An assessment of the political landscape following the Midterm Elections, which analyzes the opportunities and the best course of actions for the new Democratic Majorities…An Article by Dave, who forgot to provide us with his last name. However, we have an address to a Weblog that is published by Dave at the following URI:

URI: http://le-enfant-terrible.blogspot.com/

On November 7th I voted.

Many may see this statement as surprising–either because they assumed anyone with left-of-center politics will naturally be very excited about the elections or because they know me and assumed that I wouldn’t. In general I don’t put much faith in voting. It is essentially a chance every several years to legitimize the broader set of relations within society. To the extent it allows us to actually choose among leaders it is often a choice of imperialisms, a choice of capitalisms etc.

This year I felt differently. This election was widely viewed as a referendum on the Iraq war and the aggressive nationalism of the Bush administration. The stunning rebuke to the Republican party is an important tool for re-orienting the political climate, for establishing that the country as a whole is unhappy with the Iraq war and government corruption. It has heightened the sense of cost that politicians feel in supporting the Iraq war (Ned Lamont’s primary victory was also absolutely crucial in this) and in forcing elites towards consideration of an exit strategy sooner rather than later. As opposition to the Vietnam war created the “Vietnam Syndrome” and a reluctance to commit American military forces worldwide, we can only hope that we are creating an “Iraq Syndrome” that will help prevent future pre-emptive wars and aggressive militarism. By giving Democrats subpoena powers we put in motion a process that will surely reveal facts about the preparation/execution of the war that will further increase popular outrage. I also felt that splitting the power of government between parties would help curb a range of excesses that have resulted in vastly increased government surveillance power. Finally, the proposition in my state would have banned not only marriage (which I think should be a purely religious affair, untouched by government) but also any form of legal arrangement that was similar to marriage such as civil unions or domestic partnerships.

We should be careful, however, in hailing the new balance of power. In terms of the Democratic agenda there are some issues. During the election the Democrats were careful to avoid a specific platform, but since the election they have been promoting their “Six in ‘06″–six goals to accomplish after coming into power. The items are:

-increase the minimum wage
-negotiate for lower prescription drug prices
-restore 12.5 billion dollars in cuts for higher education
-use $15 billion in oil subsidies and use it for “energy independence”
-reinstitute “Pay-Go” rules (any new tax cut or spending must be offset elsewhere)
-vote on the 9/11 Commission recommendations

Now, some of these I have no issue with. Increasing the minimum wage is good (although it will likely not be by very much and they will probably still fail to index it to inflation so it automatically increases with the cost of living). Negotiating for lower drug prices is good, but its main effect is to just decrease the cost of existing healthcare programs (will those savings be used to cover the tens of millions without insurance? or increase the quality of healthcare?). $12.5 billion to help people with college costs is good (but is nothing within an over $2 trillion federal budget, and will these funds actually help break class barriers to college, or will it only help defray the cost to the upper-middle class?). Ending tax cuts for oil companies is good (but “energy independence” has been picked up as a catch-all phrase including tax breaks to oil companies for domestic drilling and investment in technologies that are already economically viable on their own). The Pay-Go rules are perhaps the biggest issue but they come too late to stop the massive GOP tax giveaways and commit the Democrats to fiscal straitjacket in the future. The one I have the least concern about is the 9/11 recommendations implementation. I have not seen the full list, and there may be objectionable changes, but instituting measures that don’t compromise civil liberties and that actually reduce terrorism (i.e. not racial profiling, not massive data mining) is a good thing.

You will likely notice that nowhere is there anything about Iraq. The Democrats would prefer to have this off the table at the moment. Iraq makes for a good election issue, but they are now stuck between advocating some form of withdrawal (which they are unwilling to do) and advocating some other strategy to control the country for America’s benefit (which means they have to tone down the rhetoric and agree with many statements the right is making). Some Democrats are willing to actively engage, but their plans often revolve around maximizing US leverage in Iraq. The event that may alter this political hesitancy and incoherence is the release of the James Baker III/Iraq Study Group report. The report will give massive political cover for politicians to support a bipartisan re-alignment of American foreign policy along Realist lines (crack down on Shia regional power, shift back towards American backing of dictatorships to enhance regional stability).

We should remember that the left need not be simply a Democratic interest group, it can be a powerful social force. Conservatives may now be for the moment wedded to the GOP, but they grew powerful as a social movement in the 1950s & 1960s through local campaigns, awareness raising and building a mass base around people’s grievances. The height of the American labor movement’s power was in the 1930s & 1940s as it waged a relentless struggle to increase wages and expand social programs. The New Social Movements that coalesced in the 1960s & 1970s achieved the most social change when they were vibrant, active movements that challenged existing social relations. The Civil Rights and Black Power movements completely upended the existing power structure of the country by mobilizing African Americans to collectively and directly challenge racist institutions, racist practices and unequal systems of wealth.

Sometimes social change requires legislation. Occasionally you need to play the inside game of electoral strategies and lobbyists to achieve a particular objective. Too many people on the left, however, are at risk of being caught up in the game of the big non-profits and politicians whose business it is to talk a good game. We should remember that between Nixon and Clinton, Nixon was by far the more liberal president. When the Democrats finally captured the presidency the result was NAFTA, GATT, welfare “reform” and more. Earlier in his term, when Clinton attempted to lift the ban on gays in the military and expand health coverage both failed because the conservative movement had achieved so much in terms of reworking the political landscape and the terms of debate. The Democrats will say to the left: “Settle down, we’re doing what we can while staying in office.” The reality is that this is true; that’s why the left cannot make its agenda putting Democrats in office.

