heterochromatic, Nov. 20 8:44 pm – I said there were no killings
but hardly inflated, there is lots of evidence of injuries from police
using weapons on a relatively peaceful movement.  There will be
that aberrant member of the movement, but they are far and few
between out of the more than 300,000 who have participated in
the Occupy Movement locations. 

Oakland cops use rubber bullets, flash grenades, smoke bombs to rout
Occupiers
http://tinyurl.com/73r9738

Occupy Denver Under Attack: Occupiers Take Streets Facing Tear Gas
and Rubber Bullets
http://tinyurl.com/7hocwco

Police vs. Occupiers: The controversial ‘sound cannon’ weapon
Forget tear gas and mace. The cops’ LRAD sound cannon is really making
some noise

Riot police have begun deploying a non-lethal weapon called a long
range acoustic device — LRAD, for short — against Occupy Movement
protesters across the country. A controversial military device, which
blasts targets with powerful sound waves capable of causing “extreme
pain,” the LRAD can sometimes even lead to permanent hearing loss. A
tamer version of the device has been spotted during the recent evictions
at New York’s Zuccotti Park and Occupy Oakland’s encampment. Here’s
what you should know:
http://tinyurl.com/7ldhctt

Video - PoliceForce Peaceful UC Davis Students to Open Their Mouths
... and Then Shoot Pepper Spray DOWN THEIR THROATS
http://tinyurl.com/6m2m68u

Portland Police Square Off Against Occupiers with Chemical Weapons -
Portland Police are involved in a face to face live standoff against
occupiers with chemical weapons that were transported into the
downtown Portland area by a hostile militia. That militia is now
threatening to use chemical agents in hostilities against peaceful
civilians. The chemical agents in questions are commonly deployed in
liquids and aerosols that are exceptionally agitating to the eyes, sinuses,
and respiratory organs.
http://tinyurl.com/79sxxaa

College occupiers coming to grips with increasing violence
http://tinyurl.com/6v5djg6

She—-that “atrocity against the American people” seems a little bit inflated .                 

                        pepper spray atrocity .?????

——“Egyptian soldiers and police set fire to protest tents in Cairo’s Tahrir
Square and fired tear gas and rubber bullets in a major assault Sunday to drive
out thousands demanding that the military rulers quickly transfer power to a
civilian government. At least 11 protesters were killed and hundreds were
injured.——

Using pepper spray on peaceful sitting protesters in Oakland is an
atrocity against the American people.  Occupiers everywhere are
representing the 99% of Americans.  The police are the henchmen
of the 1%.  Those of us not at the Occupy sites and who cannot get
out to a site must be able to do something.  I will send whatever
resources I can afford.  I hope it can be used to help those who
were pepper sprayed.  Is there something that will counteract the
bad effects on human skin and wash out the eyes?  Maybe a legal
fund to be used to sue those using and authorizing the use of the
spray.  Good grief, this is really terrible.  While not killing people it
is akin to the fascist tactics being used on protesters everywhere in
the world.

This emphasizes how little we’ve progressed since the 60’s when we were tear-gassed for
unlawful assemblage while we were legally assembled and singing out in peaceful
demonstration against an unjust war.  The more things change, the more things remain
the same…especially when we are prevented from doing anything about it.  It is time we
are allowed to re-assemble and sing out against current injustices.

As the days go on it is clear that the actions of the police serve to energize those
on the front lines as well as activate those who up until now have only been
following the movement more passively.

Incredulous as it might seem Mark E. Smith, I, in fact, do mean
with one blow.  For that would be a lethal blow to the conservative
campaign to obliterate the liberal public.  It would be the people
speaking once again, against the goosestepping effort of the
conservatives to suppress voting at the state level starting in 2002
with the New Hampshire Senate election where Republicans tried to
reduce the number of Democratic voters by paying telemarketers in
Idaho to make hang-up calls to telephone numbers used by the
Democratic Party’s ride-to-the-polls phone lines on election day, the
intention of which was to make it prohibitive to reach Party offices to
ask for transportation to the voting polling places and back home. 

This is a treacherous tactic the Republicans have attempted time
and time again, as seen in the 2004 presidential election where
voters got phone calls with false information to keep them from
voting informing them of a change in voting location or the adding
of a day, a Wednesday, where voters could vote thereby having them
actually miss voting.  Also for that election, Voters Outreach of America
a shill group for the express purpose of handicapping Democratic voters
that collected Republican voter registration forms and throwing away
forms where new voters had selected to register for the Democratic Party
but found they were not registered when it came time to vote and were
disqualified form casting a ballot.  John Pappageroge, a Republican state
legislator from Michigan, actually said “if the Detroit vote were not
suppressed, we (the Republicans: will have a touch time in the election.” 

In 2006, the Democrats this one time was found guilty of slashing
tires of Republican poll monitors.  However, much more monstrous
and disgraceful in that same year, voter suppression by Republicans in
the state of Virginia besides erroneous phone calls made to Democratic
voters also sent out fliers that said to Skip This Election to diminish the
African-American turnout. 

2008 saw the attempt by Republicans to invalidate and purge voter
registration by testing the validity of voters to prevent the use of Social
Security data base (see “States’ Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal”.
New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/politics/09voting.html 
In Georgia and Ohio accessing voting booth wait times was delayed
from 2 to 10 hours, and in Minnesota and Montana the conservative
contingent, the Minnesota Majority, had actions referred to the US
Attorney.  Wisconsin’s Republican Party tried to have 60,000 voters in
Democratic Milwaukee deleted from voter rolls. 

This year alone Republicans have tried to invalidate college students
as well as senior citizens some who have voted for a half a century. 
The Hispanic ethnic group has been a primary target, all these groups
are known to be sympathetic to Democrat ideals and social programs. 
These voter disenfranchisements by the slimy Republicans is simply
insufferably egregious. 

Of course it will take time for all of your stated problems to be acted
upon, it doesn’t take much intellect to intuit that!  But now because
I am in agreement that they are all conspicuous problems and that I
agree it is important to pay attention to taking action, you whine
because it will take time?  Your trollness is showing.  Your specious
predictions are typical Republican rhetoric.  I maintain that defeating
Republicans in as many elections as possible will change and go towards
fixing the problems.  Democrats know the American people are now
aware and mean business.

A TWO-PARTY SYSTEM OF GOVERNANCE

MEs: Historically, the United States has preferred to have an opposition party around. If one party gets the White House, the other party gets Congress. If one Party gets the House of Representatives, the other party gets the Senate.

Right, they all get together 9 months before an election and decide who gets what.

In their good Common Sense, this pattern is decided by the voters, who prefer that one party not have all the pie. There is no willful planning, it just happens.

Also, with the electoral districting that we have, it makes it easy for one or the other in a two-party system to obtain the vote. Presuming the voters want to vote along Party lines, which happens.

There is just no room for a third-party in America, which is a great shame.

HISTORICAL INFLEXION POINT

The problem is that now, at this inflexion point in the history of our country, we need a massive vote for Progressives if this country is going to reform profoundly - which it desperately needs.

We can’t go on like this - from boom and bust to boom and bust. It’s a slow decline into perdition.

But if the grassroots does not see the criticality of the moment, then nothing will be altered. It will be just more “business as usual”. Besides, Uncle Sam is already amongst the least social-democrat of any major western democracy and its Income Unfairness is flagrant.

A MANDATE

We gave Obama a mandate for change, but the PotUS, in our tripartite system of governance, cannot do it alone. The PotUS needs a Congress that he can work with towards advancing progressive values. The next Dem PotUS will indeed get a majority in the Supreme Court - unless its a Republican.

With a Republican PotUS, the judiciary system remains conservative and we continue our slide into hell for another decade.

Shenonymous writes, “It is not that I am not
interested in ending wars, ending bailouts, ending
deregulation, ending job outsourcing, ending the
prison-industrial complex, or anything else—I believe
solving the problem of Republicans in office will
solve all of those problems with one blow!”

You can’t really mean with one blow. I remember when
Democrats controlled the White House, the Senate, and
the House of Representatives. But they were unable to
solve any problems because these things take time. So
you must mean that getting rid of the Republicans
again, if anybody wanted to waste time repeating that
failed experiment while the destruction of our
economy and the planet continues apace, might
eventually solve some of those problems over a few
hundred years or so, since these things take time.

Here’s folksinger David Rovics, “Still Waiting For
the Change” http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=eVC2BQ0ixQ8

Your dream of defeating the Republicans came true.
Your objective was achieved. And we got more wars,
bigger bailouts, and the only change was for the
worse. You won, and you had your chance to show what
you could do. You had it all, the White House, the
Senate, and the House.

And now, since you were unable to accomplish anything
whatsoever when you had it all, you want people to
help you get it all over again so that you can do
nothing again? Good luck with that.

Historically, the United States has preferred to have
an opposition party around. If one party gets the
White House, the other party gets Congress. If one
party gets the House of Representatives, the other
party gets the Senate. You had one of the rare
opportunities when voters were so desperate for hope
and change, and so sick of Bush and the Republicans,
that they gave you more than you’d ever dared dream
of. They gave you everything. All of it. All at once.

And nothing changed. You had it all and you blew it.

So now you can keep dreaming of having it all again
some day, but you’re never going to get it again,
because voters learned the hard way that you don’t
deliver on your promises and there is nothing to gain
by giving you all the power there in in the mightiest
country in the world, because you’re still too
helpless and ineffective to do anything except keep
begging people for more money and catering to the 1%.

I feel like a parent whose teenager keeps begging and
begging for the car keys, and when I finally decide
that they can be trusted, gets drunk and totals the
car. Maybe I’ll trust the kid with the car keys
again, but not any time soon. In fact, I might just
decide to let the kid find a job and go to work and
pay for their own car.

You were entrusted with our country, our economy, our
military, our national treasury, and you didn’t do
anything to improve any of it. Nobody trusts the
Republicans, but many people trusted you. And that’s
“trusted” as in past tense, because that trust was
violated and won’t be given as lightly ever again.

In fact, most people are fed up with both Democrats
and Republicans, have noticed that both parties cater
to the interests of the 1% instead of the 99%, and,
as their jobs continue to be outsourced, their homes
continue to be foreclosed, their medical needs go
unmet, their kids’ college tuition becomes more and
more unaffordable, and the environment around them
becomes more and more polluted, are wishing a plague
upon both your houses.

And as for third parties, the only reason they are so
pure and decent is that they haven’t had enough power
to become corrupted yet. We’ve watched Greens,
Socialists, and other small parties gain power in
other countries and immediately become
indistinguishable from the major parties.

So, instead of continuing to be idiotic party
animals, we’ve decided that the party’s over and
we’re going to change the system. Bye-bye dinosaurs!
Have a nice extinction—you’ve earned it!

WIP: If all elections do is “empower the least of two evils,” then there is all the more reason not to vote, as nothing but evil can come from it.

Pure, unadulterated Bullsh*t.

And a mockery of democracy. With a voter turnout record amongst the lowest of any modern democracy (see here), the sad fact is that Americans have given up trying to have a decent Political Class.

Admittedly, there are problems in the electoral system, such as:
* Electoral redistricting (aka “gerrymandering”) that tends to carve the vote such that it encrusts a two-party system in power.
* The idiocy of the present Supreme Court that decided, abracadabra, corporations were citizens with the right to “free speech” and therefore authorized unlimited donations to superPACs. Thankfully, their supreme imbecility did not give private enterprise the right to vote in proportion to campaign contributions.
* The political indifference of the grassroots, who have the same naive notion of politics as expressed in the quote above. “We are all victims so the hell with it!”

