The Weekly Watch
Is It Ignorance or Apathy?
I don't know, and I don't care!
It really isn't fair to accuse the people...the average working people...for the mess in which we find ourselves. It isn't ignorance nor apathy (although they play a role), what I really think it is that we have a case of helplessness and hopelessness driven by financial despair. Only 39% of Americans are ready for a $1,000 unexpected expense (2 min). How can they focus on the three ring circus of today's politics? Even if they want to understand our situation they are misled, distracted, and kept in the dark. This week alone goes from government shutdown to #releasethememo to the billionaire gathering in Davos to constant (illegal) wars in Syria and around the world. It is a system in collapse...capitalism, democracy, and the environment...yes, our system is unraveling.
David Harvey explains the failure of capitalism, and resulting crisis and social movements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zizsxmydUQg (22 min)
Richard Wolff thinks extreme poverty is going to get worse. (9.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxJZLCNR_V8
...But what are we focused on?
This week they are all worked up about “the memo”.
Glen Greenwald lays out the situation nicely...
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/19/republicans-have-four-easy-ways-to-r...
No, it is all Russian bots...Max Blumenthal breaks it down (5.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAi_FkmBXEU
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern discusses the lost and found text messages by the FBI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abBNqJ-6fzw (11 min)
The Democraps are killing themselves.
Consider this article which many of you have already read...about corporate and consultant control
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/23/dccc-democratic-primaries-congress-p...
One of the authors, Lee Fang discusses the piece. (13 min or text)
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20988:Centrist-Democrats-Are-Undermining...
The other author, Ryan Grim was interviewed early in the podcast this week. He talks about his article with Lee Fang, “the memo”, and also covers russiagate and the covert piece in the budget about CIA funding, as well as (audio and text)
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/24/intercepted-podcast-first-they-came-...
And the last comments about the article come from Jimmy Dore, Ron, and Steph (20 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynug4CLOTp0
Norm Solomon takes on DNC head and corporate $hill Perez
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/dnc-chair-tom-perez-democratic-partys-...
A bellweather race to watch might be the primary for control of the Cook County Assessor’s Office — between a political novice, Fritz Kaegi, and one of the most powerful figures in Chicago politics, Joseph Berrios. This turning into a genuine slugfest, pitting the city’s ascendant progressive bloc against the old guard of the Democratic machine. The primary will be held on Tuesday, March 20.
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/22/joseph-berrios-fritz-kaegi-chicago-p...
And what about the shutdown strategy? Does anyone think that was smart politics?
Jimmy, Ron, and Steph don't (20 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E_zOUHgIT0
This month, the NSA made a discreet change on its website: It removed “honesty” as its top priority.
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/24/nsa-core-values-honesty-deleted/
Ojore Lutalo, Former Prisoner at New Jersey State Prison, and Bonnie Kerness, Coordinator of American Friends Service Committee’s Prison Watch Project, discuss Solitary Confinement in the United States talk with Chris Hedges. The line that stuck with me was something like – “Obama was a fox in sheep's clothing, Trump is just a fox, that helps the movement!” (26 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj1VGQcHv1E
Nice interview with the MLK documentary film makers focusing on his late years (42 min with text)
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/1/25/mlks_radical_final_years_civil_ri...
I liked this interview too ...about a film made in Hale County Alabama (video and text)
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/1/24/alabamas_hale_county_is_subject_of
Is the country going to pot? I hope so.
I wish somehow we would have honest evidence based conversations in the national arena...not debates with clear sides, but conversation with its spectrum of views.
The many benefits of legalized marijuana
https://www.drugpolicy.org/legalization-status-report
Although we know public opinion has little to do with policy, two new polls show 6 out of 10 US citizens support legalization.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/05/americans-support-mariju...
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/nbc-wsj-poll-60-percent-amer...
It’s not hard to understand why Sessions, with a history of racism, would love the war on drugs
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/25/marijuana-legalization-weed-drug-arr...
Economy
T-rump spoke at Davos telling the world the US was open for business. Well really that the US was going to give them the business.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/26/full-text-trump-davos-speech-t...
Appointing Alex Azar, who ran the pharmaceutical company that skyrocketed drug prices, is the wrong way to go, unless your goal is to "enrich the pharmaceutical industry at the expense of the public health," says Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works (9 min with text)
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20977:New-HHS-Secretary-Alex-Azar%3A-The...
