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The Way It Was: McPherson Square

I visited McPherson Square last week on one of those days when they were expecting a visit from the police--see my story http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Middle-Class-Is-Also-by-Marta-Steele-120201-641.html.

     No police. Hardly anyone there. I described the signs. Here are photos of them plus one of a homeless man who seemed quite mellowed out right where he was.

     The last I heard, there was a court decision allowing the Occupiers to remain there.

     Then came the surprise.

     I couldn't go there today. I have a broken ankle.

     There is another holdout at Freedom Plaza. Good luck to them.

( c )

1 February 2012: The Middle Class Is Also Too Big to Fail, or "O., Hearken unto Harkin, O."

This morning Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) addressed the Center for American Progress (CAP) on "Rebuilding the Middle Class." Some of the material echoes his response to the president's SOTU this year.

     Harkin, who has served in Congress for thirty-eight years--the first ten in the House before he defeated an incumbent to gain the Senate seat he has held for five terms in one of the most conservative states in the country--first referred to his landmark contribution to U.S. legislations and lifestyles, the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), a milestone in the uphill battle in this country to procure equal opportunities for all: equal access to education, health care, and presumably everything else FDR declared to be the Second Bill of Rights, which elaborated on the "pursuit of happiness" clause in the Declaration of Independence.

     The son of a coal miner and ROTC Scholar at the level of higher education, Harkin still lives in the humble home in Iowa where he was born, he said. In 2009, when Senator Ted Kennedy died, he took over as chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and especially Kennedy's lifelong concern to legislate affordable health care for all Americans.

     The senator described his "elegant definition of the American dream": Amanda G. is a young Iowan social worker and her husband a teacher. The couple dreams not of huge wealth but inspiring careers, financial security throughout life, and higher education for their children.

     The Republicans are misguided in their premise that this country can't afford to rebuild its middle class. "The middle class is also too big to fail" (see title above), implied by this, quotes the words of the Vice President of Economic Policy at CAP, Michael Ettinger.

     And then came a fact that always mystifies me: the United States has the highest per capita income in the world and is the richest country in the world. Think of the $1.1 trillion deficit this year and the astronomical national debt (is it around $14 trillion or even more?).

     Harkin said that the huge growth in technology and other global changes contributed to the problems of the middle class, along with bad policy decisions that included the encouragement of outsourcing.

     He stressed the importance of not only job creation but the need for good jobs. To the claim that the government can't create jobs, he referred back to all of Abraham Lincoln's accomplishments for the common welfare even as this country fought the Civil War, as well as to FDR's federal initiatives that so fostered the survival and growth of the middle class.

     Harkin's Rebuild America Act comprises comprehensive legislation encompassing 1) infrastructure and manufacturing; 2) preparing all workers for twenty-first century-level employment; 3) empowering workers; 4) pensions; and 5) strengthening families.

     Under the first heading come supporting a manufacturing economy--overseas they are doing better at promoting domestic industry; financial opportunity; trade laws; changing tax laws; and promoting more research and development.

     Under the second heading appear challenge grants to encourage skills training, for both recent immigrants and other special-needs populations as well as others; and the need to improve the quality of teachers and supplying financial incentive in this process.

     The third heading encompasses raising the minimum wage, with cost-of-living increases as needed; overtime pay; unionization and other recognition of workers' rights; and penalties to employers who do not adhere to the preceding categories.

     Two-thirds of the disabled populations are now unemployed, the senator told us. Tax credits are needed to address this situation until it improves.

     In the fourth category, pensions have eroded, spreading understandable anxieties among the middle class. Thirty years ago, 50 percent of workers held permanent pensions. Today, a mere 20 percent enjoy them, while another 40 percent have only 401k provisions for retirement and another 40 percent have no provisions at all.

     In the fifth category, the senator praised the Affordable Health Care legislation recently passed [and soon to be challenged by the Supreme Court], regretting the moniker "sandwich generation" attached to those required to work two and three jobs at a time to support their families. He proposed block grants to prepare preschool children for subsequent educational experiences and family leaves from work in the evident of sickness or other difficulties.

     A sixth category then surfaced: how will all the above be financed? Through separate legislation, the senator answered his own question, taxing Wall Street trading at a rate charged until 1996, three cents on every hundred million dollars [hard to believe]. FDR doubled this rate. The senator also recommended enforcement of the "Buffett rule," that employers be prevented from paying income at the same rate or lower rate than do their employees [presuming the employer earns more than his/her employee].

     Back to generalities, the senator noted how trickle-down economics has failed to "percolate up"--one cannot fertilize a tree at the top, but only at the roots, he said. Congress and the government must have the backbone to rebuild the middle class.

