”We have done nothing wrong and risk being jailed, because we have exercised our rights to free speech, to organize, and to hold our government accountable. It is a dark day for America, when people face jail, for exercising the rights that we hold so dear.” (-Maureen Murphy)

"I don’t know how it could be more stark or clear: this entire society is being dominated by corporate power in a way that may exceed what happened in the late nineteenth century, early twentieth century. The incredible power these institutions now have over the average person is just overwhelming: the way they can make these trade deals to ship people’s jobs overseas, the way consumers are just brutalized and consumer protection laws are marginalized, the way this town here—Washington—has become a corporate playground. Since I’ve been here, this place has gone from a government town to a giant corporate headquarters. To me, the whole face of the country—whether it be the government, the media, agriculture, what happens on Main Street—has become so corporatized that the progressive movement is as relevant as it was one hundred years ago, maybe more so. It’s the same issues. It’s just that power, because of money, international arrangements and communications, is so overwhelming that the average person is nearly helpless unless we develop a movement that can counter that power. I know we’ve all tried over the years, but this is a critical moment. We need to regenerate progressivism and make it relevant to what’s happening right now. But there’s no lack of historical comparison to a hundred years ago. It’s so similar; the only real difference is that corporate power is even more extended. It’s the Gilded Age on steroids." (-Sen. Russ Feingold D-WI)

“In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Obama outlined a reactionary political agenda that amounted to a full-scale embrace of the policies of the incoming Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

The speech was a demonstration of the bipartisan consensus of the American ruling elite. Both Democrats and Republicans serve the interests of the financial aristocracy, from whom they are taking their marching orders, to cut domestic social spending, and enact further tax breaks for the wealthy.” (-Patrick Martin)

"If we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." (-Howard Zinn)

" I contend that this story is just the tip of the iceberg into the US government's black operations to further the Patriot Act, funding for Homeland Security and the TSA, and to keep intensity up for the so called War on Terror. Respected lawyer and community leader, Kurt Haskell, has nothing to gain from pointing his finger at the federal government. He witnessed the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, being whisked past security and led onto NorthWest Airlines flight 253, by a well-dressed man with an American accent- all without the passenger's proper visa and passport documentation. What the news piece doesn't mention is that the State Dept did indeed put Mutallab on the plane, at the behest of "an unnamed US intelligence agency." Undersecretary Patrick F. Kennedy (Detroit news article was removed from web!). "

"Even if the assurances not to torture were written in indelible ink, coming from Arab police states, 'they weren't worth a bucket of warm spit.' Each rendition was authorized at the very top levels of both governments ... Omar Suleiman negotiated directly with top Agency officials." (-Jane Meyer, The Dark Side)

In Ohio, where the second Bush election was rigged, a poor black woman has been sent to jail for sending her kid to a different school district, than the segregated, underfunded one they live in, to get a better education. She is now inellegible to fulfill her own dream of becoming a teacher, herself, because she now has, "a record". Jail time for this "offense". Under puppet Obama. He needs to pardon this Mom, but he only helps rich folks, B.P. and Halliburton share-holders, and right-wingers. Some Democrat, huh? He's codifying fascist Bush/Cheney policies-by dissolving habeas corpus, due process, and the right to an attorney, with grand jury subpoenas issued to war protesters, secret executive hit-lists of American citizens to be assassinated; ongoing torture and indefinite detention; and war crimes committed in illegal invasions and occupations based, in lies and deceptions.

An FBI anti-terrorism squad recently raided a meeting of peaceful anti-war activists, at a Memphis church, accompanied by a police SWAT team. Feds routinely infiltrate American mosques, endeavoring to entrap young Muslims, who oppose the wars of aggression, and permanent U.S. occupations in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan.

Other peace and solidarity activists' homes have been invaded, and personal belongings stolen, by the federal government, in both Illinois and Minnesota, for speaking out against the illegal wars of occupation, and for visiting "Suspicious" websites, while being monitored by Google/Facebook/the NSA/fusion-centers, etc.