Apple makes out like a bandit
https://www.dcreport.org/2018/01/26/apples-sweetheart-tax-deal/
What Apple did was outright illegal according to the European Union, but instead of taking legal action against Apple for tax evasion, the Trump tax bill will reward them says Bill Black (14 min with text)
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=767&...
It's a shame to see Janet Yellen, who did an "outstanding job" as chair of the Federal Reserve, get fired in favor of an investment banker who doesn't have a background in economics, says Dean Baker, co-director at CEPR (8 min with text)
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20975:Trump-Dumps-First-Woman-Fed-Chair-...
So we're privatizing our tax collection and paying $3 for every $1we collect.
(6.5 min with text) http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=767&...
A group of nearly a dozen Senate Democrats is teaming up with President Donald Trump and the GOP in an aggressive push to gut Wall Street regulations that progressive Democrats and Wall Street critics say will undermine crucial post-financial crisis regulations, roll back consumer protections, and open the door to another crash.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/27/bailoutcaucus-these-11-sena...
Education
Students in poverty and distress are the most likely to fail...”Why do we live in a society that thinks that it’s reasonable to ask someone to shoulder an adult’s responsibility at home, support themselves and perhaps other family members too, and go to school on top of that? And then why do we call them failures when that doesn’t work? “
http://otherwords.org/why-some-students-fail/
Rural schools face some of the largest challenges
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/District_Dossier/2018/01/rural_schools_of...
https://www.scribd.com/document/369459263/Out-of-the-Loop#from_embed
The first thing to know about the free market is that it’s not free, and turning Wall Street loose on college students will turn them into chattel, effectively indentured to investors.
http://otherwords.org/turning_college_students_into_a_commodity/
Just ahead of the stupid bowl, St Paul teachers are set to go on strike to demand corporations pay their fair share to their bankrupt school systems rather than fund big sports events.
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/26/st-paul-teachers-union-strike/
The failure of for profit charter schools is obvious to those who look.
http://educationopportunitynetwork.org/largest-charter-school-fail-ever-...
The situation in Arizona makes it plain too
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/01/16/the-mess-...
Racism runs to the heart of many school failures
https://www.alternet.org/conservative-attacks-obama-education-guideline-...
Puerto Rico
Students are trying to get the foundations parading as schools (Harvard and Yale) to divest from Puerto Rican debt
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/25/harvards-endowment-is-profiting-from...
Four months after Hurricane Maria and with close to half of its residents still without power, Puerto Rico has announced it will privatize its debt-ridden public electric utility, PREPA. (11 min with text)
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20974:Puerto-Rico%27s-New-Power-Struggle...
Media
Are we in an era of new McCarthyism? Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges and fellow journalism experts discussed media and the Foreign Agents Registration Act during a recent panel hosted by the Columbia Journalism School and the Harriman Institute. (1.3 hour)
https://www.truthdig.com/videos/chris-hedges-journalists-foreign-agents-...
Billionaire George Soros used the spotlight of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday to urge the international community to take seriously the threats posed by Facebook and Google.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/26/not-even-orwell-or-huxley-c...
Bernie side steps MSM and live streams a Medicare for All town hall to millions...
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/24/bypassing-major-networks-16...
Foreign Policy
Lee Camp in (maybe his best yet) righteous rant about the big win in the WAR on TERROR!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxhOF5efs9A (16 min)
So we shift away from the War on Terror to promote the terror of war on a global scale. (5 min with text) http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20992:Trump-Admin.-Says-China-and-Russia...
Mehdi Hasa begins a short video series to explore how foreign policy decisions by the U.S. and its allies often produce terrorist blowback and so-called unintended consequences. He begins with the issue of CIA drone strikes. (7 min with text)
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/22/blowback-cia-drones-middle-east/
It isn't just the US setting up house in Syria. Israel continues its push into Syria too.
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/23/israel-syria-safe-buffer-zone-golan-...
Turkey is stepping up military activity in Syria thanks to US activity. Will we throw the Kurds under the bus? Stay tuned! (18 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxhOF5efs9A
Remember when a ground invasion of a sovereign country—perpetrated by a NATO ally—would constitute a big story? https://www.truthdig.com/articles/americas-syria-trap/
Violence continues in Afghanistan too
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/27/nearly-100-killed-kabul-aft...
Are forces in the U.S. government determined to keep Iran as an enemy? Trita Parsi, an expert on U.S.-Iran relations, thinks so (30 min podcast with Bob Scheer)
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/u-s-keeping-iran-enemy-audio/
The Americas
The former president of Brazil, Lula's fate is as complicated as the surreal Brazilian judicial system that controls it: In a few months we will know if the Workers’ Party leader will spend the next years of his life in jail or in the presidential palace for a third term.
