Then, I began to think about 1968: about Allard Lowenstein, President Lyndon Johnson, Senator Eugene McCarthy, Sarah Kovner and Harold Ickes of the New York Democratic Party New Coalition who had the courage to lead a grassroots challenge to Lyndon Johnson's re-election.
Lyndon Johnson was one of the greatest presidents in the history of our country. He enacted Immigration reform, bills establishing a National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, a Highway Safety Act, the Public Broadcasting Act, creation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a bill to provide consumers with some protection against shoddy goods and dangerous products, Social Security and Medicare, Voting Rights Act of 1965, only to mention a few. But, he squandered and threatened the viable implementation of these legislative achievements by his aggressive pursuit and escalation of the war in Vietnam.
Some of us, like Allard Lowenstein, Sarah Kovner, Harold Ickes, Eleanor French, Blair Clark, decided that Johnson's pro Vietnam policy had to be publicly challenged. Our "agent" for this challenge was Senator Eugene McCarthy from Minnesota. He may have been an "uncertain trumpet" on other domestic issues. However, we worked hard to support his candidacy for President in the New Hampshire Democratic primary as a challenge to the Vietnam policy of President Johnson. McCarthy came in second with 42% percent of the vote against 49% for the President. This precipitated Johnson to announce that he would not seek re-election as the candidate of the National Democratic Party.
When few other public figures of national stature spoke out about Johnson's escalation of the war in Vietnam, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, at New York City's Riverside Church, before a meeting of Concerned Layman and Clergy, on April 4th, 1967, said "A time comes when silence is betrayal." For Dr. King, it was "time to break the silence."
And, so it is with Obama's continued squandering of the extraordinary support he developed for his election as President.
Go and check out the video clips of the panorama of faces that assembled in Grant Park in Chicago after the election results confirmed his victory. Check out the million + people who came to Washington to witness his Inauguration.
It is not easy to consider challenging the first African-American to be elected as President of the United States. But, regrettably, I believe that the time has come to do this.
It is time for Progressives to stop "whining" and arguing among themselves about whether President Obama will or will not do this or that. Obama is no different than any other President, nominated by his national party. He was elected with the hard work and 24/7 commitment of persons who believed and enlisted in his campaign for "Hope" and "Change."
You don't have to be a rocket scientist nor have a PhD in political science and sociology to see clearly that Obama has abandoned much of the base that elected him. He has done this because he no longer respects, fears or believes those persons who elected him have any alternative, but to accept what he does, whether they like it or not.
It is time for those persons who constituted the "Movement" that enabled Senator Barack Obama to be elected to "break their silence"; to indicate that they no longer will sit on their hands, and only let off verbal steam and ineffective sound and fury, and "hope" for the best.
The answer is blowin' in the wind
In June, the Supreme Court ruled in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project that “the First Amendment does not protect humanitarian groups or others who advise foreign terrorist organizations, even if the support is aimed at legal activities or peaceful settlement of dispute”:
In a case that weighed free speech against national security, the court voted 6 to 3 to uphold a federal law banning “material support” to foreign terrorist organizations. That ban holds, the court said, even when the offerings are not money or weapons but things such as “expert advice or assistance” or “training” intended to instruct in international law or appeals to the United Nations.
Nice going SCOTUS. Now what kind of cover is that going to provide those rich Republican Americans that continue to do business with, oh, say, the Iranians? Or those that even associate with certain groups?
The Washington Post reports that four prominent Republicans — former New York mayor Rudy Guiliani, former Bush administration homeland security adviser Fran Townsend, former homeland security secretary Tom Ridge, and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey — spoke before “a forum of cheering Iranian exiles” in Paris to demand that President Obama “take the controversial Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) opposition group off the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations and incorporate it into efforts to overturn the mullah-led government in Tehran.”
The European Union has a larger economy and more people than America does. Though it spends less -- right around 9 percent of GNP on medical, whereas we in the U.S. spend close to between 15 to 16 percent of GNP on medical -- the EU pretty much insures 100 percent of its population.
