Never forget how the State used the attacks of September 11, 2001 as a pretext to shred the Constitution and encourage the escalation of police thuggery against citizens.
Never forget how the State used September 11 to encourage profiteering in the “defense” and “security” industries at the expense of citizens.
Never forget how the State used September 11 as a pretext for illegal wars and military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Never forget how the State used September 11 as a pretext for illegal imprisonment, secret courts and torture.
Never forget that the atmosphere of oppression, suspicion, paranoia and racism which has taken root in this country since September 11, 2001 has been fostered and maintained by both Republican and Democratic governments.
And last, but certainly not least…
Never forget how you, the American people, rolled over and allowed yourselves to be bullied and cowed into silence by the likes of Bush, Cheney, Obama, Ridge, Chertoff, Napolitano, Clinton, and Lieberman while they waged wars of aggression, built a gulag, committed genocide and torture and stripped away your liberty and dignity.
Never forget.
Happy Anniversary.
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The 9/11 Conspiracists: Vindicated After All These Years? by Alexander Cockburn at CounterPunch.
I really can’t come up with any words this time to go with this one; everything I’ve got to say about the uprisings in London and across Britain I’ve already said in this cartoon.
So, instead, I’ll just throw it over to Daniel Hind, writing at Al Jazeera in an op-ed entitled Nothing “Mindless” About Rioters:
Civil disturbances never have a single, simple meaning. When the Bastille was being stormed the thieves of Paris doubtless took advantage of the mayhem to rob houses and waylay unlucky revolutionaries. Sometimes the thieves were revolutionaries. Sometimes the revolutionaries were thieves. And it is reckless to start making confident claims about events that are spread across the country and that have many different elements. In Britain over the past few days there have been clashes between the police and young people. Crowds have set buildings, cars and buses on fire. Shops have been looted and passersby have been attacked. Only a fool would announce what it all means…
We can dispense with some mistakes, though. It is wrong to say that the riots are apolitical. The trouble began on Saturday night when protesters gathered at Tottenham police station to demand that the police explain the circumstances in which a local man, Mark Duggan, had been shot dead by the police. The death of a Londoner, another black Londoner, at the hands of the police has a gruesome significance. The police are employed to keep the peace and the police shot someone dead. This is a deeply political matter. Besides, it is conventional to say how much policing in London has changed since the Brixton riots of the early eighties – but not many people mouthing the conventional wisdom have much firsthand experience of being young and poor in Britain’s inner cities.
More broadly, any breakdown of civil order is inescapably political. Quite large numbers of mostly young people have decided that, on balance, they want to take to the streets and attack the forces of law and order, damage property or steal goods. Their motives may differ – they are bound to differ. But their actions can only be understood adequately in political terms. While the recklessness of adrenaline has something to do with what is happening, the willingness to act is something to be explained. We should perhaps ask them what they were thinking before reaching for phrases like “mindless violence”. We might actually learn something…
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11×17 inch medium-res color .jpg image, 492kb …and, while you’re at it — now that you’ve finally jumped off of the Gabrielle Giffords Media Frenzy Train — why not catch up on what Anonymous has been up to in Tunisia:
Payback Is A Bitch — Isn’t It? Anonymous tells government of Tunisia: “Expect Us”; The Liberty Lamp, 01.02.11
4 The People Of Tunisia: A message to Tunisians from Anonymous; The Liberty Lamp, 01.03.11
From Tunisia, A Voice In Pain From The People: Tunisian political dissidents fight State interference in organizing, the intimidation of bloggers and other journalists, and ‘Net censorship; The Liberty Lamp, 01.06.11
Tunisian Facebook Riot! Legions of jobless youths organize protests and fuel rage with Facebook; Associated Press, 01.11.11
Prime Minister Takes Over As Ben Ali* Flees Tunisian Turmoil: Dictator’s whereabouts unknown; France24.com, 01.15.11
…and, of course, what summary of news from a foreign hot spot would be complete without:
US Warns Travelers Of Violence In Tunisia: Social unrest, foreigners could be targets, etc. etc. etc.; AFP, 01.13.11
*No, dumbass; not that Ben Ali.
