of this is expanding situation involving speculator's buying up huge amounts of land used by local farmers: Harvard, Vanderbilt, Spelman Exposed for Taking Part in “African Land Grab” - A report called: “Understanding Land Investment Deals in Africa.”

[T]he report by the Oakland Institute claims farmers in Africa are being driven off their lands to make way for new industrial farming projects backed by hedge funds seeking profits and foreign countries looking for cheap food. We speak with Anuradha Mittal, the executive director of the Oakland Institute. “We have heard about the role of these private hedge funds in food speculation and speculation of food prices because they control commodities” says Mittal. “But when they start buying even the means of production, they control labor, large tracks of land, they control water, it is the kind of vertical integration of the food system we have never seen before.”

While Dave Stancliff may very well be a "Conspiracy Nut," as attested to by his many claims against me and this Report, the facts in this matter speak for themselves - Dave Stancliff has good reason to be worried.

What most people fail to understand about GMO's (Genetically Modified Organisms) seed or grain is that they do not possess the ability to reproduce - they are neutered and sterile. More importantly, such parasite "food" directly threatens the food products (grain, etc.) that does reproduce. Existent life on Plane Earth, as we know it to be, is in serious jeopardy by a mutant, sterile parasite.

Dave Stancliff very aptly concludes by saying:

"Something to keep in mind: when ideological opposites unite on the same issue, such as the safety of our food chain, it's no longer about politics. It's about survival." [Emphasis added]

It is more about "survival" than he knows when "ideological opposites unite" to justify a President's personal lawlessness and crimes, protection of and impunity for bankers, banks and war profiteers. Glenn Greenwald offers some insight on how serious the threat truly is: Could Obama Be Impeached for Waging War in Libya Without Approval of Congress? 

[slobbishness]

--Joe

Opinionator Assassinator Strikes Again

[UPDATE Below] [UPDATE II]

After weeks of serving up servile pablum to the readers of the Sunday Times-Standard's so-called "Opinion" As It Stands they all collaborated to take a shot at trying to murder the character of someone with more guts and courage then the whole pack of them put together. Herein lies the wisdom for, and the lesson on, "how to cut your own throat and blame it on someone else for the despicable act of killing you."

So, let me introduce you to the Local Master's latest lesson on Character Assassination: "Is Assange a Robin Hood trying to take the high road by thievery?" This is as pure and as rank a personal attack on an individual person as you could ever want. Take lessons! He pushes all the right buttons, but not one comment on the undisputed facts, the so-called "leaks, that speak for themselves. Maligning, lying and falsely accusing the messenger, trying to destroy the credibility and reputation of decent, honest and worthy people, so as to justify their murderer, is as age old as Jesus Christ, the Garden of Eden and the original murder who killed by lies and filthy false accusations. Might as well put a gun the their head and pull the trigger - there is absolutely NO DIFFERENCE.

On that same A5 page the editors managed to post the perfect counterpoint with Amy Goodman's "'Assangination': from character assassination to the real thing" - The Report could have let her commentary on this issue be the indirect answer, but the very publishing of Dave Stancliff's allegoric attack by the Times-Standard newspaper requires additional consideration for their responsibility for conduct not dissimilar to the New York Times. They justify such abhorrent conduct hiding behind the First Amendment while that very conduct works to delegitimize that very Amendment.

If you haven't read Amy Goodman's article in the newspaper, here's the link. Amy concludes by asking this very important question, a question that goes right at the heart of this article's real agenda.

WikiLeaks, for that matter, is not just Julian Assange, but a geographically distributed network of people and servers, and it has promised that the work of facilitating the release of documents from governments and corporations will continue. The U.S. Justice Department, if it pursues a case, will have to answer the question: If WikiLeaks is a criminal organization, what of its media partners, like The New York Times?

While that's an important question for the Nation, what about here locally? How complicit is the Times-Standard and their editors for publishing Dave Stancliff's As It Stands wanton character assassination that assaults the very legitimacy of the U.S Constitution? When the U.S. government can accuse, prosecute, convict and throw people in jail and torture them for life for what they "supposedly" think, not do, character assassination is extremely serious and potentially life-threatening.

Normally, the Joe Blow Report is only interested in observing facts and related issues - NOT PERSONALITIES - asinine, belief-motivated, worthless opinions. But since it is a proven fact that the writer is incapable of making the distinction and since what he says on the record is personal and all about character assassination, and is so totally corrupt and craven in its attack on decency and reason, it behooves me to address a couple of issues without, hopefully, giving any kind of credence to the writer or the paper it's written on.

