The Guerrilla Campaign

by Leonard Cohen It's coming through a hole in the air, from those nights in Tiananmen Square. It's coming from the feel that this ain't exactly real, or it's real, but it ain't exactly there. From the wars against disorder, from the sirens night and day, from the fires of the homeless, from the ashes of the gay: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. It's coming through a crack in the wall; on a visionary flood of alcohol; from the staggering account of the Sermon on the Mount which I don't pretend to understand at all. It's coming from the silence on the dock of the bay, from the brave, the bold, the battered heart of Chevrolet: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. It's coming from the sorrow in the street, the holy places where the races meet; from the homicidal bitchin' that goes down in every kitchen to determine who will serv...

by Mary Pitt Sunday, January 18, 2009 Waddya gonna do when you've gone about as far as you can go? You want to open a window and yell, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!" But, where you live there is nobody to hear you. Go ahead, yell your fool head off but there are none to hear and, if anybody does, they don't care. The preachers will tell you, "The Lord will provide" but, in all our years, we have never heard of a Great Speckled Bird flying over and dropping money on people. And you learned long ago to pray for nothing but the strength to bear the troubles that befall us in this mortal life. You have simply lasted too long. You have lost dearly loved ones to death for first one reason or another; even nursing a dear lifemate through an illness that took years to claim them. You have worked, budgeted, and micro-managed to keep your family sustained and, due to your own age and illness, are now condemned to a life of poverty. Yo...

by Mary Pitt January 15, 2009 The greatest problem as the new President and the Congress attempt to enact remedies to the very real problems of the poor, the disabled, and the laboring class, (not the much-broader "working class"), is that they do not know or understand exactly what it is that they are trying to "fix". With the exception of the President, none of them have ever wanted for food, clothing, or medical care, (and even he, Thank God, had grandparents of substance who were able to be of assistance.) The trials with which we must deal every day are totally foreign to them. They do not know and never even visit in the homes in the tenements, the poor neighborhoods, or even the common homes in the small rural villages which dot the plains and the industrial areas of our nation. Those who knock on our doors during campaigns are college kids asking for our votes and will promise us anything in return for our pledges. Should our congresspersons come "home...

History's Clear Answer to the Torture Debate Written By Chris Floyd January 13, 2009 http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1680-head-cases-historys-clear-answer-to-the-torture-debate.html There has been much throwing about of brains on the subject of "what to do" about the Bush Administration's unabashed and openly confessed use of "interrogation techniques" that are, without question, classified under U.S. law as torture. There seems to be a ripening consensus among our great and good that nothing at all should be done about this perpetration of a capital crime by the top officials of the government -- although one does descry, here and there, a hint that there might be a ritual sacrifice of one or two middling-high figures if the issue gets too hot to brush aside completely. (If I were, say, John Yoo, I'd be looking at sabbaticals in Dubai or Saudi Arabia -- or Israel, maybe, where a man of his expertise in the rationalization of war cri...

by Mary Pitt Saturday, January 10, 2009 With an economy that is sadly in the tank, a stock market that cannot get its feet back under it, with record and growing unemployment, and with working class and poor people suffering with too little income and too many expenses, the economists and politicians are quarreling over what will be required to heal the ills of our nation. One "stimulus" has been tried but it was too little and too limited. Since it went only to the very poor, it immediately disappeared by being used to pay bills that were already in existence rather than on consumer spending. When the massive funds were doled out to the major banks, it did not make a ripple in the marketplace as the companies tucked the money into their reserve funds rather than releasing it into new lending. After eight years of seeing a government that was more intent on its own pet projects than on the welfare of the people; of begging a recalcitrant Congress to do something to stop the o...

Pictures of suffering Pictures of death Some say this is holy Some say this is good Women burned alive Children without heads and heaps of corpses on the ground

by susan abulhawa How can anyone watching Gaza burn escape the bitter realization that history repeats itself? Many have compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to Apartheid South Africa. But not in their cruelest hour did the Apartheid regime wreak such wanton murder and destruction. Let us stop mincing words. What is happening to Palestinians now whispers of Warsaw and Lodz. Schools, universities, mosques, police stations, homes, water treatment plants, factories, and anything that supports civil society, including the only mental health clinic in Gaza, have been blown to rubble from planes that rain death from clear skies without any resistance, because Palestinians have no opposing air force. Nor do they have an army or navy. No mechanized armor or heavy weaponry. Thanks to Israel, they haven’t even had continuous electricity or fuel for the past two years. Or food and medicine. Israel’s siege and blockade of Gaza has prevented the movement of people and goods in and o...