Tags: congress, democracy, Democrats, Elections, left, legislation, National, politics, war
Categories: Commentary, National, Democracy, Politics, Legislation, Congress
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Several months ago I had sent to me a short story that was intended to communicate an interpretation of the events that led to the invasion of Iraq.  The work constitutes what would be considered by most a short story, which possesses a setting consisting of a classroom in America, where relatively young children are be instructed by a teacher, and the class often enters into series of questions and answers which bare sometimes a direct - but other times a more subtle implicit - relationship to the interests that were served by America’s decision to invade the sovereign country of Iraq.  Under the pretenses that were introduced by the Administration during the build up to the war, which - if you still recall - originally consisted of taking action against what qualified as an immediate threat; the potential attack upon America via nuclear weapons, or other ominous devices - we were not offered a felicitous rendering of intelligence reports and analysis which we now know to be selectively included in the public accounts proffered during the staged deliberations engaged in by the inner-circles of the Executive Branch - i.e., Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Bush. 

I suppose in all likelihood progeny will narrate this historical episode as a series of events orchestrated by the Administration in order to promote the interests of neoconservatives and neoliberals, who are synonymous with multinational interests.  The story is excellently written and makes some rather profound insights into the historical events that led up to this disaster.  I am posting it because as we continue to spiral down a hole that undoubtedly holds human sufferings beyond what anybody foresaw for the Iraqi people prior to the invasion and even the recent news that has come from this war torn country experiencing, “sectarian violence,” but not yet a “civil war.” 

Please check back tomorrow for the first entry of, “The Switch.”  I am fairly certain that most will enjoy this story, due to its insight as well as levity as it attempts to explain a senseless instance of imperial adventurism that was fostered from the stagnation of ideas that results from a faction of ideologues who isolate themselves from broader dialogue, which might have generated at least some reflexivity on the part of those who thought they were beyond reproach; or, put more simply, so smart that they needed not even entertain ideas that failed to conform with what they were so certain about.

Russell Cole

Editor of the Midwest Alliance of Populist America

Categories: Commentary
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An Article by
Robert T. Melaccio Sr.

The making or creation of wealth has only one goal and this is the creation of more wealth. It seems that in today’s Global market that when it comes to gaining wealth it does not matter where or with whom. It matters not about people or anything else. Making money is solely about increasing the bottom line. The history books of life are filled with those facts. Yes, when required it even will supplant loyalty and allegiance to nations, friends and even family.

Here is an example of what I am talking about. The newspaper today had an article about North Korea. In it they defined this vast cheap labor base just waiting to be exploited. It talked about China and how even they are fast becoming too “costly”. In fact several Western European nations have already been exploiting this fact in North Korea while we as a nation have been on the sidelines. In fact they state the manufacturing potential is excellent. Swiss companies are already manufacturing game software there.

Now what about U.N. sanctions? Well if you have any intelligence at all you know these are meaningless.

So just what does that mean to us here in America? In my opinion it means we have already passed the point of being a power as we used to be and are on the decline in everything but service industry, investing and making money. Even our Military, although they say otherwise cannot possibly fight two wars at once. Although they will say we are there are just zero resources left to commit anywhere else. That’s people and that’s equipment, etc. Very soon we will realize the effects of this slow dismantling of our capabilities for the Global ideology. It will require more on us taxpayers, as they have to replace what isn’t on the shelf. Our military runs on parts made over seas, perhaps even in China and countries against our way of life produce critical components we must have.

The swamping of the nation with Illegal workers has and will continue to drive down worker pay and benefits and cost the citizens in increasing billions as well as changing the face of the nation. We have lost a considerable amount of our manufacturing capability and what we have left are assembly plants.

Well how can you say that just look at how strong our economy is and certainly we have the mightiest military? Well why bother to even write on this. If you don’t know who has it you never will. Yes, the global dream may not have impacted you but it has already changed the face of America and it will never be in my opinion, as we once knew it. People are making money and that is those who have it already. As for the military we are depending on robots to do the job. Technologically strong yes, boots on the ground and ground holding capability, no.

I had a problem with a cell phone the other day. I got to speak or at least attempted to speak to someone and wound up talking to two people in Mexico. Prior to that it was Argentina. In fact I was surprised I did not get India. I finally called corporate headquarters and they did help me. This is after two days of being unable to get anyone to even understand just what I was saying. Their “service” policy was we are “family’. Their response when I informed them they would not pass me through to someone in America was “we are an international organization”. You know what I told that representative? Be happy with your job while you have one.

So as for us my fellow whatever the heck we are these days, enjoy what you have now, get used to low wages, no benefits and working until you drop and working the off the books jobs. No gloom and doom from me just the truth if you want to accept it. That is your choice just like everything else you do in life. Yes that $7.25 will be a blessing if someone will hire you when they can get a Mexican for much less. Yes, even the churchgoers do it and have no problem. Just ask those who hire the millions of illegal workers and show up in the pew on Sunday.

As I said making money has only one allegiance as the title says. To those who foster this I can only say no man takes their riches with them. You are reaping what you sow for you and yours but will it be what you think it will?

Tags: allegiance, corporations, economics, economy, foreign policy, free trade agreements, Global, government, labor, legislation, money, National, outsourcing jobs
Categories: Commentary, National, Global, Economics, government, Legislation, Corporations, Foreign Policy
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An Article by:

Susan Hutson

Ohio – a state consisting of 21 electoral votes – declares a law that essentially negates the Constitutional Right guaranteeing Due Process.

On September 1, 2006, Ohio’s Attorney General, Jim Petro, and others, including Senator Mike DeWine and other House Representatives, advocated the adoption of an Ohio law, which allows for a person to be classified as a sex offender, and, subsequently, be subjected to government monitoring as well as public humiliation – and, indeed, the possible object of retaliation by vigilantes - via the person’s picture and a name on a Website; all of which can occur without the individual ever being convicted of a crime.

This law has been coined The World’s Worst Idea Ever. People – never convicted of a sex offense – can still end up on a publicly available sex-offender registry provided for by various state agencies belonging to the State of Ohio. The law is, apparently, designed in order to provide for the publication of sex-offenders’ identities, even if the statute of limitations - amended to the criminal statutes – has transpired. It is peculiar that the State Legislature of Ohio would put forth such an initiative, which cuts at the core of Constitutional Liberties, when all that was needed was a modification to the current statutes on the books – prohibiting sexual abuses – that protracts the statute of limitations qualifying these types of criminal offenses and the terms under which they can be prosecuted.