Notice his use of the word "thievery." Anyone that knows anything about WikiLeaks knows for a fact that Julian Assange never stole anything, but that's atypical of this guy. He asks, "Is assange a moderern-day Robin Hood stealing information for the masses?" Where's his proof or evidence to substantiate this lie?  He quotes the words of some "law professor's" opinion as if this "opinion" is the last word and asserts with total conviction, because of that opinion, that for an absolute fact "the initial thief" (as yet ONLY accused Pfc. Bradley E. Manning) is for a fact a convicted and guilty "thief." According to their brilliantly convoluted deductive reasonings based upon their worthless opinions they conclude WikiLeaks and by inference Julian Assange are "thieves and co-conspirators in the theft." Absolutely no evidence or proof provided, only perverted and disputed opinions. More importantly, not once does Stancliff talk about what the United States is doing to Bradley Manning as they try to torture some kind of incriminating accusations from him that they can use against Julian Assange.

He also says, "His (Assange) followers threaten governments and corporations with impunity." Another ambiguous statement! Who says these people are "his" "followers"? What is it that he says threatens "governments and corporations with impunity"? Is it people, so-called, unidentified "followers" or INFORMATION, FACTS, OR TRUTH that threatens? Information that has absolutely nothing to do with Julian Assange or WikiLeaks.

As someone that has felt the closeness of the missiles of this guy's many attempts to assassinate my character whiz by, I can speak with some authority when I tell you the following statement is classic. Without a shred of proof other than his all-knowing, manifest god-complex he says: "Even calling him a whistle-blower is misleading, because he's pursuing a personal agenda against the United States." No where does Julian Assange assert that "agenda." There are many outright lies and false lying accusations made against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, most of them identified, exposed and refuted by Glenn Greenwald over the past weeks in his articles posted on Salon.com, so I'm not going to repeat any of that here.

The tragic reality of these kinds of useless imbecilic tirades is they directly attack all our First Amendment rights and do irreparable damage to the legitimacy of the U.S. Constitution. A fact the Local Master Assassinator readily acknowledges when he makes his first three lies in his second sentence, "He spread illegally obtained raw classified information on his website for the world to view." "He" did not "spread" anything. The information was not "raw" and the information was published in major newspapers first.

If Julian Assange is a thief, a criminal, a terrorist or a spy then so is the New York Times along with a half-a-dozen or so other major newspapers and all their collaborating news reporters. The greatest threat to everyone and everything this country was founded upon is viciously attacked by these kinds of people and their supporters. The greatest threat to the "journalism world" is defined by the very actions of these kinds of opinionated hacks that believe in and fight for the Darkness using lies, innuendo, false accusations and murder.

The following is a compilation of links to the many Glenn Greenwalds articles dealing with this specific issue. First, consider this posted today: 1) Why Julian Assange is a journalist - And why WikiLeaks is entitled to the same First Amendment protections as The New York Times. By Scott Gant. 2) The government's one-way mirror.

Here is the list of articles:

1. Joe Biden v. Joe Biden on WikiLeaks
2. Getting to Assange through Manning
3. The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention
4. Attempts to prosecute WikiLeaks endanger press freedoms
5. The media's authoritarianism and WikiLeaks 
6. The crux of the WikiLeaks debate
7. Anti-WikiLeaks lies and propaganda - from TNR, Lauer, Feinstein and more
8. The lawless Wild West attacks WikiLeaks
9. WikiLeaks debate with Steven Aftergood
10. More Joe Lieberman-caused Internet censorship
11. Joe Lieberman emulates Chinese dictators
12. The moral standards of WikiLeaks critics
13. WikiLeaks reveals more than just government secrets
14. The wretched mind of the American authoritarian
15. More on the media's Pentagon-subservient WikiLeaks coverage
16. NYT v. the world: WikiLeaks coverage
17. How propaganda is disseminated: WikiLeaks Edition

The war is engaged and the conspirators and their enablers are self-identifying. It isn't just a war of the Power Elite against the American people, looting their money, their right to own property and ability to feed themselves, but a war against everything they hold dear, truth, honor, honesty, dignity, pride, ability-granting freedom to think for themselves and the self-worth of their individuality that makes them a people of value.

[UPDATE :: Friday, December 24, 2010]
A Christmas gift from WikiLeaks via Glenn Greenwald: What WikiLeaks revealed to the world in 2010 - 
This blog article about the As It Stands newspaper article's assault on the messenger is typical of a more widespread disease as illustrated in the following quotes. They demonstrate, to a large extent, why I shined a light on the character assassination by the As It Stands opinion:

To understand why I've (Greenwald) done so, and to see what motivates the increasing devotion of the U.S. Government and those influenced by it to destroying that organization, it's well worth reviewing exactly what WikiLeaks exposed to the world just in the last year:  the breadth of the corruption, deceit, brutality and criminality on the part of the world's most powerful factions.

