Yes, it was kitchy.
Yes, it was soapy.
Yes, I was too young to watch and I watched anyway. Hey, I watched Shogun and this was even nuttier than that.
Yes, I'm ashamed to admit it: I was only 13 and the TV mini serie The Thorn Bird made me realized that what I was taught to be a congregation of saintly men giving their lives to the ideals of Christ like St-Francis of Assises was, in fact, only a congregation of men. Warts, drunks and all.
I didn't read Stendhal yet, I didn't know that ambitious young priest were standard fare in Literature. But what I did understand then was that the Church was an assembly of guys that wanted power, riches and played politics with the best of them. They also had the privilege, the chance to don a robe that gives them instant credibility and innocence however dirty their hands.
I was in a button down uniforms, girls only catholic schools and we had to confess our sins every months to a priest. He didn't know our names, we didn't know his. And what you read before is what I told that priest at 13, after watching Richard Chamberlain getting it down with some sweet lass half his age.
I did not believe that this melodramatic drivel was anything but, however it opened the door to doubt.
And without doubt, there is no free will... And there is no real faith...
So you can understand how the abuse crisis do no surprise me.
It is only how they treat their victims that does....
I was a victim of abuse. This is what the Pope must do to stop it'
By Colm O'Gorman
Saturday, 20 March 2010
It was not being raped by a priest at the age of 14 that shattered my faith; it was the horrifying realisation that the Catholic Church had wilfully, knowingly abandoned me to it, the knowledge that they had ordained the priest who abused me despite knowing he was a paedophile and set him free to abuse with near impunity, ignoring all complaints.
And so it is difficult not to be cynical about the likely merit of the pastoral letter that Pope Benedict XVI will publish today.
We all know some wanted the Bell Curve to be definitive proof that the White Guys had it All: Intelligence, Looks, Perfect Blond locks of hair that can Move in the Wind (the last detail more important than you'll ever know...).
But one very crazy irony of being a right wing bigot, is that maybe, deep inside, you do not like smartness.
No snobby, arrogant North East Liberal for you, hell no!
And they can take their uppity Negroes straight to their cold uppity town with them!
You know the drill...
So... I guess they'll try to engineer their master race without a single intelligent being in it.
Palin and McCain were really a small, disturbing inkling into the future...
Crude jokes are my way of dealing with this absurdity. But Krugman just discovered the political consequence of this trend.
Seriously though, most understood where it was all going when Gore conceded to the Bush Dynasty.
You’re So Vain
Jonathan Chait and Robert Waldmann, in slightly different ways, highlight a crucial dynamic in American political debate: the extent to which public figures are punished for actually knowing what they’re talking about.
It goes like this: Person A says “Black is white” — perhaps out of ignorance, although more often out of a deliberate effort to obfuscate. Person B says, “No, black isn’t white — here are the facts.”
And Person B is considered to have lost the exchange — you see, he came across as arrogant and condescending.
I had, I have to admit, hoped that the nation’s experience with George W. Bush — who got within hanging-chad distance of the White House precisely because Al Gore was punished for actually knowing stuff — would have cured our discourse of this malady. But no. Why not?
Chait professes himself puzzled by the right’s intellectual insecurity. Me, not so much. Here’s how I see it: in our current political culture, the background noise is overwhelmingly one of conservative platitudes. People who have strong feelings about politics but are intellectually incurious tend to pick up those platitudes, and repeat them in the belief that this makes them sound smart. (Ezra Klein once described Dick Armey thus: “He’s like a stupid person’s idea of what a thoughtful person sounds like.”)
Inevitably, then, such people react with rage when they’re shown up on their facts or basic logic — it’s an attack on their sense of self-worth.
The truly sad thing, though, is the way much news reporting goes along with the condescension meme. That’s Waldmann’s point. You really, really might have expected that the Bush experience would give reporters pause — that they might at least ask themselves, “Isn’t it my job to ask whether a politician is right, as opposed to how he comes across?”
But NOOOO! [/Belushi]
From the pages of the New York Times.
Oh No! Another uppity Liberal Media....
Love the toys and their slick, organic design. Hate to think Bernie and friends probably have 2 or 3 already pre-paid by you and the other suckers of Main Street.
Somebody compared them to Douglas Adam's Heart of Gold on water !