     Harkin said that he was eager for feedback and "mild" criticism from the public.

     In answer to an audience question, the senator said that he's investigating for-profit educational institutions, which are "ripping off the poor," "run by hedge funds," and in these ways building up a massive debt--college graduate debts are higher than those accrued through credit cards. Harkin would like to see improvement in the oversight of Pell grants and student loans.

     Banks must also write off the huge fortune of mortgage debt crippling the country. In the nineteen eighties Congress rescheduled farmers' debts that were so overwhelming the industry was crumbling. More support is needed for rentals and other housing of the poor and near-poor, and what better time is there than now, when the federal government is borrowing at zero percent interest?!

     Answering another question, Harkin said that partnerships should be formed between industry and community colleges, funded by the federal government, to train workers to transition to the newly computer-driven economy.

     For-profit universities and colleges aren't all bad, said the senator, qualifying his earlier tirade.

     The hands raised were many and the audience question time limited. I would have asked how he imagined he could get such legislation through Congress; Harkin had mentioned that executive-branch support for his projects was about fifty-fifty. I would have asked whether President Obama might be persuaded to issue an executive order to activate all of the senator's far-reaching and excellent objectives. After a glance at the definition of the rubric "executive order," I quickly found that such orders have in the past "resulted in legal proceedings." (from Wikipedia)

     Why am I not surprised if not discouraged?

*****

After the CAP event, I visited the Occupation at McPherson Square in downtown DC. The tents are still there, though all of the daily living accoutrements have been ordered removed. The People's Library and Information Tent are still there, and a huge, blue and decorated "dream" tarp covers the statue of Major General McPherson on horseback.

     I spoke to a homeless man dressed very warmly, who said that he sleeps in his tent without bedding and will exit the tent if warned to. I spoke to a homeless artist. I took many pictures of witty signs that included "Help, police! My job is missing and has been stolen!" "Unemployed and with a 'Made in America' birth certificate," "I'm dreaming of my First Amendment rights," "Evicted from home by the banks; evicted from [here] by the police; the 99% has no safe place to rest," and "This is a workspace."

     Where are the photos? Somewhere in cyberspace between my cell phone and my computer. I'll put up a photographic essay or add to this story when they materialize.

     Thank you for your patience.

( c )

O's SOTU, ANNOTATED: BIDEN AND A SLICE OF FACE

The first time I watched a session of the UK parliament on television, I marveled at how physically fit they all were in the House of Commons, bobbing up and down like the pegs in that children's toy: smash one and another pops up.

     Audiences of the SOTU don't pop up and down that often. They stand for longer times. But there wasn't that much standing at this year's SOTU. And I heard a few BOO's also, one the last sound before the president began his speech.

     Then, up above the prez for some reason, the VP and Speaker of the House sit looking down on him--God and the devil? So it seemed this evening as Biden got full camera while only the far right of Boehner's visage was apparent, a slice. No symmetry there or in Congress. A microcosm perhaps. I studied camera foci as much as I listened to Obama's plea for four more years or, as the ABC commentators said, his response to three months of Republican campaign attacks.

     I heard Diane Sawyer's count of nine months and three days until Election Day and I couldn't help but think of another greater speech that began with "Four score and seven years." Indeed Obama did hearken back to at least one distinguished Republican, Abe Lincoln. Oh, come on. Lincoln's statue would shatter at that parallel. Speak softly, Bar.

     Other pre-SOTU thoughts from Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos: two-thirds of the country don't believe that things in this country are getting better. Congress is as divided as we've ever seen it. But how Gabrielle Giffords has twice brought together Congress as a unit, as if it were a unit, as the Senate marched into the chamber in a single clump tonight. Can't something less drastic than fatal gunfire create nonpartisanship, patriotism?

     Boehmer hadn't spoken to Obama in a month, we were further told; the prez has a score of 54 percent favorability, an achievement that has crept up slowly from the doldrums of--I'm not sure how low a score, but low. And how many incumbents have regained their seats after this pattern? I don't know, but with one open-marriage nut running against a tax evader and outsourcer, stranger things have happened than the incumbent kept. Surely we've chosen the lesser of two evils before. Last time we got whom we wanted, but the two previous times the "worst man won." So "lesser of two evils" is the trope of our times, perhaps.

     I don't mean to diminish the speech itself, which was filled with effective anaphorae like Send me a bill for _____ and Ill sign it." And lots of occurrences of fair" and share" and even an echo of a time long gone, something akin to Yes, we can." That means its campaign time again.