America's authoritarian allies in the Middle-East, Egypt, have turned-off the internet, while dispatching their military thugs to crush the people's movement. The people are demanding a regime change, but the U.S. and Israel support the repressive old guard.

Makes me think of that "Sun City" song by Artists Against Apartheid that cried, "WHY are we ALWAYS on the wrong side?"

...Meanwhile, we see these rich and powerful types, with ties to the oil companies, and secret police, starting wars, indiscriminately killing people by the millions, spying on tax payers, torturing "suspects", ushering-in those dangerous backscatter x-ray machines into all of our airports, at billions of dollars(!!!) expense to the very citizens-who are now subject to radiation, and molestation, and the puppet prez and the "just us" department insist they, "must not look back".

Judges and cops love to repeat the big lie that, "no one is above the law", but everyone knows it's not true. Plenty of people are above the law. Mercenaries, torturers, torture-attorneys, telecom spies, Goldman Sachs and Monsanto and B.P. execs, insurance company lobbyists, big polluters, millionaire drunk-drivers, cops who kill folks with tasers, cops who shoot unarmed folks, the relatives of members of spy agencies, the Israeli Navy, oil companies, crooked politicians, bad police, bankers, the pilots poisoning our skies, Wall Street swindlers, Kbr rapists, big pharma pill-pushers, dirty vaccine makers, dick-heads with car alarms, U.S. approved dictators, false flag perps, Tsa thugs feeling up your wife and daughters, surgeons who sew sponges inside your Grandma because they've scheduled eleven surgeries for one day, G20 cops in Canada, Coast Guard agents who are helping to cover up, and literally, bury the ongoing catastrophe in the Gulf, the army engineers responsible for the faulty dams in New Orleans, Blackwater employees, Fox Fraudcasters, friends of the last administration, election-fixers, Vice presidents who shoot their own attorney in the face and never apologize...rich people, in general.

While I never completely trusted the bold and charismatic Truth speaker, Gov. Jesse Ventura, (Once a Navy Seal, always a navy seal?) I am heartened to read he is generating headlines, in outraged opposition, to the Constitution shredding, airport fondlings and disgusting D.H.S. zappings, and sexual humiliations. The whole idea behind this entire absurd, security theater put-on, is that no one ever advances, without rights being "given" to them, by the TSA thugs, who tollerate no back-sassing, or tomfoolery, or protesting...AND to put billions of dollars in to Bush croney, Michael Chertoff's company. Several members of Congress also own stock in the Chertoff Group radiation Porno Scanners-including billionaire, Senator John "taser" Kerry. Shouldn't this be illegal? Not in a nation owned outright by elitist white collar criminals.

Walking around my neighborhood, I was disheartened to see two more restaurants just closed, the old pet shop shuttered it's windows, they liquidated "Blockbuster Video", awhile back...The karate studio closed it's doors after twenty years, two little book shops are gone, a vegetarian grill has relocated somewhere, and the Pier One style bougeois import gift shop was having a "Going Out Of Business" sale. Thanks again, Nafta...They spray chem-trails above us, everyday. Obama's administration are helping deregulate cancer-inducing, sterility causing Monsanto Frankenfoods. School budgets are being cut. Libraries are being monitored, under the Patriot Act, and grossly defunded. Military weapons are being given to bored, local-yokel, donut eating cops. The big media lies non-stop. What a time we live in. The Egyptian people have taken to the streets, in the hundreds of thousands, some say millions, demanding regime change, demanding democracy. The fascistic Egyptian government stubbornly clings to power, by arresting journalists by the thousands, and severing the nation's telephone and internet communications, with support of the U.S. state department. Joe "Aipac" Biden was just excusing the anti-democratic, authoritarian dictator, propped up by the U.S. intelligence community, Hosni Mubarak, this week. The U.S. gives $2 billion, per year, to prop up the student torturing Mubarak dictatorship. Egypt is second only to Israel, as the largest receipient of U.S. "foreign aid." The tear gas used against the protesters in the Egyptian dictatorship was stamped, "Made in USA." Post-NAFTA, There's no industry left in the U.S., except for war, prisons, propaganda, and weapons of war.