Couldn't agree more...
I rediscovered the CBC. They wake me up every morning now and I'm liking it more and more.
I also savor every day the irony that if I want to get a good mix of alternative rock, classic and old decades standards - including jazz and blues - music, I can only count on my national public radio. All private radio have been formatted to death as to become lifeless clones of one another, as we all know. Their only goal is to jam the same repetitive, mindless, "products" down our collective throat.
And they wonder why radio is dead.
Radio is the perfect example of the wide divide that exist between the theory of competitive diversity and how it is applied right now. The forces at work are destroying opportunities for dissident voices and different approaches to problems. At the same time, they are destroying opportunities for a healthy, diversify, striving competitive market.
Monopolies are being born and small businesses, the real way to attain economical independence and fortitude for most of us little guys, are snip at the bud.
So, obviously, I never said that capitalism is bad or its fundamental principals are without merits: it is the way that greed transforms this ideology into a destructive force, as it always does with all ideologies, that makes it
so unnerving.
Repugs are not fighting for freedom or democracy or even capitalism, but for a pure oligarchic dominion of sovereign monopolies.
Companies as the new kings and queens of Americas, left unchecked to act as they please...
Now cue to music. This song as been in my head - in a good way - for a whole week now.
It's called Kick Drum Heart from the Avett Brothers. It's cute and wild and it rocks hard all at the same time.
When the action is all psychological and the bad guys have won, what happen to Martin Scorsese' s camera?
I respect Scorsese and love most of his films, I'm generally surprised by Leonardo DiCaprio and his passionate acting slowly grows on me with each successive performance. Because of all this I was awaiting Shutter Island with real trepidation and anticipated a satisfying and smart thriller, stuffed to the hilt with DiCaprio/Scorsese chemistry and the artful touch of a Master Director in top shape.
Well, that's not what happened.
Anybody who grew up on a steady diet of X-files will have guess within 30 minutes the 2 possible outcomes of this movie: unfortunately they do not take up the most interesting one, nor the most thrilling. We can't help but think how snidely Mulder would have crack the case all the while charming one of the dour nurses for sport. But since it's all for the sake of good acting on DiCaprio's part and one of the most clever last sentences uttered in movies in the last 10 years, we forgive.
I thought all of this must be a parable, a symbolic construction on the modern state of Man bla-bla-bla since nothing knew is presented here. We could feel how DiCaprio's character could be seen as an Everyman trying to survive in a world giving to lies and violence with no shelter or warmth to give him hope. But, the real mystery was that even thought I was wrong and no second degree was hidden in the fold of Scorsese's mind this time, I could not let Teddy Daniel, the U.S. marshal lost in this leaded waste land, faces his despair alone.
DiCaprio's furry brows and clear baby eyes hold us to the screen as much as we would want to leave this Island behind us too. His search for the proper answer to atrocities and manipulation (should we stay civilized, should we let our outrage wrecks loose, should we retreat in a dream world of our own making where we are the heroes: protecting all the innocents, including our fragile egos, our so delicate minds and susceptibilities...), his quest for the meaning of being humane in a climate of provoked paranoia and delusions make us hope in turn for his success. Finding an answer could really help us right now to face the everyday craziness and hysteria of the contemporary American landscape, tea bags and all.
But of course, his success is our demise. Not a pretty picture for us who are left in the asylum with our crazy doctors and bad hospital food. This man fall from grace leaves us with a bitter after taste.
With Ben Kingsley making an appearance, used as always as the devious joker sprung from a very creaky Jack-in-a-box.
And I must add: those are some mighty powerful matches...
As you can see: there is a problem. It is huge and not just, as those pics suggest, in 'under' developed countries.
Europe and the States have their own 'over' developed, 'over' polluted water bay to think about.
Ellen Brown has reported that the public bank option is gaining support. According to Brown, four states are considering the concept, which is a proven banking system for North Dakota. This end run around the useless Too-Big-To-Fail comatose banks is a real threat to Wall Street. But this concept is perfectly legal. The four states considering the bill are Michigan, Washington, Illinois, and Massachusetts.