     The camera crew denied us the real show by hiding all but an expressionless slice of Boehner's face. Those shots of Cheney sitting next to Nancy Pelosi were priceless in 2006 and 2007.

     The SOTU described, despite those 66.6% of little faith, how rosy things really are and how the best is yet to come:

     For the first time in nine years the U.S. is out of Iraq, completely out. (Think not of how many died, but how many survived);

     The twenty-year threat of bin Laden is now over (thirty years ago we were friends, though);

     Some troops have returned from Afghanistan, more will return next summer, and think how much money we will be saving; that poor war-shredded country will no longer be a haven for our enemies (forget how much we spent--it wasn't in the budget anyway);

     Our military have exceeded all of our expectations. If we follow their example, we'll learn a lot (no wise cracks, but you know what I'm thinking--all that weaponry that didn't go unused). Tuck this in; the theme returns).

     Here's what we can do: lead the world again in education, high-paying jobs, an economy built to last, rewards for hard work. We can do this. (not "yes, we can!!")

     Consider the twentieth century, a great time when we triumphed over the Great Depression and Fascism. Thence was born the American dream: house, kids, two-car garage, picket fence, mortgage, car loan (desperate housewives?)

     WE MUST BRING BACK THE AMERICAN DREAM! No more failure for many and success reserved for a few (Right, Boehner? Couldn't see his face).

     Remember the huge CRASH in 2008 (that's when I was elected)?

     Banks' gambles didn't pay off--we bailed them out and now they can pay us back with a small fee charged to them for each--(I forget what, but something that will benefit the rest of us)

     There is a division between the District and the rest of the country. And get this: SEND ME A BILL TO BAN INSIDER TRADING IN CONGRESS AND I'LL SIGN IT! (Oh. My. God.)

     We've got to separate lobbyists from donations. That is, lobbyists shouldn't bribe and political donations shouldn't be bribes. (something like that. Uh, run that by again?)

     Criticism of Congress (Boehner, please stop cussing me out back there. Let's be friends);

     Criticism of the executive branch: outdated, remote, watch me slim down the bureaucracy and consolidate all those redundant agencies in five different departments, fr'instance. LET US END MUTUAL DESTRUCTION AND BUILD CONSENSUS (he does endorse free trade later on, which gains a camera shot of the whole Boehner, briefly)

     To quote Lincoln, the government should do for the people only what the people can't do for themselves (Did I get that right? Thunderous applause from below--Lincoln was a Republican! What's in a name?)

     We can make progress in nonpartisanship. WE MUST ACT TOGETHER (camera on Mitch McConnell, expressionless, still as stone, no pop-up peg)

     Let's get rid of Assad (reluctant applause from Boehner)

     And then the camera fixed squarely on Lieberman as the subject of IRAN was broached. The world has come together. We will not step down from those crippling sanctions (cripple Achmedinejad, not the poor people). Peace is still an option (Will there be anybody left?) (Eric Cantor, who has been photographed dry as cement a few times, now applauds.)

     Our oldest alliances are stronger. (Now camera is on grinning Chuck Schumer) We have the closest military involvement ever with Israel; relations with Burma are improving.

     AMERICA IS BACK! WE'RE NOT IN DECLINE!! (standing ovation for a few seconds)

     The U.S. is an indispensable nation in the realm of world affairs (too many people have died, haven't they?)

     We will save half a trillion dollars and still have a wonderful military . . .

     And then, and then, "FREEDOM ENDURES BECAUSE OF THE MILITARY!" (Boehner stands up and applauds--that was worth it)

     Now it is our turn to serve them. Annual V.A. allocations have risen each year of O's administration. New tax breaks will be awarded to firms that hire veterans (the ones who are still functional)

     We will hire new cops and firefighters--veterans will be great for those jobs (Yoo hoo, GI Bill, where are you? $74,000 a year tuition? We will have saved half a trillion clams, don't forget!)

     Again, we can learn from the military; they do not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, or gender (sorry, there is sexism, bad sexism--pardon my irreverence);

     They look out for each other (agreed).

     One of his most prized possessions is a flag given to him by one of the Navy Seals who killed bin Laden. Watching that mission go forward, he sat in between Bill Gates and Hillary Clinton (did Hillary stop applauding long enough to shake hands with Bar? Did he slip more asides to Bill than to Hill? Gates, that is.)

     The mission succeeded because each unit of it trusted each other (and they all blamed 9/11 on bin Laden--again, pardon my irreverence)

     Our destiny (both Republican and Democratic as well as Independent etc.) is stitched together like the fifty stars and thirteen stripes (there's a statistic! Don't lose it! But flags are mass-produced today, Bar. Betsy Ross died a while ago.)