Jan 2, 2009 12:53 pm Thousands of shoes tie up Miami freeway traffic Thousands of shoes were dumped on the Palmetto Expressway causing significant traffic delays in Miami, Friday, Jan. 2, 2009. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz) MIAMI (AP) -- State troopers are looking for a charity to take thousands of shoes that were dumped on a Miami expressway, tying up rush hour traffic. Lt. Pat Santangelo says the Florida Highway Patrol received a call about the shoes Friday morning. Santangelo says he's not sure where the shoes came from. There were no signs of a crash and no one stopped to claim them. He says he hopes someone will take them because he doesn't want to send them to the dump. Workers using a front-end loader and a dump truck were able to quickly clear at least one lane by sweeping all the shoes to shoulder, but delays were expected until they could all be removed.

Let's hope the new year is better.

Shock, Awe and Lies: The Truth Behind the Israeli Attack on Gaza Written by Chris Floyd Monday, 29 December 2008 http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1666-shock-awe-and-lies-the-truth-behind-the-israeli-attack-on-gaza.html Here is a simple, stone cold fact. You cannot read or hear the truth about what is happening in Gaza from any corporate media in the United States. The only thing you will find there are regurgitations of Israeli spin, which are themselves only regurgitations of the kind of spin that American militarists have put on their own depredations -- for centuries now. Up and down the American media and political establishments, you will find nothing but bleatings about Israel being "forced" to launch its vicious blunderbuss attacks against heavily populated Gaza because of the "recent spate of Hamas bombings" since the end of a six-month ceasefire. This is of course a damnable and deliberate lie. Papers in Israel -- in Israel, but not the ...

by Mary Pitt 12/22/08 The whole country is agog with the news of the Madoff Ponzi scheme and the billions he scammed from big investors, but nobody appears to realize that it is only the tip of a huge iceberg. There are other so-called legitimate institutions afloat in the private sector that are profiting from similar scams with the heartfelt approval of the raging capitalists in government as well as private individuals. Foremost among these are the insurance companies as they have become established in America. Even the government social programs such as Medicare and Medicaid are administered by the accounting departments of insurance companies. The regulations regarding these programs were written in large part by the insurance companies and, as the result, even the very poor are not getting the services they need under their provisions. Look at the case of a lady I will call Suzy, a middle-aged lady who, though mentally retarded, had worked as a bus person in a hospital cafeteria ...

by Mary Pitt Tuesday, December 16, 2008 The Republicans are already indicating their intent to use the same tactics that they used in the past two years in the minority to block many of the programs that are vital to the plans of President-elect Obama. They cling to the "sixty-vote cloture" rule as if it were the Holy Grail and intend to exercise it at every turn in the deliberations of the upcoming Congressional session. Let them! Let them filibuster! That can be done by refusing to sit back and whimper as has the past Congress under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid. The Legislature can pass all the programs of the President but the Democrats in the Senate need to grow a spine and stand up to the filibuster threat by pushing those programs despite them. What's the worst that could happen? Under the rules of the filibuster, one speaker must continue to argue until the opposition surrenders and decides to let the bill in question die. This becomes ...

I'm tellin' ya. Livin' here's a trip. Hendry Sheriff Sells Car To Georgia Town Transferring Assets To Keep New Sheriff From Getting Them Says Story Don Browne Thursday, November 27, 2008 http://swflorida.blogspot.com:80/2008/11/hendry-sheriff-sells-car-to-georgia.html LABELLE, FL. -- A news story in the Cordele Dispatch in Georgia says Hendry County Sheriff Ronnie Lee is selling his 2007 Dodge Charger police cruiser to a Vienna, Georgia Police Department to keep Sheriff-Elect Steve Whidden from getting it. The issue came to light according to the story when the Vienna Mayor questioned the purchase at a city council meeting Monday. According to the story Vienna Police Chief Jamey Reed bought the vehicle without notifying the Mayor. According to the story "Reed said a sheriff in Hendry County, Fla. had lost his bid for re-election and had a black 2007 Dodge Charger he did not want the new sheriff to get." The Vienna Mayor was disappointed that he wasn't noti...

