Tag: Politics

Oct 25 2012

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Dean Baker: Why Even President Obama Won’t Champion Social Security

Although millions of middle-class Americans strongly support social security, big bucks campaign donors hate it. That’s why

It is remarkable that social security hasn’t been a more prominent issue in the presidential race. After all, Governor Romney has proposed a plan that would imply cuts of more than 40% for middle-class workers just entering the labor force. Since social security is hugely popular across the political spectrum, it would seem that President Obama could gain an enormous advantage by clearly proclaiming his support for the program.

But President Obama has consistently refused to rise to the defense of social security. In fact, in the first debate, he explicitly took the issue off the table, telling the American people that there is not much difference between his position on social security and Romney’s.

Charles M. Blow: Paul Ryan’s Poverty Play

Paul Ryan gave a speech on poverty and economic mobility.

No, that’s not the beginning of one of those a-man-walks-into-a-bar jokes. It actually happened.

Ryan delivered the speech Wednesday in Cleveland. “In this war on poverty,” he said, “poverty is winning.” What he didn’t say is that he and his budget have taken sides in that war – and not on the side of the poor.

This is just the latest of Mitt Romney’s home-stretch attempts to kick up the dust of confusion, soften harsh rhetoric and policies, and slip into the White House.

But there’s a problem: Ryan’s budget was actually printed – on paper, at that. It was passed by the House in March. It can be examined and evaluated.

Margaret Kimberly: Freedom Rider: Not Voting for Obama

The top Democrat and Republican have clashed face-to-face three times – and emerged far more alike than different. “Given this degree of collusion, why would it be so terrible if Obama lost?” The presidential electoral exercise looks more like an exorcism in which both parties are the Devil.

Two weeks before Election Day, most polling indicates that Barack Obama has sufficient support to win an electoral college victory. If the past four years are any indication, that victory will do little to help the millions of people who put Obama in office. His claims of success are either dubious or obviously harmful for people in this country and around the world. [..]

On November 6th it is perfectly acceptable, morally right, and politically principled to boycott the election or to vote for a party other than the Democrats. Hand wringing about a Romney victory is mostly phony, and geared to keep progressives silent in the face of each new assault. Obama may win after all, but it shouldn’t be because people who claim to be on the left are complicit and a party to his wrongdoing.

Elaine Goldsmith: Is the Clock Turning Back for Women’s Rights?

Whether I like it or not, I am an old lady now. I won’t tell you how old — but trust me. As I watch the election, I find myself worrying about my granddaughters and great-granddaughters. Are we at risk of turning back the clock on women’s rights?

When I was young, my girlfriends and I all worked to make our lives count. We wanted our bodies to be ours — just as men’s are theirs. No one can tell a man what he can or can’t legally do to his body, nor should anyone tell a woman, either. We spoke out, organized, got our parents involved, and encouraged them to get their friends involved.

When Griswold v. Connecticut was decided in 1965, protecting the right to birth control, we knew change was possible. When Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, giving women the right to choose, we knew change had arrived. Nobody is pro-abortion — but anyone who saw the world of back-alley abortions and botched procedures, as I did, would ever want to go back to those days.

Gail Collins: Connecticut Smack-Down

“I got into the race after looking at the faces of my six little grandchildren,” said Linda McMahon.

She is the Republican candidate for the United States Senate in Connecticut, and, over the last three years, she has spent more than $77 million attempting to get elected. When the little grandchildren are grown into the heirs to the McMahon family fortune, do you think they’ll regard that as a good choice?

Linda McMahon is famous for two things: spending piles and piles of money on Senate campaigns, and being a mogul in the world of professional wrestling. She and her husband, Vince, built the empire of sleeper holds and body slams that is known as World Wrestling Entertainment.

Robert Reich: Mitt Romney’s Question-Mark Economy

As we close in on Election Day, the questions about what Mitt Romney would do if elected grow even larger. Rarely before in American history has a candidate for president campaigned on such a blank slate.

Yet, paradoxically, not a day goes by that we don’t hear Romney, or some other exponent of the GOP, claim that businesses aren’t creating more jobs because they’re uncertain about the future. And the source of that uncertainty, they say, is President Obama — especially his Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and the Dodd-Frank Act, and uncertainties surrounding Obama’s plan to raise taxes on the wealthy.

In fact, Romney has created far more uncertainty. He offers a virtual question mark of an economy.