A couple of weeks or so ago, Vice Emperor Joe Biden went on TV and called the American Left “whiners” for daring to complain about the abject failure of the Democratic Party to enact any truly progressive reforms while at about the same time, Boy Emperor Barack Martin Luther Gandhi Aquinas Timberlake Obama The One gave a bitchy interview to Rolling Stone in which he slags the Left six ways from Sunday for complaining about the Democrats sucking so badly, pretty much doing everything but pissing on us and giving us the finger in what was the first round of “hippie bashing” by the Democrats — followed by his remarks at a posh fundraising dinner in Connecticut attended by a buttload of rich people, in which he spits on the Left yet again while bowing and scraping to “the people who write the checks”. That’s sure a helluva way to convince your progressive “base” to support you, isn’t it? You go back on every promise you ever made during the ‘08 campaign, you retain and expand on Bush’s policies on imperialist war and the national security state, you enrich the banks and Wall Street while leaving the unemployed and homeowners facing foreclosure to twist in the wind, you sit by while economies and ecosystems are destroyed on the Gulf Coast, you legislate sweetheart deals with the health-insurance and pharmaceutical industries under the guise of “reform”, you exhibit the most craven behavior possible in the face of rightists and fascists — and when the people who helped elect you dare to complain about it and threaten to withhold their support in the midterm “elections”, you go on TV and insult them to their faces? There’s some real out-of-the-box thinking for you. Is your party and its leadership an abysmal failure? No problem, just blame those fucking hippies for complaining, and announce that the beatings will continue until morale improves.
In the meantime, Democratic Party mouthpieces in the blogozone are going into full-tilt pants-crapping panic mode, with Robert Parry at consortiumnews.com spewing a page full of the most weak-assed, warmed-over, shopworn scaremongering and excuse-making possible, complete with that good old Nader Hate. Trouble is, in the course of trying to make a case of supporting the Democrats no matter what, he makes a case for staying home — or even voting Republican, seeing as how even with the Democrats in power, we’re still being saddled with Republican policies which, more often than not, are being enabled by the Democrats. Parry might as well have cut’n'pasted an old column from 2000, begging and pleading with us not to vote Green in response to the cowardice and hypocrisy of the Clinton Regime, threatening us with calamity and disaster, guilt-tripping us with that tired old bullshit about how “a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush”. Hell, even the Communist Party USA is getting in on the action, with Comrade Chairman Sam Webb posting a whiny-assed screed pleading with us to not sit this one out. Jeezus, who’d have thought that even the geezing old cranks at the CPUSA were fronting for the Democrats these days?
Eight or ten years ago, this kind of behavior by the Democrats and their mouthpieces would’ve made me livid, but nowadays it just fills me with delight; I can’t begin to tell you how liberating it was to finally quit giving a shit about what happens to the Democrats. Sure, on the one hand its really piss-poor the way Biden and the Boy Emperor are dissing us, but what do you expect? These are Democrats we’re talking about here, y’know. I become flat-out ecstatic every time I hear either of these two — not to mention the likes of Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann and Ed “I Know No-THING!” Schultz blustering and kvetching and pleading for us to come out and vote for their miserable-assed party, because I know that every time they do this, they’re showing us just how truly weak, ineffectual and entirely unworthy of our support they are. “Pleee-eeease vote for us! Pretty please? We only suck ass a little less than the GOP! C’monnnn, pleeee-eeaase?” P’wahh ha ha ha ha ha hahhh. Take a goddamn’ hike, assholes. It’s popcorn time. You want to pander to me, exploit me, guilt-trip me, lie to me, insult me to my face on TV? Kiss my ass goodbye.
I plan on staying home on “Election” Day, withholding my support for a bunch of cowardly corporate tools, refusing my consent for a system that doesn’t work in my interests — and doing it without shame, regret or apology. Seriously, folks — there’s no shame in staying home on “Election” Day if none of the walking wastes of DNA seeking your vote are representing your values or standing up for what you believe in. C’mon, take a chance. Stay home. Don’t participate in the cheap-assed kabuki theater that passes for “democracy” in this country. See how liberating it is.
