We should all stop paying our taxes and instead send notifications to the IRS and to Congress stating that “Payment has been suspended for failure to meet contractual obligations.”

...but with a computer, obviously. Well, “there” is only a ten minute drive from here.

While your description sounds unnervingly Brokeback, i was thinking more along the lines of writing more letters to your representatives and calling out your friends when they say politics is for wonks. Watching at least as much C-SPAN as porn.  Getting involved in local government even though meeting in committee doesn’t really suit the average leftist personality type. Hanging out with Kucinich and his hot wife around the hollowed out tree where he stores his nuts for the winter. Helping Mike Gravel toss his rocks in the pond. Skinny dipping with 100,000 other pissed off but otherwise peaceful citizens in the reflecting pool underneath the Washington Monument. Doing something other than just chanting “Yes we can!” when Obama asks us to see that “We are who we’ve been waiting for.”

If we all suck so much, maybe you should go out there and start a proper political party, be the guy we can rally around. Or you could make pipe bombs and really show those spineless centrists what it means to lack spine.

it could be that some of us at least, participate because we are actually seeking discussion and dialogue.  Discussion and dialogue that may be hard for us to find were ever we live and work.  We may be seeking to clarify our own views, we may be seeking answers to questions, etc.

No, this is not “action” nor does it change anything, except that is changes us.  This may lead us to actually undertake action, for some it may simply get us to get out and vote, we may even convince others to join us.

Sometimes the journey to discovery must take us through a period of nihilism and anger.

Besides, sitting in your room alone stewing in your own thoughts is not healthy!  And it does not move ideas forward.

Just my two bits….

Re By whyzowl, February 11 at 11:34 am

Foolish me, I am hoping Obama actually believes in democracy, human rights, constitutional law and international law. I also think he believes in negotiation and diplomacy and that he is very good at them.

Where is the left? I’m right here, supporting Obama.

Hear, Hear!

Truer words have been rarely spoken!

In a democracy all are responcible for the actions of their government.

I am ashamed, for even as a Canadian, I must bear the guilt of the torture, even we don’t demand an end to the detentions and renditions.  Even my country allows it’s own citizens to be sent off to third nations to be tortured.

IF the Germans and Japanese were guilty so are we.

Have you ever read V.I. Lenin’s “Left Wing Communism, a Infantile Disorder?” You sound like on of those people Lenin is talking about. Kucinich supporters and others farther to the left have marginalized themselves with their insistence on ideological purity. They don’t understand the nature of democracy, and by alienating themselves they are playing right into the hands of the Right. I’m a democratic socialist and internationalist myself. But I feel that with Obama I have a “place at the table”, that my voice is being heard, even though it is by far the only one. That is all anyone can ask for in a democracy. In politics one never gets 100% of what one wants. Politics is always a choice between real alternatives. Obama is the best real alternative available in this concrete situation.

I hope you weren’t expecting an argument from me on this.  I love Kucinich; he was my guy.  But the reality is; that for whatever reason, the masses didn’t flock to him.  However, I think you are far too general in your overall condemnation of “liberals”, and “on the left”.  I’m not even sure what all of that means.  But, since you quoted me, I’ll say this:  In general, it seems the posters here seem to think that, by the mere act of posting, they are actually doing something in the world at large; I dispute that unequivocally!  They are not, and that was in fact my point precisely!  Blogging for most of us is a feel good experience because we get a vicarious experience as though we actually make a difference.  I think we don’t (make much of a difference).  It’s like punching a bowl of liquid cornstarch.  One hits it; but the energy is dissipated completely.  The value of us posting is this; we are involved in an information exchange and it would be a grave error to think this has no value.  It is one of the few freedoms available to us.  That’s why I continue to post.  There are many people here who are not happy and maybe feel a bit powerless; we’re trying to figure it out.  I will conclude: Action, sorely lacking in a meaningful way, may now show itself in the way we vote.  This is the last thing left to us.  Cynicism is healthy, nihilism is not.  As the song said; “there’s no good guys, there’s no bad guys, we just disagree.  That’s okay.
Sabai, sabai……be calm, be calm

Sure, Mark - the Democrats voted for the war because of political calculation and cowardice. They are complicit in this administration’s crimes, starting with Hillary Clinton. That’s why impleachment is “off the table”, even though it is so richly deserved.

