Occupy Salem Oregon

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esterday, in the late afternoon, we stopped by Willson Park adjacent to the Capitol building of the state of Oregon, where the Occupy Salem people are camped.  We dropped off some coolers as they do have a tent for a food center but don't have refrigeration.  Or water.  The coolers were greeted with thanks.  People were very friendly and we were offered a tour:

First the publicity and media communication tent.  Then the medical.  Then the communication tent where they've established contact with other Occupy cities not only in America.

Our guide, an easy going and voluble man with long graying hair, showed us around and brought us up to speed, telling us that Governor Kitzhaber was not being cooperative with the group. Even though Kitz is a liberal. I found this news a hard to take betrayal. I voted for the man and cheered when he won. But on second thought it is just another nail in the coffin of liberalism.

"Did you know," he said. As he spoke he waved his hand in the direction of about 20 tents of different colors and sizes; housing for committed people who were there for the long haul. "There are 1700 cities, in America alone, who are doing this.  We are expecting to be joined by a delegation from Occupy Portland this very evening."

A tall, handsome young man came up to us.  He turned out to be part of the medical team.  "You probably won't be reading in the main stream media about what I am about to tell you," he said.  "In Iraq," he said, "a huge group of American soldiers have taken a park in downtown Falugia.  They are calling themselves Occupy Falugia.  And they are refusing to carry out their missions.  The command has tried to arrest them--- but had to give up.  How do you arrest a hundred thousand armed soldiers?

We got to the big board which spells out the groups intentions.  Prominent in the list is the label, Spirituality--- and next to it our pastor's name, Rick Davis, was displayed.

Improbable Coincidence Control (ICC) suddenly went into operation and as we spoke his name 3 times, exclaiming that we, and therefore, Rick, are Unitarian-Universalists, here came Rick strolling into view.  As he approached Rick announced that he was organizing all the leaders of the entire religious community of Salem to take part there. Rick embraced Marian and then turned to me and opened his arms to hug me.

It seemed an auspicious meeting.

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Our tour guide, a sympatico sort of man, the sort of person you would hope to encounter in such a place, at such a time, introduced himself, when Marian and I arrived earlier, with the name of Sarah.

I'd felt it discourteous to ask him to spell it--- so on my mental blackboard I envisioned his name being spelled "Serra" or some such.

Rick was under no such apprehension. "Spell it." Rick said.

"S," Sarah said.

That was fine.

I was fine with "S."

And then he went on.  "a-r-a-h."

Uh-oh!

The feminine spelling.  And yet there was nothing feminine about the fellow.  Grey hair, shoulder length, well trimmed beard, wire frame glasses, plaid shirt, worn jeans --- you know--- the usual aging hippie.

"Sarah,"  Sarah said, "was Jesus sister."

Oh!

Either it was the work of hippie parents or else it was his own hippie affectation.  Nevertheless, Sarah was a most accomodating fellow.  He took us to the wonderful huge Douglas Fir tree, very near the white marble Capitol, which grows in the center of a deep, luxurious carpet of faded evergreen needles.

Lovely spot for a service.

Peaceful.

Rick and Sarah went on and I turned back to Marian and the car, as I had reached my limit for walking.  Even though my heart surgery was a full 7 months ago, I still am not yet back up to full speed and endurance.  As we backed the Volvo away from the curb we saw them in the distance--- Rick hugging most everyone he met.

We drove over to the Salem Film Festival. Caught the second showing of the festival film, The Truth Is Out There.  One of the film's interviews was with a Dr.  Monteith, who was full of deep, dark, hidden truths about America.  He came right out and said that the artificial sweetener aspartame is poisonous and causes cancer; and that the placing of so much of it out there is not for profit merely but also that it is a large part of the power elite's plan to murder a very large portion of the population because the elite are angry and fearful that common folk will consume all of their natural resources.  The gloomy interview with Dr. Monteith wound up with him saying that if America doesn't awaken--- and very soon--- it will be too late.  And all Freedom and Democracy will be lost forever.  I flashed on the Occupy Salem camp and thanked the Universe for what appears to be a true awakening.

But after we finished a lite supper of spare ribs, fries and a cold pounder of micro-brewed Hefeveisen beer, we decided to swing by the camp on the way home.  I was disheartened to see that all the housing tents were gone, and only two structures remained. One was the Food Center.  The other was the media communication center, which, as we pulled up was being removed by we don't know who.◘

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Howard Zinn On Revolution

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here is a power that can be created out of pent-up indignation, courage, and the inspiration of a common cause, and that if enough people put their minds and bodies into that cause, they can win…. Note how often...we have been surprised. By the sudden emergence of a people's movement, the sudden overthrow of a tyranny, the sudden coming to life of a flame we thought extinguished. We are surprised because we have not taken notice of the quiet simmerings of indignation, of the first faint sounds of protest, of the scattered signs of resistance that, in the midst of our despair, portend the excitement of change. The isolated acts begin to join, the individual thrusts blend into organized actions, and one day, often when the situation seems most hopeless, there bursts onto the scene a movement.