Oct 24 2012

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Wednesday is Ladies’ day.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Kristen Breitweiser: Droning On — But Where’s the Dialogue?

This morning the topic of drones was raised on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. I never thought I’d actually agree with Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough, but I do.

Scarborough courageously spoke the truth about the long-term dangerous effects of ANY U.S. President’s use of drones. And he went further by saying that it was time Americans started educating themselves and having a serious dialogue about our nation’s drone use overseas. I couldn’t agree more with him.

Joe Scarborough said what few Democrats or Republicans are willing to say because they either fear publicly criticizing “their own” President or appearing in any degree soft on extremism. [..]

As a 9/11 widow, I am no shrinking violet when it comes to defending ourselves against extremists; I’m all for being tough on terrorists. But, in my opinion, no U.S. President should ever have the sole sweeping power to assassinate anyone without others–including to some degree the rest of the world– looking over their shoulder.

Jessica Valente: Ending Rape Illiteracy

This week, a DC-based feminist group projected the phrase “rape is rape” onto the US Capitol building. The action was meant to highlight survivors’ stories and bring attention to the way rape is often mischaracterized. The sentiment may seem an obvious one-who doesn’t understand what rape is?-but the message, sadly, is much needed. It was only this January that the FBI updated its archaic definition of rape, male politicians’ “gaffes” about rape have become par for the course, and victim-blaming in the culture and courts runs rampant.

Feminists have done a lot to change policies, but not enough to change minds. Despite decades of activism on sexual assault-despite common sense, even-there is still widespread ignorance about what rape is, and this absence of a widely understood and culturally accepted definition of sexual assault is one of the biggest hurdles we have in chipping away at rape culture.

Laura Flanders: What a Difference Other Candidates Make

Haven’t read Lee Fang’s excellent expose on the lobbyists controlling the Presidential Debate Committee? You should. Then imagine what these debates would be like if things were very different. For one thing, there might be more parties’ candidates included.

Thanks to Democracy Now!, Jill Stein of the Green Party and Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party have been able to take part in three virtually expanded debates. On no occasion was the contrast greater than in the foreign policy debate Tuesday night. While the word clouds over the Obama/Romney debate screamed “crippling, kill, world leader, Israel,” the debate over at Democracy Now! kept coming back to international law, climate change, morality and human rights. [..]

For democracy to flourish, we need not only a corporation-free debate committee, we need a way to break through the monopoly of the two-party system. That problem’s only gotten harder as the wealth gap has grown and the cost of competing for office in this country has skyrocketed. What’s the number-one security threat facing American democracy? If last night’s debate is anything to go by, it’s the narrow range of policy alternatives on basic issues brought to us by Big Money in politcs.

Katrina vanden Heuvel; Paul Wellstone – 10 years later

It’s been ten years since we lost Paul Wellstone, a relentless champion, a true public servant and one of the very few social movement senators we’ve ever had. He was the first politician whose death made me weep. But in an era of craven compromises and bipartisan austerity, it seems almost unfair to call Paul Wellstone a politician at all. [..]

But Wellstone’s legacy is equally clear in the work of an array of grassroots organizations inspired or re-invigorated by his efforts. Among the most significant is Wellstone Action, which happily labors year in and year out, training organizers, activists and candidates (55,000 and counting) in electoral and issue organizing. Wellstone Action Executive Director Ben Goldfarb says that as an alternative to “triangulation,” the group is fostering “the Wellstone triangle: connecting ‘core community organizing,’ ‘engaging directly in elections [as] an arena in which you can actually build and demonstrate power’ and ‘a public policy agenda.’ ” He adds that there are “a lot of folks who believe you can make change in one of those three, or two of those three, and very few who really get how to weave them all together. That was something [Wellstone] showed, and taught and talked about his entire life.”

Leslie Savan: Sweaty vs. Steady: Body Language in the Third Debate

Mitt Romney’s calling card has always been his corporate crispness, at least from the chest up. His finely tailored suit jackets made his shoulders look broad and his chest solid; he was all jaw with a slap of bracing aftershave that you could almost smell through the TV. Fresh and ready to command his morning board meeting, Romney “looked like a president,” as pundits repeatedly declared and as he did, in fact, look in the first debate.

Last night, he was crumpled and rumpled. He forgot Rule #1 for males who sit before TV cameras: sit on the tail of your jacket so it doesn’t bunch up around your shoulders. It bunched. And instead of Old Spice, he wore fresh sweat. [..]