I have written about the "Move Your Money" concept and certainly this public bank system would strengthen the community banks. Perhaps in the aftermath of this states rights movement, Ben Bernanke wants absolute control over the smaller community banks. Indeed, if these banks caused the economy to grow, he would have less ability to tamp down inflation by controlling lending, as he does now by giving banks the option to borrow low and invest in treasuries instead of main street.
Ben would have to go back to monetary policy or capital requirement controls to control the overheating of the economy. That would be good because it would mean that ponzi housing scams and the like would not be so manageable. We don't want them to be manageable because we don't want them to happen. If big banks knew that they were vulnerable to assured destruction in the face of their ponzi excesses, then the likelyhood of anything like this happening again would diminish.
Indeed, the public state banks could diminish the power of the New World Order in economics.
Not only have these four states opted to consider the state bank concept, but there are seven candidates running on the state bank platform. Ellen Brown has reported that these candidates view Washington as having abdicated responsibility for making sure that the states can keep their budgets under control. She makes the case that the only state left with a surplus is the only state with a public state bank, North Dakota.
It is time that the issuance of money be returned to the people, and indeed, through state public banks this would be the effect. I hope that we can get behind the concept. We could even nationalize the Fed to make sure that lending is placed with effective banks, not comatose ones.
The Fed, then, would have still power to control the overheating of the economy by the tried and true methods of interest rate control or by simply requiring higher capital requirements for all banks. For those who think that interest rate control is not the way to go, then perhaps that method could be abandoned in favor of simply requiring the higher capital requirements in times of excess money creation.
Then there would be no more stealing from the taxpayer in order to make banks whole. This simply must stop and banks cannot profit off treasuries in the way that they have been doing. Most of us are in agreement that stealing from the treasury is a bad idea. This idea of state banks that Ellen Brown has championed for some time may just be the way to rescue main street from the excesses of Wall Street and rescue the average Joe from the credit crisis. Disclosure: No positions
I am retired from Fresno County. I like to blog and comment on financial matters. I knew of the housing bubble in late 2005, way before Cramer. And I am an all star on Hubpages with over 100 hubs published. My handle is "bgamall" on Hubpages. I am most proud of:... More
Well, being in Greedland, one have to align oneself to the level of the Greed people and talk a language they will understand.
To get their attention, words like Democracy, Freedom and Respect can't translate well since they mean an entirely new thing in Greed speech as we can see when Pope Glen Beck the Loonie and Fuhrer Rush use them to talk to the fateful masses.
So, the only alternative left is to vote with your money. Put your cash where YOUR will is not theirs.
Not a new concept, I know, but still effective. Most of the time old ideas (like Democracy, Freedom and Respect) are the way to go. Look at how Repug have been using the same scare tactics since the Reconstruction and how it still work like a Swiss clock!
So here's a wonderful tool to help you think before you shop:
Companies donate to political campaigns in order to gain some leverage over policy making processes. This fun interactive graphic (via) allows you to see which companies donate primarily to Republican and Democratic campaigns, and which straddle the political fence. These are the companies with the largest total contribution:
The most Republican leaning:
The most Democratic leaning:
You can also search by type of company. For example, media and entertainment:
Transportation:
Pharmaceuticals:
Taxes are being raised. Draconian cuts in services are being made. Public employees are being fired. The tissue-thin national economic recovery is being undermined. And in many cases, the most vulnerable populations — the sick, the elderly, the young and the poor — are getting badly hurt.
Arizona, struggling with a projected $2.6 billion budget shortfall, took the drastic step of scrapping its Children’s Health Insurance Program. That left nearly 47,000 low-income children with no coverage at all. Gov. Jan Brewer is also calling for an increase in the sales tax. She said, “Arizona is navigating its way through the largest state budget deficit in its long history.”
In New Jersey, the newly elected governor, Chris Christie, has proposed a series of budget cuts that, among other things, would result in public schools receiving $820 million less in state aid than they had received in the prior school year. Some well-off districts would have their direct school aid cut off altogether. Poorer districts that rely almost entirely on state aid would absorb the biggest losses in terms of dollars. They’re bracing for a terrible hit.
For all the happy talk about “no child left behind,” the truth is that in Arizona and New Jersey and dozens of other states trying to cope with the fiscal disaster brought on by the Great Recession, millions of children are being left far behind, and many millions of adults as well.