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/24/lula-brazil-corruption-conviction-ca...
The "kangaroo court" upheld former Brazilian President Lula's conviction without an iota of evidence, says journalist Brian Mier (15 min with text)
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20983:DOJ-Lends-a-Hand-in-Prosecuting-Lula
Honduras
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez is proceeding with his inauguration, despite massive fraud allegations, protests, and a major new drug corruption scandal involving the head of Police. US, Canada, Mexico, and the OAS give him a green light to proceed (21 min with text)
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&I...
The recent elections were problematic to say the least. It really is obvious fraud. (7 min no text)
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20996:Honduras%3A-The-Never-ending-Coup
environment
Prices for washing machines and solar panels are likely to rise while tens of thousands of Americans could lose jobs following President Trump’s decision to slap hefty tariffs on imports of those products in a bid to aid U.S. manufacturers, industry officials say.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/01/24/trump-tariffs-solar-pane...
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/26/trump-imposed-tariffs-claim...
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/23/reckless-trump-deals-blow-r...
Leading expert on marine oil spills, Professor Richard Steiner, speaks about the huge tanker spill in the China Sea. (10 min with text)
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20985:Largest-Marine-Spill-in-History-of...
2017 was the hottest year on record for the world's oceans.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/26/worlds-oceans-last-year-hit...
January 31st is a blue blood supermoon eclipse! The lunar eclipse will be most visible in the western US, and will set in the early AM hours of 1/31 in partial eclipse in the East.
http://earthsky.org/?p=270280
Let's wrap it up with a cartoon and a laugh...Cartoon of trust for bipartisanship (1 min)
https://www.truthdig.com/cartoons/trust-meditation-democrats-video/
So I suggest average working people are simply too overwhelmed and busy to keep up with all the "fake news". Most citizens feel helpless to do anything about it anyway. Ursla Le Guin gave us the message that we once were ruled by monarchs, and we over came them in her 6 min speech. However there are still some monarchs and many autocrats in the world. I think the evidence is plain that the capitalist system in which we live is not working for the people....just the elite. A new billionaire was created every two days last year and now, according to Oxfam, just 42 individuals own as much wealth as the world's poorest 3.7 billion people. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/22/billionaire-boom-while-worl...
So on we go. I hope you all have a good community, because like most crisis and emergencies it will be our neighbors who help us and who we might help. I look forward to your thoughts and comments.
Comments
We're fucked no matter what we do.
Even if we were to try and fight back, the porkies will just set one half of the working class against the other half.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
So my thought is to go local
...in whatever way is in your nature. Make your scene the best you can...help others when you are able. Focus on doing the things that have meaning to you close to home. At the same time I like to be aware, and as you say ...we are so fucked.
So cherish friends, home, and family. My 2 cents.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
good collection of selections
describing our shared miseries.
Putting the challenges we face in focus helps to arm the defense. Hope to replace some of the apathy with empathy.
Great line...less apathy, more empathy
I like that QMS. Putting (or trying to do so) yourself in others situations builds understanding and tolerance. Glad you dropped by.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
I'm not sure what blaming the people will accomplish,
but there is plenty of blame to go around imo. There are millions of people that have no idea how many political representatives there are in this country, don't know the difference between the Senate and Congress, have no idea what the Constitution says, have no idea what their government is doing and don't know a lot of pretty simple and basic things. There are plenty of youtube videos of interviewers asking people on the street basic questions that show just how ignorant many Americans are.
There are something like 90-100 million working age adults that do not work in this country. People keep their eyes glued to their cell phones all day and never once research a thing about the war in Syria or wealth inequality or the latest tax scam bill by Trump and the republicans. They sit in front of the TV for hours and watch Fox news or CNN news and absorb the lies and propaganda without ever searching the internet for the real truth.
There are people who visit Daily Kos and Breitbart to get their information, much of it lies and propaganda. Are they to blame? I don't know who else to blame.
That is ignorant, that is apathetic.
Granted, millions of people are too busy to delve deeply into political affairs, and our media system is a complete failure because it's monopolized by the ruling class and provides nothing but lies, false narratives and illusions. There are certainly elements of hopelessness and helplessness involved. Hell, many of us here are very informed on political affairs but still feel that same helpless/hopelessness.
