Amy Goodman writes: "The historic election of Barack Obama was achieved by millions of people across the political spectrum. For years during the Bush administration, people felt they were hitting their heads against a brick wall. With the election, the wall had become a door, but it was only open a crack. The question was, would it be kicked open or slammed shut? It is not up to one person. Obama had moved from community organizer in chief to commander in chief. When forces used to having the ear of the most powerful person on earth whisper their demands in the Oval Office, the president must see a force more powerful outside his window, whether he likes it or not, and say, 'If I do that, they will storm the Bastille.' If there's no one out there, we are all in big trouble."
Journalist, author, and host of Democracy Now! Amy Goodman. (photo: Wikimedia)
A New Bush Era or a Push Era?
12 October 11
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ack when Barack Obama was still just a US senator running for president, he told a group of donors in a New Jersey suburb, "Make me do it." He was borrowing from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who used the same phrase (according to Harry Belafonte, who heard the story directly from Eleanor Roosevelt) when responding to legendary union organizer A. Philip Randolph's demand for civil rights for African-Americans.
While President Obama has made concession after concession to both the corporate-funded tea party and his Wall Street donors, now that he is again in campaign mode, his progressive critics are being warned not to attack him, as that might aid and abet the Republican bid for the White House.
Enter the 99 percenters. The Occupy Wall Street ranks continue to grow, inspiring more than 1,000 solidarity protests around the country and the globe. After weeks, and one of the largest mass arrests in US history, Obama finally commented: "I think people are frustrated, and the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works." But neither he nor his advisers - or the Republicans - know what to do with this burgeoning mass movement.
Following the controversial Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which allows unlimited corporate donations to support election advertising, the hunger for campaign cash is insatiable. The Obama re-election campaign aims to raise $1 billion. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the financial industry was Obama's second-largest source of 2008 campaign contributions, surpassed only by the lawyers/lobbyists industry sector.
The suggestion that a loss for Obama would signal a return to the Bush era has some merit: The Associated Press reported recently that "almost all of [Mitt] Romney's 22 special advisers held senior Bush administration positions in diplomacy, defense or intelligence. Two former Republican senators are included as well as Bush-era CIA chief Michael Hayden and former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff." But so is the Obama presidency an expansion of the Bush era, unless there is a new "Push era."
The organic strength of Occupy Wall Street defies the standard dismissals from the corporate media's predictably stale stable of pundits. For them, it is all about the divide between the Republicans and the Democrats, a divide the protesters have a hard time seeing. They see both parties captured by Wall Street. Richard Haass, head of the establishment Council on Foreign Relations, said of the protesters, "They're not serious." He asked why they are not talking about entitlements. Perhaps it is because, to the 99 percent, Social Security and Medicare are not the problem, but rather growing inequality, with the 400 richest Americans having more wealth than half of all Americans combined. And then there is the overwhelming cost and toll of war, first and foremost the lives lost, but also the lives destroyed, on all sides.
It's why, for example, Jose Vasquez, executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the War, was down at Occupy Wall Street on Monday night. He told me: "It's no secret that a lot of veterans are facing unemployment, homelessness and a lot of other issues that are dealing with the economy. A lot of people get deployed multiple times and are still struggling.... I've met a lot of veterans who have come here. I just met a guy who is active duty, took leave just to come to Occupy Wall Street."
The historic election of Barack Obama was achieved by millions of people across the political spectrum. For years during the Bush administration, people felt they were hitting their heads against a brick wall. With the election, the wall had become a door, but it was only open a crack. The question was, would it be kicked open or slammed shut? It is not up to one person. Obama had moved from community organizer in chief to commander in chief. When forces used to having the ear of the most powerful person on earth whisper their demands in the Oval Office, the president must see a force more powerful outside his window, whether he likes it or not, and say, "If I do that, they will storm the Bastille." If there's no one out there, we are all in big trouble.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
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Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of "Breaking the Sound Barrier," recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.
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here I wrote 9 days ago:
Activista 2014-07-01 10:53
"Hamas in Gaza responded Monday evening to the discovery of the bodies of the three Israeli teens, kidnapped on June 12, denying complicity in the kidnapping and blaming Israel for "preparing the ground" for an attack against Gaza."
www.haaretz.com - I find Haaretz or Hamas more trutworthy than Israeli/USA mass media ...
That Israel will use its propaganda blitzkrieg to attack Iran (now IF but when).
Because many Conservatives are still living in the 1950's, when "Left Wing Media Bias" actually had some small truth to it? And for those who know better and craft GOP narratives, because it still plays with the ignorant base, getting them to drink the Corporate Kool-Aid voluntarily?
I wonder if they'd be quite so gleeful, though, if they realize that what they're really admitting is that (1) our intelligence services are vulnerable to being led by the nose by those willing to provide false information which fits their (right-leaning) institutionaliz ed prejudices, and (2) conservatives are more than happy to provide such false information, even when they know, or have good reason to know, that it is false. Or, to put it another way, that our spy agencies are suckers for right-wing disinformation, and right-wingers are happy to sucker them.
I always laugh at this chestnut. My come-back is always that this take solely suggests is that the GOP are very effective liars, not that some liberals being duped by them provides any proof that deliberate lies weren't being told. Any psychologist will tell you that Sociopaths are always good at lying.
Now Miller works at FOX news and Gordon is still the well greased conduit for the lies of the military industrial complex.
There is no "free press" in the US. The major media are simply conduits for the ruling elites to tell the masses what they intend to do. They inform the masses so the masses will support the actions, such as a war against Iraq or the funding of a coup d'etat in Ukraine.
There's nothing to say about Anders Fogh Rassmussen. He's simply a whore. He does what the ruling elites tell him to do. There's no lie that is too disgusting to him. There's no amount of wanton killing that he's not willing to authorize. that's why his career has been so successful. He's a political whore of the first order.
We've a saying: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never harm me." I agree that people like Anders Fogh Rassmussen and Benjamin Netanyahu aren't the nicest people in the world, and calling them names may make one feel good, but it's not going to change anything unfortunately.
I am somewhat depressed right now because the only country in the world today that I thought could've changed anything, that could've stood up to the U.S., that could've opposed U.S. world domination, has just capitulated its power away to the United States, and that country is Russia. I refer you to the following short article that came out today:
http://seekingalpha.com/news/1839155-russia-not-interfering-as-ukraine-surrounds-donetsk
Putin has just told the United States of the world that it will not stand up to the U.S. and that the U.S. is virtually free to do whatever it wants to do in the world today.
Name calling doesn't work when you're dealing with very thick-skinned people, people who are absent a conscience and a soul, evil wicked people.
Anyone who depends on any corporate media outlet for accurate information should have their heads examined.
Remember, one definition of insanity is to continue the same behavior expecting different results.
What if we ignored the NYT? Would it figure out it needed to provide accurate information?