The U.S. has 59 million people medically uninsured; 132 million without dental insurance; 60 million without paid sick leave; 40 million on food stamps. Everybody in the European Union has cradle-to-grave access to universal medical and a dental plan by law. The law also requires paid sick leave; paid annual leave; paid maternity leave. When you realize all of that, it becomes easy to understand why many Europeans think America has gone insane.
[snip]
Unlike here, in Germany jobless benefits never run out. Not only that -- as part of their social safety net, all job seekers continue to be medically insured, as are their families.
In the German jobless benefit system, when "jobless benefit 1" runs out, "jobless benefit 2," also known as HartzIV, kicks in. That one never gets cut off. The jobless also have contributions made for their pensions. They receive other types of insurance coverage from the state. As you can imagine, the estimated 2 million unemployed Americans who almost had no benefits this Christmas seems a particular horror show to Europeans, made worse by the fact that the U.S. government does not provide any medical insurance to American unemployment recipients. Europeans routinely recoil at that in disbelief and disgust.
Disbelief, disgust and insanity. Yup. Ain't it great to be an American?
Read the rest here.
From the start of the WikiLeaks controversy, the most striking aspect for me has been that the ones who are leading the crusade against the transparency brought about by WikiLeaks -- the ones most enraged about the leaks and the subversion of government secrecy -- have been . . . America's intrepid Watchdog journalists. What illustrates how warped our political and media culture is as potently as that? It just never seems to dawn on them -- even when you explain it -- that the transparency and undermining of the secrecy regime against which they are angrily railing is supposed to be . . . what they do.
What an astounding feat to train a nation's journalist class to despise above all else those who shine a light on what the most powerful factions do in the dark and who expose their corruption and deceit, and to have journalists -- of all people -- lead the way in calling for the head of anyone who exposes the secrets of the powerful. Most ruling classes -- from all eras and all cultures -- could only fantasize about having a journalist class that thinks that way, but most political leaders would have to dismiss that fantasy as too extreme, too implausible, to pursue. After all, how could you ever get journalists -- of all people -- to loathe those who bring about transparency and disclosure of secrets? But, with a few noble exceptions, that's exactly the journalist class we have.
Today we gave the President, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Secretary of Defense the ability to get rid of DADT if they so choose at some point in the future. So DADT won't be repealed until the President, along with DOD, decides to do just that. The legislation preserves that option, an option that wouldn't have existed legislatively once the Republicans take over the House. So this is a good thing. It's not, however, a repeal - yet.
Just hours before President Obama planned to sign on Wednesday the repeal of the military’s 17-year ban on gays serving openly in the armed forces, Republicans tried one last legislative maneuver to block the change.Republicans in the Senate filed an amendment to a sweeping defense authorization bill that would have required the four military service chiefs to be part of the certification process called for in the bill that repeals the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
That would have put Marine Corps chief General James Amos, a vocal opponent of the repeal, in line to delay or potentially prevent its implementation. The amendment was filed late Tuesday to the defense measure, which could be voted on in the Senate on Wednesday.
Zaire took this picture of the two of us from his notebook computer that I brought along for our visit.
The Los Angeles Fire Department is reporting via email alert that a man has been hit by a Red Line subway at the Hollywood and Vine station. Very little information is available right now; the LAFD states: "One male conscious w/severe trauma after being struck by subway train." An updated alert explains that currently "Extrication by firefighters underway for 'minimal' entrapment of patient 'still on tracks.'" UPDATE 3:45 PM: The man has been removed from the tracks and is being taken to Cedars-Sinai in critical condition, says the LAFD. Metro and the LA County Sheriff's Department are investigating the incident.