     THERE IS NO CHALLENGE TOO GREAT! LET US JOIN IN OUR COMMON PURPOSE AS WE MOVE FORWARD. AMERICA WILL ALWAYS BE STRONG! ANYONE WHO TELLS YOU OTHERWISE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT! (anyone specific in mind? Evidently not a woman, not even Bachman. Oh, that's the generic "he").

     I twisted things around a bit; the president did not end with a negative. That was just close to the end. Please don't fault me if I haven't quoted verbatim--that's a disclaimer. I did my best. It's been a long day.

     I listened to a few Democratic criticisms and then turned off the tube before the Republicans could charge. I'd seen enough of them. (Watching Eric Cantor clap O. on both shoulders as if his Mom were behind him pinching him was enough).

     First, the decision to allow young illegal immigrants to stay and thrive and then lock the border in stone comes a bit late (he wouldn't be campaigning, would he?).

     Then, a speech about everything is a speech about nothing.

     And then, Obama's ratings went up a bit during the speech. And then, we'll have to choose between a cultural populist and an economic populist (Who might they be?).

     Commented Diane Sawyer, "One hour and five minutes" (not four score and seven, by a long shot).

      ( c )

The Rise and Consequences of Inequality: Alan Krueger, Presidential Economist, Addresses CAP

The Center for American Progress (CAP) today welcomed Alan Krueger, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers and former Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy and Chief Economist of the U.S. Department of Treasury.

     Welcoming him was the new president of CAP, Neera Tanden, who let us know that the middle class as the most important ingredient in the economy is a distinctly American phenomenon. currently under attack by the trickle-down economic policy Reagan bequeathed us (but how many times did he raise taxes?). Fully 40 percent of the national income now accrues to the upper class.

     That means, in our case, that only one-third of the children of this generation have a shot at the American dream, continued Tanden. It must be for everyone, though. They must have the same opportunities that we did. The middle class, which contributed so much to the success of the American economy, is no longer benefiting from it.

     Alan Krueger wrestles with these issues every day, she said, yielding the podium to him.

     Krueger said that his specialty was labor economics, appropriate in this day and age for the dialogue on growth and his attempts to understand inequality relative to the job market. Reaganomics over the last three decades has contributed to the decline of the economy, he said.

     Using nine Powerpoint graphs to illustrate his talking points, Krueger told us that 1) the growth rate of income distribution steadily increased between World War II and the 1970s; after that it shrank and the economic classes grew apart;

     2) An exception to the Reaganomic trend halted its effect during the Clinton administration; the economic classes grew together again; Bush 41's tax increase benefited the decade;

     3) In the first decade of the new millennium the median income dropped;

     4) As to after-tax income adjusted for inflation, the top one percent's grew 278 percent between 1979 and 2007; that of the middle class grew by 40 percent;

     5) The top one percent's growth was equal to that of their peers in the 1920s--in today's terms the amount translates to $1.1 trillion, more than the income of the bottom 40 percent of the population;

     6) The percentage of people whose incomes fall at the median point is shrinking, a phenomenon called "polarization." There are fewer in the middle, called "kurtosis," and more on either end.

     As inequality has increased, economic mobility has decreased--that is, it has been stable as a whole because women entered the labor market and their incomes have increased since the seventies, while men's haven't. Parents' income is a good predictor of their children's, relevant, surprisingly, to the height of the father. I hope I have this right. The chance for the child's income to rise is equal to the probability of a short father engendering a tall son. If the parents' income is above average, the chance of the children's to reach that level is 20 percent

     Countries with lower income equality experience less growth.

     7) Since the 1980s there has been a sharp rise in inequality; we expect this inequality to increase but won't know until our children grow old enough to be measured in this regard.

     8) Since the 1980s again, income mobility has risen about 25 percent as a result of the inequality of the preceding thirty years; the fortunes of the parents predict those of their children; inequality will increase in the future unless the middle and lower classes gain access to success; the disparity of wages is key, but this is a focal point of disagreement.

     9) This graph depicts changes wrought by automation, which has favored analytical skills; the income gap between educated and uneducated employees has soared, but the supply of educated employees has decreased; however, the increase in income for those in the fields of finance and real estate between 1999 and 2005 grew by more than 25 percent. Benefits from globalization have been abysmal for others.

     The number of union members has declined from 20 percent to 14 percent of the workforce, which is mirrored by the descent from the middle class into the lower class; Bush-era tax cuts have obviously benefited the wealthy, reducing the "progressivity" of income taxes.