As revealing as the disclosures themselves are, the reactions to them have been equally revealing.  The vast bulk of the outrage has been devoted not to the crimes that have been exposed but rather to those who exposed them: WikiLeaks and (allegedly) Bradley Manning.

*** Greenwald's expose defines why I had to engage this issue with local newspaper, the Times-Standard.

It's unsurprising that political leaders would want to convince people that the true criminals are those who expose acts of high-level political corruption and criminality, rather than those who perpetrate them.  Every political leader would love for that self-serving piety to take hold.  But what's startling is how many citizens and, especially, "journalists" now vehemently believe that as well.  In light of what WikiLeaks has revealed to the world about numerous governments, just fathom the authoritarian mindset that would lead a citizen -- and especially a "journalist" -- to react with anger that these things have been revealed; to insist that these facts should have been kept concealed and it'd be better if we didn't know; and, most of all, to demand that those who made us aware of it all be punished (the True Criminals) while those who did these things (The Good Authorities) be shielded. 

To see the list of just some of what WikiLeaks has offered, click this link.

---

[UPDATE :: Saturday, December 25, 2010 - What is a "HACKER?"]

The following excerpt from an essay by Bruce Sterling, The Blast Shack, is well worth reading the whole essay. It adds a lot of context to the above article. He concludes by saying:

Well… every once in a while, a situation that’s one-in-a-thousand is met by a guy who is one in a million. It may be that Assange is, somehow, up to this situation. Maybe he’s gonna grow in stature by the massive trouble he has caused. Saints, martyrs, dissidents and freaks are always wild-cards, but sometimes they’re the only ones who can clear the general air. Sometimes they become the catalyst for historical events that somehow had to happen. They don’t have to be nice guys; that’s not the point. Julian Assange did this; he direly wanted it to happen. He planned it in nitpicky, obsessive detail. Here it is; a planetary hack.

I don’t have a lot of cheery hope to offer about his all-too-compelling gesture, but I dare to hope he’s everything he thinks he is, and much, much, more.

--Joe

Truth to Power

Our purpose is to stimulate thinking by offering the real message behind the many words.

Anyone that reads the Joe Blow Report and The Joe Blow Report 2 will readily accept the fact that our stated purpose is rigorously enforced with honesty, decency and integrity. In order to understand the real message we consistently listen to the intent behind the words. While we may slip and offer an opinion on a very rare occasion it is our most sincere "intent" to offer only observations based upon as much factual material we can find.

One of the reasons the Report was resurrected had to do with finding Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez and their TV program, "Democracy Now." Their courage and resourceful efforts to report truth to power were an inspiration to contribute in whatever way possible. Readers of the Report will note that there are other writers that are featured in the Report – information, ideas, conclusions and news that, to be informed, need to be read and considered. In that regard and in due course, another one of these people came to the Report's attention: Glenn Greenwald. Glenn writes for the blog: Salon.com. When you read what he writes today you'll readily understand why we were and remain attracted to his commentary and cutting-edge reporting.

Wednesday, Apr 14, 2010 02:15 EDT
Blog news
By Glenn Greenwald

Ever since I began writing about political matters, reader support has been a vital means of enabling me to maintain independence and devote the vast bulk of my time and energy to what I do here.  As I noted during last year's blog fund-raiser, this model of readership support for journalism and commentary is, in my view, very healthy.  It permits one to remain accountable only to one's readers, which in turn means that no external agendas or interests can influence what is written, and the only real obligation is to maintain credibility with one's readership by offering honest, reliable, well-documented and completely independent analysis.

You can read the rest of his article here. We here at the Report find Glenn's words to be true in our past dealings. That is not something I can say for many local bloggers or Newspaper media. Glenn:

As always, I genuinely appreciate anyone who contributes here in any way -- commenting, reading, email feedback -- and deeply appreciate everyone who has helped to fund blog activities here in the past.

In order for the Report to maintain itself, legitimate within its own right, what is offered is "accountable only to one's readers." In other words, what is written stands on its own, not because of who wrote it, but because of what it says. The writer or writers remain anonymous inorder to maintain that objective independance. Read the Report or don't read the Report, that is your free choice. We do not solicit opinions, one way or the other, nor do we ask you to read, agree or disagree. We leave the door open and offer the opportunity for considerate, decent and respectful commentary. We discourage "Anonymous" commentary because, based upon our observations, few such individuals understand the aformentioned principles. In fact, very few local bloggers do as well.

For the many that pass through our domain, we consider your silence and affirmation and thank everyone that reads the Report.

--Joe

How Do You Honor A Man?