– Howard Zinn

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We Are What We've Been Waiting For

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ich Lowry is so unhappy about the grass roots uprising Occupy Wall Street he could only spit out such unmemorable rhetoric as pathetic, and other aspersions which, of course, merely indicate his own profound anger and disappointment that he finds himself once again of the wrong side of truth.  Then too there is the other bitter pill he must swallow: namely that the Koch brothers are not funding this real grass roots uprising as opposed to the billionaires' astro turf.  Occupy Wall Street as it spreads across the country, with far more energy than the the Tea-Baggers, constitute an intelligent answer to the vastly ignorant Tea Baggers.  We know what we are talking about.

They loved Sarah Palin because, in the words of one Tea-baggin' lady, "She will give us freedom!"

Right.  Next.

There is so much to say about this phenomenon of American Uprising, (which actually began in Wisconsin;) and pathetic and the like, are not words which will adequately describe it.  Lowry seems most pissed off that the whole episode of resistance of average Americans to the criminality of Wall Street and banksters, and the appalling fact that the Department of Justice has done nothing to indict, and punish these creeps for their mendacity and craven exploitation of the American 99%.  Poor Rich.  

We are The People; our moment has come.  The evil Republicans and I use the word after long consideration, have become inhuman in their heartlessness, their lack of compassion and their bold mindset of maintaining their fast crumbling illusion at all costs.

Joe Klein in Time Magazine the other day, quotes a woman--- Esmerelda something something, whose quick answer to his question, Why are you a Republican went like this:  "Because we believe in independence.  We don't believe in Social Security, state run health care, welfare, and unemployment insurance. We make it on our own."  That seemed like a good answer as far as Joe Klein was concerned.

But for me, not so much.

Esmerelda Lipschitz or whatever her name, seems to be one of those Republicans who seem organically incapable of remembering that the richest of rich corporations, historically in the 20th Century, have run to Congress for a quick couple of billion anytime their bonuses start scraping down in the single digit millions.  And Congress for its part is more than delighted to fork over as much as they can get away with.

We call that Corporate Welfare.

So Esmerelda prefers Corporate Welfare to really helping people who actually need it.

"Plenty for us,"  goes Esmerelda's mindset, "None for you."  Esmerelda loves privatism of everything on earth, and she just hates everything about socialism--- except, once again, where her sacred corporations are concerned.

And a correlary of that short-sighted view is corporations get to privatize profit and socialize losses.  In other words, Esmeralda's fantasy, if it were to be actualized, amounts to the Law of the Jungle.  As if civilization had never existed.

And here comes Elizabeth Warrens very astute argument which snags Republicanism before it gets out of the gate.  Nobody, ever got rich on their own.  They love to claim that is what happened but NO, the roads which take their product to market are paid by us, the 99%.  The education of the labor force which made their product was paid for by us.  And so on.


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Whatever happens, whether Obama gets back into office or not, it doesn't matter, the fact is that as far as real Americans are concerned, the Republicans might as well pack up and go home.  They now have as much chance of re-gaining the White House or the House of Representatives not to mention the Senate as a pig has of flying.    

The GOP's Un-American Toxic Agenda

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aul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winning economist, in his column, took Eric Cantor to task today.  The thing about Krugman which has always struck me as fascinating, is that Krugman has usually been right on the money with his political and economic forecasts. In fact, I'd go so far as to say Krugman averages better than your local TV weather guy. One very important point Krugman pointed out about Cantor is his hypocrisy, saying that Cantor once voted against a bill designed to cut funding for disaster relief and now he is the snake-in-the-woodpile of the GOP's latest attack on vulnerable Americans.  Surely nobody has missed the brutal and uncivilized GOP tactic; the pattern which now comprises a large portion of their agenda: taking poor Americans hostage whenever they want their way.

Shooting down Eric Cantor is a very sensible thing to do; but much as I love and admire Krugman, I think he misses the real point here.  What has not been said loud enough of the GOP's current exercises in criminal thuggery is that the vileness which they show to the world is not even a hint of the evil which lies hidden by their deliberate muddying of the waters of American politics.

The good people of America, those who love truth, justice and the common good, as all or at least most of the intelligent do, will never bow to the vulgarity and the irresponsible heartlessness, indeed, the twisted mindset of the conservative right wingers.  There are of course always the deviants and degenerates like the Koch brothers, the billionaire funders of the Tea Party, generous hosts to the wayward members of the Supreme Court, declared enemies of the Obama administration, not to mention  proud sponsors of the much PBS programming.  Unhappily the brothers are not alone.  There are numerous behind the scenes, absurdly wealthy conservatives, and among them many religious fanatics who work unceasingly to disrupt this country's way of life to bring it to the Bible.  They work to supplant the humanism of the US Constitution with their own version of American Theocracy.