At the end of the debate, Obama was the first to stand up. Romney stood a beat later, and started to come around the back of the table for the ritual handshake and shoulder grab. Obama quickly pointed to the front of the table and walked there.

Romney took his directions and followed.

Jane Gleeson-White: Is GDP’s Reign as the Only Measure of Wealth Coming to an End?

Challenges to the supremacy of gross domestic product, which ignores natural and household contributions, are growing

Britain has now posted three consecutive quarters of declining gross domestic product – the most recent figures show the economy has shrunk by 0.5%. With the latest set of GDP figures due to be released later this week, the nation remains sunk in the longest recession since the second world war.

But GDP is also coming under a different sort of scrutiny in these days of economic woe. GDP measures all legal transactions in the financial economy – no more and no less. And yet, since its inception in the 1930s, it has become the single most important policy tool for governments, financial institutions and corporations. Governments and many people believe that only this one miraculous figure can really show whether things are getting better or getting worse.

But GDP is a partial and misleading measure of national wealth and wellbeing. The problem is that it does not measure key goods in our economy, those unpriced but priceless services carried out by domestic workers and by nature – for example, the coastal defence of coral reefs, the pollution-filtering of wetlands, the nutrient recycling done by the soil and the unpaid work we do in our homes.

Oct 24 2012

Barofsky on Pandit and Obama Failures: Part 1

In a web exclusive interview, Neil Barofsky, the former Special Inspector General for the U.S. Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), talks with Bill Moyers about the resignation of Citibank CEO, Vikram Pandit and his disappointment with President Barack Obama’s choice to protect the big banks instead of regulating them.

“I think that you have to view [Pandit’s] career through that prism of being one of the worst-performing of a group of bad banks. To receive all that money and really to accomplish what he accomplished was mostly because of taxpayer generosity and the incredible political connections that Citigroup had in Washington. And basically cashing out those connections,” Barofsky tells Bill. [..]

“I thought that if there was ever going to be a political figure that would take on the interests of Wall Street, it was going to be President Obama. And that just didn’t happen,” Barofsky says. “It was the exact opposite of that… He had the same ideology as Secretary Geithner and, frankly, the same ideology as a lot of those people who came from Wall Street.””

This is the first of two parts and focuses on Mr. Pandit’s sudden departure.

Oct 24 2012

Live Stream: 3rd Party candidates Debate

This is the first of two debates that feature candidates for president who were shut out by the Commission on Presidential Debates. A second debate will be held on October 30.

Third-party candidates set for US debate

Representatives of the Libertarian, Green, Constitution, and Justice parties to hold presidential debate in Chicago.

Four third-party candidates, who were not invited to the presidential debates between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, are to face other in Chicago.

Tuesday’s debate is hosted by the Free and Equal Elections Foundation, a group promoting a more open electoral process, and will be moderated by talk show host Larry King.

“It’s a two-party system, but not a two-party system by law,” King said. Obama and Romney were also invited, but declined to attend.

The participants include former Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson, former Virginia congressman Virgil Goode, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, and Green Party nominee Jill Stein, who ran against Romney in Massachusetts in 2002.

Since 1988, candidates have only been invited by the Commission on Presidential Debates to participate if polls find they have more than 15 per cent support.

So far, only one candidate has met that criterion, the billionaire Ross Perot, who debated Bill Clinton and George H W Bush in 1992.

Alternative presidential debates for third-party candidates have been held since 1996, but George Farah, author of No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates, says he “[doesn’t] remember one getting this much attention, having Larry King moderate it.”

A second third-party match-up will be held on October 30.

Up Date: C-Span will broadcast the debate live starting at 9 PM EDT.

Follow debate on Twitter #thirdpartydebate

Oct 23 2012

The 3rd Obama – Romney Debate: Foreign Policy

The third and final debate between President Barack Obama and his challenger, Governor Mitt Romney took place in Boca Raton, FL at Lynn University moderated by Bob Schieffer, host of CBS’s “Face the Nation.” The focus was on foreign policy with most of the questions centering on the unrest in the Middle East, the conflict in Afghanistan, the military and the war on terror. Many of the pundits and snap polls gave the “win” to Pres. Obama, who let loose with a few well placed “zingers” in response to Gov. Romney’s criticism of his foreign policy. The “horses and bayonets” quip countering Gov Romney’s criticism of the US Navy’s fleet strength. Here is some the more balanced analysis from the left who had as much to say about the Obama administration’s bungled foreign policy, as they did about the dubious future policies of a President Romney.