If we want to repair our dysfunctional democracy, let’s get off our duff and militate to make it functional - instead of lamentably bleating-in-a-blog.

George Bernard Shaw: Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

Mark E. Smith - Juggling too many issues in the air at one time
tends to preclude action.  First things first and taking care that
Republicans do not gain any public office is the chief order of the
day.

It is not that I am not interested in ending wars, ending bailouts,
ending deregulation, ending job outsourcing, ending the prison-
industrial complex, or anything else—I believe solving the problem
of Republicans in office will solve all of those problems with one blow!

Now as far as I know one cannot drop drones on anything as they are
unmanned aircraft, i.e., Predator drones that fire Hellfire missiles.  I have
expressed too many times for your pointy head to have noticed my
antipathy for war and killing, that I do not feel the need to defend that
personal position.

No, I am a Liberal Democrat, not a neoliberal.  Neoliberalism is an
economic approach not political.  We could say that a neoliberal finds
comfort in what is called economic liberalism by its ideological
opponents the neoconservatives.  To clue you in:

Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach that stresses the efficiency of
private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and as
such seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the
political and economic priorities of the country.  It is more libertarian, or
what we think of as libertarian in this day and age, than it is what is now
thought of as the liberal view.

On the other hand, the liberalism that defines my Democratic politics is
the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals support
constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human
rights, capitalism of the non-crony kind, and freedom of or from
religion.

To define crony capitalism: it is a term that describes an economic
system where people with good connections to the center of power - the
“cronies” of the government - manage to locate themselves in positions
of undue influence over economic policy, thus deriving great personal
gains. These guys need to be knocked out of office.

Economically I support the notion of an alternative to both capitalism
and socialism in the form of socialized capitalism that seeks to blend
the best qualities of both the capitalistic system with the socialistic all
the while dampening the disadvantages of both.  Socialized capitalism
would as a standard include programs like government control of wages
and working hours; measures that protect the lower-level employees
while not unduly inhibiting the practice of business.  It is a hybrid form
of economic government, combining some principles of a free-market
economy with some elements of a command economy. Socialized
capitalism is essentially a centrist economic philosophy that finds a
middle ground between capitalism and socialism. While what we have
now is close to it, I see it as a natural progression from both market
liberalism and democratic socialism, taking the best elements from
both to create a completely unique system.

I’ve made a clear statement of what I am, what I believe, and what I
support.  Like it or not, my primary objective is to defeat Republicans
in every election possible.

Layfayette: I retain the right to say what I my vote means.  I do not argue that waiting till the primary process turns out two heads of the same coin is completely inadequate.  This is why I say, “.... while one does things either inside or outside the system to improve or replace it.” 

All: been down this road with the Smith who’s Mark is left-palatable blather surrounding a core message of ‘Don’t Vote’.  Boring, but what the hell, feed the troll all you want.

On what I consider a serious note, nobody seems to take seriously the skillful use of our language against us, and the importance of people getting on the same page.  Aint gonna happen with the ‘peoples mic’.  We need a modern version of the Federalist Papers.

Lafayette nails it , yet seems not to realize it:

“We’ve got the Congress that we deserve because 52% of Americans, in a fit of pique, stayed away from the mid-term elections.”

That precisely is my problem with Mr. Smith, he doesn’t go to Washington. To refuse to participate in the process is to abdicate responsibility as a citizen. To leave the field to those incapable of holding two thoughts in their heads at the same time.

Mark, you claim that there are two systems, there are not, there is, however, one in need of reform. We may differ in our vision of how to make change happen,but if you refuse to participate you are not even trying to make changes.

I do not denigrate the political work you do in participating in OWS, I applaud it in fact. But this nation of 300 million needs government in some form, and I reject anarchy as utopian. To get from here to there requires working , admit it or don’t.

When I vote for third party candidates I am sending a message, one that is harder to ignore the more of us who do vote that way. When you absent yourself you give greater strength to those whose ideologies oppose your own in the minds of those who set policy and direction.

Campaign finance reform will not happen because you refuse to vote. It may, however , happen because more of us voted Green, thus creating a bloc of progressive politicians not beholden to corporate money.

Sheepie have no right to bleat after the damage is done?

I have about 100 head of sheepie in the pasture next to my house and I can safely say sheepie bleat when ever they damn feel like it, whether they have the right to bleat is another story!

I may add, Sheepie are about the stupidest animals out there, well….. after Republicans! 

I may have to take another look at the Sheepie angle for its dove tailing analogy.

WIP: I state emphatically, my vote does not grant consent for the ‘winner’ to govern as they see fit, especially government is contrary to ‘decency’.

Goodness, you ARE naive. Of course it means that.

What did you think? If you want “decency” from your representatives in Congress then assure they deserve your confidence in them BEFORE you elect them.

Which is the problem with the electoral campaign system - American watching the Boob-Tube believe the Media Messaging (almost totally defamatory of the opposition) and overlooks the devil in the details of a candidates political platform.

Which is why we elect ignoramuses like the T-Party (T for Troglodyte).

We’ve got the Congress that we deserve because 52% of Americans, in a fit of pique, stayed away from the mid-term elections.

We, the sheeple, have no right to bleat-in-a-blog once the damage is done. That’s too Effing Easy.

What Is Progress, your personal attack on me is
unwarranted, immature, and denotes your lack of
rational arguments in rebuttal to what I wrote.

You write, “Voting does not imply consent to be
governed by the winner.  It is merely a tactic to
empower the least of two evils while one does things
either inside or outside the system to improve or
replace it.”

So you disagree with the Declaration of Indpendence
when it says that governments derive their just
powers from the consent of the governed? You believe
that there is some way other than elections by which
government can demonstrate the consent of the
governed?

If all elections do is “empower the least of two
evils,” then there is all the more reason not to
vote, as nothing but evil can come from it.

While you may, “...state emphatically, my vote does
not grant consent for the ‘winner’ to govern as they
see fit…,” the winner always announces to the world
that they have your mandate. You may also “state
emphatically” that I’m a troll or that the earth is
flat, but that doesn’t mean that Obama won’t continue
to drop drones on innocent babies because his regime
can claim the consent of the governed, including your
consent, because you voted in an election that he
won.

The only way to improve things by working outside of
the system, or to replace the system, is to stop
supporting the system, stop legitimizing it, stop
voting in its elections, and stop granting it your
personal consent of the governed to allow it to
govern you.

There are many forms of noncompliance, such as
removing money from big banks, boycotting corporate
brands, establishing urban gardens and worker-owned
collectives and cooperatives, not paying taxes, etc.,
but if you are doing your civic duty to the current
system by voting in its elections and thereby
legitimizing it, you are working in opposition to
change, and if you consider yourself an agent of
change, you are working in opposition to yourself and
to your own interests.

Suppose you are driving a car and you realize that
you’re going in the wrong direction and want to
change direction. Can you do that while you’re still
driving in the same direction? How can you change
direction while continue to drive in the same
direction?

If you want to take your money out of a big bank and
move it to a member-owned credit union, can you do it
by leaving your money in the big bank and not opening
an account at a credit union?

If you want to oppose the system, can you do it by
participating in the system you want to oppose?

If you don’t understand what consent is, read this:

Consensual Political Intercourse
http://fubarandgrill.org/node/1035#comment-3158

Once you understand what you are being asked and what
you are consenting to, you are free to continue to
consent, but don’t come crying to me about hope and
change. If you consent to the status quo, you haven’t
got a case.

How about the word liberty, like the statue in NY island, being buggered by the 1 percent?

If it looks like a duck, walks, and quacks like a duck, it might as well be a duck.  Mark Smith might as well be a Neo-con troll. 

Voting does not imply consent to be governed by the winner.  It is merely a tactic to empower the least of two evils while one does things either inside or outside the system to improve or replace it. 

I state emphatically, my vote does not grant consent for the ‘winner’ to govern as they see fit, especially government is contrary to ‘decency’.  Now, define ‘decency’ decently, and the TD forum will for once have accomplished something, and OWS will then have something with which to fuel a real movement. 

It’s that simple?  Start with a word…...decency and start a raging debate over what it means and how to codify ‘decency’.  To any morons, no, I am not talking about ludeness or ratings systems.

Flesh it out and throw another word in the machine…..suggestions?  How about ‘security’?  How about ‘health’?  How about ‘opportunity’?  How about ‘freedom’? 

It is ambiguity in our language, and the wiggle room this ambiguity provides, that so many of us are able to pursue self-interests to the detriment of the common good.

David, you cannot “use elections for revolutionary
purposes,” unless the votes in those elections are
actually counted.

Votes in US elections do not have to be counted.

If a majority attempted to use a US election for
revolutionary purposes, the 1% would simply refuse to
count the votes, as they did in 2000 and 2004.

Before you can use an election for revolutionary
purposes, you have to have honest elections where the
votes are actually counted.

We do not.

Yes, Shenonymous, your only interest as a “liberal
Democrat” is to defeat Republicans. Not to end wars,
end bailouts, end deregulation, end job outsourcing,
end the prison-industrial complex, or anything else—
your only concern is that when drones are dropped on
innocent children, it be a Democrat dropping them.

The phrase “liberal Democrat” is an oxymoron. You are a
neoliberal, and that’s something quite different.

Wildeye, what I said was that there was no way for
us, for We the People, to hold federal elected
officials accountable during their terms of office.

We can, of course, petition Congress to impeach them,
the same way that this country’s Founders petitioned
King George for redress of grievances, but whether or
not they will do so is entirely up to them.

One Member of Congress, when presented with a
petition signed by more than 80% of his constituents,
asking that he vote to impeach Bush and Cheney,
responded, “Spare me! I’m fully aware that the
overwhelming majority of my Constituents favor
impeachment. I do not.” And since there was no way
that his constituents could get Congress to impeach
him for not representing them, since the majority in
Congress was also opposing the will of their
constituents, he served out his term.

Yes, Ardee, your votes for Ralph Nader were actually
votes for Clinton, Bush and Obama. Governments derive
their just powers from the consent of the governed.
They demonstrate this consent by holding elections.
When you voted for Nader, you consented to be
governed by whoever won, which turned out to be
Clinton, Bush, and Obama.

As for direct democracy, I don’t “presume that it
will fall out of the sky by non-participation.” If
there are two systems side by side, one which is
corrupt and one which isn’t, the way to end
corruption is to stop participating in the corrupt
system and start participating in the system that is
not corrupt. I am participating in the Occupy
Movement.

What you call, “the system as created, not as
currently corrupted,” is a system that was always
thoroughly corrupt through and through, because our
counterrevolutionary Constitution betrayed the
egalitarian principles of our founders and was
created by the 1%, for the 1%, to ensure that the 1%
would always rule: http://fubarandgrill.org/node/1085

Let me see… CORPORATIONS have their unalienable right of FREE SPEECH, while the OWS protesters do not? Sounds like BULL SHIT to me!

Of course, I am not a high priced attorney or one of the shills who are sitting on the Supreme Court!

Success is possible.  As dumb as people are, we are still brilliant.  As unlikely as it
seems, we can do this.