Cyrena:

After studying the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto and Pinochet, Dr. Lawrence Britt came to believe that there were 14 steps in creating fascism.  It truly is frightening how many of them the U.S. has already taken:

1. Powerful and continuing nationalism
2. Disdain for the recognition of human rights
3. Identification of an enemy or scapegoat as a unifying cause
4. Supremacy of the military
5. Rampant sexism
6. Controlled mass media
7. Obsession with national security
8. Religion and government intertwined
9. Corporate power protected
10. Labor power suppressed
11. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts
12. Obsession with crime and punishment
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption
14. Fraudulent elections

The reason why the masses don’t stop this process is because at each step the government uses fear and propaganda to both keep people from seeing what is happening, and to reinforce the people’s “comfort” with these changes in the name of “safety and security.”  The “paternalism” of government, especially when re-inforced by propaganda, is an enormously powerful palliative for the masses.  Not only do they not FIGHT it, they come to both accept and WANT it.  [“There was nothing left in them except sorrow for what they had done, and love of Big Brother.  It was touching to see how they loved Big Brother.”  George Orwell, 1984.]

How do you wake up the masses when they happily accept the idea of a national ID card, leading to a “Your papers, please” society, and gleefully accept the implantation of trackable RFID chips in their arms?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Peace.

Mr. Robinson

Thank You.

If you are used to flying by flapping your wings, and now that way doesn’t work anymore, please then consider attempting to swim through the air…

As we think, so we become.

CY, this is absolutely horrible, and I believe every word, including the fact that you were fired because of it. Same thing happened to me. Having the courage to come forward to expose this stuff is almost guaranteed to cause you a life of misery and grief.

I call it “The Afterlife of a Whistle Blower”.

Check out this interview with Daniel Ellsberg….It’s very powerful. Really…brings up a lot of emotion.

Anyway, the link to the video is just below the lead-in text…

  Revealing Deliberate Deceptions: A Truthout Interview With Daniel Ellsberg
  By Sari Gelzer
  t r u t h o u t | Interview

  Monday 04 February 2008

  Daniel Ellsberg, perhaps the country’s most famous whistleblower, fears that before the Bush administration leaves office they will try to attack Iran.

  Indeed, Ellsberg’s argument gained merit as George W. Bush increased his rhetoric against Iran when he delivered his final State of the Union Address. Bush accused Iran of training militia extremists in Iraq, and emphasized the US will confront its enemies.

  In a wide-ranging interview with Truthout, Ellsberg uses insight from his experience as a Pentagon analyst under the Lyndon B. Johnson, and later, the Nixon administration, to discuss Bush’s plans to begin a war with Iran, the role of the press to give whistleblowers exposure, and how American democracy can be restored.

  “That was not my finest hour that I look back on. That was something that I am ashamed of,” he tells me, with a heavy heart.

  Ellsberg wishes he spoke out against the Vietnam War sooner. As a civilian working for the government, he says his oath was always to the Constitution and he violated that oath until the day he decided to leak the Pentagon Papers in 1971, to reveal the war was unlawful.

  Ellsberg now spends his time ardently encouraging and supporting whistleblowers to come forward when they see constitutional violations. He emphasizes the importance of documents as evidence, and of timeliness, so lies are exposed before an actual war occurs.

 
  Early this year, Ellsberg experienced deja vu when the white house and a complicit media portrayed an incident in the Strait of Hormuz that deeply paralleled the Tonkin Gulf Incident of 1964.

  The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was an alleged attack by North Vietnamese ships upon American boats. As a result of this alleged aggression, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave former President Johnson the permission to expand the Vietnam War.

  The recent incident involving Iran alleged serious threats were being made to US ships by Iranian speedboats. Within days of the events in the Straight of Hormuz, information revealed the details of the entire event had been fabricated. Ellsberg sees promise in the quickness of this revelation because, in contrast, it was only in 2005 and 2008 the inaccuracies and deceptions of the Gulf of Tonkin incident were revealed by the declassification of National Security Administration reports.

  Ellsberg is worried Congress has not put forth an effort to demand they be informed before an attack on Iran should occur. Currently, there is a Senate resolution to demand Congress be consulted in the event of plans to attack Iran, but it has not gotten out of committee.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020408A.shtml

well said, well said!

And so the question becomes, how do we translate our intellectual activity into physical/political activity?

I sure do like the idea of 100 million strong group of Americans politely asking for what is rightfully theirs back.  I also fear that the “government” would say, “Well, ok, we already robbed it of its value…so there you go.”

Whoa…well, i, um, yeah…that pretty much sums it up for me.

Yup.

As always, Eugene, you’ve brouht the picture into sharp focus. But, I wish I could believe that Hillary would end torture.

We all know that Bill Clinton created the practice of “extrordinary rendition” in his term, and that he supported, along with Hillary, the invasion of Iraq. Those two facts preclude my trusting that either can make good policy or lead from an understanding of priciple.

Just their unscrupulous performance in South Carolina is enough to convince me that they will do anything to maintain a political advantage. (it was torture just to watch it all unfold)

Yes, we need more than semantics to put America back on course, and accountability is the prescription for what ails us.