From David Dayen, FDL News Desk, article, We Don’t Have an American Foreign Policy Debate

While Mitt Romney hid behind Barack Obama and displayed about as much independent thought as a college student who didn’t cram enough the night before the test and spent the whole time looking at his neighbor’s paper, his neighbor Barack Obama reflected so strongly the smoldering wreck that is this nation’s foreign policy consensus.

It’s amazing that the Republican Party, once associated almost totally with a “strong national defense,” would give up so completely on foreign policy, to the extent that they have no identity whatsoever on the issue. Romney agreed with every Obama position but said the nation needed a “comprehensive strategy” to deal with the world, the equivalent of Gerald Ford’s “Whip Inflation Now” buttons, a signifier without anything behind it.

But it’s also amazing to me that anyone would call the Republican candidate Peacenik Mitt, since on the one area by which we wage war in the 21st-century world, Mitt agreed “completely” on the use of drones. That’s increasingly the only way America and the west fights wars these days. So agreement on drones means agreement on the war strategy for the world powers over the next several decades. [..]

When war policy gets reduced to “send flying robots overhead to strike,” eliciting no sacrifice on the part of the general population, it becomes much easier to make these calls, to sign off on interventions in Libya or Somalia or Yemen or Mali or wherever else. [..]

From Glenn Greenwald‘s comments during the live blog of the debate at The Guardian:

9.34pm: Both candidates are eager to ignore the topic of this debate – foreign policy – in order to talk about the economy because they perceive, accurately, that this is what most voters care about, and because they don’t really have much to disagree in the foreign policy area. And so they are now dispensing with any pretense and regurgitating their economics debate.

But US foreign policy actually does have a significant relationship to the economy- namely, the massive military, the constant aggression, war and occupation, the hundreds of military bases around the world all drain resources away from far more constructive purposes – but neither of these two candidates will dare to question any of those imperial premises, so they can’t actually address the prime economic impact of US foreign policy. [..]

10.22pm: A primary reason this debate is so awful is because DC media people like Bob Scheiffer have zero interest in challenging any policy that is embraced by both parties, and since most foreign policies are embraced by both parties, he has no interest in challenging most of the issues that are relevant: drones, sanctions, Israel, etc.

10.34pm: That was just a wretched debate, with almost no redeeming qualities. It was substance-free, boring, and suffuse with empty platitudes. Bob Scheiffer’s questions were even more vapid and predictably shallow than they normally are, and one often forgot that he was even there (which was the most pleasant part of the debate.)

The vast majority of the most consequential foreign policy matters (along with the world’s nations) were completely ignored in lieu of their same repetitive slogans on the economy. When they did get near foreign policy, it was to embrace the fundamentals of each other’s positions and, at most, bicker on the margin over campaign rhetoric.

Numerous foreign policy analysts, commentators and journalists published lists of foreign policy questions they wanted to hear asked and answered at this debate. Almost none was raised. In sum, it was a perfect microcosm of America’s political culture.

10.56pm: Echoing a common refrain of progressives, Andrew Sullivan after the debate says that Obama has “restored America’s moral standing in the world”. I suppose one can say that if one excludes the entire Muslim world from “the world”, as many do, because in that rather large and important part of the world, there has been no restoration of any kind. Quite the opposite. See, just as a beginning, here, here, here, and here.

From lambert‘s Mission elapsed time: T + 45 and counting* at Corrente:

Obama vs. Romney Round III. Recently, I’ve started taking the bus into town, so I can caffeinate myself and work on my laptop in a milieu that could make me feel like I lived in a city again, if I were able to suspend disbelief, which I can’t.

Point being that I take the last bus home, and the last bus here, like last buses everywhere, is filled with characters. A selection of characters I’m highly confident is drawn from populations that are under this or that form of supervison. Most exhibit detailed knowledge of pharmaceuticals, especially barbiturates. Their language is technical and official. They are expert in brands, dosages, arrests, trials, hearings, sentences, and treatment regimens. They trade tips. Most present well; they speak fluently and often, especially of compliance, recovery, and the disasters of others.

And heaven knows what they do when they get home.