May they all drop dead!

But enough backstory; on to the real evil.  The hidden design is to disrupt and bring the Federal government into such an uproar of chaos and corruption, that the American people will eventually come to hate the government.  When the American public comes to hate everything which speaks of a Central Government, the Anti-American forces of the GOP will have won their final victory.

Please note that I speak of the current crop of Republican and Tea party political leadership.  The old guard Republicans, from the Eisenhower era are principled, compassionate lovers of truth and justice.  They hate what their once proud party has become.


I really cannot say it better than the author of the essay "Goodbye To All That" in which he tells us that he was, for most of his life, a loyal conservative Republican.  But now the grand old party of Lincoln, has become so over run with unsavory types like Bachman, Perry, Gingrich--- to name just a few, that he can no longer stay. 
I quote:

John P. Judis sums up the modern GOP this way:

"Over the last four decades, the Republican Party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. It is the party of Watergate and Iran-Contra, but also of the government shutdown in 1995 and the impeachment trial of 1999. If there is an earlier American precedent for today's Republican Party, it is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John Calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery."

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

Therefore, it is time to loudly call out the Anti-American forces among us.  And that would be the corporate wealthy and their minions, the corrupt GOP of the decades since Reagan. ♦    

Bertrand Russell On Libs and Cons

he fundamental difference between the liberal and the illiberal outlook is that the former regards all questions as open to discussion and all opinions as open to a greater or lesser measure of doubt, while the latter holds in advance that certain opinions are absolutely unquestionable, and that no argument against them must be allowed be heard.

What is curious about this position is the belief that if impartial investigation were permitted it would lead men to the wrong conclusion, and that ignorance is, therfore, the only safeguard against terror. This point of view cannot be accepted by any man who wishes reason rather than prejudice to govern human action.

Isn't it wonderful how like a cool breeze in August is a bit of clear reason.  Thank you Bertie for that.  And there we have it.  In just a few short sentences Russell has defined the difference between the two most prevalent modes of thought, really though, the two modes of perceiving the world we live in.   Odd that so many Americans simply are unable to wrap their minds around truth.  Preferring instead to hide their heads in the barrage of outrageous lies known as FOX NEWS.

Free Speech Re-Visited

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ugene Debs, the great humanitarian and socialist,  made a speech to an audience of factory workers in their Union Hall.  It was this speech, (which you will find below,) delivered in Ohio, in the year 1918, the American Midwest, heart of the Land of the Free was interrupted by the marauding police who had no business being there, never-mind arresting a  man for making a speech.  Never-mind that the speech pointed out the history of the exploitation of the poor working class by the rich.  First with the nobles, the aristocracy, and then by the wealthy corporations.  And he was imprisoned for it.

The Supreme Court sentenced Eugene Debs to 10 years in the state penitentiary, as if he were a criminal; and no parole or time off for good behavior.

So much for the Constitutional guarantees and protections of Free Speech in America.

Do not speak to me of Free Speech in America.

Debs mentioned how, in the Middle Ages, the land owning lords declared war on one another and sent the poor serfs to fight their battles. And to die for their precious land owning lord.  Nowadays, in this more enlightened age, the self-anointed Lords of the Universe, in their corner offices on Wall Street, declare war on distant countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, as well as the tax payers of Main Street, and send off the working class to fight their battles for them.

No, the Corporations of 1918 did not want their workers' ears to be abused with speeches which exposed the truth about how they were exploited by the rich industrialists in the never ending class war.   As far back as the early 19th Century, as Thomas Jefferson left the White House he wrote that no standing army was as dangerous to American Liberty as the banks and corporations."  Precious little has changed since then.

And now we have a Supreme Court which last year defined large amounts of money as Free Speech, to my way of thinking, a corrupt decision if ever there was one.  The entire reason for the existence of the Supreme Court of the United States in the first place, was to create a non-partisan system of American justice which would protect the rights and liberties of the little guy.  But now the SCOTUS has closed ranks on the little guy and for several decades has ruled in favor of the large corporation.  And now, just last week, the highest Court handed down a decision, with, of course, the usual 5 to 4 vote, since the Roberts' Court Gang of Five always votes as a block; the decision is now being called Too Big To Sue and it certainly sets a precedent.  Walmart, you see, has been consistent over the years in its' abuse of women in the workplace and finally a class case arrived in the Supreme Court. Needless to say the corrupt Supremes, namely, Thomas, Alito, Scalia, Roberts and Kennedy sided with the giant corporation against the wronged employees.

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Here is the distinguished  actor and activist, Mark Ruffalo, reading Eugene Debs' immortal speech.

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And while we're at it, might as well listen to Debs' short but powerful words to the corrupt court as he was being sentenced.