That's why this cannot-be-killed lie about WikiLeaks' "indiscriminate" dumping of cables has so consumed me. It's not because it would change much if they had done or end up doing that -- it wouldn't -- but because it just so powerfully proves how mindlessly subservient the American establishment media is: willing to repeat over and over completely false claims as long as it pleases the right people -- the same people to whom they claim they are "adversarial watchdogs." It's when they engage in such clear-cut, deliberate propagandizing that their true function -- their real identity -- is thrown into such stark relief.
Rep. Aaron Schock (IL-18) took his turn at spouting Republican talking points on Morning Joe, with the need to extend all the Bush Tax Cuts. When asked by Pat Buchanan on where Republicans could compromise to ensure that they reach a deal with Democrats before the Bush Tax Cuts expire at the end of the year, Schock's answer -- full extension for all of them -- leaves both Buchanan and Eugene Robinson laughing out loud at the young congressman.
And Schock does look a bit red-faced, of course, but he has no idea how foolish his response sounds to non-Republicans, because in Republican Land tax cuts always create prosperity and jobs (except for the dismal, almost no job creation during the Bush years). And that extending all the Bush tax cuts won't add to the deficit because the tax cuts will magically spur the economy, in some fairytale Republicans tell themselves. And never mind that the national debt nearly doubled under George Bush with unfunded and misguided tax cuts, Medicaid Part D, two wars, etc. That's yesterday's news. Today it's the Democrats who are the fiscally irresponsible ones, left trying to clean up after the Bush disaster.
And this comes from supposedly one of the best and brightest of that crowd who'll run the House in the new year. It boggles the mind. Whenever someone asks a straight-forward question from them they get a load of hogwash which should be greeted with scorn and ridicule, because their answers are ridiculous, but for whatever reasons they're treated as serious people when all the evidence is to the contrary.
There are several insightful posts up on AMERICAblog and Crooks and Liars this morning about the financial dealings between the federal government's reserve bank and corporate financial institutions that should raise a few eyebrows. Lots of hanky panky, wink wink, type of stuff, so that big wig bankers making millions of dollars a year, could stay afloat while we regular Americans are handed out doggie treats and told "hey, enjoy your food, remember, there are starving people in China." Also equally revealing from a post on Crooks and Liars (just go read everything on there today, damn it) highlighting the fact that outside of the TARP program, apparently there was another free money trough that just about every corporation dipped into (Verizon, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Caterpillar, McDonalds, Harley Davidson, General Electric ... you see where I am going). Of course, BofA was the biggest feeder at the trough (am definitely waiting for the Wikileaks on that company's treasonous activities).
On the other hand, the government continues to browbeat those that have been forced into unemployment due to companies like Verizon, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Caterpillar, McDonalds, Harley Davidson, General Electric, BofA (again, you see where I am going) laid off millions of workers so that they could (a) up the profit margin for their corporate CEO's and stockholders and (b) steal money from the federal government that rightfully belongs to the taxpayers (because, as we all know, the above named corporations paid zero to little in taxes during this time, thanks to safe haven off shoring of their "business" locale and the wonderful loopholes in the tax code that only said businesses seem capable of using to not pay their fair share of taxes in this country).
Kids, we are seriously in French Revolution era crisis right now. The Grinch is in the White House, merrily playing with himself as he decides to screw America this Christmas by extending (oh, temporarily will be the explanation, so it will supposedly be palatable to us peons) those tax cuts for the rich, and the Grinch will pass along the misinformation that said "compromise" will help we little people because, you know, giving the rich more money will result in the rich creating jobs! Yeah, um, someone tell me again how many jobs have been created since the Bush era began? Yeah, that's why so many are in the bread line, sadly eating their doggie treats that are supposed to placate them, while the rich continue to dine on caviar and champagne.
And more good news for the rich (and the stupidly Republican crowd and their supporters) ... unemployment benefit extensions have been cut as of yesterday! Yeah! More money for the rich people! Yeah!
I wish I could say Merry Christmas this year, but for millions and millions of Americans, this just won't be a Merry Christmas.