So, tonight, listening to our affectless, sweating, droning candidates speak so fluently and present so well, I couldn’t but be reminded of junkies on the last bus. Because it really is about the next fix with these guys, isn’t it? It always is, with junk. Oil, money, power: Junk. Right in the imperial vein.

From Gary Younge‘s comment at The Guardian:

Obama fires and Romney falters but third debate fails to find a flourish

The president did better than an unconvincing Romney – but it’s difficult to imagine this debate changed minds or won hearts

If the world could vote on 6 November, Barack Obama would win by a landslide. A global poll for the BBC World Service revealed that 20 out of 21 countries preferred the president to his challenger. But when you watched the presidential debate on foreign policy on Monday night you had to wonder why. Not because Mitt Romney was better, but because on matters of policy, Obama was almost as bad. It takes a friend to reveal the harsh truth to the global community, so here it is: “Obama’s just not that into you.”

No one could love Israel more, care less about the Palestinians, put more pressure on Iran or be a greater fan of drone attacks or invading Libya. Both candidates agreed that America’s task was to spread freedom around the world: nobody mentioned Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib or rendition. “Governor, you’re saying the same things as us, but you’d say them louder,” said Obama. It was a good line. The trouble was it condemned them both.

Charles Pierce, in his analysis at Esquire noted some significant glaring ommissions:

A discussion of foreign policy that did not mention climate change. (Four debates and nary a mention. Somebody else is going to have to tell the polar bears.) A discussion of foreign policy that mentioned teacher’s unions exactly as many times – once – as it mentioned the Palestinians, and I am not making that statistic up. A discussion of foreign policy that did not mention hunger, or thirst, or epidemic disease, but spent better than ten minutes on The Fking Deficit. (Here Romney cited in defense of his position that noted political economist, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.) A discussion of foreign policy that was all about threats, real and imagined, and wars, real or speculative, and weapons, and how many of them we should build in order to feel safe in this dangerous world.

There is no light between them.

Oct 23 2012

Expanded Debate with the Other Presidential Candidates: Third Debate

Exclusive: As Obama and Romney Agree on Afghan War, Israel and Syria, Third Parties Give Alternative

In the last of our exclusive “Expanding the Debate” series, we bring you highlights of our coverage of last night’s final presidential debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney, with the added voices of third-party candidates. As Obama and Romney faced off for the last time before the general election, we once again broke the sound barrier by inserting Jill Stein of the Green Party and Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party into the discussion. In an evening focused on foreign policy, both Obama and Romney shared wide agreement on issues including support for the Israeli government, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, and opposition to U.S. military involvement in Syria. But they clashed over a few key points, including military spending, negotiating with Iran, and responding to the Libyan embassy attack. Before a live audience in San Rafael, California, we aired the Obama-Romney debate and paused the tape to give Stein and Anderson a chance to respond in real time to the same questions put to the major-party candidates.

Transcript here.

There is a Third Party debate scheduled for tonight at 9 PM EDT, October 23, in Chicago hosted by Larry King. None of the major networks or cable news sites are carrying the debate. C-Span had not yet decided of they would air the debate with four third-party candidates, Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson, Green Party nominee Jill Stein, Constitution Party nominee Virgil Goode, and Justice Party nominee Rocky Anderson, which is being hosted by the nonpartisan Free and Equal Elections Foundation. It will be carried live by Al Jazeera:

Link TV will also carry Al Jazeera English’s broadcast in areas where the network still isn’t available on the cable dial. In addition, Russia Today announced plans Friday to air the debate on the RT America television network and on RT.com. The debate will also be streamed by Ora TV, home to Larry King’s online talk show, and on Free and Equal’s site.

We will have the debate Live stream at both The Stars Hollow Gazette and Docudharma.

Oct 23 2012

In Memoriam: Russell Means 1939 – 2012

Native American activist, Russell Means, 72, died early yesterday of advanced esophageal cancer at his ranch in Porcupine, S.D., on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Mr. Means, an Oglala Sioux, was born in Pine Ridge and raised in the San Francisco bay area where his family relocated to escape the poverty of the reservation when he was three. He was a troubled youth, graduating high school but never finishing college. After his father’s death, he returned to living on reservations and found his niche in the American Indian Movement (AIM) in Minneapolis. In his 1995 autobiography, Where White Men Fear to Tread, Mr. Means recounts his journey from rage to healing.