“We’ve talked in the past about revenue declines in a recession,” said Jon Shure of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “but I think you have to call this one a revenue collapse. In proportional terms, there has never been a drop in state revenues like we’re seeing now since people started to keep track of state revenues. We’re in unchartered territory when it comes to the magnitude of the impact.”
Massachusetts, which has made a series of painful cuts over the past two years, is gearing up for more. Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, told The Boston Globe: “There’s no end to the bad news here. The state fiscal situation is already so dire that any additional bad news is magnified.”
California has cut billions of dollars from its education system, including its renowned network of public colleges and universities. Many thousands of teachers have been let go. Budget officials travel the state with a glazed look in their eyes, having tried everything they can think of to balance the state budget. And still the deficits persist.
In the first two months of this year, state and local governments across the U.S. cut 45,000 jobs. Additional layoffs are expected as states move ahead with their budgets for fiscal 2011. Increasingly these budgets, instead of helping people, are hurting them, undermining the quality of their lives, depriving them of educational opportunities, preventing them from accessing desperately needed medical care, and so on.
The federal government has tried to help, but much more assistance is needed.
These are especially tough times for young people. “What we’re seeing now in Arizona and potentially in New Jersey and other states spells long-term trouble for the nation’s children,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, a pediatrician who is president of the Children’s Health Fund in New York and a professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
“We’re looking at all these cuts in human services — in health care, in education, in after-school programs, in juvenile justice. This all points to a very grim future for these children who seem to be taking the brunt of this financial crisis.”
Dr. Redlener issued a warning nearly a year ago about the “frightening” toll the recession was taking on children. He told me last April, “We are seeing the emergence of what amounts to a ‘recession generation.’ ”
The impact of the recession on everyone, of whatever age, is only made worse when states trying to balance their budgets focus too intently on cutting services as opposed to a mix of service cuts and revenue-raising measures.
As Mr. Shure of the Center on Budget noted, “The cruel irony is that in a recession like this, the people’s needs go up at the same time that the states’ ability to meet those needs goes down.”
Budget cuts also tend to weaken rather than strengthen a state’s economy, especially when they entail furloughs or layoffs. Government spending stimulates an economy in recession. And wise spending is an investment in everyone’s quality of life.
All states have been rocked by the Great Recession. And most have tried to cope with a reasonable mix of budget cuts and tax increases, or other revenue-raising measures. Those that rely too heavily on cuts are making guaranteed investments in human misery.
I hope that John Cory will forgive me if I try to share his outrage and hunger for justice.
We must stop the insanity: it must be done before irreparable damage is done to this country and it becomes ungovernable by normal citizens.
We are seeing a wonderfully orchestrate coup by the corporate powers that be to hijack a whole nation for profit. Their only line of defence is that this treasured pie will soon be shared through jobs creation and all this power and all the riches will trickle down to the Wal Mart masses.
Sure.
Sign the petition: at least, you'll be able to have your Howard Beale's moment from the movie Network and let it all out: 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!'
Sometimes, insanely defending humanity is the only response to people drunk on numbers, guns and power.
American flag behind barbed wire, and all that implies, 06/15/09. (photo: Public domain)
am angry.
I'm tired of pundits and know-nothing media gasbags. I'm tired of snarky "inside politics" programming. I am sick of the bigotry and hatred of "birthers" and faux patriotic cranks and their GOP puppet masters. And I'm really pissed at the Democratic Party that confuses having a plate of limp noodles with having a spine.
I'm going to vomit if I hear the word "bipartisanship" one more time.
It was "bipartisanship" that gave us this activist conservative Supreme Court. A Supreme Court that says money is free speech and corporations are persons except when real people try to hold them accountable for their greed and poisonous ways.
"Bipartisanship" gave us the Patriot Act and FISA and illegal wiretaps and two wars and "free speech zones" and "no fly" lists. God bless bipartisan America.
I get nauseated every time the Senate explains how it takes a super majority to do anything for the American people. Tell you what Senate Bozos, if it takes 60 votes to pass legislation then it should take 60% of the popular vote to get you elected.
When some Tea Party crank says, "I want my country back," I respond, "No madam, you want your country backward."
When a deficit-mongering politician says, "How do we pay for this?" Why not ask, "What did you Republicans do with the surplus we Democrats left you?"