Read how the 99 percent overcome everyday obstacles here:

http://www.josephcouture.com  “Obstruction To Paradise”

I remember when growing up as a little kid we used to play poker, and always when we played, it was the dealers choice on which poker we would play and the dealer also got to name the wild cards. Some times the annoying dealers would make just about everything wild. Sorry folks,... grow up, we are not playing poker and far as I can see we are not playing where the dealer decides, in fact I a few here are not playing with a full deck!

recall, please, that in the region called america, there is also an ethnic
inequality [and thus deep division among them] and not just among its
inhabitants.

the more peoples in a country, the easier is to be master of all of them.
u.s, canada, australia, argentina exemplify this point.

if in u.s lived only or mostly, say, anglo-saxons, rich and super-rich wld have
a heck of a time ruling with iron fist so many people as they do now.
in addition, i doubt very much there’d be just one political party.

it is true that the governance in homogeneous lands of europe
is also founded on the same principle as that of u.s: right of a person to own
another person and the right of the supremacists to also own all of the planet
{and to wage wars for it if necessary}.

the sole difference between a society, say, in finland, and one in u.s can be
found in the fact that good 30% [or more] strenuously reject the basic notion
that a person has an inalienable right to own another person or that only rich
people own the planet.

i trust that the OWS is aware of this enormous hurdle which divides a people
from all other peoples in u.s.

the division and inequality of people served the supremacists thus far very
well. i expect that that u.s ruling class would use it once again to benefit
itself.

and u.s or canada cannot, i think, be turned [by law or otherwise] into or
become of own volition a melting pot even in centuries let alone in just years
or decades.

but this labor shld start right now. OWS shld ensure that it is composed in
proper ratio by all ethnic groups.
an econo-educational-military-political party is by far more effective in
educating lower classes than any movement, protest, think-tank, or
organization.

the reason i hyphenate politics with education and the rest is because politics
is part of daily living and every unemployed or poor person, wounded soldier
feels it on her/his skin.

so, the time has come to stop talking about politics as existing in isolation
from reality.

if OWS chucks or avoids this part of life, then, i cannot see them succeeding
in achieving even one structural change.

egyptian protest seems to have failed because it to avoided also getting
political. libyan protest, on the other hand, ‘worked’ because of at least three
factors: it was a military ‘protest’, supported by ?all supremacists [with arms
as well] and nearly all pious people and not just islamists. tnx bozhidar
balkas vancouver

QUOTE, Mark E. Smith:

“Leave the dark side and come over to Occupy. We’re changing the game and we’re going to create a game where everyone can win”
__________________

I’ve been there; seen this before. I was in SDS, and I was there in Chicago in the summer of ‘69, on the day that SDS died… the day that the New Left died.

It wasn’t the undercover agents nor the police that murdered SDS and the New Left. It was the infestation of unreconstructed liberals who redirected near all the righteous anger of dissidents away from anti-imperialism and into life-long (D) dedication to corporatism.

While you shower yourself in Weather-like grand delusions, Mark, the predatory liberals are MovingOn in upon the OM. Those corporate party controlled unions “supporting” the occupations are already using the sacrifice of the occupiers to queue up voters for Obama — gaming you; using you… to keep corporatism alive! Keep corporatism alive! Keep corporatism alive!

All political activism in America that is “nonpartisan” is, in its effect, corporate party partisan.

An Occupy Movement that fails to seize this opportune moment to use elections for revolutionary purpose — in strong grassroots support of non-corporate candidates — will be a short-lived movement completely co-opted by the corporate party’s devious deeply depraved Democrats.

Voter Consent Wastes Dissent:

http://chenangogreens.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=498&Itemid=1

Mark E. Smith, November 18 12:59 am - 5 Yups I am a Democrat,
a Liberal Democrat. I’m afraid OWS is de facto Democratic, and are
welcoming the Unions that have voiced support for Obama to
participate side by side with their public protest.  My only interest
as a “partisan” Democrat is to defeat Republicans in every election
possible.  You sound like a troll roaming the SD Occupiers and the
TD forums.  A Republican in disguise to undermine the politics that
will reelect Obama and put in place one of your moron Republican
candidates who would decimate the Occupiers and confiscate all the
liberties that are inherent in a democratic society. 

Your notion of direct democracy will not do anything at the Occupy
level as they are not a recognized political party, and in your own
words, will not be a political party, just as the Tea Party is not.  You
are the blowhard.  Too bad you do not like partisan politics because
that is exactly what this country has.  The only way direct democracy
works is in local elections.  That is where third parties can get elected
in any effective numbers.  Until representative democracy of this country
no longer exists you are pissing in the wind. 

Liberal Democrats believe that American politics should be guided by
reason and principles of liberty and equality. We argue that all people
are created equal, that political authority cannot be justified on the basis
of wealth or inheritance of position, nor any assumption of a privileged
connection to God, nor any other personal aspect that is claim to make
one person superior to any other. Governments exist to serve the people
and only the people, not the reverse, and are governed by the rule of
law.

We further believe that constitutional liberalism and democratic
government are not only compatible but necessary for the either of
them to truly exist based on the concept of political equality as an
electoral democracy that protects civil liberties.

If you want to call that partisan political position, well go ahead,
because I definitely do.

@Mark E. Smith

“… no way to hold elected federal officials accountable DURING their terms of office…”

Impeachment? (That’s a question, not an endorsement.)

Lafayette

LABOR UNIONS

Because they concentrated far too much - over the past three decades - on Comp & Ben and not enough on job tenure. So, now much of American un- and semi-skilled labor is priced out of the market. Which leaves only the Service Industry jobs that are notoriously under-paid.

I understand the necessarily brief opinion and thus perhaps an opinion that might mislead.The negotiations between union and management, perhaps not for the last three decades, but certainly for the last one, focused upon benefits rather than wages and staffing as a compromise to management tactics poor mouthing profitability.

Mark E. Smith, November 18 at 12:47 am Link to this comment

David, you vote is NOT for the person you vote for.

Your vote is a vote for the system.

Thus you state that my votes for Ralph Nader were actually votes for Clinton, Bush and Obama? Logic lacking I think.

We can, with a deal of commonality, discuss the sickness in our current system. We can speak to what should evolve from this or how we can cure the sickness and find much ground in common.

But the real discourse, in my own opinion, is where are we going and how do we get there. When you proselytize for not voting you do a solution, any solution, more harm than good. An important part of how we got to where we are is precisely the lack of voter participation you seem to advocate.

You advocate for direct democracy, yet presume that it will fall out of the sky by non-participation? I happen to believe in the system as created, not as currently corrupted. I believe that we can, in the fullness of time, arrive at a real social democracy, one leading to socialism, through advocacy for reform not alienation.

I thank you for your participation in this movement.

I’m afraid I don’t understand, Lafayette.

Do you think it is a great idea to have a President
who starts wars without consulting Congress, doesn’t
allow public opinion to influence policy decisions,
considers the Constitution, all international
treaties, and even the Magna Carta to be just pieces
of paper, and can’t be held accountable because the
Supreme Court believes that if the President does it,
it is legal? Are you saying that you’re one of the 9%
who approve of Congress?

Do you think it is essential to a republic to have no
right of recall at the federal level, that is, no way
to hold elected federal officials accountable DURING
their terms of office (which happens to be the only
time that they’re in power and the only time that
they could possibly represent us), and therefore no
way to exercise our will through them?

I’ve strained the bathwater carefully and repeatedly,
and I can’t find any baby in it. I certainly wouldn’t
want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but
perhaps if you could tell me exactly what this
invisible, microscopic baby looks like, I’d have an
easier time trying to find it and save it.

MES: I’m an Occupier and I’m promoting direct democracy instead of machine politics.

Interesting.

Now, pray tell, how does your direct democracy work? No more PotUS? No more Congress?

Really ‘in truly, it would be VERY interesting that you explain it. Because a great many of us are against “machine politics”, but we don’t find terribly fascinating the bit about doing away with the present republican (small “r”) system of local/national governance.

Which would be tantamount to throwing the baby out with the bath water.

So, please do explain yourself a bit further.

Shenonymous, one of us is a partisan blowhard. One of
us is promoting a political party. But it isn’t me.

I’m an Occupier and I’m promoting direct democracy
instead of machine politics.

The Occupy Movement is nonpolitical. We do not
promote political parties or candidates. We promote
self-governance where everyone has a real voice.

I gave a teach-in at Occupy San Diego a few days ago
and during the Q&A afterward a young woman announced
to the group that she is “a recovering Democrat.”

Partisan politics is a sickness, an addiction, but it
is not hopeless. There is a cure and it is called
direct democracy. You may not be ready for it yet,
but if you’re really not happy with wars, torture,
assassinations, bailouts, deregulation, and the rest
of it, there may come a time when you’ll stop voting
against your own interests and putting your future in
the hands of people who don’t care about you.

I wish you the best.

@ Leefeller

I wasn’t talking about the Democrats keeping him from running as a Democrat, I was talking about them keeping him off of ballots running as an Independent. I don’t appreciate the Democratic party insisting that I can only vote within the duopoly.

David, you vote is NOT for the person you vote for.

Your vote is a vote for the system.

It is a vote to agree to be governed by whoever wins,
not by whoever you voted for.

The Democrats and Republicans are not the problem,
the system that funds them, owns them, and allows
them a lock on electoral politics is the problem.

If your preferred candidate actually won an election
and became president, the military-industrial complex
would still continue beating heads in at peaceful
protests, because the US military-industrial complex
happens to be in the business of beating heads in.
And if your president objected, that president would
be JFK-ed, probably in broad daylight with millions
of people watching on TV, just to show the next
president what would happen if they stepped out of
line.

There is no way to make good use of elections where
votes don’t have to be counted. If votes don’t have
to be counted, and the Supreme Court decided in 2000
that it is Constitutionally legal not to count the
popular votes, it doesn’t matter how many people vote
or who they vote for, because the votes don’t have to
be counted.

I assume that you didn’t vote for Obama in 2008. But
you did vote, so you believed in the system and had
enough faith in the system to cast your ballot to
grant your consent to be governed by whoever won. You
knew that your candidate wouldn’t win, but you didn’t
care if a Democrat or Republican won, as long as you
could cast your third party vote.

By casting that ballot, you granted your personal
consent of the governed, to be governed by Obama. You
personally authorized whoever won, which in this case
turned out to be Obama, to govern you, and you
legitimized his wars, his bailouts, and his use of
violence against US citizens.

You are so greedy for power that if you got it, it
would corrupt you immediately. Nobody with any moral
integrity would run for office in a system as corrupt
as ours. Our government is nothing but a cesspool of
corruption. Throwing a few good apples into a barrel
of rotten ones isn’t going to make the rotten apples
less rotten. We need a new barrel, a new system, a
healthy system that isn’t corrupted through and
through. A system where your candidates could have
equal ballot access, equal media coveerage, and an
equal chance of having a voice, as is the case in
systems that have proportional representation.

But you don’t want an honest system that isn’t
corrupt. You want to get power within a totally
corrupt system, which is something that nobody would
want to do unless they were totally corrupt
themselves.

You’re like a gambler playing in a crooked card game,
who knows the game is rigged, who always loses all
their money, but keeps gambling because it is the
only game in town. The Occupy Movement is going to
change the game. We’re going to run an honest game
where you’d have a real chance of winning. But we
can’t do it if you keep legitimizing and voting for
the corrupt system we’re trying to change.