He had become active for Native American rights in California where in 1964 he participated, along with his father, in the occupation of Alcatraz, reclaiming the abandoned island for the Sioux nation. He rose to national attention in 1970 with the occupation of the Mayflower II replica in Boston Harbor and a year later, he was one of the leaders of the take over of Mount Rushmore.

But it was in 1973, along with Dennis Banks and Charles Camp, that Mr. Means got the most national attention when he became the spokesman for the occupation of Wounded Knee S.D., site of the 1890 massacre of some 350 Lakota men, women and children in the last major conflict of the American Indian wars. The armed occupation by Native Americans and white sympathizers, lasted 71 days with thousands of shots fired, two deaths and a federal agent left paralyzed.

Mr. Means and his fellow protest leader Dennis Banks were charged with assault, larceny and conspiracy. But after a long federal trial in Minnesota in 1974, with the defense raising current and historic Indian grievances, the case was dismissed by a judge for prosecutorial misconduct.

Mr. Means was also an active politician, running for nomination of President of the United States under the Libertarian Party in 1987, losing to Ron Paul, whom he endorsed this year for president. He became involved in the international movement to protect the rights of indigenous people, working  with the United Nations to establish the offices of the International Indian Treaty Council in 1977. In 1985 and 1986, he went to Nicaragua to support indigenous Miskito Indians whose autonomy was threatened by the leftist Sandinista government. He reported Sandinista atrocities against the Indians and urged the Reagan administration to aid the victims. Millions in aid went to some anti-Sandinista groups, but a leader of the Miskito Indian rebels, Brooklyn Rivera, said his followers had not received any of that aid.

Starting in 1992, Mr. Means, a ruggedly handsome man with a scarred face, dark eyes and raven braids that fell ti his waist, turned to acting. In his most famous roles, he played chief “Chingachgook” in The Last of the Mohicans, and in Natural Born Killers, among others for television and videos.

A few months before receiving his cancer diagnosis, in a gesture of what he called mourning for the Lakota nation, Mr. Means cut off his braids explaining “the hair holds memories, and mourners often cut it to release those memories, and the people in them, to the spirit world.”

Russell Means on Reservation Life and Dying Languages from WildHeart Vision on Vimeo.

Mr. Means was married five times; the first four marriages ended in divorce. He was married to his fifth wife, Pearl Means until his death. He had a total of ten children and adopted many others in the Lakota tradition.

In their statement announcing Mr. Means’ passage to the spirit world his family extended an invitation to honor his life:

October 22, 2012…Porcupine, SD USA

Honoring the Life of Russell Means

The family of Russell Means invites you to join us in “Honoring the Life of Russell Means”.  The honoring will highlight his life, leadership and the eternal fire that he re-ignited throughout Indian Country.

October 24, 2012, begins at 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. MST, at Little Wound High School Gymnasium in Kyle, South Dakota USA, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Russell Means, a self-described “Oglala Freedom Fighter”, began his journey to the spirit world at 4:44 am, with the Morning Star, at his home and ranch in Porcupine.

This Honoring will be the first of four opportunities for the people to honor his life.  The next three Honorings are tentatively scheduled as follows:  2nd Honoring at Wounded Knee ’73 Occupation Memorial (Feb 2013); 3rd Honoring at Wind Cave State Park, SD (June 2013); 4th Honoring on Russell’s birthday (Nov 10, 2013) at location to be determined. [..]

Contributions of star quilts, blankets and food to feed the people will be appreciated, and may be brought on Wednesday, October 22, directly to Little Wound High School, Kyle, South Dakota.

Financial contributions to advance the visionary work of Russell Means can be sent to:

TREATY Total Immersion Educational Endowment Fund

Administrative Office

P.O. Box 110

San José, NM 87565

Paypal contributions can be made at: www.treatyschool.org

 

Oct 23 2012

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Robert Dreyfuss: The Iran Talks Bombshell

Don’t take too seriously the furious denials coming from Washington and Tehran about this weekend’s bombshell New York Times story reporting that the United States and Iran have agreed “in principle” to have direct, one-on-one talks after the election.

Both countries’ leaderships, sadly, have reasons to deny any such agreement, in public.