Y’know, I’ve been hearing a lot of desperate yammering lately from shit-scared Liberals and Fauxgressives about how I need to support our Boy Emperor Barack Martin Luther Gandhi Aquinas Timberlake Obama The One and the Noble Democratic Party in their struggle against the Evil Rethuglicans. They agonize over the Tea Party freaks and their horrible lack of “civility”, although whenever I try to point out how the Democrats have either cut and run or else actively enabled the Evil Rethuglicans’ takeover on just about every issue — Iraq, Afghanistan, the banks, healthcare, the economy, the environment, you name it — the Fauxgressives promptly proceed to pitch a fit (how uncivil of them) and only seem to be able to respond with mindless chants of “Yes, We Can!”. Indeed — Yes, They Can:
Bomb civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan with robotic drone aircraft. This has to be the most pussified way to fight a war you could think of. They’re using “Predator” drones to bomb homes, schools, weddings, and funerals. Funerals, f’crissake. So, where the hell are the Liberals and Fauxgressives while this shit is going on? When George W. Bush was doing it, they filled the streets; where the hell are they now that Barack Martin Luther Gandhi Aquinas Timberlake Obama The One is the one dropping the bombs?
Wiretap the Internet. It’s been reported this past summer that Boy Emperor Barack Martin Luther Gandhi Aquinas Timberlake Obama The One wants to make it easier for the FBI to obtain information about your private emails and Web surfing history as well as enable direct surveillance of Internet traffic in what is a 180° about-face from his lofty campaign promises of 2008, a return to Bill Clinton’s odious “Echelon” program defended by Democrats as “a necessary evil” (yeah, that’s right — Democrats). When George W. Bush wanted to do this, Liberals and Fauxgressives screamed so loudly you could hardly hear yourself think; where the hell are they now that Barack Martin Luther Gandhi Aquinas Timberlake Obama The One wants to spy on American citizens and suppress dissent?
Prop up the banks: Liberals and Fauxgressives like to claim that this was George W. Bush’s doing, but they conveniently forget that it was then-Senator Barack Martin Luther Gandhi Aquinas Timberlake Obama The One who was being the good “house negro” by helping round up the votes authorizing the biggest transfer of wealth from the People to the Rich in this nation’s history. The Liberals and Fauxgressives raised holy hell about this when it was going on towards the twilight of the Bush Regime; where the hell are they now that President Barack Martin Luther Gandhi Aquinas Timberlake Obama The One — with the assistance of the Democratic Party — has continued enriching the banks and Wall Street brokerages at the expense of the foreclosed-on and unemployed?
Let the Gulf Coast die: Back towards the end of last March, President Barack Martin Luther Gandhi Aquinas Timberlake Obama The One served up his “Drill, Baby, Drill” speech — although, of course, he couched it in his classic pompous professorial speaking style, not actually using the GOP faithful’s “Drill, Baby, Drill” phrase in order to avoid freaking out the Liberals and environmentalists (who supported him in ‘08 anyway despite his stated support for offshore oil drilling). Then, as BP’s Deepwater Horizon well catastrophe unfolded, the number-one recipient of campaign contributions from BP sat by and let it happen, even as BP’s attempts to stop the gusher resulted in one pathetic FAIL after another, and BP worked itself to death to keep reporters and news photographers from reporting the extent of the devestation — hell, The Boy Emperor even helped BP suppress reporters by lending the services of the Coast Guard. When George W. Bush sat on his ass and allowed the near-total destruction of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, the Liberals and Fauxgressives were howling at full throat; where the hell are they now that Barack Martin Luther Gandhi Aquinas Timberlake Obama The One has allowed the decimation of ecosystems and economies all over the Gulf Coast, and allowed BP to escape punishment?