Most alarmingly, apparently, the only indication that someone has committed a sexual offense, allowing for a person to be legally deemed as a sex-offender is an acknowledgement or judgment of punitive or compensatory responsibilities transpiring in a civil action against the party that will, subsequently, be legally defined as a sex-offender.

Editor’s Notes: The aforementioned legislation appears to have been motivated by a deal struck between the State of Ohio and the Catholic Church, where the Church can maintain its one strike and your safe but two strikes and you are out policy while, contemporaneously, providing for some safeguards against future sexual abuses – a provision compelled upon the Church by the State of Ohio – by virtue of the liturgical civil defendants’ classifications as a sex-offenders.

I think it is absurd to pass such legislation when all that needs to be done with respect to this matter is allowing for the extension of the statute of limitations in these types of crimes.

The protraction of time allowed for prosecuting sex-offenders is clearly more sensible than allowing a potentially vindictive individual – acting from motivations of mere spite; emotions not resulting from sexual victimhood – essentially ruin an individual’s reputation and livelihood through recourse to a Constitutional subterfuge, consisting of a civil adjudication – which involve the lofty presumption of innocence; nor, the burden placed upon the plaintiffs, requiring them to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

For purposes of a hypothetical, consider the following: An embittered member of a former romantic relationship pursues – through the unconstitutional legislation described above – revenge in such a profound form that it essentially strips away every life opportunity to which the afflicted individual would normally have had access, if not for an imposed, publicly declared label of a sex-offender.

The upset ex-lover could cause the other to be forbidden from seeing their children (without a liaison); the vindictive party could cause the other to lose their job; he or she could cause the subject of the accusations to be compelled to move, if living within 1,000 ft. of a school (by way the crow flies); and the individual, operating out of vengeful motivations, could inflict insufferable emotional trauma.

In addition, this law would allow an actually convicted offender, or predator, to strike a deal with the prosecution, where he or she falsely attributes guilt to another individual, causing that individual to be bestowed with a prodigious burden, necessitating the practice indefinite practice of stigma management, resulting from his or her affliction with the labeled of a sex-offender.

Do Ohioans need to have a legal document signed by everyone they know that contains a “Hold Harmless” clause, stating that the individuals with whom they have intimate relations are not being forced into sexual acts or being assaulted in a form that constitutes a sex-offence?

In order to protect one’s self from the potential retribution from a vindictive ex-lover seeking revenge through recourse to this Unconstitutional law, it, most likely, would be in everyone’s best interests in Ohio to take such safeguards.

Editor’s Notes: “Hell hast no furry like a woman’s scorn.”

Are the people who conceived of this law from this country, and do they understand America’s tradition of Due Process?

Have they considered that we are still supposed to have a Constitution? Is the legislature in the State of Ohio inept?

Should there be a major overhaul of the people who are running this state? Why has this new law been kept under the covers?

Shouldn’t everyone know they could be a target of harassment and are labeled with this?

Ohio is a very politically corrupt state, as you may well know. I once knew a woman living in Ohio, who had been set up by a disgruntled U.S. Postal Inspector, and was denied Due Process. Needless to say, nobody cared. The Inspector lied to police dispatch and said the woman was suicidal. The police went to the dark back door of the house and the Inspector met them there. When the woman came to the door, the police grabbed her and pulled her out. After the woman was put into the cruiser, the inspector entered the cruiser with the police congregating at another a distance away, and the inspector knocker her out. She was sent to jail without a mug shot and the next morning the Inspector with his business card showing he was an attorney, posed as her attorney, and told the judge to send her to a mental hospital. No Due Process! Nobody cared!

What would you do, if you fall victim to one of these constitutionally subversive provisions provided for in this legislation?

You do have an opportunity 6 years later to ask a judge to have your name removed from the list. Six years after potentially losing your children, job, financial standing, home, and respect of other members of your community, etc.

Please push for your state to protect the Right of Due Process and not allow such a horrible loss to the legal process, which once protected Americans! What is next?

Will a person be implanted with a biometric chip without their knowledge or approval?

Editor’s Notes: Will we begin to implant chips in former sex offenders, in order to guard against them committing future sexual assaults? What if the current policies in Ohio persist, allowing for people to be legally defined – without any protection or recourse provided by Due Process – as sex-offenders? A person only the subject of civil accusations might suffer the same fate as a criminally convicted person - (and I certainly do not endorse implanting a chip transmitting a serialized identification, for the purposes of tracking and surveillance, into anyone).

More ominously, programs are already being introduced to implant these tracking devices into the flesh of infants; a proposal, which would ultimately lead to surveillance by agencies operating in the sphere of law enforcement, that is being promoted under the pretense of providing a means to identify the locations of missing children. The reason I have included these remarks, pertaining to biometric chips, is that they are all interrelated. The implementation of one of these affronts to our privacies and liberties can be used to enhance government or corporate surveillance of our activities in other scenarios; such is the case with the implanted bar code chips and the endless punitions endured by those who have been convicted as sex-offenders.

Furthermore, considering the blurred distinctions between criminality and civil responsibilities, currently taking form in Ohio, we all need to be concerned for our own personhood’s, whether we possess sexual aversions or not. For this reason, we need to challenge any infringement upon the rights we, as a people, have procured, because an assault upon any person’s liberties and rights in this society can have ramifications for all of us.

R Cole

Let’s get rid of the substandard politicians!

Tags: bill of rights, constitution, due process, government, legislation, liberty, microchips, Midwest, ohio, sex offender registry
Categories: Commentary, Midwest, liberty, constitution, bill of rights, government, Legislation, Ohio
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An Article by:
Ben Tanosborn

Originally published on:
www.tanosborn.com/columns.html

Nothing evidences our monolithic approach to international politics better than our response to a little foreign criticism coming from any quarter. Such criticism may come from nations that we usually identify with, and which have always been considered allies; or from nations that resent our meddling in their internal affairs and confront our behavior. It doesn’t matter. We trash them all: messengers as well as messages. How dare anyone challenge us!