But the report ought to be filed under good news, since presumably the whole point of President Obama’s tough talk on Iran, keeping the military option “on the table,” imposing harsh economic sanctions, and meanwhile seeking talks was designed for precisely this result: that Iran’s ruling ayatollahs sit down with US diplomats. (Until now, all negotiations have been conducted under the auspices of the clumsy P5+1 world powers and Iran, but everyone knows that the real dispute was between Washington and Tehran. The Times reports that the agreement they report followed “intense, secret exchanges between American and Iranian officials” over a prolonged period.)

In the real world, however, Obama won’t trumpet the notion that talks might take place, for exactly the reason that they’re reportedly scheduled to be held after the election: because the assemblage of hawks, neoconservatives, erstwhile Romney ‘advisers,” and the Romney campaign itself-including the bumbling, often confused candidate-would use the idea of talks as a weapon to mobilize ignorant American voters against the president.

Dean Baker: Clinton Criticizes Voters for Not Appreciating the Great Economy He’s Given Them

Bill Clinton is undoubtedly the greatest politician of his generation. He is also a thoroughly reprehensible character.

Last week he had the gall to complain to people in Wisconsin about “impatient voters.” According to a news account, at an Obama rally in Green Bay he said:

   “This shouldn’t be a race … The only reason it is, is because Americans are impatient on things not made before yesterday and they don’t understand why the economy is not totally hunky-dory again.”

This is infuriating for two reasons. First, Clinton uses the term “impatient” like he is describing people waiting for their dinner to be served at restaurant. That’s not the story of the current economy. The story of the economy is people who do not have jobs or do not have jobs that give them enough hours or a high enough wage to allow them to pay their bills each month.

This is an economy where people are losing their homes and being evicted from their apartments. It is one where people can’t afford medical care or decent food and clothes for their kids. That is not story of impatience; it’s a story of real suffering.

Haroon Siddiqui: American Bombing of Iraq Left Legacy of Deformed Babies

Remember Falluja? That city in central Iraq was the scene of two furious attacks in 2004 by American Marines. That spring, they went on a bombing, shooting rampage to avenge the murder and mutilation of four American mercenaries. Instead of targeting the estimated 2,000 insurgents, the Marines almost leveled the city of 300,000, without conquering it. Seven months later, they attacked again with artillery and bombs in what was described as the bloodiest urban warfare involving Americans since the Vietnam War.

Remember Basra? That southern Iraqi city has been suffering since the first Gulf War, in 1991. Radioactive residue from the 800 tons of bombs and 1 million rounds of ammunition used was soon showing up in babies born with huge heads, abnormally large eyes, stunted arms, bloated stomachs and defective hearts. Later in the 1990s, Basra was hit as part of maintaining the American no fly zone on Saddam Hussein. It was attacked yet again in the 2003 American-British invasion and subsequent occupation.

Now we see that the children of Falluja and Basra are suffering a staggering rise in birth defects, primarily from the metals released by bombs, bullets and shells – the dust that gets into food, water, air, soil and crops.

Kristin Moe; Alberta Tar Sands Illegal Under Treaty 8, First Nations Charge

In 1899, First Nations in northern Alberta signed a treaty with Queen Victoria that enshrined their right to practice traditional lifeways. Today, it’s the basis for a legal challenge to Shell Oil’s mining of tar sands.

Fort Chipewyan is a small indigenous community on the edge of vast Lake Athabasca in Alberta’s remote north, accessible only by plane in summer and by snow road in winter. The town is directly downstream from the Alberta tar sands-Canada’s wildly lucrative, hotly debated, and environmentally catastrophic energy project.

Residents say that tar sands mining is not only dangerous but illegal because it violates the rights laid out in Treaty 8, an agreement signed in 1899 by Queen Victoria and various First Nations. Their legal challenge to the tar sands project could have a powerful impact on the legal role of treaties with First Nations people.

Karen Greenberg: Will the Apocalypse Arrive Online?

How Fear of Cyber Attack Could Take Down Your Liberties and the Constitution

First the financial system collapses and it’s impossible to access one’s money. Then the power and water systems stop functioning.  Within days, society has begun to break down.  In the cities, mothers and fathers roam the streets, foraging for food. The country finds itself fractured and fragmented — hardly recognizable.It may sound like a scene from a zombie apocalypse movie or the first episode of NBC’s popular new show “Revolution,” but it could be your life — a nationwide cyber-version of Ground Zero.

Think of it as 9/11/2015.  It’s Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s vision of the future — and if he’s right (or maybe even if he isn’t), you better wonder what the future holds for erstwhile American civil liberties, privacy, and constitutional protections.