You’re the one whose votes are legitimizing Obama’s
use of force against peaceful protesters. When you
voted for your third party candidate you made a deal
with the devil, that if you were allowed to vote for
somebody you knew wouldn’t win, you would grant your
consent of the governed to whoever DID win. You know
the game is rigged and run by crooks, but you can’t
quit losing your money to them because you can’t
imagine any other game.

Another game is possible. Leave the dark side and
come over to Occupy. We’re changing the game and
we’re going to create a game where everyone can win,
not just the puppets of the 1%.

If that’s not what you want, keep right on voting.
But if you want a better world, stop voting, withhold
your consent, take back your power instead of
continuing to delegate it, and become a leader
instead of trying to elect one.

Mark E. Smith, November 17 at 9:39 pm - I am diametrically opposed
to everything you said.  You do not know what I am or am not happy
with.  You talk like a partisan blowhard.

QUOTE, Mark E. Smith:

“How can you continue to value the right to cast uncounted votes instead of withholding your vote until you have the right to know that your vote will be counted?”
__________________

The systemic collapse has provided a rare opportunity for the young, and for all those who were perversely persuaded by liberals that people voting for what they actually wanted were wasting their votes, to begin to make good use of elections… to not waste elections, like the “Greatest Generation” and “My Generation” has. It’s an opportunity likely to be the last opportunity, if it’s not productively and aggressively seized upon.

I’d much prefer to see young people smartly begin to use elections for revolutionary purpose — rather than see them just dumbly prefer to invite police to regularly beat and torture them, while the corporate party’s deeply depraved Democrats gather up a historic vote majority from alleged Occupy sympathizers.

If the young refuse to occupy elections in 2012, to use them for far better purpose than their parents did, you’ll have ample opportunity to have your head bashed in, or be disappeared, after Obama gets his 2nd term and 2nd [Kissinger] Peace Prize.

Every drop of an occupier’s blood spilled is currently just getting out the vote for Democrats to continue the corporate continuum — occupy martyrs for (D) sustainable fascism.

Voter Consent Wastes Dissent:

http://chenangogreens.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=498&Itemid=1

A comedy tonight

—-In both elections, had 100% of the voters voted for
Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, or any other third
party candidate, that candidate would, like Gore and
Kerry, have won the popular vote, but NOT won the
election.——

If 100% of the people voted for Cynthia Fucking McKinney the election should be
cancelled

The Man Who Ate Raw Pork (A parable about voting in
elections where votes don’t have to be counted and
can result in dire consequences.)

Once there was a man who was hungry and bought some
raw pork on his way home from work.

When he got home, his wife offered to cook the pork
for him, but the man said that he was very hungry and
insisted on eating it uncooked.

His wife pleaded with him that uncooked pork is a
source of trichinosis, but he was hungry and he
wouldn’t listen.

He ate the pork, he got trichinosis, and he died.

Moral: If something is dangerous, and you have been
warned about it, but you do it anyway because you are
too impatient to take proper precautions, you will
suffer the consequences.

David, it doesn’t matter who people vote for or
against.

In 2000 the Supreme Court nullified the election,
stopped the vote count, announced that the
Constitution did not provide any right for US voters
to have their ballots counted, and installed a
President of their choice, not the choice of the
voters.

In 2004, John Kerry campaigned on the anger of voters
whose votes hadn’t been counted by promising to
ensure that all votes were counted, and then conceded
before the votes could be counted.

In both elections, had 100% of the voters voted for
Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, or any other third
party candidate, that candidate would, like Gore and
Kerry, have won the popular vote, but NOT won the
election.

In order to ensure that those who owned the country
would always rule the country, the 39 wealthy 1%ers
who wrote and signed the Constitution, wrote it in
such a way as to ensure that the popular vote could
never the the final say if the 1% didn’t like the
people’s choice. Constitutionally, the popular vote
can be overruled by the Electoral College, Congress,
and the Supreme Court, if the unverifiable and easily
hacked central tabulators haven’t already ensured
that the votes are allocated the way the 1% prefer
instead of in the way that they were cast by voters.

Your faith in a faith-based electoral system is your
Constitutional right. You can believe that votes are
actually counted if you wish, just as you are free to
believe that the earth is flat. It doesn’t matter if
neither is true, you are still free to believe as you
wish.

A few years ago I asked voters, most of whom were
election integrity advocates, if they would still
continue to vote if the only federally authorized
voting machines were flush toilets. Astonished by the
results of my informal poll, I repeated it online and
got the same results. Half the people I asked said
that of course they wouldn’t vote in an election
where their ballots were just flushed down a toilet.
But the other half became irate and attacked me for
trying to take away their precious right to have
their votes flushed down a toilet.

Until you can understand the difference between an
uncounted vote and a voice in government, you will
continue to vote. Uncounted votes for people who
can’t be held accountable are not a voice in
government.

Your persistence in trying to encourage people to
vote in the unverifiable elections funded to the tune
of billions of dollars by the 1%, is making the 1%
very happy, particularly since they’re probably not
even paying you to help them get out the vote.

Suppose I hold an election and I allow you to vote
for anyone you wish, but I count the votes secretly,
the way that votes are counted secretly by central
tabulators in more than 92% of US voting districts.
Do you think I’d be worried that you, or even a
majority of voters might vote in some way I didn’t
prefer? Since I’d have the final say, I wouldn’t care
who you voted for, because when I counted the votes
secretly, I’d announce that my candidate had won,
whether they actually had or not. And if I was a
tyrant or dictator, there would be nothing you could
do about it, just as there is nothing that can be
done about stolen elections here in the US.

People who continue to vote when they know for a fact
that their votes aren’t counted, aren’t very bright
and don’t really care about democracy. In 2000 and
2004, the popular vote WAS NOT COUNTED. The popular
vote may or may not have been counted in 2008 but
nobody really cared because both candidates had the
same agenda anyway.

How can you continue to value the right to cast
uncounted votes instead of withholding your vote
until you have the right to know that your vote will
be counted? How apathetic are you?

Shenonymous, the reason that the Democratic Party is
the only one with a rat’s ass chance of beating the
Republicans is because the Democrats are funded by
the same big corporate donors who fund the
Republicans and the Democrats have the same agenda as
the Republicans.

People who voted for Obama wanted a change from Bush,
and they got it. They got bigger bailouts for the
rich than Bush had given out, more wars than Bush had
started, and a program of assassinating US citizens
without due process that even Bush had never dared
assert.

It was change, but it was change for the worse.

So the threat that if people don’t vote for the
lesser evil Democrats, the worse evil Republicans
will win, is an empty threat, as the Democrats have
proven themselves to be even more evil than the evil
Republicans. In truth, they both are funded by the 1%
and have to adhere to the agenda of the 1% in order
to get the funding from the 1%—funding which is the
only thing that allows them to compete with each
other for the same funding from the 1%. And the only
way that they can compete for that funding that
enables them to compete with each other, is by
competing to demonstrate which of them can carry out
the agenda of the 1% more extremely than the other.

You seem to be happy with this state of affairs, and
determined to continue to keep voting for it and
granting it your consent. I am not happy with this
state of affairs, I do not and will not vote for the
puppets of the 1%, and I am an Occupier who opposes
the 1% and their political puppets.

We are enemies. You have voted to consent to allow
Obama’s goons to bash my head in for peaceful public
protesting and you do not mean me or this country
well. You are obsessed with the competitive model of
winning and cannot begin to understand a cooperative
model where people don’t get their heads bashed in
for peaceful public protesting.

I’m sorry that you cannot have compassion towards the
innocents killed by Obama’s drone bombs, towards the
elderly illegally foreclosed upon by the big banks
whose top executive officers are now top Obama
officials, towards the immigrants who are being
deported for the crime of trying to support their
families after Democrat Bill Clinton’s GATT and NAFTA
made it impossible for them to do so at home, towards
the homeless and unemployed who were dumped into the
streets when Obama decided to give more money to the
banks and the military-industrial complex than Bush
did, and towards the peaceful protesters getting our
heads bashed in by Obama’s goons as Obama insists
that those goons should not be punished for injuring
peaceful civilians because they are just following
his orders.

I’m sorry that you prefer tyranny to democracy and
will vote for torture, war crimes, and any imaginable
atrocity as long as it is perpetrated by a Democrat
instead of a Republican.

But most of all, I’m sorry that you not only don’t
feel sorry for what you’re doing, but you are
determined to keep doing it again and again.

QUOTE, Mark E. Smith:

“WITHHOLD YOUR CONSENT FROM THIS CORRUPT SYSTEM until we establish a system that isn’t corrupt. Then you’ll have real choices on the ballot who have a real chance of winning and of doing good things.”
___________________

Limp liberals and comfortable “anarchists” make all kinds of convenient excuses for their refusal to electorally support the people’s candidates they say they would support… if only they could win. If everyone who says they would — **IF ONLY** — did, then we could and would win, whether the people’s candidates were elected, or not. It’s possible to seat a people’s candidate, but it is not even necessary for a true alternative to be seated to win. A true alternative only has to have a significant amount of electoral support — enough support to make corporate government begin to fear the people.

There’s no substantive change to be gotten from corporate party voting, regardless of how those votes are factionally distributed — whether near evenly, or all wasted upon either the Republicans or Democrats — but any significant support for non-corporate national office candidates would compel the corporate state to respond to the demand. Ascertaining actual levels of dissidence is the 2nd reason that the corporate state allows elections. Providing natural persons the opportunity to be corporate (R) & (D) party collaborators — willingly complicit in all the crimes of the corporate state — is the 1st reason.

Whenever there’s no non-corporate alternative on the ballot, it’s not because ballot access is too hard to achieve. It isn’t. It’s because the people either didn’t have any desire to have a non-corporate alternative on ballot, or they weren’t willing to do anything to have a non-corporate alternative. There’s millions of Americans who regularly volunteer to feverishly work in support of corporate party candidates. Even if there’s no non-corporate candidate on ballot, a people’s movement could still write-in candidates, and then make sure their write-in votes are counted.

I’m well aware that there are many means by which the corporate party rigs elections, with most results being predetermined long before any votes are cast, but those rigged elections can only succeed if most people accept that and choose to be accomplices to the rigging — only succeed if the people don’t care. The American people have had ample opportunity to provide themselves non-corporate candidates — candidates dependent upon volunteer effort people power, rather than the corporate dollars that the corporate party’s Republicans and Democrats depend upon. All the people require is the will to support a non-corporate alternative. We don’t have a strong non-corporate people’s party — the 2nd party needed to provide a true opposition to the corporate (R) & (D) party — because near all those who do vote are dedicated to one or the other right wing of the corporate party. It’s not an electoral system problem. It’s an incorporation of people problem — a supermajority of electorally participating people believing that there is no possible alternative to the sociopathic corporate state.

it seems quite clear that near all American voters are so completely conditioned to corporate party compliance that no rigging of elections is now required. Near all Americans who have voted before can be relied upon to compliantly vote for the corporate party’s interchangeable part candidates. Old voter majorities can be relied upon to refuse to even consider the possibility of voting for candidates who aren’t owned by the corporate persons… because 99% of those who have been voting are themselves owned by the corporate persons. They will either actively or passively reliably support the corporate party manufactured (R) & (D) components of corporatocracy, and later complain, when they get all the shit they either voted for… or refused to vote against.

http://www.jillstein.org/

It is irrational to say the biggest problem humanity faces is that they are
human!  That declares that this world would be better off without
humans.  Does that mean “all” humans?  What else would these creatures
be?  If there were no humans, there would be no you and no Truthdig,
there wouldn’t be a world, even if it is hypothesized that a world would
still exist.  Not one mind would know it, and just like the tree that falls in
a forest does it still exist if no one hears it?  For whom would it exist?  It
is an absurd proposition. 