Reminds me of an old joke about the Happy Medium. Blame might be appropriate but it won't get us anywhere without education and actions. But like the old saying, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink".
excellent comment
...and it isn't just the people who are uninformed. I wonder how many politicians have ever read the Constitution. Kinda reminds me of the folks down here in the Bible belt that have never read the Bible but want to tell you what it says and means.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
searching for the real truth and knowing what to do right ...
@lookout
... to search the internet for the real truth ... real truth ...?
Let's say we searched and found ... the real truth... What kind of influence do we have to change that what we detected to be not the truth ? Even if you were lucky enough to get education and then take some actions (which ones?), drinking is necessary, but thinking about what you drink is more important than drinking itself. And I find it extraordinarily difficult to know what kind of a brew we drink on the anonymous and volatile internet.
I like what 'lookout' said about what we can do: Treat and help your neighbor as you want to be treated and helped yourself. One can only hope that "we neighbors" come to our senses and not against each others'.
One never knows what kind of actions would have what kind of consequences. A little personal anecdote.
My mother became a unexpected more or less courageous rescuer by pure coincidence. While fleeing by foot from Legnica, during wwII called Liegnitz, at the Eastern Front, toward Landshut where the American allied forces were stationed on the Western side, she passed by a farm, where she saw a wounded Russian bleeding profoundly on the front yard of the farm. The Russian officer was obviously hit by American bombs. She tried to put on bandages out of the fabric diapers of my baby brother over the wounds and tightened them strongly to stop the bleeding. She and around 15 adult women and more than 10 children (all refugees from the east to west walking by foot) were taken in by the peasants to hide and shelter and feed them in their barn. My mother with my sibling slept in their dog house.
Next day a drunk Russian soldier ransacked the barn asking all the women at gun point for sex. The other Russian officer, whose wounds my mother had dressed the day before, came to the scene, and forced the other drunk Russian soldier at gun point to stop him from harassing and threatening the women with rape. I guess my mothers actions have helped to prevent over 20 rapes and a couple of potential "Besatzungsbabies" (babies of occupation) to be produced. I don't think my mother knew that her actions would help to prevent traumatic mayhem for those women and children, when she helped to stop the bleeding of that Russian officer.
It's a matter of luck and a matter to "do the things that help any of us, no matter who".
Another example is that I had a cousin, who was the product of rape by a Russian soldier in Berlin, when the Russians entered the city from the East at the end of wwII. He was a soul of man and I only knew my cousin as one of the most willing to help any of us, if we needed some "handyman" work done, we couldn't do by ourselves. He had a Russian soul, souls that are very like a "True Mensch", when not drunk, according to my father, who knew something about Russians through his Russian pow encampments.
On my mothers side, both her sisters (my aunts) were widows with small kids at the end of wwII. All my grandparents (aside from one) were already dead when I was born. This specific cousin later in life studied Biology in Berlin, when I was living and studying there as well.
When he died - ten years ago - another cousins of mine found proofs that he secretly helped East German Berliners through tunnels beneath the Berlin Wall to crawl into the West Berlin side in his papers. Nobody knew about that, not even his mother, who died ten years before him. He kept his secrets very well and nobody knew that in fact our "Russian cousin" was a courageous man to help other East German Berliners to flee from the Russian occupied zone, ie East Berlin, to the Western part of Berlin. Irony of all: his mother was actually pretty much a convinced and enthusiastic Hitler supporter as a child and young woman in the 1920ies to mid 1930ies.
So, tell me, what is so predictable of our political view points and actions? If you ask me, not much. The guys, who were the least Nazi supporters, were my grandfathers on both paternal and maternal side. They were poor and low level soldiers in WWI and "experienced" war for real, the best way to become an "anti-war" activist as it seemed. My grandpa on the maternal side, worked in Hitler's government and was the one, who was the least of a Nazi supporter. His wife, my grandma, was more of a supporter, but it is not clear of why, probably she didn't want to endanger her husband and became a "follower".
So, sorry, it's hard to do the "right thing", because it's very difficult to know what is "the right thing".
But helping each other is as good as it gets.
PS: Thank You, lookout, for your collection. I love coming here to the Weekly Watch, because I have the feeling that the "brew" of articles I am pointed to, here on C99p, is a pretty good and healthy drink to "see and find the truth"... more or less... at least.
..and thank you for your moving story
It is all about things that are real...the real experiences that shape us as humans.
What is real? Well that varies doesn't it. We can all experience the same event and yet all have different realities of that experience. Eye witness evidence has been shown again and again to be the least reliable. We are victims of our own perceptions.