We have seen French fries become - ‘freedom fries’ - courtesy of one very ‘patriotic’, and very crooked, politician, Rep. Robert Ney of Ohio; and democratically-elected leaders of nations, who dare challenge our imperialistic ways, become thugs, last such naming coming from Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, a ’supposedly’ liberal leader in the Democratic Party, as she referred to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Ours is an equal opportunity thrashing from either side of our political coin, which unfortunately is the only currency we’ve got!

Why are our politicians, of either party, so quick on the draw to insult just about anyone? Anyone outside our borders, that is! Because it’s safe, and it garners votes, which for them is the end game. If everything else fails, there is always that ‘rally around the flag’ that will save the day. American exceptionalism, the high-grade pot we all appear to be smoking, will always come to the rescue of the scoundrel politicians that infest our ailing nation. Honesty and truth be damned!

Heck, we give them all a democratic treatment regardless where they are from. Banana republics, or nations with low-yield nuclear weapons and deficient delivery systems; we hold no bias towards one or the other. All we ask of these leaders is be responsive to our whims and, unequivocally, follow our directions. Why make things difficult for themselves, and their nations? See how placid things turned out for Pervez Musharraf, and Pakistan, after he followed - counsel he couldn’t refuse - from Richard Armitage? Musharraf will soon be collecting royalties from his memoirs, “In the Line of Fire,” and Pakistan doesn’t need to worry about finding its way out of the Stone Age. Look at the bright side of capitulation: you get to keep your life, and the roof over your head. This Pakistani head of state prevented a lot of pain and suffering for the people of Pakistan.

As repugnant as this behavior in American foreign policy might seem to some, it’s a fact of life that it’s carried with the consent of the American citizenry; indirectly, or by default, but with little indication of concern by the governed. For all the touting of our democracy, where the political centerpiece rests on - checks and balances - between the three branches of government, we find nothing wrong with having the Supreme Court select our president, or have Congress de-facto tender its powers to the President. Autocracy by default, it would seem, rather than democracy; thus, our foreign policy.

But, getting back to the subject of thugs and how quick we are to classify as ruffians, hoodlums and gangsters anyone unwilling to bow to us, let’s get real. Thugs, just like many other derogatory terms, including terrorists, are more indicative of our emotional state than the rational classification of those people by the what and why of their actions. It’s the “N” word in international affairs, often wrong and never appropriate.

However, there are thugs and there are Thugs; yes, thugs with a capital T. The latter were assassins operating in time past in northern India who paid homage to Kali, goddess of death and destruction - depicted as black, red-eyed, blood-stained and wearing a necklace of skulls - and offered their victims to her. The first group is the result of our insulting emotions - the second group, the creators of hell on earth. No longer operating in India, Thugs have found their way, their re-birth, among those who hold the reins of world power. It’s these Newborn Thugs that the world needs to worry about; and most of them, unfortunately, carry US passports: Armitage, Bolton, Cheney, Rumsfeld - the list of Thugs goes on and on. Most, however, would rather be called ‘men of war’ since they couldn’t be taken seriously as, ‘defenders of democracy and freedom.’ Men and women of war, true Thugs!

It is sad that we show our displeasure of those who confront us by calling them thugs, while we seem to show our respect and appreciation for our own Thugs.

Tags: chavez, empire, foreign policy, National, ney, pakistan, pelosi, political parties, politics, power, thugs, war
Categories: Commentary, National, Power, Politics, War, Empire, Foreign Policy
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An Article by:

Thomas Melaccio

Well today the Associated Press released an article, which was featured on page 13a of the St. Petersburg Times here in Florida. One would have thought it warranted front-page play but then again in my opinion many people only read the front page, sports and the comics. In my opinion what better place to put this article so not many will see it. Yes, the newly “elected” president of Mexico pledged to work hard for immigration reform with our congress so his citizens can work in the United States. Rhetorically, one wonders why our President doesn’t work hard with somebody to protect our interests here at home? Mr. Calderon is a member of [I don’t think you will believe this] a “pro business action party, which his predecessor also belonged to. Rhetorically, does one think there really may have been a problem with this election?

Now he says that he needs to work hard for the youth of his nation to find work because of a lack of alternatives in his nation. Rhetorically, do you think he should be focused on his own nation and keep his hands off of ours? We already have an abundance of companies like our auto industry [who say buy American but do much of their business south of the border and in other nations]. Just the other day they bragged about the increase in Hispanics in college. Yes, on scholarships and grants and all kinds of financial aide. What do you get? You got it- the student loan our president pledged to keep the rates from going up but just had to increase.

Well truthfully, where are our youth? Oh I know they are competing for jobs at major retailers with the illegal workers or those with false I.D. Yes, they are working for $6.00 and less and [this is the good news] as much as $9.00 and hour and trying to support their families. Our youth have no health care, retirement or pension [that’s a laugh who is going to have the money to bail these out- certainly not the government] and cannot afford to buy, much less support, a home.

Yes, something is errantly wrong in Mud Ville? I would ask you to look at my other articles concerning immigration. As Joe Friday on Dragnet used to say, “Just the facts” and that is what I try to present. Perhaps 2010 An American Paradigm is becoming 2008 and American Paradigm?

Well if you want to sit and do nothing and continue to keep these same representatives of ours in Congress, these same Democrats or Republicans with the same ideologies, you are approving it for you and yours for years to come. Just sit home and do nothing, or vote for them because, as you know in your heart your one of the ones doing great and are one of that 20% who are doing well. But if you’re an average American and love your nation it just may be time for you to wake up! Your answer will be given on Election Day. If you vote these incumbents from both parties in, regardless of what they profess, in my opinion you deserve “How Did We Get Here”.

If you vote for those they endorse you deserve the same.