When a compassionate conservative says, "Healthcare reform is socialism," why not answer, "No, sir it is the moral and American way to care for people."
Yes, I can hear it now: "You are naïve and simplistic. These are complicated matters and require sophisticated solutions. Democrats are a big tent and strive for balance. But Republicans block our path at every turn. We are thinking and considering new ways to work in harmony with everyone."
Bite me.
The only thing you get with "harmony" is a Barbershop Quartet.
Democrats stop being Republican Lite. Stop whining about that mean GOP and their nasty messaging. Grow a pair, get a message, get a bumper sticker and hang it out there. Get some strong vivid talking points.
G-O-P = Greed Over People.
Greed Kills - jobs, people and the economy.
Terrorism is Viagra for Republicans: The more fear - the more excited they get.
When a soldier dies for America, who dares ask if they were gay or straight?
Don't act so shocked, Democratic Party. Have you looked around lately?
You're losing the young vote that showed up to elect Obama. You're losing those old enough to remember real Democrats. Why? Because you don't talk to them any more than you talk to me. You talk at me. You talk around me. You talk down to me. You talk about me. You don't talk with me. And you don't inspire and you don't champion and without that you are nothing more than an arbitrator of compromise and abdication.
You are facing a bully. Deal with it!
Republicans want the country backwards. They champion superstition over science because it entrenches ignorance and bigotry and captures the easily frightened.
Republicans treat the Constitution the way they treat the Bible, with selective interpretation and selective application to others while exempting themselves from judgment and accountability.
Republicans preach the gospel of fear because fear is darkness and darkness covers their theft of civil liberties and Constitutional principles.
For thirty years the Republican Party has claimed the mantle of law and order but now quake in dread of the American judicial system when putting terrorists on trial. How criminal is that?
Torture is illegal. Period. John Wayne and Jack Bauer were not our Founding Fathers - only in the make-believe world of Republican drugstore-patriots.
DADT needs to be repealed. Now. It is unconscionable, immoral, and disgusting.
Empathy, compassion and equality are not pejoratives. They are American values proven again and again throughout our history.
Republicans believe that bake-sales and cookies for chemotherapy best determine the value of life and healthcare because life is a pre-existing condition and the "free market" should not have to take on such a high risk - after all, no one gets out alive, so why should the corporation be left holding the bag? Unless of course the price is right.
Republicans believe that government should keep its hands off healthcare but should put its hands inside a woman's body.
Republicans believe in small government - small enough to hold the "right" people and small enough to be owned and operated by the "right" people. And who are the "right" people? Them. Not you.
Democratic Party, DNC, DLCC, DSCC or whatever your acronym - I have only one question for you: Really?
You can't win against these guys? You can't get your message out against these guys? You can't give America leadership against these guys?
Where I am, there is a small blizzard and the girls are joyously rioting in the snow.
But for me, to paraphrase Shaky, this is the winter of my discontent.
The political landscape that is emerging from the cold here is one of catastrophic, epic shithole proportion.
Stephen Harper have decided that he doesn't need parliament to have a good time after all and decreed - by some imaginary superhero' s omnipotence - that they can all go take a hike until March... because the economy is getting better and he needs to think!
In my birth country, the judges of the Supreme Court have decided that corporation needed free reign on every political aspect of governance and could flux and influence as many 'guns-for-hire' they wanted to make sure their satisfaction was guaranteed.
And Haiti, birth place of my mother and her 12 long-exiled siblings, is oozing and burning like an infected blister in the sun, while every doctor on the planet is making promises of doing something very soon about it.
Obama - and this is no typo - Obama lost Massachussetts' election AND the Kennedy seat (!) because he believed- unlike every single voter that choose his name over McPalin - the right-wing dream pairing of the century- that he must represent the center and keep the Bushes' legacy alive. Even if it means taking the blame for all their failures, excesses, ugliness, law breaking craziness and their deficit.
Somehow, change meant not rocking the boat.
Believe me, I know he must feel pressured from all over to keep quiet, lay low and let the Big Boys handle it. He actually, like Colin Powell before him, spent all his political capital, credence and reputation for the status quo so as to make those Big Boys as comfy as possible.
All the while, the middle class and Main Street were ready to follow him anywhere as long as it wasn't to More of the Same.