The problem is that because of the division by the elites who control
the wealth of a world, between themselves and the common folk most
of whom don’t know what wealth is, who must scratch out a decent life,
the world is lopsided in terms of socioeconomic distribution.  The elites
count for more than 1% of the world’s population but 1% of the elites are
the ones who have obscene wealth.  There are still a lot of good humans
in this world.  I count myself among them, don’t you count yourself as
well?  What we do with this information is what will decide if most
humans can qualify better to be participants of this world. 

The conservatives of the world are contaminating every aspect of human
life with their greed and need for power to preserve their greed.  The
Republicans are most of the conservatives in America but libertarians are
also counted.  These depraved and warped crony capitalists will use
every means possible to desecrate the common people of this country. 
They lie, they collude, and they use the politics of hate to spoil this
country.  They are the ones who need to be neutralized and their politics
counteracted.  It is up to us who are conscious and against their politics
to provoke the lethargic public who have been discouraged by all the
steamrolling they have had to suffer for over a half a century.  It does no
good to slander the general public.  They are this country and need to be
shepherded as the sheeple they are being called. Who are the shepherds? 
Who has the intelligence to guide the madding crowd?  A lot of talk, but
no remedies.  There’salottahotairbeingmaderoundhere.

...backing a candidate that doesn’t have a hope in hell of winning
any election ?doesn’t mean you’re disenfranchised, it means you’re on
the margin, that you ?boldly go where others won’t.  Or it means
you boldly give the Republicans an easy win.  Instead of getting one’s
ass out to energize the only party that has a rat’s ass chance of beating
the Republicans, there’s lotsamoaning and groaning going on about
third parties.  This will be the most crucial election Americans have
had in decades and looks like there are lotsov subrosa Republicans
on this forum trying to capsize the Democrats from stopping them
from assuming the POTUS and Congress.  If you want a Republican
hegemony, well do nothing.

screamingpalm, If I do not happen to want Nader on the Democratic ballot and you do how less or more democratic is that? Lets face it the Parties play games, for instance the Repulicans do not let the past Governor of New Mexico in the debates or Buddy Romer, this is why Occupy Wall Street exists for now, OWS is probably the closeset thing we have seen to true Democratic!

Though a pipe dream (in my case a Tequlia dream) we need to get the money out!

nah, backing a candidate that doesn’t have a hope in hell of winning any election
doesn’t mean you’re disenfranchised, it means you’re on the margin, that you
boldly go where others won’t.

On the subject of sitting on hands and not voting, there is a very simple reason- at least in my case (and I know of many others who did the same). Democrats kept my choice off of the ballot(Ralph Nader) and restricted my choice to candidates I didn’t care about. I think the word is: disenfranchised. Reminds me of a line the song “Freewill” by Rush: “if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice”.

If I can’t vote for who I want to vote for, there really isn’t much point. It’s not very “democratic” of the Democrats now is it?

dear Mark—- re: the Constitution—-please show us the better one that you’ve
written,

David J. Cyr writes, “Half the eligible electorate
has been refusing to vote — refusing to provide their
consent — for decades. Their non-vote abstentions
have been counted as an acquiescence to what is; a
lack of desire for any societal improvement.”

On the contrary, our refusal to vote for the status
quo is precisely a desire for societal improvement.
It is voters who, by voting, consent to the status
quo, who are acquiescing to continue to be government
by the 1% who fund the elections, the political
parties, the candidates, the courts, and all other
aspects of corrupt governance.

But even you admit that our refusal to vote is
counted, which is more than anyone can say for the
millions of votes in every national election that go
completely uncounted.

It is those who vote who provide the “mandate,” if a
50% turnout can be called a mandate, for the status
quo.

Even if third party candidates can be elected, the
two-party system has a lock on US electoral politics
and wouldn’t allow them to have any more influence in
Congress than that of the Congressional Black Caucus,
the Progressive Caucus, or any other group not fully
in support of the agenda of the 1%.

If you’d bothered to read the article I linked,
http://fubarandgrill.org/node/1172 instead of rushing
to spread more political party propaganda, you’d
realize that there are so many problems with our
electoral system, most of the inherent in the
Constitution which was written to ensure that those
who owned the country would always rule the country,
that voting in such a system is a waste of time. Only
if we succeed in changing the system, could we
institute free, fair, open, honest, verifiable
elections, where every vote must be counted
transparently and accurately, and where we can vote
directly on issues rather than just designating
guardians to manage our affairs for us, as if we were
all incompetents.

You may believe yourself to be incapable of self-
governance and to require elected officials to manage
your affairs, but most voters disagree. A Rasmussen
poll found that the majority of voters believe that
people chosen at random from the phone book could do
as good a job as Congress. If not for our corrupted
electoral system, those people would be voting third
party, but they know that the billions of dollars
that corporations spend on elections preclude the
possibility of good people winning at the ballot box
in sufficient numbers to bring about change.

You believe that you are voting for good, decent,
third party candidates, but in this country we do not
have proportional representation the way they do in
more democratic countries, so you’re actually voting
for whoever wins, because we have a winner-take-all
system. Your vote is not your desire to be governed
by whatever good, decent person you vote for, in the
ways that you wish to be governed, it is your consent
to be governed by whoever wins the “election,” in
whatever way they wish to govern.

When my friends and I are having our heads bashed in
by the cops, at the behest of the politicians in our
corrupt government, I won’t forget that you voted to
consent to that system. Our blood is on your hands,
David. First fix the system so that your vote counts,
is counted, and isn’t used against you, and then
vote. If you continue to vote in the rigged elections
held by a corrupt system, you are voting against your
own interests and you are an obstacle to the systemic
change that we, the 99%, are fighting for.

I know that you are incapable of hearing what I say,
but I’ll try to put it simply: STOP VOTING TO CONSENT
TO WARS. STOP VOTING TO CONSENT TO BANK DEREGULATION.
STOP VOTING TO CONSENT TO WHATEVER WHOEVER WINS
DECIDES TO DO.

WITHHOLD YOUR CONSENT FROM THIS CORRUPT SYSTEM until
we establish a system that isn’t corrupt. Then you’ll
have real choices on the ballot who have a real
chance of winning and of doing good things.

Wildeye, thank you for the response, but when you said that Citizens United
overturned 100 years of precedent, i didn’t realize that you weren’t referring to
SCOTUS precedent, but meant instead that it challenged Congressional statutory
preference.

Bisbonian,——no the author does NOT miss the point. the author knows the First
Amendment and you do not. the First Amendment doesn’t protect camping out on
other people’s property.

Well NABNYC, I apparently missed something from Blums article, guess I stand corrected.

I am up in the air with the tent thing as well, I would suggest Occupy Wall Street listen to Leymah Gbowee an experienced activist, except OCW can skip the taking their clothes off part!

I’m an attorney, among the earlier females granted admission to law school after feminist challenges forced the schools to get rid of the artificial barriers that kept women out.  Like most sad tales of a woman done wrong by some no-account man, I expected to spend my life with such legal greats as Thurgood Marshall, Justice Douglas, Clarence Darrow, but I woke up after the honeymoon in bed with Clarence the Clown Thomas, Tony the Turd Scalia and Sammy the Snake Alito.

This article is very correct in describing the people who are our judges.  White males, conservatives, often Republican, they are enemies of justice, not promoters of it.  Most of them wouldn’t be judges if there was any justice in the legal system.  I have watched the selection process, and it has nothing to do with intellect, talent, or a commitment to the profession, and has much to do with political party loyalty.  Their interests lie with Wall Street, not with the working people. I’ve known some terrific judges, smart, hard-working, fair, decent.  But it appears that the scales have tipped radically over to the side of the snakes.  This is not surprising, because the legal profession is not immune to the corrupting influences which have destroyed so much of our country.

I don’t think the restrictions on demonstrators in this case are unreasonable, even though I support OWS.  A ban on sleeping in the park seems consistent with what most people want for public parks, and certainly is consistent with health and safety considerations.  If people want to engage in civil disobedience to oppose these regulations, that’s certainly a tactic they can reasonably choose, but I do not think the restrictions themselves are unreasonable.

I also hope people remember that the purpose of OWS is not to fight for the right of people to sleep in the streets.  The purpose is to fight for radical change in our entire society so that people do not have to sleep in the streets.  It would be easy for the OWS movement to be driven off the rails, lose sight of the big picture, by obsessing over whether they can sleep in the park.  For my money, they should go sleep inside, seek shelter from the cold, and organize demonstrations that are a surprise to the ruling classes.  Take over the freeways for a few hours, or Broadway in NYC, show up at the offices of politicians and sit in there, or picket the homes of the Wall Street criminals, or the highest level of religious “leaders” who support the rich and have abandoned everyone else.

QUOTE, Mark E. Smith:

“...the only known, proven, and nonviolent way to delegitimize a government, is to withhold the consent of the governed—to stop voting to consent to be governed by it and to boycott its elections.”
__________________

Half the eligible electorate has been refusing to vote — refusing to provide their consent — for decades. Their non-vote abstentions have been counted as an acquiescence to what is; a lack of desire for any societal improvement.

What half the people refusing to vote has actually accomplished was to allow 99% of the other eligible half to regularly provide popular mandates for the corporate (R) & (D) party’s neoliberal [highly evolved fascist] policies.

The corporate state’s “education” system has produced a people who have refused to use elections to affirmatively assert their will to have a better world — refused to assert their will to have a non-corporate state.

All the world’s people, and Nature, have been adversely affected by the deep depravity of the 99% of voters who have reliably voted for the corporate party’s candidates, and the 100% irresponsibility of those who wouldn’t waste a minute to ever affirmatively vote for what they wanted and effectively vote against what they opposed.

Americans have proven themselves to be a people unwilling to use elections for any good purpose. The corporate collaboration of near all those participating in American electoral majorities has ensured that American elections always have violent consequences. The non-particpatory half of the eligible electorate chose to not even lift a finger in opposition to that violence — to abstain from the decisions of whether a good or either evil should be supported.

Voter Consent Wastes Dissent:

http://chenangogreens.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=498&Itemid=1

One of the biggest problems humanity faces is that regrettably we are human.  That means inherently selfish, greedy and stupid.  We have built not only a culture that perpetuates these fundamental flaws, but we laid them as the foundation of the alter we worship at—the capitalist system itself.

We have to understand how the 99 percent are undermining their own best interests by undermining each other if there is to be any hope of ever bringing about change.

Read about our fight with each other here:

http://www.josephcouture.com  “It’s About Me, Stupid.”

The courts can find and enforce people rights for corporations in the constitution but can’t find rights for people in the constitution.

The simple premise of this article by Blum seems to be gathered around the absurd idea Occupy Wall Street is waiting around with bateless breath for fairness to be delved down from a stacked deck of the all so tainted legal system, even though Blum suggests this with some minor trepidation?  I hope Occupy is not so naive, I mean,... the main points of the OWS movement suggest otherwise? (I am not going to list Occupies grievances for the benefit of the neanderthals who act dumb and dumber than trolls under a bridge)

Some People are starting to see the rising resurrection of something rather forgotten, the building assent of Fascism. In past posts I suggested this with not quite antagonized
Mario Savio free speech zeal, but just the same with some Leefeller Tequila moment zeal!