Now I certainly desire to be wrong. It is just an opinion, however have you heard the truth from them? I’ll ask again, have you heard truth from this entire bunch and when? Tell me the truth about Iraq? Tell me the president didn’t say, “ I won’t raise the rates on student loans”. Tell me the past of many in Congress is not questionable? Tell me they are not biased toward big business? Tell me they have your interest in mind?

One could go on and on but you know something, in my opinion and based on what is transpiring right before our eyes, we average Americans are not considered capable of much. Give us a tailgate, a beer and a paycheck and we don’t give a damn about anything until it impacts us.

They had those famous sayings to excite people into action like “Remember the Maine”, “Remember The Alamo” [the Mexicans certainly do] and “Nuts” but the new slogan for Americans in these times is “Why”? Boot them all out and that will send a message for years to come! “Remember the People” should be the new battle cry!

If you enjoyed this pass it along and don’t forget you have a chance, it is called election day!

Robert T. Melaccio Sr. Copyright ©2006 Robert Melaccio

Tags: congress, democracy, Democrats, Elections, Florida, foreign policy, government, Mexico, politics, Republicans
Categories: Commentary, Democracy, government, Politics, Foreign Policy
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The following is provided by Citizens For A Better Veterans Home; an organization founded in 1998, working to ensure veterans receive the social services promised to them… AMERICAN ANTI IMPERIALISM, 1898 STYLE

“There was a broad based, centrist, moderate, reformist United States anti-war effort right before 1900. This Original Populist Era organization was run under similar structure to 21st Century Populist movement’s cooperative involvement in the 2000s Anti Iraqi Occupation ground swell.

The American Anti-Imperialist League that organized over nine decades before George H. W. Bush invaded Iraqi occupied Kuwait was broad based.

Political groups outside of the two party duolopoly spoke up in opposition to the proposed illegal annexation of the Spanish Philippine Islands at the ‘other’ turn of the century. This group of Non Republicans and Non Democrats was formed over a century before the current American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq.

First meeting on June 15, 1898, in San Francisco, California. Its members included Andrew Carnegie, THE Billionaire Steel Magnet and Philanthropists; Mark Twain (Samuel Longhorn Clements); William James, Philosopher, Writer, Educator; David Starr Jordan; and Samuel Gompers, Union Legend.

George S. Boutwell, former secretary of the treasury and Massachusetts U. S. senator, served as first and only president of the League.

On December 21, 1898, United States President William “Big Bill” McKinley issued his Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation, unilaterally and quite illegally ceding the Philippines to the United States. He also was secretly instructing the American occupying service members to use force, as necessary, to impose American sovereignty over the Philippine Islands. This second criminal act was informal and unlawful. It was issued even before the nation obtained formal Senate ratification of the (’Paris’) peace treaty with the global Spanish “Iberian” Empire.

As we fulfill our lives in this 21st Century doesn’t it seem that the more things ‘change’ the more they seem to ‘re-invent’ themselves. Like Ho Chi Min City and Baghdad, Americans were originally hailed as liberators in Manila! These same United States troops were later fired upon and then bombed with make shift materials by local patriots. To add injury to insult, the Imperial Japanese Empire mimicked the United States of America by ‘liberating’ Manila from it’s second group of light skinned European based over lords on December 7th, 1941. The Philippines were FINALLY an independent, unoccupied territory in 1946, almost half a century after the American Anti- Imperialism League.

Citizens For A Better Veterans Home, not just more lethal, politicized, uncaring programs that create hack patronage jobs, spend taxes in constituent communities, while doing little or nothing for real veterans, their real families, with their real problems……

Tags: anti imperialism, centrist, Democrats, empire, history, imperialism, populist, power, Republicans, resistance
Categories: Commentary, Power, Empire, History
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An article by Joseph Murtagh, originally published in the Muckracker Report For the last six years, there’s been this assumption about George W. Bush that has occupied roughly the same place in people’s minds as the second law of thermal dynamics, or the existence of the moon, and which goes something like this: while the president might not be so strong on domestic issues, he’s very good at Protecting The Country From Terrorism.

Well, according to a story that came out recently, and which was mostly drowned out by the elections, the federal government’s record on fighting terrorism may not be as impressive as you think.

Researchers at Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) recently discovered that in the first nine months of fiscal year 2006 federal prosecutors rejected 87% of the international terrorism cases brought by the FBI, and the rejections have been increasing steadily since 2001.

The White House responded to the report the way they’ve always responded to empirical facts: by calling it “faulty” and “inaccurate,” and deriding its findings as “intellectually dishonest.”

Judging from last week’s election, though, I think the nation has already made up its mind about who’s being intellectually dishonest, and it’s definitely not the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. On the contrary, it’s the same bunch of yo-yos who cooked up false intelligence to dupe us into going to war with Iraq. Who held closed door meetings in Washington the day before 9/11 with a Pakistani general who a few weeks earlier had sent a $100,000 check to hijacker Mohammad Atta. Who granted no-bid contracts to a bunch of oil-rich mafia goons who were willing to sell our troops poisoned drinking water to save a buck.

And speaking of intellectual dishonesty, how about exploiting religious conservatives for political gains and then laughing about them behind their backs? Or cheating black people in Florida and Ohio out of their vote? Or leaking the name of a CIA officer to settle a political score? Or refusing to declassify important documents about 9/11? Or torturing innocent people and then lying about it? Or pretending to fight a phony war on terrorism while stealing our liberties from behind our backs?

In fact, the only honest moment in George W. Bush’s entire presidency came recently on the campaign trail when he finally admitted to voters in Nebraska the real reason why we’re in Iraq. “You can imagine a world,” he said, “in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources and then you can imagine them saying, ‘we’re going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following.’”

No wonder the Republicans lost. I think Keith Olbermann said it best on Countdown: “Having frightened us, having bullied us, having lied to us, having ignored and rewritten the Constitution under our noses, having stayed the course, having denied you’ve stayed the course, having belittled us about ‘timelines’ but instead extolled ‘benchmarks,’ you’ve now resorted, sir, to this? We must stay in Iraq to save the $2 gallon of gas?”

