"Why should I drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam, while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?"
(-Muhammad Ali; 1967)

"Education makes a man unfit to be a slave..."
(-Frederick Douglass)

"There's hardly anything more important people can learn than the fact that the really critical thing isn't who is sitting in the White House, but who is sitting in - in the streets, in the cafeterias, in the halls of government, in the factories. Who is protesting, who is occupying offices and demonstrating - those are the things that determine what happens. It is becoming clearer and clearer to many, after the first year of Obama's Presidency, that it is going to require independent action from below to achieve real change."
(-Howard Zinn)

"I've explained several times that I don't trust the middle class because they're vulnerable, insecure, and not robust. I'm not telling people don't take a regular job. I'm saying, you're going to be a prisoner ethically, not just physically, when you take a middle class, professional job." (-Nassim Taleb; author of the "Black Swan", and "The Bed Of Procrustes")

"We must defy the cant of consumer culture and recover the primacy in our lives of mercy and justice. And this requires courage, not just physical courage but the harder moral courage of listening to our conscience. If we are to save our country, and our planet, we must turn from exalting the self, to subsuming of the self for our neighbor. Self-sacrifice defies the sickness of corporate ideology. Self-sacrifice mocks opportunities for advancement, money and power. Self-sacrifice smashes the idols of greed and envy. Self-sacrifice demands that we rise up against the abuse, injury and injustice forced upon us by the mandarins of corporate power. There is a profound truth in the biblical admonition 'He who loves his life will lose it.'

Life is not only about us. We can never have justice until our neighbor has justice. And we can never recover our freedom until we are willing to sacrifice our comfort for open rebellion. The president has failed us. The Congress has failed us. The courts have failed us. The press has failed us. The universities have failed us. Our process of electoral democracy has failed us. There are no structures or institutions left that have not been contaminated or destroyed by corporations. And this means it is up to us. Civil disobedience, which will entail hardship and suffering, which will be long and difficult, which at its core means self-sacrifice, is the only mechanism left."
(-Chris Hedges; author of "Death Of The Liberal Class")

"After two U.S. image staining Bush-Cheney terms, worried elites undertook an 'Orwellian rebranding project' and Brand Obama was their choice for this public relations overhaul. This would be Bush without the baggage but with attractive packaging and major style points. The essence of this Obama rebranding venture was that policies and practices seen as 'noxious under the perceived rule of a boorish white Republican from Texas (George W. Bush) become perversely acceptable for many 'progressive' and other citizens when carried out by an eloquent and urban black Democrat from Chicago (Barack Obama).'

The enticing slogan, 'change we can believe in' helped shore up a system increasingly viewed as illegitimate by more and more angry citizens. And Obama's service to his financial backers was manifest when the new president told a banker's convention, 'My administration is all that stands between you and the pitchforks.' The fact that Obama was biracial was a bonus because it allowed many white voters to delude themselves into believing that we've put racism behind us and embraced racial equality.

Finally, has anything positive resulted from an Obama-occupied White House?"
(-Gary Olson; for Z Magazine and the Black Agenda Report)