But he's not the only one that should be blamed.
Those famous blue dog Dems should all be called teh 'We're in the Pockets of the Healthcare Industry ... and They're in Mine! Tee-Hee!' stupid coalition. They're exchangeable monkeywrenches needed to grind everything to a halt.
And the Supreme Court just gave them a raise. Indirectly, of course...
Now what?
What is wrong with this pictures? The entire population wants Obama to create jobs while keeping government spending low. Most gave a blank check to the private sector and are still waiting for the trickle down thingy to take effect. (Jobs? From the private sector? They have jets and bonuses to think of!) They want the Golden Days to come back but without any rules, unions, taxes, trade barriers and a war that eats 70% of all the government's budget.
Yeah... Right...
Mr. President. Good luck. And forgive the Middle Class because they just don't know in what mess they're in. Too bad they'll blame you for all of it.
But I can't help it, I still hope for you. Read a lefty someday. Better yet: take one in your administration. They might surprise you. Maybe even help you. You would need a friend.
(The) conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defence with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Nobody was duped. Really. Secret report 'leaked'. A General giving speeches out of the border criticizing his Commander-In-Chief. Gates saying, before even reading McChrystal's paper, thathe is sure that it will be on target'and set for the challenges we have in front of us.'
The military wants to do war. On a big scale.
It does not want to stop. For security reasons? Maybe.
For political and financial reasons? Surely.
Well, that's what the journalist Seymour Hersh thinks.
In addition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States military is also fighting a war against the Obama administration at the White House, Seymour Hersh said in a little-noted speech at Duke University on October 13. The military is "in a war against the White House -- and they feel they have Obama boxed in," he said.
Hersh, a Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist who exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq, sees an undercurrent of racism in the Pentagon's dealings with the White House. "They think he's weak and the wrong color. Yes, there's racism in the Pentagon. We may not like to think that, but it's true and we all know it."
"A lot of people in the Pentagon would like to see him get into trouble," he said. By leaking information that the commanding officer in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says the war would be lost without an additional 40,000 American troops, top brass have put Obama in a no-win situation, Hersh contended.
"If he gives them the extra troops they're asking for, he loses politically," Hersh said. "And if he doesn't give them the troops, he also loses politically."
Hersh considers the worsening situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan as the principal test of the Obama presidency, which will require the cooperation of the top military brass. Obama must face up to the military, Hersh said. "He's either going to let the Pentagon run him or he has to run the Pentagon." If he doesn't, according to Hersh, "this stuff is going to be the ruin of his presidency."
Actually, let's put it another way. Stop the war, get healthcare to pay for itself.
The wars crippled the nation. We started something we just couldn't afford. The time has come for O.B. Man to learn from past mistakes and take the steps to create wealth by creating peace. And jobs.
Don't let war, big porky business and neowingnuts eviscerate everything we hold dear for a buck and a half and a private jet.
Again, in the famous words of President Eisenhower:
'America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.'
The Banksters have pulled off the biggest heist of all time. They have crashed the global economy, throwing 7.5 million Americans out of work, emptying retirement and college funds and forcing many into hardship and homelessness. Yet they continue to be rewarded with trillions of taxpayer dollars that underwrite their Bankster bonuses, they prey upon the vulnerable with ballooning bank fees and macabre investment schemes such as "death bonds" and their taxpayer-subsidized lobbyists swarm Capitol Hill to prevent the passage of any meaningful reform of the financial system. The Smackdown Starts Now
This fall is a critical time. Congress is now taking up a series of bills to restore confidence in the financial sector. If you want to rein in the Banksters and if you think America deserves better than a "boom and bail" economy, you need to muscle up and weigh in. Only you can tell Congress to prioritize the interests of Main Street over the interests of Wall Street.
www.BanksterUSA.org is the go-to site for updates on the financial services re-regulation fights in Congress and for progressive netroots campaigning against the big boys on Wall Street.
Our "Action Center" is a hotbed of popular campaigning on the crisis.
We know that it is wrong that a full year since the Wall Street meltdown no employee of any major American bank or blue chip financial institution is behind bars. Compare this to the Savings and Loan crisis 20 years ago. No less than 1,852 S&L officials were prosecuted and 1,072 were jailed.