     10) Our "progressivity" is lower than that in other countries and the lowest in our history; in startups there was more job growth in the 1990s than in the 2000s; public policy provides fewer opportunities for poor families and has exacerbated their misfortune. A cut in real estate taxes will benefit the wealthy, as will a cut in estate taxes.

     Families have borrowed beyond their means, which has reduced consumption. According to studies, consumption by upper classes is lower; the top one percent save one-half of their profits, while the lower classes put away 10 percent. Had they been able to save as much as the rich did, the economy would have grown. All in all, the upper class has not been studied that much, despite all the figures given above.

     According to the International Monetary Fund, the more equality there is in our society the more the economy will grow; the reverse is also true. In the realm of microeconomics, morale describes productivity--where there is a disparity among the incomes of workers, morale drops and productivity goes down.

     As to solutions, to recreate the middle class, hard work has been done; health care reform has helped; children aged 19 to 25 benefit from being kept on their parents' insurance policies; tax subsidies granted to small businesses paying competitive insurance rates have helped; the lower classes are always hardest hit by economic "humps." The U.S. Jobs Act has handed an extra $1 thousand per year to the middle class, and the extension of unemployment insurance through this month must be extended once more through the end of this year.

     Opportunities for less-skilled workers are needed; we should use the "Buffett Rule" and make income percentage equal so that secretaries won't be paying out tax percentages greater than do their CEOs; we must return estate taxes to their previous levels and raise taxes on the rich. More fairness of the economy will benefit all, as will growth of the middle class, which will lead to more consumption.

     The first audience question came from Neera Tanden, who asked whether the economy could be improved without a focus on the middle class. Krueger answered that downturns negatively impact lower-class mobility. More money is needed for higher education--this country boasts the best in the world--and for improvement in the infrastructure, which will put many more people to work. The Congressional Budget Office has said that an extension in unemployment benefits will improve the economy.

     Not only do we have the best universities in the world; we also have the most daring entrepreneurs. The world is following this direction.

     Questions from the press had been plentiful, so that after the event many in the audience crowded to the front, including me. I pushed past people shamelessly and as I got toward the front I said, "Left wing!" Surprisingly, the crowd became a circle. I moved ahead and told Mr. Krueger that I wrote for OEN, a left-wing vehicle, and that many readers, alienated from Obama, don't plan to vote for him. What can he say?

     He answered that we should know that the president is working on our behalf every day--there was a meeting session on insourcing yesterday. Our problems were inherited from the preceding decade. Improvements can't happen overnight.

     I wanted to hear that the most recent upturn in the economy can be attributed to something besides trickle-down economics. I wondered how Obama would incorporate this improvement into his campaign and brag about it and take credit for it. I wanted to come away with something new to write about, not just stats bolstering events we all know about. If my economics above aren't exactly accurate, please know that I still want the economy to improve but will leave the technicalities to others.

(c)

5 January 2012: Occupy: Dissecting Occupy Wall Street--
A New Dissection by Danny Schechter
with a foreword by Greg Palast

--KEY QUOTATIONS--

"T]his festering situation is still underway as I write."--D.S.

"We have a right to fight for what's right."--MLK

"Wall Street's banks are not only not too big to fail, but not too big to jail."--D.S.

"You can't evict an idea whose time has come."--poster at #Occupy

"Wall Street already occupies the world. Can OWS dislodge it?"--D.S.

"History is happening."--D.S.

***************************

It is difficult to describe Danny Schechter's Occupy as a dissection, because it paints this monumental event in such colorful terms as it waxes, wanes, and wanders. It is more like a documentary--a multimedia experience that includes narrative (Danny's blogs--picture DS in front of the mike in any of a number of his documentaries); visuals (the signs with their insightful slogans and graphics); photography at the opening of each chapter; poetry and song; the General Assembly's two-part manifesto ("We are daring to imagine a new sociopolitical and economic alternative that offers greater possibility of equality. We are consolidating the other proposed principles of solidarity, after which demands will follow"); quotations from celebrities and talking heads; the Script of a TV Report, "Behind The Scenes of the Occupation," for Press TV's "In Focus" program; the film itself (a separate effort, which I hope is included with the hard copy as a DVD); day-by-day journals by Schechter and finally Wikipedia; and more.

     Danny the filmmaker, Danny the producer of mainstream TV episodes and PBS series, Danny the radio maven, Danny the activist, Danny the dissector has donated to history an invaluable archive, a cornerstone for an edifice that I am sure will rise high above the Gotham landscape, as the people occupy their native land, fighting back the fate that demolished the Native American culture. Has #Occupy heard from the Indians yet?