We, the Joe Blow Report, do so by posting the following words of Martin Luther King spoken April 4, 1967. As you read and contemplate what he said, ask yourself, was there a "revolution of values" in this country. America votes in a black man hoping for a Martin Luther King moment and what did they get? They got a Nixon, a Reagan, a couple of Bushes, and a Clinton on steroids; you can throw in a Jimmy Carter, if you want. These men and their supporters did everything they could to maintain and enforce the devalued state of American character and self worth. Their looting of the American treasure is almost complete.

---

Here is the introduction by Amy Goodman 42 years later.

While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor and organized the Poor People’s Campaign to address issues of economic justice. Dr. King was also a fierce critic of US foreign policy and the Vietnam War.

In his “Beyond Vietnam” speech, which he delivered at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4th, 1967, a year-to-the-day before he was assassinated, Dr. King called the United States, quote, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” Time magazine called the speech “demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.” The Washington Post said King, quote, “diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.”

Today, we’ll let you decide. We play an excerpt of Dr. King’s speech “Beyond Vietnam.”

REV. DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: After 1954, they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which could have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered.

Also, it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva Agreement concerning foreign troops. And they remind us that they did not begin to send troops in large numbers and even supplies into the South, until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands.

Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the President claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the North. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor, weak nation more than 8,000 miles away from its shores.

At this point, I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called “enemy,” I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else, for it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after the short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long, they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America, who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

The following list of newspaper articles came from the Times-Standard starting Christmas day page A3 with the pictures about the "Miracle on Wabash" that "warms hearts, bodies." Where "scores of people enjoyed free food, clothing and toys from local businesses, churches and nonprofits at an unused church on Wabash Avenue in Eureka on Christmas Eve. The volunteer-run community celebration also featured face painting and live music."

Saturday, December 26, 2009: County predicts minor revenue loss with decreasing property taxes
and the "My Word" by, Richard Twiddy: Slow down and clarify the issues. Really scarry times when they can just ram through these kinds of increases and changes. No gift of peace here!

Next we've got the newspapers Editorial in the same issue: Walking the walk about Michael Winkler – Arcata City Councilman and the front-page article, Waste not ... written about THE Michael Winkler, "Arcata council member keeps his garbage to a minimum."

Then let's jump a day or two to today, Tuesday December 29 to the front-page article, Cough it up ... with it's brilliant, but relevant comment by Fortuna Police Chief Kris Kitna, “We'd have to be more selective on who we put in jail.” Which suggests, WHAT? That they are NOT selective?
On Sunday, December 27, 2009 the T-S page A5, headlines the Opinion "My Word" by Sylvia De Rooy, Are we losing what matters in Humboldt? Where she's whining about Caltran's opening up the highway, Big Box stores because the “cost of them is too high.” Now compare this to the pictures about the "Miracle on Wabash" and then you tell me what really matters in Humboldt, the people that only think of themselves, specially during these Christmas holidays or those that think of their neighbor?

At the bottom of the page is Amy Goodmans's article, Climate discord: From Hopenhagen to Nopenhagen where she concludes by saying, “Many feel that Obama's disruption of the process in Copenhagen may have fatally derailed 20 years of climate talks. But Pica (Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth) has it right. The Copenhagen climate summit failed to reach a fair, ambitious and binding agreement, but it inspired a new generation of activists to join what has emerged as a mature, sophisticated global movement for climate justice.” I'm not so sure the nay-sayers wouldn't call them "a new generation of extremists" and target them as terrorists.

And then on Tuesday, December 29, 2009 we get the meaningless, but “thoughtful and sensitive” words of the newspapers city editor James Faulk, The post-Christmas let-down? “So I guess there's no real solution. Just call it the post-Christmas let-down. It is what it is, I guess.” Coupled with more meaningless words of a Crescent City lawyer, Jon Alexander, “The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

Joe says, “I would would guess, too”!

Whereas the banks are no longer making home equity loans (T-S Pg. A6, Saturday, Dec. 26, 2009) and with the value of homes and property going into the tank and now limiting the tax base, we're looking at less resource for government stuff. (My sophisticated word "stuff" for government expenditures, costs, give-aways and the like.) In the above article, "County predicts minor revenue loss with decreasing property taxes," they, Philip Smith-Haynes County Administrative Officer, “said he would be discussing the decrease with each department as well as with the Board of Supervisors during the mid-year budget report.” Does anyone believe for a moment that "they" will actually talk about cutting costs to reflect the actual tax base? The question is probably redundant in the face of our changing climate situation that no one wants to deal with in a positive way. That little situation will answer all our problems.

If the above sampling is any indicator, I'd say there's a lot wrong with that picture. There can be no peace gift when your sole purpose or reason for existence is to dominate and exploit the recourses of the poor.
 

--Joe