Appease the Right: From Israel to trade policy to financial “reform” to healthcare, Barack Obama’s your go-to guy for pandering to rightists and Teabaggers. I’ll keep it brief here and concentrate on the prime example: the alleged healthcare “reform” which basically leaves the criminals responsible for our problems in charge. There was endless sound and fury in the media about the healthcare “debate”. Huh, some debate; nurses and activists demanding the inclusion of single-payer healthcare — the system favored by a majority of Americans — in Senate hearings on Capitol Hill were ordered ejected from the hearing room and arrested by Senator Max Baucus, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Obama and his Donkeycratic cronies were so utterly desperate to pass a bill — any bill would do — that they legislated bailouts for insurance and pharmaceutical companies, sweetheart deals with the hospital industry, the compromising away of abortion rights and the supposedly-more-important-than-anything “public option” (a shallow mockery of single-payer) and a measure which forces citizens to become customers of the insurance industry no matter how broke and/or unemployed they are. Meanwhile, at the Democrats’ phony town-hall meetings where they pimped their worthless healthcare “reform”, the places were overrun with Teabaggers busting up the scene — while the Liberals and Fauxgressives just sat on their asses and whined about those mean old Teabaggers. Hell, they knew this bill was a piece of shit; why the hell weren’t they out in the streets and busting up the Democrats’ cheesy dog’n'pony shows? If George W. Bush were putting over a sham like this, you can bet the Liberals and Fauxgressives would be out for blood; where the hell are they now that this same corporate-backed fraud is being perpetrated by Mr. Hope’n'Change?
Bully the Left: I thought I’d save the best for last. During the 2008 campaign, delusional Liberals ranging all the way from United For Peace And Justice to Code Pink were drooling all over Barack Obama, a supposed “peace candidate”, based on one single weak-assed speech he gave at an anti-war rally just before the US invaded Iraq — a speech in which he said he wasn’t opposed to all wars, just “dumb wars”. WTFF? This is a peace candidate? …Fast-forward to this past September 24, when Obama’s FBI conducted raids on the homes of antiwar activists in Minnesota, Illinois and Michigan, issuing grand jury subpoenas to at least a dozen activists. Remember, this was our peace candidate — President Hope’n'Change, the man who emitted a vile “just war” speech when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. If George W. Bush was pulling this crap, the Liberals and Fauxgressives would be busting blood vessels all over the place, but now all they can say is that we have to support the Democrats, no matter what. No matter what.
Where the hell are they now? I’ll tell you. They’re flailing and failing, able to offer nothing but warmed-over excuses and apologia for Barack Martin Luther Gandhi Aquinas Timberlake Obama The One and the Democrats, telling us that we have to support the Democrats because the Evil Rethuglicans would be worse — yeah, that’s right, we have to support the Democrats because while the GOP sucks, the Democrats suck just a little less, an excuse so lame and tired that it’s gone from amusing to annoying — and that to stay home and not vote in this, The Most Important Election Since The Earth Accreted Enough Material For Gravity To Compress It Into A Sphere, would be to invite disaster.
What, you mean we’re not in a goddamn’ disaster now?
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Well, here we are, a year into this glorious new post-racial, post-partisan Hope'n'Change Era, so let's just pause to take stock of all the momentous Change that President Booker T. Obama has brought us:
So, I wake up early one morning recently; as usual, my wife's already awake and has MSNBC's "Morning Joe" babbling on the TV. In the thinning fog of my fading Rapid Eye Movement state I hear Barack Obama telling us how he plans to continue upholding the corporate/military agenda, after which I can just make out some unhinged rightist nutcake denouncing John McCain for being too Liberal. A gaggle of pundits ranging from tepid centrist to shrieking fascist have a bitching, shouting argument over who'll do the best job of bombing and torturing for the next four years. One pundit calls McCain a closet Liberal, another calls Obama a Socialist, and I think: jeezus, it's too goddamn' early for this shit. It's only 7am, and my brain is already hurting.
That's right, one Friggin' MILLION. Jesus Herbert Walker Christ. And that's not counting the million and a half or more Iraqis this nation murdered with sanctions throughout the 1990s (nobody died when Clinton lied? My ass.).
I'll never forget seeing Nancy Pelosi on Meet The Press back in May; after mentioning that the impeachment of President Chimp is "off the table" -- despite having a record of impeachable offenses as long as his arm -- she then goes on to say that when the Democrats get a majority in Congress in November, "it's going to be a new day"... a statement almost as cringeworthy as her appearance on the NBC Today Show in November of '02, after her election as House Minority Leader, where she declares the Democratic leadership "stands shoulder-to-shoulder with President Bush" in the rush to war in Iraq.
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