      One pervasive trope with which I disagree is that goals are unclear--to me 99 versus one is plenty clear and pervasive enough--to the extent that at least one Wall Street financeer sits down with Danny for his lunch break to gripe that while his pension dissolved with the cave-in of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers he met a retired teacher basking in his pension unworried as he nonetheless stands solid with his 99 percenters, as his profession is suffering such abuse at the hands of the one percenters, frustrated that we're not dumbed down enough to accept the abuse with a whisper--of surrender.

      Throughout this multimedia marvel, there are clues that shout down the premise, embedded even in the manifesto (see above), that a bulleted list ("demands," a provocative term that alienates even me) must distill all the drama, all the trauma, all the wounds, all the violence, all the defiance, all the heroism, all the brilliance, all the creativity, all the innovation.

      This book IS a bulleted list. Get over it. We must get past that mentality.

Viz., in Danny's own words:

"[O]ccupy Wall Street has been criticized for not having a program or a blueprint for change. yet, that perceived weakness might be its greatest strength.

"When you enunciate a complicated charter, you lose supporters and give others issues to disagree over. You end up having your own supporters debating the fine points of each issue and risk becoming factionalized."

      I have extracted from the book our bulleted list--forgive the many repetitions, but here it is:

*occupying Wall Street, challenging the power of its economic power;

*campaign against inequality;

*the issues of joblessness and economic inequality gets on the agenda of media and political institutions;

*an occupation to challenge the money state;

*to build a community of the dispossessed and discontented;

*opposing rampant financial fraud;

*income inequality, money in politics and Wall Street's influence;

*the loss of jobs, pensions and homes;

*political disenfranchisement and social and economic injustice;

*the blatant injustices of our times perpetuated by the economic and political elites;

*income inequality, money in politics and Wall Street's influence;

and finally,

*mounting inequality, against joblessness and insecurity, against obscene levels of student debt, against anti-labor employers, against police brutality, against foreclosures, evictions, and the lack of healthcare.

      I tried to distill this all into a small paragraph:

"Our goal is for that percentage divide to narrow instead of become exponential as we are forced to define 'tycoons' as 'the one percent of the one percent, etc.' as does Paul Krugman, among others."

      The top one percent has displayed an infinite and hugely impressive amount of genius and ingenuity, albeit in violation of every level of the law; let them turn these skills toward the above bulleted list and cure it, with all those principles they profess in church once a week. The ultimate challenge posed by their Lord Jesus Christ is to love the enemy and be loved back by him/her. Thus enmity disappears.

********************************

In Danny's words, the book is "a collection of my reports and commentaries as I played participatory journalist, reporting less on the day-to-day than on deeper trends." He goes back in recent history to his own neglected prophecies, published as blogs, books, and films, of the imminent financial collapse and then his first efforts, beginning on Wall Street in 2008, to initiate the occupation; then to his colleague David DeGraw's distillation of the huge showdown as the 99 percent versus the one percent, a crucial step in any movement--power of the word--and how the actual occupation proceeded quickly to take shape soon thereafter.

      The date September 17 has joined a pantheon of unique occasions identified calendrically, and its own significance is dissected in terms of other important events that transpired on other September 17's:

"September 17 is the anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution. Years later, on that day, Francis Scott Key finished the poem that was to be turned into the "Star Spangled banner," our national anthem. It was the day of the battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in the American civil war. It was the day the Camp David agreements between Egypt and Israel [were] signed, and it was the day that the New York Stock Exchange reopened after the attack on 9/11."

      Danny reiterates an MLK quotation he used in his review of the dedication of the MLK Memorial: "History may not repeat itself but can reveal similarities of spirit and political learning curves. Because #Occupy is new as well as old. In a December 30, 2011, posting, Michael Moore names December 30, 1936, the day that the UAW was born, as "the first Occupy":

"75 years ago today--hundreds of workers at the General Motors factories in Flint, Michigan, took over the facilities and occupied them for 44 days. My uncle was one of them."

      After the success of that movement, other occupations "spread like wildfire," as did the "wildfire" of self-immolation kindled by the defiant Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi, who, in the words of songwriter David Rovics, "[s]truck a match that lit up all the Earth."

      Did the first occupation ever occur in Flint? I daresay it may have occurred in Genesis, when the people united to build that ill-fated tower, another 99 percent versus the one percent. Or even earlier than that? Don't mean to blaspheme.