If some of you are not aware of Britts ‘14 points of Fascism’, check them out on Google. After previewing Britts points,  I found Bloomerburgs Kabuki Theater staring New Youks Finest seems to dove tail very nicely with Britts point 12 and point 6.  Tied together by the other 12 points, see what you find.  I would like to hear from my favorite oxymorons, maybe some more of their right wing fetching hubris!

FYI: With the advent of the Supreme Court deluded proclamation corporations are people too, I can only wonder if this is not the seeding growing pains of Fascism and if we may now be close to a finished baking of a juicy fascist pie.  Golly… the 1 percent pie!

Reference to a police state Britts point number 12 seems be a most importantingredient if not the main ingredient in developing Fascist delights;  “12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment -
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to
enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and
even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a
national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist
nations.”

I may as well add Britts point number 6 which appears a fitting ingredient, also used by NYC Bloomerburgs actions the other evening;
“6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by
the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled
by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and
executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.”

Tequila break!

Bill Blum knows whereof he speaks. But many
commenters do not.

The problem is not which party is in control or who
is on the Supreme Court, the problem is that voters
are so apathetic that they don’t care if their votes
are actually counted or not, if the popular will can
be nullified or ignored or not, if they can exercise
their power through their elected representatives or
not—they don’t even care if the system repeatedly
betrays them or not, so long as they can continue to
cast their uncounted ballots for people they can’t
hold accountable and who do not allow public opinion
to influence policy decisions.

US voters are so apathetic that they don’t even care
if the system they are, with their votes, consenting
to be governed by, is a democracy, a republic, or a
tyranny, so long as they can vote.

In his indictment of our system, Greg Palast wrote of
the 1%, “THEY get two candidates on the ballot and WE
are told to choose.”

Prof. Robert Jensen wrote, “The problem is not the
specific people who control most of the wealth of the
country, or those in government who serve them, but
the systems that create those roles. If we could get
rid of the current gang of thieves and thugs but left
the systems in place, we will find that the new boss
is going to be the same as the old boss.”

Long after Anatole France wrote, “The law, in its
majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the
poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets,
and to steal bread,” and Charles Dickens wrote that,
“The law is an ass,” Mumia Abu Jamal put it more
plainly by writing, “Man, the law ain’t nothing but
whatta judge say the law is.” Over 100 years ago Jack
London wrote in his book, The Iron Heel, “The
Plutocracy has all power in its hands today. It today
makes the laws, for it owns the Senate, Congress, the
courts, and the state legislatures.”

In truth, what most deluded voters think of as the
rule of law, is actually the rule of the 1%, as it is
the 1% who are at the top of our hierarchical system,
and who fund our sham elections to the tune of
billions of dollars to ensure that their puppets will
have a false cloak of legitimacy.

We had a right-wing nut job for President for eight
years, as there is no other way to characterize
George W. Bush. And when we finally got a Democrat
for President, instead of relief, or the hope and
change the deluded had voted for, we got more wars,
bigger bailouts, and even more Republicans in high-
level positions.

How is it that city governments and the courts can
take away our Constitutional rights and use the
police to violently enforce their edicts? Because
they have the consent of the governed, the votes of
the deluded, to give them that power, authority, and
legitimacy.

It is impossible to argue rationally with irrational
beliefs like those which voters hold dear. But the
only known, proven, and nonviolent way to
delegitimize a government, is to withhold the consent
of the governed—to stop voting to consent to be
governed by it and to boycott its elections.

Whichever moron the Republicans nominate, even if
they don’t get a single vote, can still be installed
as President by the Supreme Court even if 100% of the
electorate votes for the Democratic nominee. Not that
it matters much, as both can only be nominated if
they are committed to upholding the agenda of the 1%.

The path to real systemic change was outlined in the
Declaration of Independence. Governments derive their
just powers from the consent of the governed. If we
withhold our consent, the tyrannical power of the 1%
can no longer masquerade as justice.

Don’t vote! http://fubarandgrill.org/node/1172

EZ: When you say “we deserve” keep in mind that you are speaking for yourself.

Nope. English is my mother-tongue.

I mean “we”. Now, make something of that ..

A PUBLIC PLACE

RD: A public place is still public, unless it is used for uncomfortable purpose I guess.

The purpose of a Public Place is sometimes for the courts to decide according to the existing jurisprudence - which, if you will read the trial summaries, is well elaborated.

What Bloomberg did will solve nothing. In fact, it could get him un-elected. The demonstrators will just go elsewhere and, thankfully, they WILL NOT just go away.

And no, I would not wish to curtail either public demonstrations or union picketing. On the contrary, I think American Unions have become like lambs led to the slaughter.

LABOR UNIONS

Because they concentrated far too much - over the past three decades - on Comp & Ben and not enough on job tenure. So, now much of American un- and semi-skilled labor is priced out of the market. Which leaves only the Service Industry jobs that are notoriously under-paid.

There is not a week that goes by here in France without some public demonstration or strike that does not make it into the nightly news. That coverage develops a lot of sympathy for the protesters.

Which, I guess, Americans do not see enough of in the US. Anyway, union representation is way down in both countries and only expands when the fit-hits-the-shan, which is too late by then.

Worker Rights in the US versus that of France is laughable. As regards the labor movement across countries, read this about Union growth and decline comparisons ... and weep.

@ Lafayette

When you say “we deserve” keep in mind that you are speaking for yourself.

@ ardee

It’s a hard tough slog sometimes.

This is a big country and you talk as if it were a homogenous unity,
it isn’t.  So when you say we, the sheeple, keep away from the voting
booth more than any other nation, in order to figure out why this
pathology happens, the pathology of a democratic society not taking
advantage of their constitutional right to vote and take charge of their country, the demographics needs to be examined.  Who doesn’t vote
is the question and broken down by what socio/economic strata? 
Then we who are awake can get to work at the local level to inspire
those who don’t vote to get their butts out to save their country for
themselves if nothing else. 

That is if we can stem the Red Tide of Republicanism who would
disenfranchise those groups from voting.  That is what we need to have
our focus on, that is what is crucial.  We must make sure people can vote
first of all, then convince them it is in their own best interest to vote.
Then we can try to convince them that if they are not in the upper 1%,
the liberal idea is what will be in their own best interest. 

I don’t think it is fair to say those who are kept ignorant and uninformed
by a political machine that uses its base-wealth to obfuscate the reality
of what this country really is deserves what they get.  They hardly know
what it is they have let alone can predict what is their future.  It is up to
those who are cognizant of the actuality who must inform those who are
not.  It is urgent and obligatory that we who are conscious to find out
who specifically are the ones asleep.

Lafayette, November 17 at 5:16 am Link to this comment

JUST THE FACTS, MA’AM

Well, here’s a couple of facts for you. In this defense of a basically conservative limiting of free speech to “free speech zones” you, and Ms. Sotomeyer as well apparently, echo Bush and Cheney, side with Roberts and Alito, and you seem to feel rather comfortable doing so.

A public place is still public, unless it is used for uncomfortable purpose I guess. This is a despicable ruling, as is your defense thereof. That “there are other places available to exercize ones rights” is unworthy of you and paints a rather vivid picture of yet another Obama appointee.

CONGRESSIONAL ROGUES

She: from the conservative element in politics do not care except to promote the corporatocrats who by default

Well put, particularly the “by default” part.

Who defaulted? We, the sheeple, by consistently staying away from the voting booth. I will bore you by repeating (for the n-th) time that we have one of the worst voter turnout records of any democratic nation.

But we, the sheeple, are great fans of bleating-in-a-blog. Because it is anonymous, facile, requires little forethought and is, most importantly, cathartic.

And never ever did it, nor will it, remedy the situation. Reformative change can only come from the voting booth and those representatives that We, the Sheeple, send to Congress and the White House.

So if we send rogues, they will do their roguish deeds.

If we allow ourselves to be manipulated by the campaign trash seen on TV then we deserve the Political Class we get and the consequences in terms of legislation and, worse, non-legislation or ineffective agency regulatory oversight.

NB

Rogue = a person or thing that is defective, aberrant, or unpredictable.

JUST THE FACTS, MA’AM

RD: In so ruling, Sotomayor and her colleagues endorsed the center’s policy of limiting the plaza to “artistic and performance-related events” as content-neutral and reasonable.

From the court’s opinion (here):

... the City has created a fountain plaza that serves as the centerpiece of a prominent performing arts complex, and it has sought to preserve the Plaza as an area singularly dedicated to Lincoln Center events and other artistic performances. As such, the “special attributes” of the Plaza distinguish it from the fora in Paulsen and Lee, and suggest that prohibiting leafletting is not an unreasonable restriction in light of the Plaza’s particular and limited function and purpose. This is especially so where neighboring Damrosch and Dante Parks, and the public sidewalks surrounding Lincoln Center, provide ample alternative venues for groups such as the Union who wish to voice their views to Lincoln Center’s patrons.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, we hold that the Plaza is not a traditional public forum. We further hold that the defendants’ policy limiting organized public expression in the Plaza to artistic and performance-related events is viewpoint neutral and reasonable in relation to the forum’s function and purpose. Accordingly, the judgment of the District Court is AFFIRMED

Read the entire decision, RD, before jumping to erroneous conclusions - which helps limit the forum-clutter that abounds here.

The court affirms that ample space (around Lincoln Center) was available for union action and that the square in question is intended not as a “public place” but for Lincoln Center artistic programs.

Americans are no more dazzled by glamorous people than any
other country’s people.  The soccer culture shows that, and
Onassis enchanted the Greeks, try the Japanese for being wowed
by wealth, notoriety and fame, the English love their Sir Mick
Jaggers, the French their Cannes and the Brazilians adored the
Eva Perons. India and their cricket players, the Germans’ penchant
for glitz and glamour is historic with their silent majority and Hitler’s
foxy uniformed goosesteppers and opulent halls of hatred.  Most of
the world’s poor and destitute if given half a chance would flock to
Beatle concerts, like they do for Osagie Alonge, the Nigerian
star pop singer.  I could go on and on about the South Africans who
have their rugby, motor races, and the Italians “had” their Berlusconi… 
Ordinary people adore what lies above them, it is the upward mobile
mentality. 

But those who are allowed to vote in this country (contrary to guarantees
by the Constitution) and the continuous and intentional encroachment by
Republicans to diminish the “ordinary” peoples’ right to vote, would vote
for what they perceive to be their own best interest.  This is the biggest
violation of human rights on the table today that needs immediate
attention.

It is the imperative to elect political representatives who not only will
give the appearance of caring for the majority of the people, but who
will in fact act politically to do so.  It is not only Cain and Perry who are
the jackasses of an uncaring-of-the-majority political party, all of the
candidates, parvene or not, from the conservative element in politics
do not care except to promote the corporatocrats who by default run
this country.  Yes it is the fault of the Democratic politicians who talked a
good game in their own campaigns, but once elected forgot they had a
backbone, who metamorphosized into political jelly. There are dim but
signs of some strength beginning to show among Democratic
congressmen, we need to intensify that.  The talk of third parties is
divisive and will only lead to a Republican victory in 2012.  Make no
mistake about it.  To do so will be disastrous.

You are right, the intended effort of the conservatives to create a more
or less comatose American public has gone on for a very long time, for
a half a century.  Hofstatder and Jacoby have written copiously about
what, when, and how this happened.  Hofstatder warned those who
could think back in the 60s.  The assault on our schools is deftly
recounted in Edward Humes “Monkey Girl.”  It is time for those who are
awake to arouse the somnambulant and organize to reclaim America for
the people. 