Obama hasn't changed shit. The Bush people are obviously still in charge. Congress already has started cutting some food programs, including reducing the W.I.C. (Women, Infants and Children) Program by $500 million, as part of a deal with the other wing of the rightwing-puppet, war-party government, on this year's budget. Last year, more than $2 billion in future funding for food stamps was "redirected" to other programs. The imperialist occupation-armies are still in Iraq, stealing their oil, repressing their people, leaving uranium deposits everywhere to poison future generations. The war in Afghanistan continues to take the lives of Afghanis everyday, though no one discusses finding the former C.I.A. asset, Bin Ladin, anymore. Libya, the largest oil-producing nation in Africa, is being bombed by U.S. forces, and the buzz in military circles is that Obama is about to break anothe promise, and put troops on the ground. Hillary Clinton and Bush/Obama appointed Robert Gates are still lobbying for wars on Iran, and North Korea. The intelligence agencies and Blackwater (rebranded as Xe Services) continue kidnapping and killing civilians in Yemen and Pakistan. Obama expanded the T.S.A. fondlings, the radiation scans that his wife and daughters are not subject to, extended the Constitution- killing Patriot Act, and broke his vow to close the torture-camp at Gitmo. The U.S. has propped-up despots all over the Middle-East, for decades. According to the Constitution, Obama over-stepped his authority, Bush/Yoo style, by going to war in Libya, and again-without the consent of Congress, or the governed. The vast majority of Americans oppose all these criminal "pe-emptive" invasions. Increasingly, the spy agencies and military-industrial complex are tightening their control of the information flow, local and state governments, and tightening the screws on the protesting people. The Koch Industries funded rightwing governors, are even assuming control of entire municipalities, firing elected officials, and appointing "crisis managers"-in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida, the fascists are taking control in accelerating increments. Many Americans are still willing to pay to fly, in spite of government officials molesting them, and applying dangerous radiation porno- imaging scans, without the lead cape one is given at the dentist. Insanity. Seven hundred billion has been diverted, by the war lobbyists, into Bush/Obama's futile wars of empire that only benefit Halliburton, Boeing, G.E., Rathion, Xe, and Lockheed Martin share-holders, and oil barons, even though, millions have already, died for no reason, in Iraq and Afghanistan. There were no weapons of mass destruction to be found. Colin Powell was set-up to lie to the U.N., they killed Hussein's kids, and paraded their naked corpses, all over the mass media. They told us they were hanging Saddam for using chemical weapons on his own people, and for torturing people. All while, they themselves, Cheney and Rumsfeld, ignore the Geneva Conventions. Somehow, two lawyers named Jay Bybee and John Yoo, gave them the power to kidnap and torture, and conduct medical experiments, on their prisoners of war. They send Michelle Obama around the channels, on a publicity tour, supposedly on behalf of "military families", but they have yet to even acknowledge there is such thing as the "Gulf War Syndrome". Obama refuses to meet with representatives from Veterans For Peace. Thousands suffer from brain damage, and exposure to KBR burn-pits, and pitch-black depression, nightmarish post-traumatic stress disorders, and related mental illnesses, caused by committing atrocities. It is the phenomenon that psychologist Rachel MacNair calls, "perpetration-induced traumatic stress", the phenomenon that is tormenting so many troops, who are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, only to commit suicide, at home. As David Swanson recently wrote in "War is a Lie," those "who survive war are far more likely now, to have been trained and conditioned, to do things they cannot live with having done." What's Michelle With The Well Toned Arms doing for them? I can't believe people fall for this patronizingly cheap, pacifying, public relations bullshit. They send the first lady on the tv show "The View", to claim that military wives are the smartest this, and the most honorable that, but the military has the highest suicide rate ever, because what the generals are ordering them to do is so often pointless, evil, and inhumane. Ask around. You can't kill children and feel like a hero. Slaughtering unarmed peasants, or stealing their land, does not make you Christ-like. You can't torture people for peace and democracy. Meanwhile, whistle-blowers like Sibel Edmonds are silenced with "State Secrets" classifications, or imprisoned, and made an example of, like Pentagon scapegoat, PFC Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked the "Collateral Murder" video footage, showing "our troops" killing journalists and unarmed families, as casually as if they were playing Nintendo. He's isolated for nine months in solitary confinement, and made to stand naked every night in a Gulag-like torture tactic, a cruel and unusual punishment, meant to break his will, and he's been convicted of NOTHING, under personable and friendly, upbeat and always unruffled, President Obama. Obama's military will not even let Dennis Kucinich, or lawyers from Human Rights Watch, meet with Manning. I wish the over-paid infotainment media-whores, Whoopi and Barbara, would ask Michelle why she thinks torture is acceptable, instead of about her make-up and her work-out routine, but that's what you get when the corporate-state controls the air-waves. How to get perfect abs and support the troops.

Meanwhile, these despicable "Emergency Financial Managers" are being deployed to struggling school-systems, and townships, like in Michigan, to dissolve state worker's contracts, and fire all the teachers, so the rightwing can usher in their privatized, for-profit, charter schools. These guys are like economic hit men, puppets. My uncle laid-off five hundred families from a candy company, about ten years back, to maximize profits for soulless shareholders...then, blew his own brains out, when he considered the real life consequences, divorces, and broken homes caused by his actions, his complicity. In Wisconsin, an unremorseful, Scott Walker, is working to break unions by stripping their right to bargain. Isn't the definition of sociopath a person with no empathy? In Michigan, Rick Snyder is working to break unions by staging a coup of city governments, in the name of fiscal "crisis", and then breaking the union contracts. Michigan's efforts thus far appear to be focused on cities with high percentages of poor and minority populations. This is not being covered in the corporate media. Shock Doctrine 101. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder recently signed legislation passed by the Republican-dominated House and Senate, that gives State-appointed Emergency Financial Managers (EFMs) historically broad and sweeping powers. These new powers allow the EFM to cancel, or modify contracts (including with unions) and even to fire the municipality's government. Today, for the first time, a EFM did just that. According to a press release from the Michigan AFL-CIO, Joseph L. Harris, EFM for Benton Harbor, Michigan issued "an order prohibiting all action by all city boards, commissions, authorities and other entities, except as authorized by the emergency manager." They're slashing budgets, firing teachers, firing Autistic kid's support staffs, all over, but drumming up trillions for wars, expanding military bases, black-op's, drone attacks, and Halliburton jails, monitoring all electronic cummunications without warants. From Forbes Magazine: "Following the lead of Michigan GOP Governor Rick Snyder, Walker is said to be preparing a plan that would allow him to force local governments to submit to a financial stress test with an eye towards permitting the governor to take over municipalities that fail to meet with Walker’s approval. According to the reports, should a locality’s financial position come up short, the Walker legislation would empower the governor to insert a financial manager of his choosing into local government with the ability to cancel union contracts, push aside duly elected local government officials and school board members and take control of Wisconsin cities and towns whenever he sees fit to do so. Such a law would additionally give Walker unchallenged power to end municipal services of which he disapproves, including safety net assistance to those in need." Heard anything from the Puppet-Prez challenging any of this? Nope.