      And forget not that our autumn rising was inspired by the Arab Spring, which in turn was reinspired by it, as the Egyptians returned to Tahrir Square when the military that replaced Mubarak began to settle into disappointing complacency.

      #Occupy received press once the presence of so many international journalists paved the way for our own "infotainers"; we received a google of Google hits; we raised money--$483,000 by October.

      Danny not only offers us the details and the holistics, from the nitty gritty to the philosophical; he also offers next steps. I marveled at the solution of moving homeless people into foreclosed homes, but that is a nitty-gritty, and others equally brilliant must follow; but Danny takes a dangerous giant step: here is where we must borrow from history, mixing the new with the old without losing ourselves in the process, perhaps the toughest part of this nascent Revolution:

"Building this movement will require more outreach, and more alliances with sympathetic organizations in Labor, on campuses, and in the community. At some point, they will have to enter into coalitions despite fears of co-optation. Some spokespeople may have to emerge out of the leaderless environment with its commitment to consensus.

"[T]hey also need to champion and understand related issues like demanding the prosecution and incarceration of financial criminals and fraudsters.

"[T]he 'us' in the movement is far broader than those who are able to participate in physical occupation. The movement is everyone who sends supplies, everyone who talks to their friends and families about the underlying issues, everyone who takes some form of action to get involved in this civic process.

      And farther than all of these people, the "us" encompasses others we must reach:

"I believe the movement has to stay true to itself, but make all of these issues more personal to the American people who are suffering because of Wall Street's manipulations. . . . The millions of disaffected Americans hard hit by the economic crisis. A few infomercials and ads might help. How else can they reach and organize the sympathy that is out there?"

      One of the "talking heads" in this documentary narrative, Jean Ross, Co-President, National Nurses United, has this to say this, a fitting conclusion to a review that demands a full reading of the book:

"It's become a little community here. And you know these are the kinds of things you hope would happen in an environment like this. You don't usually see it until after some sort of a natural disaster; well this I call an unnatural disaster, what spurred it."

      All that's left to say is that I was underlining important points to put into my review, but I ended up underlining everything. This is a document of essential importance for all. How to obtain it? Visit this site.

(c)

4 January 2012: From Dearborn to DC: All-American Muslim Cast Members' Forum

Sponsored by the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the largest civil rights organization in this country, the reality TV show All-American Muslim (AAM) descended from the screen into three dimensions at the West End Cinema this evening.

     Suehaila (Sue) and Bilal (Billy) Amen joined Nina Bazzy-Aliahmad and TLC (cable tv) producer Alvin Ornstein to discuss their personal experiences making the show and their feelings about it. Abed Ayoub, the legal director for ADC, was moderator.

     An audience of about fifty along with numerous Facebook and Twitter users followed the lively discussion with many questions about this show that has stimulated more public and media discussion and reaction than any other so far. Most publicized was the home store Lowe's decision to stop advertising on the program, misled by the conservative Florida Family Association. Lowe's example was unfortunately followed by others, but according to TLC sponsorship remained strong.

     At its annual convention in Washington, DC, ADC plans to award the pioneering TLC for this first reality program about Arab Americans, in this case all Lebanese Americans who live in Dearborn, Michigan, where the largest Muslim American community outside of the Middle East resides.

     Response to the eight-part series has fluctuated but statistics are high enough that TLC is contemplating continuation of the program, which is its best received to date, said Ornstein. There was a good bit of discussion about the issues AAM might focus on if the series continues. More interaction with non-Muslims was a popular theme, and the suggestion by an African American tv and radio anchor that African American Muslims and Christians join episodes also, extended this conversation, a controversial issue because of inherent misunderstandings, which all those on stage agreed should be remedied.

     The conversation began with all cast members agreeing that AAM was a great experience, "showing that we're like everyone else," having cookouts on July 4, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and so on. Nina noted that they've received a lot of positive feedback.

     On behalf of TLC, Alvin Ornstein thanked families for letting his families into their homes.

     The next question, Which was worse, criticism from outside or from within? received mixed answers: thick-skinned Billy said outside criticism hurt the most, while Nina reacted more strongly to the alternative, because of her close, familial relationship with her community. Sue's reaction was similar, though she sadly mentioned all of the hateful messages posted on Facebook and Twitter.

     "The show is all about being yourself," said Ornstein.

     As to aspects of the characters not apparent in the programming, Sue raved about Nina's charitable generosity. Billy spoke of his profession, teaching and training children; he also lectures at mosques weekly. In the preceding ten years, he has worked with forty thousand children--hard to imagine! He works in Wayne County, one of the largest counties in the United States, and only a small percentage of these children are Muslim.