If you spend time with the sorts of people I spend time with, you’ll probably have cynics in your life trying to persuade you from feeling overwhelmingly joyful at the results of this election, but for the moment at least, I think you should ignore them. We’ve witnessed an extraordinary thing in this country: the checking of a powerful totalitarian movement by the will of the people, just when a lot of us were beginning to fear that the system was beyond repair. There’s nothing phony or indoctrinated about the message Americans sent to Washington on Tuesday, and when you consider that it happened in spite of one of the most vicious propaganda campaigns in modern history, Americans have all the more reason to feel proud.

But this election hasn’t changed the fact that there are still people in the world who are being tortured and maimed and killed at the hands of this administration, and it’s for their sake that we must make Bush and the rest of them pay for their crimes. Read the following to find out what you can do to make that happen:

Subpoena Power, Congressional Hearings, and Special Counsel

But in the meantime, take faith that the America of Geronimo, Jefferson, and Muhammad Ali is live and kicking.

Tags: bush, Democrats, Elections, Global, homeland security, legislation, power, Republicans, society, Terrorism
Categories: Commentary, Global, Society, Power, Legislation, Homeland Security, Terrorism
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Defining Web 2.0

The emergence of Web 2.0 has attracted negative commentary by people who do not entirely understand what Web 2.0 is and, consequently, what it entails. Admittedly, there is some truth to the relationship inferred to exist between Web 2.0 and the quantum increases in bandwidth that are primarily being created through the investments of ISP’s. However, the bandwidth improvements are only a requisite for Web 2.0, and they do not constitute one of its defining characteristics. Furthermore, as long as Net Neutrality is maintained, we need not consume ourselves with issues related to the loss of the marginal degree of egalitarianism that current embodies the distribution of bandwidth - which currently provides some measures to ensure that high-speed connections are obtainable to large amounts of the population.

This is not to say that more does not need to be done to improve accessibility of high-speed Internet connections for all segments of the population. Certainly, there exists a gap between the strata in American society who can afford broadband and those who lack private access to this resource. Additionally, and perhaps more pressingly, due to inequalities in education and so forth, there exists vast discrepancies in the distribution of the cultural capital necessary for a social agent to advantageously deploy the communicative technologies engendered by the Information Age and the institutionalization of the Internet. These matters deserve the utmost attention and concern. However, the inequalities stated above do not qualify as potential polemics against Web 2.0, because Web 2.0, itself, certainly does not constitute an antecedent to a present or potential system of stratification, defining the resources available to differing segments of the population.

Web 2.0 is a paradigmatic shift whose inception is rooted in the original innovations of open source software designers who detected patterns emerging in the social activities comprising the software projects in which they were engaged. Communicative inventions, such as the Wiki, which were originally innovated in order to open source programming communities to work more efficiently, were appropriated toward considerations that extended beyond software programming and onto social knowledge production in general.

Web 2.0 involves a flattening of the traditional vertical structures creating a hierarchy of privileges for producing various forms of Truth. Academic knowledge is quickly becoming something not determined by an oligarchy within its respective disciplines. Additionally, technological truth - which can be understood as knowledge that provides a legitimate and marketable product, serviceable to the needs of end-user - is becoming a province not monopolized by dominant corporations. Indeed, the social classifications that have defined the resources available to individuals, assuming various positions in these systems of stratification, are becoming fuzzy, and, in all likelihood, will dissolve and discontinue to inhibit or facilitate Truth-production by individuals and collectivities.

To use the economic sphere of society as an example, the traditional boundaries between manufacturers, distributors, and consumers have blurred. All parties involved in this new configuration of development and distributive practices possess the ability to assume different capacities in the relationships between and among identities within the market. Although, it pains me considerably, there is a semblance of truth to the conditions predicted in the “Army of Davids.”

However, this does not entail – necessarily - the extension of a form of rationalization, hypothesized by early theorists who had detected the changing state of modern societies as they transitioned into a post-industrial state. Increasingly, the type of intellectual work in Technocracy occurs in a state where labors are detached from material conditions, leading to a result where contributions to products are no longer reducible to tangible materials. Consequently, the value of labor defies estimation, according to traditional parameters, which might calculate the value of work according to the labor hours consumed in the production a particular commodity that has value in the market.

Knowledge consumers have been equipped with the necessary serviceable objects needed to transform the informational content provided on servers for all of the public to peruse into forms that reflect their own aesthetics and experiences. Once again, the traditional roles assumed among the many, who have been existentially constrained until now within the social compound of the consumer identity, are no longer as rigid as they were previously. The end-user can now assume the role of a provider, and vice versa. The primary dynamic determining what inventions will take hold is the receptivity to the idea and its manifestation by an inclusionary public of counterparts. I hesitate to use the term, peers, due to its incorporation into the vocabulary of the academy, used by this exclusionary institution to describe its own practices.

The aspects, which Web 2.0 instantiates, are better illuminated through a concrete exemplar, which is provided below. This representation comes from a Webpage belonging to a site currently under development by the Populist Party of America:

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This is a page from a site that remains in the sandbox. Nevertheless, it continues to be useful as an exemplar of Web 2.0 designs. What is of significance are the direct links for entering the URL into social bookmarking services; a form of social knowledge construction, where the contents of the Internet are discovered and indexed according to the collaborative efforts of a Plebeian, inclusionary public, providing for a search application that generates, according to most, more relevant results than traditional syntactically structured search engines. Although social bookmarking sites continue to rely upon keyword searches, one can expect that these services will become more sophisticated as the Semantic Web begins to take hold. Regardless of their current dependence upon conventional search engine mechanics, the tags entered by contributors are more accurate and detailed, creating a social knowledge forum that continues to grow and continues to increase the relevancy of the results generated from searches. Additionally, there is another dynamic operative within these types of forums, people do not enter into the servers data base any site that they happen to run across. Rather, there is a process of selectivity based upon aesthetics and tested utility. Therefore, results generated from queries conduct in the API’s belonging to Web 2.0 services produce results generated from processes entirely different from the syntactical operations deployed by conventional search engines. The selectivity of links directed toward contents - assumed to possess the highest degrees of relevancy - are a result of organic processes.