It is silly and pretentious to talk of morality until it is known what it
means.  It is an ambiguous virtue in our culture, something we like to
bandy about as if we know what the f’ we are talking about.  But it is just
an empty word until it is defined!

@ Layfayette

Q: Should we rewrite the system, and how can we mobilize the american public?

Noam Chomsky: The only way to mobilize the American public that I’ve ever heard of, or any other public, is by going out and joining them.

So, going out to , wherever people are. The churches, clubs, schools, unions, wherever they may be, and getting involved with them, and to try to learn yourself from them and to try to bring about change of consciousness among them.

Again, this can be very concrete. Take, say the electoral system in the United States. Like what I mentioned, public policy and public opinion are so radically divorced, but there are some narrower things that you can do something about right away.

We are coming up to the primary system. Suppose we had a functioning democratic society. Just imagine that. What would a primary be?

Say New Hampshire, what would happen in a primary would be that the people in a town would get together and discuss and talk about and argue about what they want policy to be. Kind of like what goes on here (Occupy Boston). They should formulate their conception of what the policy should be.

Then if a candidate says I want to come talk to you, then the people in the town should say you can come and listen to us if you want. So you come in , we’ll tell you what we want, and if you can sorst of persuade us that maybe you’ll do it, maybe we’ll vote for you.

That’s what woud happen in a democratic society.

What happens in our society?

The candidate comes to town with his PR agents and the rest of them, and gives some talks and says “look how great I am and here’s what I am going to do for you”.

Anybody with a grey cell functioning doesn’t believe a word he or she says. And then maybe they vote for him maybe they don’t. And that’s very different from a democratic society.

And making moves in that direction is not a vry utopian society.

-from the A/V booth archives

ITW

The rather hackneyed screed you and other democratic loyalists advance, as a sort of last gasp defense of Obama and the Democratic Party in general; that Supreme Court appointees are reason enough to continue to vote for your party, is ironic in the face of this paragraph in the article:

“Could anyone seriously expect the current court, run by Chief Justice John Roberts and featuring the likes of Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, to overturn the Clark decision should a Zuccotti-like suit ever get that far? Even the court’s Democrats would probably balk. Indeed, in a 2002 case that offers a possible foreshadowing, Barack Obama appointee Sonia Sotomayor, at the time a judge on the 2nd Circuit, joined in an opinion denying the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union permission to set up pickets in the plaza outside Lincoln Center in Manhattan. The plaza, though privately managed by Lincoln Center, was publicly owned. In so ruling, Sotomayor and her colleagues endorsed the center’s policy of limiting the plaza to “artistic and performance-related events” as content-neutral and reasonable. (Hotel & Rest. Employees Union v. New York Dept. of Parks, 311 F.3d 534 [2002])”

Bold type inserted for emphasis.

Marshall, November 16 at 11:18 pm

Now perhaps, as you suggest, the “only a god damned piece of paper” comment by Shrubya is not an accurate one. I do not know frankly. But what I do know is that he, and his felonious Vice President, ruled as if they believed it.

The descent of the USA into fascism was a gradual one spanning decades if not longer.It is not unreasonable to believe that saving this nation will take a rather long time and be a struggle of epic proportion.

Lafayette - Thanks for your comment!

A POLITICAL CLASS OF PARVENUS

mrf: Americans have proven over and over again that we are a right-of-center country. We are a country of bigots and (worse yet) grandiose ignoramuses.

I have lived in six different countries (including the US) and have found the above, in abundance, in each one of them.

But of one human attribute, I am sure: In the voting booth none of the above pertains. People who have the will to go vote also have a reasonable idea of why they have chosen a preference; the rest stay home.The buffoonery cited above is rarely relevant, except from those with a public agenda and the time/money to express it in public media.

I have faith, above all, in human Common Sense - which is a common attribute found in all people despite what some idiots will say in a blog or on a soapbox in the park or on prime-time TV.

OUR CHALLENGE

Our challenge is to elect a Political Class that appeals to our Common Good Sense. People like Perry and Cain are parvenus. (Parvenu = a person of obscure origin who has gained wealth, influence, or celebrity.)

And I maintain that parvenus are a special breed seeking the adulation of notoriety or celebrity - without having necessarily any political caliber.  We need intelligent people to represent us in Congress – and there are many. But any Congressional that sells his/her soul to the devil is not of the necessary caliber. They are not selfless but selfish.

We have become a Movie Star culture: Superficial, adulatory, morally ambiguous and intelligence challenged. Unfortunately, in any democracy, our representatives are a reflection of those who elected them. How did we, the sheeple, get this way?

Yes, that is a bitter aspersion upon my fellow Americans and I write it with a heavy-heart. But, the Dumbing Down of America did not happen overnight. It is an amalgam brought about by a Mindless Boob-tube (TV), inadequate and often inept educational standards/proficiency, dogmatic politics and religious nuttery – all of this over half a century. The rotting of cultural values took that long.

Worse yet, we are genuflecting at the altar of the God of Mammon. Our reflexive attitude towards Money, Money, Money has replaced any moral backbone that family values may have instilled in us. Given that children are having children, why should there be any such training whatsoever? It is no wonder many cannot tell Right from Wrong. Who would have taught them? And by the time they are schooled, it’s too late. Let’s not expect teachers to develop and reinforce a non-existent moral spine.

Morality, like women’s breasts in films, seems to be a cultural taboo. Like homosexuality, “Don’t ask, don’t tell”.

ESCAPE TO EUROPE

If I “escaped” to Europe, it is because I found the values here that an immigrant population brought to America a century ago. God knows to where they went in our Rush to Riches.

I prefer to remain in a country, given all its faults, is steadfastly partisan to Social Democrat values that promote a profound respect for personal dignity. It is unconscionable that people be incarcerated in poverty, whilst 20% of households own 93% of a nation’s wealth.

That blatant unfairness is revolting, nauseating and immoral.

MY POINT

Despite all the above, we, the sheeple, can exact reform in America. But we need to get organized to elect a Progressive Political Class clearly different from the one in place.

And finally, we remain either part of the problem or become part of the solution. It’s time for each of us to decide which.

@ heterochromatic

“For more than one hundred years, Congress has prevented corpora-
tions from donating directly to candidates in federal elections.2
Throughout the twentieth century, legislators and presidents from both
sides of the aisle made the ban more robust.  More than sixty years
ago, the political branches banned campaign expenditures made by
corporations and labor unions out of their general treasuries.3 And the
Supreme Court upheld such bans despite the adverse effects they had
on political speech.  In the foundational case Buckley v. Valeo,4 the
Court struck down election expenditure limits for candidates and indi-
viduals as First Amendment violations but left intact corporate and
union expenditure bans.5 In a 1990 case, Austin v. Michigan State
Chamber of Commerce,6 the Supreme Court specifically addressed the
question of whether laws preventing corporations from spending funds
from their general treasuries to independently support or oppose state-
level candidates violated the First Amendment.7 The Court affirmed
the concept that curbing the capability of the corporate form to expend
disproportionate resources to influence elections was a sufficiently im-
portant government interest to restrict speech.8”

http://www.harvardlawreview.org/issues/124/november10/Comment_7298.php

By surfnow, November 16 at 6:41 am Link to this comment

” It’s just a god**** piece of paper”

Don’t believe everything you read surf.  As with many ready-made, “smoking gun”
comments ascribed to Bush, that one’s a fake.  Even the originator disclaims it,
though no one can stop you from repeating it.

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml

Lafayette - I have always enjoyed your posts, but with all due respect to you (and some others on this thread), let’s all cut the bullshit. It’s not about victimization syndrome:

Americans have proven over and over again that we are a right-of-center country. We are a country of bigots and (worse yet) grandiose ignoramuses. This is why the same scoundrels keep getting reelected at the very ballot boxes from which you believe change will come.

Unless you or any of the other hopeful commentators here have specific plans to put Glass-Steigal back in place, break up the big banks, stop the 24/7 bombardment of idiotic propaganda by FOX (and most other Media), force financial institutions to quit selling over the counter derivatives, etc…then our electoral system will remain corrupt, well-funded and permanently in control.

I more than anyone would like to see big changes to many of our institutions in this country, but as I’ve said on other posts: Americans don’t have the stomach for revolution…..they have the stomach for high-fructose-corn-syrup and the stupid crap they consume on their TV’s….forgive me for not being “optimistic.”

VICTIMIZATION SYNDROME

mrf:  There will be no “revolution.” There will be no “uprising.” There won’t even be a fundamental change in “the conversation” in the U.S.

I can’t emphasize enough just how futile it is to fight against a plutocratic system ... when a) those at the top are so completely uber-wealthy that they can buy our government lock-stock-and-barrel

This exaggeration is more emotional nonsense than factual reasoning. You are suffering from the Victimization Syndrome.

The power of we, the sheeple, is in the ballot box. Nobody can “buy your electoral ballot”. Unless, of course, you allow them to do so.

That is, you believe the nonsensical crap that is employed by the media to manipulate public opinion. Especially the messaging tactics that seek to destroy an opponents character without ever addressing their political stance precisely. It is this media tactic that the Plutocrat Class is funding.

In the fullness of debate, we are able to understand contrary points of view - and then proceed to vote competently. Were that only the case, however.

DROPPING THE BALL

Don’t blame the manipulators (our uber-wealthy plutocrats) for being manipulated. That just does not make sense - we have free-will and if we vote for a Perry or a Cain (as we did for that other Texan Lead-head), then we have no one to blame but ourselves.

I am not arguing blindly that the Dems have all the answers. I am arguing that we, the sheeple, do not ask the right questions. Furthermore, we do not adhere faithfully to a Progressive Political Platform - towards making THAT the focus of discussion.

The mid-terms were a prime example of that error. The Dems, still euphoric with the 2008 victory, dropped the ball and failed to Frame the Debate. Blasé voters stayed away in droves. The Koch Bros. funded the T-party that invaded the HofR, which has effectively crippled the rest of Obama’s tenure.

Let’s Frame the Debate around progressive values and put the Replicants on the defensive. They haven’t even a nano-idea of a proposition to enhance the well-being of individual citizens.

Which is why those who are demonstrating their OWS-indignation can attract so much sympathy from the rest of us just spectating. If we can harness that indignation into a collective political force, it will be unbeatable in November, 2012.

Which is why I keep promoting the notion of a Progressive Agenda for Political Action.

MY POINT

Let us not despair. Let’s Frame the Debate. Americans will listen and vote favorably. We, as a nation of people, are not fools ... unless we chose to be treated like fools.

Foolishness too is unfortunately an expression of our free-will.

Does it take this to realize that the ONE thing that differs the parties is court appointments?  We are seeing our free-speech rights rolled back at exactly the time we need them most.  And they are being rolled back by Bush 41,43 and Reagan appointees.

It doesn’t matter WHAT laws are passed, what agreements are reached in Congress, if the courts will deliberately advance the neo-con and teaparty agendas in case after case after case.  If it’s “illegal” to open your mouth against Republicanism but “legal” against Liberalism, no matter WHAT the Law says or what Stere Decisis says, then we are doomed as a free nation.  It’s happened before. 