Tom Junod; The Lethal Debate: Questions About Killing

The question that should be asked in tonight’s foreign-policy debate won’t be. The question that should be asked would have to do with the killing of American citizens in the name of foreign policy, and would go something like this: “President Obama, just over a year ago an American drone killed a 16-year-old American citizen named Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. Despite your personal involvement in America’s targeted killing programs, you have never acknowledged nor addressed the circumstances of his death. How do you justify such secrecy under the United States Constitution and do you, Governor Romney, also believe that such secrecy is justified?”

The question won’t be asked because the administration has done its utmost to convince the American public that it can’t be asked – to convince the American people that all information regarding the fate of an American-born teenager should remain classified, and that they are threatened not by the bulwark of official silence but rather by its breach. The question won’t be asked because the administration has managed the trick of taking credit for targeted killings in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, and elsewhere without revealing its hand in them, and because debates, after all, are not press conferences or instruments of investigation. We should not expect the Lethal President to reveal aspects of the Lethal Presidency while engaged in a spitting contest with a Republican challenger who has given every indication that his would not just be a Lethal Presidency but also a torturing one.

Sasha Lyutce: Turning “Big Ag” into “Better Ag”

As the stereotype goes, Americans like things BIG. Big cars. Big houses. And big mounds of produce to pick through at the supermarket. But when it comes to where that produce comes from, many American shoppers don’t like the idea of their fruits and vegetables coming from big farms. Indeed much of today’s movement around reforming our food system is focused on smaller, more local farming.

Now there’s absolutely nothing wrong with small and local farms. In fact, we probably need more small and medium-sized farms in every region of the country growing a greater diversity of crops-and there is actually some great news on this front. According to the Census of Agriculture, after declining for some time, the number of farms in the U.S. is actually on the upswing.

But our focus on size alone all too often misses the larger challenge (or opportunity, depending on your point of view). Rather than pitting big agriculture against small agriculture, we need to improve farming practices on all the acres where agriculture is taking place. And this means paying more attention to the vast majority of acres being farmed “conventionally” today, even if they ultimately fall short of a pastoral ideal. Ignoring conventional agriculture-the dominant means by which we produce food in this country-means missing a critical opportunity to improve environmental outcomes for our health, our soils, air, and water, and to drive broader reforms in our food system.

Oct 23 2012

Your Brain After the Debates

Oct 23 2012

Plutocracy: “The Remains of the Old USA”

Plutocrats Want to Own Your Vote

by Bill Moyers and Michael Winsap

The new Gilded Age is roaring down on us — an un-caged tiger on a rampage. Walk out to the street in front of our office here in Manhattan, look to the right and you can see the symbol of it: a fancy new skyscraper going up two blocks away. When finished, this high rise among high rises will tower a thousand feet, the tallest residential building in the city.

The New York Times has dubbed it “the global billionaires’ club” — and for good reason. At least of two of the apartments are under contract for more than $90 million each. Others, more modest, range in price from $45 million to more than $50 million. The mega-rich have been buying these places “looking for a place to stash their cash,” a realtor from Sotheby’s explained to the Times. “A lot of what is happening,” she said, “… is about wealth preservation.”

Simultaneously, the powers-that-be have just awarded Donald Trump the right to run a golf course in the Bronx, which taxpayers are spending at least $97 million to build — what “amounts to a public subsidy,” says the indignant city comptroller, “for a luxury golf course.” Good grief — a handout to the plutocrat’s plutocrat.

This, in a city where economic inequality rivals that of a third-world country. Of America’s 25 largest cities, New York is now the most unequal. The median income for the bottom 20 percent last year was less than $9,000, while the top one percent of New Yorkers has an average annual income of $2.2 million. [..]

It’s snowballing. Timeshare king David Siegel of Westgate Resorts reportedly has threatened to fire employees if Barack Obama is re-elected and Arthur Allen, who runs ASG Software Solutions, emailed his employees, “If we fail as a nation to make the right choice on November 6th, and we lose our independence as a company, I don’t want to hear any complaints regarding the fallout that will most likely come.”

Back in the first the Gilded Age, in the 19th century, bosses in company towns lined up their workers and marched them to vote as a bloc. Now, the Gilded Age is back , with a vengeance. Welcome to the plutocracy — the remains of the ol’ USA.

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