I used to be way more skeptical about the internet alarmists, who were always fretting about the deindustrialization of America, Martial Law, collapse of the dollar, the Fema Camps, the chem-trails, Harrp, etc., but so little that's meaningful, or factual, is even spoken of in the mass-media, it does make one wonder. Check out the website air crap dot org. How often do you hear someone who watches ten hours of cable TV "programming" a day, inform you that you, "can't believe everything you read on the internet!"? Coming from a person with a hundred dollar a month cable bill. If you attend an anti-war rally, you'll notice the commercial-media always shows footage filmed like, two hours before the event was scheduled to begin, to make it seem like only three people were there. It's an ongoing problem-the big media blackout of all progressive demonstrations.

I watched the TV news and was aghast to find, it was ninety nine percent prescription-drug commercials, "support military families" propaganda-which you understand is utter bullshit, if you know a real veteran...and high school sports, and weather, and even the weather reporting is a whitewash. The meteorologists constantly refer to "Mother Nature", and never, never mention the unnatural cloud fomations. I talk a lot about media-consolidation, because it is one of the most effective tools, besides the injustice-system, NSA surveillance, FBI shakedowns/infiltrations/entrapment, and union-busting, that the elites use for manufacturing artificial consensus, and misdirecting the masses. I know lots of smart folks, many with college diplomas, whose idea of "staying informed" is surfing, back and forth, between FOX and MSNBC, where the media-whores never discuss the possibility of cutting the "deficit crisis" by ending the wars, or cutting the homeland security domestic spying budget! No one on TV ever discusses investing in education. Health Care debate is always framed to generate blind support from misguided tea-baggers, for the insurance companies, Big Pharma, and vaccine manufacturers. The entire scope of public discourse has shriveled into these extremely narrow and limited partisan debates on basically meaningless issues like, "Don't Ask/Don't Tell". As Ron Paul says, their commitment to undermining the Bill Of Rights and perpetuating endless wars is always a fully bi-partisan effort. 108 Democrats voted against the "People's Budget", put forth by the Progressive Caucas. These so called Democrats are puppets of the Right. Nobody wants to talk about it. Heck, unless they're narrarating a shopping spree, to avoid having to make eye contact in public, nobody wants to talk much at all. Unless some unreality show vixen is voted off the island. "Use your vote", they tell us, again and again. Kirstie or Sugar Ray?

Remember when we used to hangout and play vinyl, laugh, smoke, and talk all night long? People used to actually get together, and create music, films, fanzines. We used to story-tell, testify, joke, flirt, bitch, dance, argue, plan, cook, vandalize, scheme, dream, organize shows and events, paint, make clothes, and sing songs. Together. Nowadays, our families are splintered off in different places, and even those who live with us are, often, isolated in different rooms, surfing various media streams. We seldom look one another in the eyes. Even in public, everyone is on the phone and listening to I-Pods on tiny headphones, always inhabiting this virtual, media generated, false reality, where advertising experts sucker us into believing we are making important choices between vicarious avatar extensions of our self- image/brand/persona. Our former allies have all steadily become homogenized, careerist, "frenemies", behaving like the always-strategizing, ambitious, back-stabbers on the now ubiquitous unreality PROGRAMS, conspiring against anyone, who's retained a shred of individuality, distinctive abilities, or personal values, that jar the perspectives of the tribal alliances. When was the last time you saw a major motion picture with an anti-war message? When was the last time you heard a sincerely satisfying album, written by a real band, and not a cynical producer, manipulating some self obsessed heiress, into sounding exactly like either Green Day, or old Missy Elliot? Can you even recall the last thoughtful, independent film you saw? The top 400 wealthiest American's taxes were classified as "State Secrets", under Bush. Obama promised transparencey, an end to Gitmo torture camps, and the war on Iraq. I'm afraid he's either a hostage of the intel-agencies, or a Manchurian Candidate, more or less. It's a bummer. Holder did not go after Goldman-Sachs, Wall St., the Bush torture-team, the war criminals, or B.P./Halliburton! Obama did nothing to support the unions, and the people's movement, that started in Wisconsin. NOTHING. He's not intevened on behalf of Manning. He is transfoming the mission in all these wars. He claimed to have ceased combat operations in Iraq-JUST LIKE BUSH. "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED". Of course, he continues to maintain both military and mecenaries there, killing people, but claims these prolonged bombing and shooting, kidnapping and torturing operations aren't war. Check out David Swanson's War Is A Crime dot org to learn how to organize your community for peace. We need everyone of you skinny anarchists and aging mohawks out for peace and social justice. Do your part. Thank You.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWE-fyJEN0E&feature=player_embedded
http://vodpod.com/watch/6271444-chris-hedges-thats-how-imperial-powers-always-die?u=dandelionsalad&c=dandelionsalad