The processes - collectively forming what is tantamount to a chaotic system – are not reproducible by the syntactically structured operations embedded in the search engines provided by servers such as Google or MSN. Although the engines, such as Google’s search, can index vastly more contents belonging to domains and their pages - an accomplishment achieved through the deployment of spiders that transverse the links directing the spider to additional contents - it is unlikely that these engines will ever acquire the capacity to retrieve results that are as relevant as those produced by social search engines.

Another salient aspect to the Webpage represented above are the RSS links located on the bottom of the page. RSS in another feature of Web 2.0 that allows for the real time update of content modifications. XML meta-tags are fed through a syndication that is often rendered using an Internet browser or, sometimes, standalone applications. These feeds contain citations of links that allow for an end-user to access a page that he or she infers to have content of interest from the descriptions in the meta-tags. It should be pointed out, once again, the functionality engendered by Really Simple Syndication is considered an instance of Web 2.0; a conclusion based upon its role as a Web component. Additionally, RSS is not comprised of static content, which is an attribute associated with most of Internet 1.0. This consideration brings into the forefront a marked difference between the two paradigms: Web 2.0 is comprised of servers displaying content not authored by the service provider in way that allows for only the original form of the media assuming a static state. Instead, Web 2.0 usually designates electronic media that is in a constant state of flux, typically expansion, most often integration with content initially provided by other servers, and collaboration among the members of the inclusionary public that care to contribute to its refinement, augmentation, and extensibility, which translates into magnified functionality.

The open source project known as WordPress presents an embodiment of all of the aforementioned attributes. Wordpress is a weblog programming project that allows for a community of programmers to add to the extent of its extensibility, rendering it, in a sense, limitless. Some of the ethics preemptive in the Wordpress ethos are parsimony, which allows for the easy comprehension of the programming; thus, facilitating its continued expansion by a diversely trained and aesthetically disposed community of peers; (this pretentious textual contrivance is intended to signified the conventional term, peer, with a modified sense that conveys an entirely voluntary and inclusionary public of counterparts); a distinction that has significance when juxtaposed with the sense peer acquires within the context of discourse emanating from the academy. Also, the Wordpress project is keenly aware of aesthetics. This illuminates another thematic quality that is pervasive within the culture of Web 2.0. Utility and aesthetics are not discontinuous properties. Rather, the two competing spheres of considerations find themselves fused into a unified type of praxis that emphasizes functionality and aesthetics through a single modality of expression. The synthetic conglomeration of intellectual considerations is no longer a dichotomy of competing concerns that requires the partial negation of one to accommodate the other. Instead, the product exists as one in the same, where aesthetics fall under the scope of pragmatics; a conceptualization of design that is congruent with definitions put forth by those responsible for the inception of the philosophy.

Social Knowledge Production

When I first stumbled onto the communicative capacities of the Web when engaged in a bizarre circumstance with a corrupt University, which was attempting to conceal its
negligence, so not to lose a tremendously large grant, I made the precipitous prediction that the Internet and the Blogosphere would dislodge the disciplinarian monopoly of knowledge production. Publicity was no longer the sole propriety of the elevated statuses in society who had acquired the necessary prestige symbols to endow their speech-acts with the property of Truth, or, at the very minimum, the privilege to be subjected to the dialogical mechanisms that adjudicated which externalized speech-acts would be accepted as
objectivity. I saw in this very medium of communication a possibility of circumventing the established institutions of gate-keepers who effectively passed judgment on what discursive contributions would enter into the textual domains that embody the stature of the academy. I went so far as to predict the slow demise of the academy altogether; at least in the sense of the Social Sciences.

The prophecy I was bold enough to render at the time remains in a state of limbo with competing forces vying to shape the communicative possibilities of the Internet in a fashion that either engenders or preserves their vest interests. Undoubtedly, the controversy over the deregulation of Net Neutrality is a part of this conflict. Those who have the material means will be in a position that grants them access to a larger audience, and consumers of the higher strata of services will enjoy content inaccessible to the plebeian class of the
populace. The distribution of the cultural capital will be configured to reflect preexisting inequalities in society, and the hope of democracy once fostered by the Internet will be loss.

We must not lose heart, however, become the verdict is yet to be announced with respect to the future of Information Technology in society. Subversive discourse still finds a home on the Internet, and, indeed, has provided spheres of communication that are robust and argumentative. The Green Party, for instance, and, more particularly, the Green Alliance have formed online chat forums that possess ongoing dialogue covering various concerns, all of which are germane to the Red-Green current of political discourse. What is troubling, however, is the absence of any clear translation from Internet based communication and dialogue and political mobilization. Of course, groups, such as MoveOn.org have built influential advocacy groups with a progressive agenda. Yet, I find this unsatisfactory because it is roughly a top-to-bottom organization, where decisions are rendered by elites in the organization, and, subsequently, the masses who participate in these movements are left with the option of contributing money or signing worthless petitions. A more extreme
example, which is, in fact, laughable, are the Internet mass mailings made by the Democratic Party, conducted under the pretenses of Grass-roots, which only solicit contributions from the members of this robust grass-roots movement.

Other forms of social-knowledge production offer a more penetrating glimpse into the democratic possibilities of the Web. The Wikipedia is the most popular and salient exemplar of this type of deliberative, egalitarian knowledge-building. The are no requisites with
regards to status, which might prohibit one from participating in the generation of contents possessed by the Wikipedia server. In other words, unlike traditional disciplinarian forms of knowledge, there are no status symbols that one must acquire to be considered a legitimate contributor to the particular discourse both forming and emanating from a disciplinary matrix. Knowledge in this sense is democratic and any member of the Demos who possesses the discursive skill need to captivate an audience - regardless of his or her social strata outside of the public sphere of dialogue - can effectively persuade the mob to embrace policies according positions articulated in his sophistries.