By Sheila Samples 11/28/08 Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate! - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The recent blowout election that gave us President Barack Obama resulted in a flood of emotion that engulfed both parties. The one thing they had in common was that neither party could believe it. Political comedian Mort Sahl once said, "Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen." If we have learned nothing else about Republicans, it's that, with few exceptions, they are vindictive, immoral, blood-thirsty, and just plain power-mad. Republicans are so much better at destroying things than Democrats are. They say and do whatever it takes to win. And if that doesn't work -- they seize it anyway. So we were braced for another disappointment -- not because we didn't share Obama...

Well, Johnny, (I can call you Johnny, right?) Anyway, don’t feel too bad. I got danced on Election Day too. You and Sarah (I can call you Sarah, right?) should do what me and Lumpy did. We looked at each other at 3am, and said, “Well, that’s it. Let’s go get a banana” And we did. Then we fell asleep on the pillow. And when we woke up, it was another day. We’d like to congratulate President-elect Barack Obama on his historic victory, and remind him that we will always be available to help. We’d also like to congratulate the American people for their obvious wisdom and courage. Oh yeah. We concede. SockMonkey and Lumpy http://tmars.iwarp.com/sockmonkey08/index.html paid for by money we found in the sofa cushions

:-) and, as they say, the rest is history

by Mary Pitt The most memorable points made in the McCain/Obama debate, from my lowly viewpoint, was the plight of poor old Joe, the Plumber The story was that Joe has worked for a plumbing company for twelve years, 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Now he wants to buy the company and "give jobs" to other men. He is worried that, should he do well and earn over a quarter of a mil a year, he may have to pay a higher rate of taxes then he would now. Having some experience in running a small business and having employed up to seven people at any given time, the efforts of both my husband and me never came close to turning that much profit in a year. For that matter, we never, by each holding separate jobs at the same time, our individual wages never matched the figure that Joe has been earning for the past twelve years. Let's do some math: If Joe has truly worked twelve hours a day for seven days a week, if he was earning union wages, let's say conservatively, $25.00 pe...

Let’s take a look at this two clips, shall we? And then we’ll have a quiz. Congressman asks Justice Dept. about Qwest wiretap charges By John Godfrey Last update: 6:45 p.m. EDT Oct. 15, 2007 http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/congressman-asks-justice-dept-about/story.aspx?guid=%7BE944A27D-75C3-4D12-8CA4-2C22302AB947%7D […] Once-classified documents that were unveiled in the insider-trading case of Nacchio also suggest the U.S. government didn't offer lucrative contracts to the company after Nacchio refused to cooperate with what the documents call "improper government requests" in February 2001. The documents, submitted as part of Nacchio's defense in the insider-trading case, don't elaborate on the government requests. Nacchio has said in the past he didn't comply when asked by the National Security Agency, which heads up U.S. electronic surveillance, for access to the private phone records of Qwest customers. […] Speaking from the White House lawn Oct. 10...

The 30-Year Lie of the Market Cult Written by Chris Floyd http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1627-the-god-that-failed-the-30-year-lie-of-the-market-cult.html Perhaps the most striking fact revealed by the global financial crash -- or rather, by the reaction to it -- is the staggering, astonishing, gargantuan amount of money that the governments of the world have at their command. In just a matter of days, we have seen literally trillions of dollars offered to the financial services sector by national treasuries and central banks across the globe. Britain alone has put $1 trillion at the disposal of the bankers, traders, lenders and speculators; and this has been surpassed by the total package of public money that Washington is shoveling into the financial furnaces of Wall Street and the banks. These radical efforts are being replicated on a slightly smaller scale in France, Germany, Italy, Russia and many other countries. The effectiveness of this unprece...