But, this sickness isn’t reserved to only members of the GOP. Sadly, it’s alive and well in the representatives of the corporate and global elite that reside within our own Democratic party.

Obama is the only one who can turn things around for our party, and our country.

It’s taken 7 years to figure Bush out?

And what about those prosecuted for crimes committed at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq?

And our front runners want to put this whole torture thing behind us?  Is there no justice for those who ordered the torture?

And if Bush pardons those who carried out his orders, they are not punished?  Were not the Japanese and Germans and our own commanders who were responsible for torture punished regardless of a “pardon”?  Some things cannot be pardoned.  Ask those that were hung after Nuremberg.

as the President for the torture that has been committed. It was done in every Americans name on orders of the President. SHAME ON US ALL!

^ price we pay for allowing a bunch of criminals to usurp the executive branch of our government.  “Tortured Semantics” has been going on for 7 years and counting.  I agree there should be a full accounting/reckoning; but who has the courage to do this.  Without this “accounting/reckoning” we will forever suffer degradation in the eyes of the word.  We will never again be looked to for guidance and relief from tyranny; because we are the worst tyrants extant.  The next administration I am sure will want to put this all behind us, and get on with the future, but, there will never be a future for us until this is reckoned.  I hope the world will never forget because for many years we were the hope of the world..

^ at a women’s forum, rolled her eyes and said something to the effect, “who’d have ever thought”.  This was in reference to her son, the standing president.  A telling moment.

^ list of posters who have said the very same thing in only a slightly different way.  We fail to understand action.  We mistake this thing we do for action.  It’s just one of a number of our fatal flaws.

...and critical thinking skills diminish, and lives are lived too fat rationalizing luxury as necessity. No conscience or conscious work adds to the value of our lives because our jobs are so arcane and far removed from our natural disposition. Disposable society and celebrity media culture, and isolation from neighbors compound our isolation despite our massive cities. Add to that the anonymous opinion slinging and name calling and downright self-important pseudo-intellectual self justification which the internet provides, falsely satisfying the need to be a part of something bigger than the self, but in reality lacking the quality of action required to make a movement a movement. Just thinking a thing and blogging it doesn’t get us off the hook. The passion of action has been milked from our culture because it is too easy to remain on the path of least resistance or we are told that it costs too much to get there, or that it won’t make a difference even if we did show up 100 million strong on the steps of our government demanding that our representatives represent. We are a nation of infants, supplicants to the teat of power, self deluded on the vanity that our national identity entitles us to the mantle of “Greatest Nation.”

This is how it is done, stripping from us our power: replace our minds with guns and missiles, then prey upon the ignorant pride which remains in our hollowed out husks. This is Reagan’s legacy,  and this is the Neocon triumph, and it must be overcome.

This is a much appreciated piece from Mr. Robinson, even though some of the words seem to rise verbatim from pages of own research/writing…too many years running now. Who would have ever thought that I would someday spend hours of academic research on the topic of TORTURE? What could there possibly have been able to say about it, when Eugene has stated the obvious…the practice of torture is NOT a debatable topic. It’s wrong, and it’s illegal, and that’s that.

Still I’ve long ago reached the same conclusion that Mr. Robinson puts forth here so clearly. This legalese and tortured semantics, (now that’s a nifty term; describes many of the comments on these forums, and I could easily name the most frequent ‘authors’) is all about covering the administration’s legal and criminal asses. Especially Cheney, since he’s the one who has argued so forcefully and passionately in favor of ALL torture tactics. (not just the water boarding).

I remember specifically about a year ago… maybe longer, when he was so passionate about making sure the CIA could continue the humiliating and degrading sexual abuse tactics. It made me physically ill to hear him argue so strongly for those. How much more sadistic is that, than the worst of the worst sociopaths? Actually, NONE. A sexual sadist is pretty much the bottom of the barrel of sociopathic slime…at least as scummy if not more, than those who would molest children. And…this fucking pervert is the Vice President of the United States; for all intents and purposes the Dictator of the US, because we all know that his power far succeeds that of the moron, who is puppet-in-chief…and president in name only.

So, there we have it…a perverted sadist as the most powerful person in the country, maybe even the world. How did we ever fall this far into depravity? How did we let it happen? I admit I don’t know. Still trying to figure it out.

Only recently have I begun to grasp some insight (though it’s intellectually challenging) by studying the same experience of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. How did it happen? (that millions of people could be summarily tortured and exterminated). WHY did it happen? Why didn’t the people of Germany DO anything, to stop it? What do WE need to do to stop it? Obviously the LAWS don’t matter.

Those are questions we should all be asking ourselves, and each other. I’m not sure of ALL the answers, but I think we should ALL be asking the questions.