However, we share enough of the same perspective to appreciate this collection of news. Hope all is well with you!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
if truth
is anywhere, it is in stories, stories like you've told here. Otherwise, all is mystery.
I know, so many books I have to read ...
just listened to Chris Hedges who said among others something that describes things I have observed in myself.
I don't read books because I am drowned by visuals of videos and drowned by reading short news related essays online. (I had to do that as well in my last job, which did increase my problems) He said he has 5000 books in his home and no TV since ever and ever. Without building the walls around him to not let the visuals in, he is able to stay not distracted and build the monastery like environment he needs. Yet he says that on the fringes you can read online sources, which help you. I kind of find an answer to my questions of how you can stay not manipulated by corporate media online and in print papers. He explains how the internet is a curse, but can help as well.
First time I have time to read books, yet I still read only online and watch TV a bit here in Germany because I have to fill 30 years of not knowing anything much of what happened since the late seventies.
I miss work in an archive and want to create my own monastery of books and don't let anything inside that refuge.
Probably when I don't chat anymore here with you, it means I have built my refuge and a wall to not let C99p news collections in and distract me. /s
Thanks for the kind words.
Somehow holding and reading a real book adds meaning
I don't collect books like I used to. I think we have a few hundred...maybe a thousand. The book shelves create the walls in our house. I like to escape the on-line politics and read something entertaining. I'm currently reading Goat Song about a young family that gets into raising and milking goats....too much work for me, but fun to read about. I often read detective and scifi stuff to escape as well.
I sometimes watch stuff for fun too. We got a belly laugh out of this clip (6 min)
George W. Bush Returns Cold Open - SNL I hope they let you watch it in Germany.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpkRFHSpvGI]
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Ha, lookout, you are hoping too fast ,...
"Der betreffende Nutzer hat dieses Video in Deinem Land nicht zur Verfügung gestellt".
Yeah, of course, what else is new. TPTB don't let me see that video.
Reading books... my sister is bashing me, because I don't read fiction usually. Oh well, I bash back, she doesnt't get anything in politics, policies and history.
We do what siblings do, tease and fight each other. And at age seventy-five and seventy we should be grown-ups by now, right? It never happens.
like peter pan
I say never grow up...just age well.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thanks for the work, Lkt!
XOXOXO
###
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Thanks for the links
There are some hopeful signs that people are waking. I liked the Bernie end run around the MSM. Hightower had a positive piece up on Alternet this AM too
https://www.alternet.org/activism/fed-democrats-usual-theres-whole-unive...
Union membership is growing again too...mainly from young people
http://www.epi.org/publication/biggest-gains-in-union-membership-in-2017...
Here's a nice Davos summary..."Like Trump, Davos is all show. Exploiting the world’s fascination with wealth, it casts itself as a place for the compassionate rich to ponder the conditions of the world’s less fortunate." https://www.epi.org/blog/davos-is-trumps-kind-of-town/
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Yes, Davos is indeed show and some Swiss are not buying it
US Tax evaders 'love it or leave it''
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
I see
most of the people I care about unable to find their way out of the maze of disinformation. That description fits me at times. I won't cast blame, just try and untangle the web of lies.
Thanks for the roundup, I will stop by frequently this week.
Ursula Le Guin, RIP.
"We will need writers who remember freedom"
I think your description fits us all...
That's exactly why I started the weekly...trying to filter or winnow out the important stories and put them into some sort of relevant context rather than the shotgun of the too much, too fast, news cycle that keeps us all confused.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
One of the reasons
I just can't be bothered by our M.E. Wars, my eyes glaze over in apathy at even the mention or headline, is that there's not a goddamned thing I can do about them. Not one goddamned thing. And, there's so much happening right here in the U.S. of A. that's enough to drown a News Junkie that when I see or hear M.E., well... I just can't be bothered. Let the Wars roar! Onward Christian soldiers! Kill them all. I just don't give a damn.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
There is BSD dealing with a part of the ME issue
https://bdsmovement.net/what-is-bds
...but mainly I think we have to continue speaking truth to power about our promotion of war in the ME and elsewhere around the world. That's been my key talking point with bubba and bubbette - stop the wars and bring the money home to help the people. It is an appealing idea across the political spectrum.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Oh, I agree. It's just
that every time there's *Breaking* news about our M.E. Wars I think to myself, "how could anything happening today or tomorrow or next week or next month or even next year be any different from what happened last year, the year before, 5 years ago, ten years ago, or 15 f'ing years ago?