For the Athenian form of democracy to persist, civic egalitarianism had to cherished and safe-guarded from potentially corrupting influences. The constant fear of a faction acquiring a disproportionate amount of power was a real concern and precipitated the manifestation of institutions where public servants were selected by lottery as opposed to status symbols that might be conflated with elitism. This is not to say that the Athenians did not have elites, but the term, elite, had a different sense in juxtaposition to the meaning it often acquires during its contemporary usage. An elite, according to the Athenians, was an individual who demonstrated exceptional skills in a variety of contexts. Nonetheless, an elite was not someone who was defined by his or her position of power. In other words, the classification, elite, did not translate into political privilege. Elitism was related to the stylization that defined one’s character, not to a position of power that might be procured by a citizen belonging to the Polis.

Russell Cole

For more work on this subject visit the

Sociology of Web 2.0

Tags: democracy, direct democracy, extreme democracy, midwest alliance populist america, populist party america, Russell Coles Blog, sociology, sociology web 2.0, web 2.0, web 2.0 democracy
Categories: Commentary, Democracy, Russell Cole's Blog, Web 2.0, Extreme Democracy, Sociology
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by Stephen Neitzke

We the sovereign people are powerful beyond imagining, if we’re organized for anything. Not just casually organized for anti-war protests, flash mobs, NGOs that prop up the failed status quo, and the corrupt political parties, but formally organized into cross-country citizen action groups for every proactive anything, as well as for remedies outside the box of mega-corrupt representative govt.

A hundred years ago, such citizen organizations were driving the Reform Era — the greatest democracy movement in recorded history. Citizens then put together the greatest corruption-fighting machine ever devised by ordinary people. (See especially, “2nd Look–State Govt Unconstitutionalities Against Citizen-Proposed Law”, 08 October 2006, on my blog, DD Revival.)

Massively, seriously, formally organized outside the corruption box of of pure representative govt and its two major political parties, we can do any of the many things that have to happen so that we get our country back from the fascist superrich, corporate predators, and predator politicians. And not only get the country back, but prevent any future recurrence of a three-branch fascist despotism.

Unorganized, we’re nothing.

Organized, we can field third and fouth parties whose roles will be as minimally corrupted focus points of reform idelolgies within a national govt of direct democracy melded to nonpartisan rep govt. The DD/nonpartisan-rep-govt political dynamic is the only way to eliminate the systemic problems that led to the Bush-Cheney fascist despotism. And we desperately need third and fourth parties whose “genuine candidates” will supply the reservoir of human resources for a heavily regulated, subordinate, but still-strong representative govt.

Unorganized, we can’t reach minimal corruption — or the fascist despotism cure and preventative of DD/nonpartisan-rep-govt.

Why do you want to go on grinding your same old axes, wringing your hands, pointing fingers, doing nothing, waiting for govt to save you, staying unorganized? Why the insanity of constant repetition that always gets the same failed result in corrupt rep govt? Why put servile and failed consumerism above societal improvement — above citizen responisbility? Why do you want to be unorganized?

Organized, we could attract most of the 100 million withdrawn, non-voting citizens to help take back our country. Unorganized, we can barely attract the failed status quo’s servile of the left. Unorganized, we’re nothing.

Organized, we can form across state lines to review, question, and attack every little unconstitutional thing that our corporate-predator-owned governments are doing to us. You know that’s a lot. Unorganized, we can barely see across our towns. Unorganized, we’re nothing. Why do you want to be unorganized?

Saul Alinski’s efforts, 1940s-1970s, organized ordinary people of the left inside the system and did great things. It won’t work for us. The corruption machines won. The system is sewed up. Every traditional approach inside the failed rep govt system, that we could use to break the tyranny of fascist money-power, has been anticipated and blocked. We have to work outside the system, outside the political party corruption machines. So organizing inside the system won’t work. But Alinski had two other ideas that are still good for us. The first was — see the world the way it is — and organize. The second was — fix on the world that you want to have — and organize.

Nation-ranging citizen action groups (CAGs) can bring us that tandem vision.

Organized, we can have anything. Unorganized, we’re nothing

Organized, we can make political mountains move. Unorganized, we can barely make spit. Why do you want to be unorganized?

Organized, we can get our Reform Era legacy of constitutionally-defined, corruption fighting, direct democracy away from the unconstitutional and arbitrary controls of state govts. Organized, we have the legal power to make state govts stop the unconstitutional delays, alterations, and rejections of the constitutionally-defined, citizen-proposed law that has the power to kill corruption machines. Unorganized, we’re nothing. Why do you want to be unorganized?

Organized, our direct democracy can kill corruption machines and make representative govt strong, adding the sovereign people to the checks and balances of co-equal branches of public servants.

Unorganized, we have to sit and watch as corruption machines in all three branches of national govt collapse checks and balances, make a mockery of our rule of law, obstruct justice for constitutional and felonious criminals, privatize and negate our electoral system with fascist computer hacking, violate our Constitutional rights, commit the constant bribery of “money equals free speech” in our politics, commit felony murder against our soldiers in Iraq, commit felony murder against kidnapped detainees in a worldwide torture/murder gulag, make unconstitutional and treasonous ex post facto law to block their criminal prosecution for torture/murder in their gulag, illegally wiretap US citizen communications and bank transactions to ultimately criminalize dissent, and financially rape our nation in a hundred ways for the benefit of their globalized and stateless superrich, fatally weakening our nation for collapse in any catastrophe.

Organized, we can stop the race of fascist corporatism and the international central banking cabal into Bush’s media-hushed North American Union of US, Mexican, and Canadian fascist governing elites. Unorganized, we will just sit and watch as the treaties establishing Canusmex and central banking’s Amero currency do here what the French referendum barred from happening to the EU member nations last year.

The French 2005 referendum rejected the EU Constitution, which was nothing but an enslavement document ending all national sovereignty in the EU member nations for the benefit of fascist corporatism at its superrich owners. If we remain unorganized and Bush has his way, the NAU will set up with all of the EU Constitution’s corporate-nazi features — all of them dirty, ugly, mean, a