In Weimar Germany, in 1922, the Foreign Minister, Walther Rathenau, was murdered by right wing fanatics who tossed a bomb in his car.  Dr. Rathenau was liberal, and a Jew, but he was STILL Foreign Minister.  In any sane society, the murderers would have gotten the death penalty or life sentences.  But judges left over from the Junker period gave them sentences on the order of 8 years.  The following year a treasonous attempt to overthrow the government from Munich resulted in the leader of that treason, one Adolph Hitler, to receive just a few years.  Meanwhile, convictions of communists got maximum sentences.

The message was clear: The courts could not be trusted to enforce equal justice before the law.  No free society can survive that.  Germany didn’t.

SL: Whenever I see your comments, it’s always a screed against liberals and Democrats—and it’s a screed you repeat over and over again.

You are feeding a troll.

Don’t waste your keystrokes.

Wildeye,
And yet we have the Citizens United decision
overturning nearly a century of precedent to protect
the “First Amendment rights” of corporations.——-

what was overturned by Citizens United?

tough case, correct decision, heckova good dissent.

good analysis Bill Blum!

mrfreeze: There won’t even be a fundamental change in “the conversation” in the U.S..

You are part of the conversation whether you like it or not (otherwise, what are you doing here?) (One might ask what are you doing when you are not here?)

The Occupy Movement is only and all about changing the conversation—there are no demands other than that. “Mic check!”

The OM has far surpassed the Tea Party in this regard. There are members of Congress that are “members” of the Tea Party, and the Tea Party was created by very wealthy people before we ever haerd of them.

The OM are making frontpage news all around the world. The TP no longer are. That is a big difference!

“We are the 99%” is a “conversation”.

There is an “uprising” of people in the streets!

And the “conversation” is about “revolution”.

Revolution is not just ‘overthrowing the government’.

Revolution can be accomplished simply by changing a few major things—like our Banking System.

P.S. Have you—and anyone else here—actually been to an OccupyCity? I have.

None have contributed as much as liberals have.

Liberals have most significantly contributed to the continuum of descent into the depths of depravity that has made America’s fascism be so sustainable… millions of them obediently contributing every time they’ve free-will chosen to vote for the corporate party’s Democrats.

It used to be that a group of liberals was just a flock of sheep, but liberals have become a depravity of Democrats

The “Principles” of Liberal Voters:

http://chenangogreens.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=491&Itemid=1

Sebastian Lawhorne - I beg your pardon? I’ve been commenting on this blog for a while now…...With regard to the OWS discussion I’ve even made suggestions about how Americans might change things….my idea of a general strike by the 99% has been soundly rejected…..as one other commentator quipped: “we’re not ready for that…..” Well…there you go….

So, since you’re all inspired by a stupid “sports metaphor” (as are so many Americans..) tell me what was so unreal or wrong-headed about my comment? And, while you’re at it, please tell us all what you propose to “change the world?”

The evil special interests that own this country couldn’t care less about your optimism, idealism and “hope.” They have made it absolutely clear how things work around here in “exceptional America.” If you’re the nail that stands out, they’ll have their f**king paramilitary police forces beat you down….and laugh all the way to the bank doing so.

Conclusion: a) the plutocracy owns our government…..what great idea do you have to reverse that? And b) tell us all what’s going to awaken the anger of the 99% whilst they play with all the “blessed toys” our capitalist masters bestow upon us????

We all have constitutionally guaranteed rights until we try to exercise them and then we discover that America is no longer a constitutional democracy.

We are living in a fascist state expressed as corporatism that represents the power and interests of the wealthy elite.

We are living under and will soon feel the full force of this fascism when the military is privatized and oppresses the masses to implement the goals of the Military Industrial Complex.

You are so funny balkas and I do like your sense of humor.  I think
though you have expressed opinions even if they can be said to
be true…or false.  I shall just have to take you for what you show
yourself to be Arrivederla per ora.

shenonymous,
“contrary to your opinion america is an idea”.
i haven’t posited an opinion about america—i have
described some of its characteristics.
a description may be true or false; it cannot be an
opinion, since answers true or false do not apply to
opinions
if any of my descriptive statements in the post which u
criticize are not true, u cld then posit your own
descriptions of what is happening in u.s.

regarding deceiving, leading on, or leading my wife by
her nose, or using pavlov’s experiment on her, i was
just kidding and making a point!

[ok, my english is as dull as ever, but what can u expect
from a guy who finished last in each of his only two
elementary classes and to make matters worse, in
croatia, of all places, and teacher teaching only two or
three subjects; among them was also tweedledumbing]

but i cannot help it if she thinks i am cat’s meow or
when she says i am nuts when i talk about u.s,
ashkenazim [the greatest thiefs ever], banksters, mafia
in WH, cia {the mightiest terror org}, obama as
obombama, or god as goddevil, etc.

i actually have written and recorded a song for isabella
[honeybits, good night] some 15 y ago.

if u’d like to hear it, let me know at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

It’s been said polls taken after the original 1969 Woodstock rock festival showed five or six times as many claiming to have attended as actually did attend. This may taken as a widespread endorsement of values, stances, or styles embodied in the event, but after-the-fact attendees didn’t have to battle traffic, wade through mud, or watch out for brown acid. They just had to buy a pair of bellbottoms from Levi Strauss (the clothing company, not the anthropologist.)

I had a queasy feeling the first time I bought a pair, rather than asking my mom to sew a longish triangle into the opened leg seams of my dungarees.

There’s something wrong with rights & attitudes that are handed to you.

Much of the animosity towards the protestors comes from middle class sensibilities that are offended by the presence of the dirty poor encamping in the heart of their rich cities. More affluent Americans do not like to be reminded that the poor exist and they certainly do not want the poor organizing into a movement with a voice.

Irrespective of the Courts, Occupy will continue it’s decentralized architecture of change.  By avoiding the divisiveness of politics and embracing the widest variety of participants forming a unified group,  participants become stakeholders in the Movement. Avoiding political capture is essential for survival. This is important because Occupy, in it’s efforts to transcend the current political system and birth a new system that facilitates the realities of the 21st Century, must be at least partially underway or in place when the current system collapses.  Collapse it will !  External forces, both natural and economic will bring it down.  The current corrupt system is clearly unsustainable.  Occupy will fill the vacuum after the current system collapses, and give people a hopeful path to follow, otherwise we end up with hard Fascism.  There is no choice but to continue. Even so there may come a moment during the crisis when we have to fight, be prepared.

A lot of people have learned a lot from this Occupy effort—more than they could have ever learned without it.  For that we can all be very grateful.
Here’s just a few revelations:  The enFORCEment of some laws at the expense of other laws is clearly evident. The bankster class is not going to do anything or make any move to improve the situation of the 99$. Instead, they will depend on hired force to squelch initiatives; they are not interested in supporting any of the values the idea of “America” supports. 
  The governent is not going to take any real intiatives because they are in the employ of the banksters. With a few notable exceptions, they have sold out the store, Constitution and all. Whistle-blowers have become some of the most important people in the country.
  The ordinary citizens are unprepared to take initiative on their own behalf because they have been “conditioned” into being dependent, all Declarations to the contrary. To truly Occupy our country we are all going to have to go back to stage one and organize among ourselves at the local level, persistently doing what can be done without bloodshed, deciding who will do it and what is the most reasonable way to do it.
  Beginnings will probably be small and different from place to place, but with the experience and help of the Occupiers, the movement for changes will build because of dire needs.  Others will learn more about how, when and where to do what, and join.
  Holding onto the life-saving principles of non-violence will be a key issue as we grasp the truth of a long, hard, disciplined road ahead. I hope we all will go with the Occupy goals and methods. By putting their lives on the line, they have revealed a lot everyone needed to know. Now it is up to us to do our share.

Lafayette - There will be no “revolution.” There will be no “uprising.” There won’t even be a fundamental change in “the conversation” in the U.S..

I can’t emphasize enough just how futile it is to fight against a plutocratic system (crony capitalism…whatever you want to call it) when a) those at the top are so completely uber-wealthy that they can buy our government lock-stock-and-barrel, and b) when the “consumer-populace” (let’s not call them that silly word….citizens) is just plain happy about owing all their “stuff.”

As George Carlin famously said: “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.”

Are you saying balkas that your wife is a drooling dog?  Yikes.

Contrary to your opinion, America is an idea and it does exist
on that level.  As a non-American, it is understandable that your
envy would cause you to denigrate it at every chance you get.  You
overexaggerate the warts and pimples of a nation that at least can
look at its warts and pimples.  A look at the various countries of the
world would not produce anything any better. Most certainly America
can improve.  And us liberals are fighting to do just that against the
gargoyles of the Republican Party.

INDIGNATION & FRUSTRATION

BB: Except the mythology has it wrong. Given the increasingly conservative bent of the American justice system, the Occupy movement may wind up not only disillusioned but making the case law on the First Amendment even less receptive to sustained political protest than it is at present.

If this is the case, then a great injustice to freedom - and not only of speech - has been committed.

Finally, since a great long time, there has been a popular uprising with numerous grievances of which most have clear legitimacy. This movement is widespread because it strikes a respondent chord with a wide range of disappointment. It’s not just about Afghanistan, for example.

The indignation of the demonstrators is therefore both justified and merits expression. The government must then react with measures other than forced expulsion. Clearly, a dialog - hitherto non-existent - between the adversarial parties is necessary.

it is obvious that repressive tactics are counterproductive. They serve only to escalate the indignation and therefore frustration. Perhaps there will no longer be any physical occupation of parks, but other tactics (sit-downs, street demonstrations, picketing) can easily take its place.

Civil-disobedience intends precisely to contend with government intransigence by passive means. Ghandi proved the tactic’s effectiveness time and time again.

It is Very Unwise for city, state and national government administrations to take this outrage for just a passing emotion. Far too much is at stake.

MY POINT

The conservatism of the nation’s legal system in the matter of Freedom of Speech has gone too far. The Supreme Court extended Freedom of Speech to corporations , but lower courts will curtail that right of ordinary citizens?

Stop the world, I wanna get off ...

it has not to date, it seems, dawned on even one american that there is no
america in the region called “america”. it’s just a region; among many
regions top american ethnos: anglo-ashkenizic utterly or to a high degree
control. [now u know why hitler was so mad]
i also have noted that there had never been an “america, an “american
dream” [at least not one w.o. a nightmare for s’mone else anywhere on our
planet and u.s]

nor is america a nation. it is a conglomeration of extremely unequal
nations/ethnics; with each having some grievances at least against one the
ethnoses in u.s.

u.s is further divided by numerous cults, ‘religions’, ideologies. all are quite
welcome by mafia as long as they accept the ultimate ideology: right of a
person to be a master of another person.

personal power in u.s descends from that of a billionaire at, say, 99% of
potency, to next to zero to a homeless person, prisoner, indigene.
but also ethnic might descends down from top ethnic group, say,
ashkenazic or sephardo-ashkenazic/anglosaxons soyuz.
for blacks [excluding the ‘funni’ uncles] power is probably below ten% or
lesser by 70-90% of that of the top dog in u.s.

with such deep division on interethnic, intercultic, interpersonal,
intercultural levels, just 12 mafioso could easily rule such a region.

and 99% of ‘americans’ actually vote selves out of america and for the
mastery over them by two or three top ethnoses in u.s.

in a millennium or so, people may ask, How was that possible? rid selves of
the citizenship of a country in which they were born and raised?

pavlov had explained how it is done. i use it on my wife on daily basis. it
works! try it! tnx