But, yeah. Stop the wars! Bring them home! Spend the savings on MedForAll, S.S.!
Imagine.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
you are so right
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Like the saying goes...freedom is a constant struggle.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning, Lookout.
Thanks again for this series, it beats the Hell out of the corporate liars featured on the picture-box every Sunday morning.
I'm glad you posted Lee Camp's epic rant.
We in Arizona are aware of how bad the privatization of public education has failed here.
Here's some local reporting on the issue, if anybody's interested:
From the Arizona Daily Star, Public Schools Inc., Parts One, Two and Three, and this from The Tucson Weekly.
My outrage at charter schools and the campaign to privatize public ed. is the reason I began blogging in the first place so many years ago. Of course, I took a lot of flak at this one website because Barack Obama, the "greatest president of our lifetimes", was a supporter of privatization.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Thanks for the education news
Yeah, Lee Camp was at his best in this week's antiwar rant. I also liked my line about Mattis policy change..."We are changing our focus from a War on Terror to spreading the Terror of War."
Thanks for dropping in!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Some of the Jimmy Dore clips you posted
are from a live thing they're doing on YouTube every Saturday afternoon. They usually go live at 3 p.m. Pacific, 4 p.m. Mountain and etc. They answer viewer questions and it lasts an hour and a half or two hours.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Thanks for the heads up
I'll keep that in mind.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
john mellencamp
agrees with you:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2Tes3H70Wo]
Thanks for the song
I love Mellencamp.
Reminded me of this one "The Great Compromise" where Prine describes amerika...
"The Great Compromise"
I knew a girl who was almost a lady
She had a way with all the men in her life
Every inch of her blossomed in beauty
And she was born on the fourth of July
Well she lived in an aluminum house trailer
And she worked in a juke box saloon
And she spent all the money I give her
Just to see the old man in the moon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2okOuZ8T_o&list=PLFDhzQmXN9vUBwLNQ0QiGt...
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Austerity vs Lula, from the Intercept:
I saw/see this same thing if a real live Progressive gets elected President or a Populist Progressive movement were to catch hold.
I was worried that if Bernie were to win that TPTB would tank the economy on him.
I think that is the lesson that was learned in 2008: Even the USA is suspect to the tyranny of the market. That emboldened our market overlords.
Lula vs the Masters of the Universe.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
The global corporatists will fight against any socialist
especially in the western hemisphere.
Here's more about Lula's situation (16 min with text)
http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20987:Lula%27s-Prosecution-in-Brazil-a-T...
Think about Venezuela too. Venezuela, according to the former diplomat, is the victim of an international media siege. https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Venezuela-Highlights-Progress-Des...
Not to mention Honduras recent election coup.
Glad you came by.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Media siege and economic sabotage...
...committed by porkies in Venezuela and from the US. People love to whine about how 'Soshlizum' is destroying Venezuela, yet it isn't even remotely responsible. Hell, they have a mixed economy mostly in private hands much like we once did before the corporate coup was ramped up in the 80s and 90s.
I should also point out that we're also still fucking with Colombia for the purpose of using the country as a staging area to invade and rape other nations in the region, Venezuela included.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWAP8a7R5Uo]
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
follow the oil...
Especially since we now have a secretary of exxon. Although Obummers strategy was similar.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
How about this ad?
They want to run this 30 sec ad during the SOTU address. What do you think?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-RGaZTt9ZY]
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Just a thanks, Lookout.
Really good roundup.
Watched a bit of the Hedges appearance at Columbia School of Journalism (and was struck as mimi was about Hedges' great Luddite comment of not even owning a tv but having 5000 books, and that he reads every single before bed), and the Amy Goodman interview with the great Taylor Branch and the makers of the new MLK doc concentrating on his latter, radical work and attendant loneliness as he was shamefully abandoned by lots of supporters. The comment by Diane Nash that she thought "he died of a broken heart" is still sitting with me.
I'm headed for bed, where I'll read a little more on the Ipad. Have you checked out libcom.org yet (we have it listed in the Sites of Interest)? It's been blowing my mind lately. What an amazing treasure trove of historical and current radical literature. Have downloaded pdf's of full out of print books, pamphlets, etc of history that would be lost to small dissident publishing houses and collectors. They've collected a seriously impressive wide swath of radical history.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
Thanks for the tip
I'll check out libcom.org later today. Got a helper coming in to work with me this AM.
Always glad to see you come by my friend!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”