Our motto? Too big to fail, but not too big for jail! Click here to email the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI and tell them to get cracking!
This week Congress is debating a key Obama administration reform proposal, one that would create a new "top cop" for consumers in the form of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). This new agency will tackle abusive lending practices and protect consumers from the deceptive tricks and traps of the financial services industry. We need to pass a strong bill to empower the agency to do battle with the Banksters, but the Banksters have promised to "kill" it.
Click here to tell Congress to ignore the Banksters and "Put a New Sheriff on the Block" with a Consumer Financial Protection Agency!
Our Action Center highlights the upcoming "Showdown in Chicago" which promises to be the largest grassroots protest against the Banksters of the American Bankers Association. The Action Center will also help us ramp up the campaign against Goldman Sachs' despicable "death bonds" - an investment scheme you have to see to believe.
Sign up to get the latest news and receive regular email alerts and action items. The Banksters may have the big bucks, but we have the big numbers. The only way to win reform is to make our voices heard!
Don't Let the Banksters Write the History of These Turbulent Times!
The Banksters may be whitewashing, but we can Wiki! We need your help to build a fully-sourced research companion to BankstersUSA.org on the web. It is a collection of editable Wiki profiles of the financial institutions, CEOs, lobbyists, front groups, issues and legislation related to the crisis and the bailout. It builds on our powerful Sourcewatch Wiki with its proven capacity to raise critical information in the Google-sphere so it can be easily found and used by citizens and journalists. We need citizen journalists to help us build this important resource and document the truth about these turbulent times. This Wiki is not a place for editorializing, but for quality research based on top-notch source material. Please visit the "Help Out" section of our Real Economy Project Wiki portal to learn more. It is easy and fun! Our motto? "Fair, accurate and documented." About Us
The www.BanksterUSA.org site and our larger Real Economy Project are part of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). CMD was founded in 1993 as an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, public interest group focusing on exposing corporate spin and government propaganda. CMD brought you the book "Weapons for Mass Deception" before the Bush team failed to find weapons in Iraq, and we exposed "Fake News" in the media and the "Pentagon Pundits" on cable news. With this new effort, we will debunk the spinmeisters of the powerful financial services industry and help ordinary Americans take positive action on the financial crisis and the real economy.
'I really do love him but…' It's what comes to mind every time I see him.
Yes, I'm talking about my ex.
But I'm also talking about my dear President.
The list gets longer after the' but' in my ex's case. Unfortunately, it's starting to be the same situationwith myPrez.
Who writes his speeches? Who could tell him he's not in class or in court anymore? Who could tell him to buy a barf bag, sit down and actually study Bush-moron Junior for a little while?
I'mshocked at my self to even suggest this but O.B.Man needs to study the nitwit in chief and let some of his sweat locker monosyllabic charm rub off on him.
'O the Man' forgot that what he was voted for was to be the champion of the Little Guys of the nation, the champion of inclusion and the end of exploitation of the Everyday people bythe 1% ofthe Porky Pigs (thus, the Nobel. But those feelings of vindication are so long past and forgotten, we just don't know why O's here anymore.)
He should remember that themiddle class put him as Commander-in-Chief to clean house and bustheads. (Yeah… They were stereotyping.) And he needs to lead by being clear about his targets, zeroing in on identifiable enemies and stopping all appeasement actions toward the neo-KKK movement now at the heart of the so-called Republican party.
'Cynical claims...' speech lingo, talk-show tennis talk and, no, not even a consumer protection bill won't cut it (Funnily enough, most won't feel concern about it as rules can sometimes be easily circumvent by business, as we all saw…)
We feel hesitancy, anxiety anddownright unwillingness to shake up the established order of things. People pleasing is not an attractive quality in a leader.
Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis talks about the need for the US to remember who we are.I would add a nuance and say that the US needs to remember that we can change andaccomplished more by cooperation than savage competition. That we always did. That's who we can be anytime we chose to. And no one give a tone and a sense of identity or direction to this nation as it's President.
Well, it's between him and Paris Hilton.
Seriously though, Obama is poised to become one of the greatest.If he can find the right voice to communicate with his constituents, if he can learn from all his predecessors and most importantly, if he starts to yield a big whacking stick that he'll use unapologetically for the common good.
am angry.