     Sue stated that she is more politically oriented than Billy and has thought about moving to DC to work for the federal government or an embassy, but this conflicts with her deep attachment to her familial community in Dearborn. She said that she cries often and feels that she is carrying the weight of the world.

     The process of selecting a community to "realize" on TV was difficult, said Ornstein. His crew traveled the country but stopped at Dearborn, a dynamic community filled with storylines on how the cast members' faith informs their lives.

     And what role has AAM played in knocking down negative stereotypes? Said Sue, she knew the program would be effective in highlighting an epicenter of Islam where Sharia law is not practiced. Billy added that it emphasizes our common ground rather than differences. "The show's purpose is to educate," said Ornstein, later adding that TLC "doesn't shy away from issues."

     Sue said that much more effort and outreach to Arab communities is needed [there were times when "Muslim" and "Arab" were used interchangeably]. They lack a lobby and therefore any input into congressional decisions and legislation. Muslims have contributed greatly to the American community. (In search of statistics, I found that many Muslims in the military withhold specifying their religion to avoid harassment.) We are so categorized, so separated into groups, said Nina. "I wish we would come together."

     Ten forty-three-minute programs were assembled and edited out of four months of filming. Those inimitable couch conversations lasted far longer than the programming suggests, said Billy.

     An audience member drew a parallel between Billy's fatigue with having to justify Islam and 9/11 and theologist Karen Armstrong's admission that she has given up on arguing that Muslims aren't violent.

     At least two of the families featured on AAM are "Sushi"--where one parent is Shiite and the other is Sunni, and the marriages are solid rather than microcosms of hostility.

     The conversation ended on a very upbeat note. Billy remarked that the next few generations of Muslim youth will shock us. Adolescents are extremely ambitious and motivated. Sue belongs to an organization that awards scholarships in a variety of professional disciplines, encouraging Muslim youth in their drive to become a more integral part of American society. She herself, in her own outreach project, belongs to the YWCA.

(c)

23 December 2011: Holiday Thoughts 2011-2012

It's been about a week since we heard from a team of experts that we're passing the point of no environmental return.

     I met an employee of the EPA last week and thought a moment as I looked into his eyes. Then my head spun. "You, above all the other executive divisions, have a full plate."

     That sure beat my previous comment to another EPA employee: "EPA isn't doing anything, is it?" I was implying that their hands were tied, to put it mildly. I meant no offense. She was on her way to meet with John Kerry, so I sent along my regards.

     My wide-eyed amazement is that this is the one percent's world, too--a place they're bequeathing to their children. All the money in the world can't buy back environmental deterioration such as they're allowing.

     My thoughts retreat to that beautiful scene in Fellini's "Satyricon" where the poet speaks to a younger man of his legacy to the world. It's not the written word.

     "I leave you the sun, that source of light; the mountains that it arrays in a spectral radiance twice a day; the trees that sway so gently as the wind sings through them. . . ."

     Etc. This is not a verbatim quote, but a broad paraphrase. I was so transfixed by these lines I searched the body of written literature for clues to its origin and found none. Were these Fellini's lines? Does anyone know?

     Today what lines would that poet intone? "Come die with me while still the sunset is so lovely"? His delicate lungs would be hocking and spitting as he spoke, so used were they to purer airs, though Rome was no Elysium.

     Enough backtracking. No time for poetry now.

     What can we do? Can we seal what's left of pure environments in cornerstones? Animals and vegetables are being devoured and spat out ruined by minerals.

     Briefly I turn my hopes to "them." You know, those amorphous people in white coats in laboratories who create test tubes of stuff to cure us. Will they aim at climate change or the people causing it? Surely science can invent a cure for this lethal mental/environmental devastation.

     Where is it, "they"?

     What are "they" working on now? What is the main focus of scientific effort now? Nukes? Cars that will subtract a few hydrocarbons from the air by 2025? Texas, the oil king, also leads the nation with its acres of windmills, doesn't it?

     What can "they" do to save the world? Battle the cause or the effects? We, the 99 percent, are taking to specific streets to demonstrate around specific lavish, wrought-iron estates containing molecules of the cause of this visible decay they are ignoring, rationalizing away. We are relocating homeless people into foreclosed homes, a pragmatic solution to their suffering, and the neighborhoods are already "shot," from a realtor's point of view.

     I believe strongly that "they" can battle against the effects; learn to control the climate; invent little creatures that will eat all that Exxon-Mobil and Chevron oil destroying our waters--not just the top layer; will "they" wake up and reverse their priorities soon enough? If not, will "they" be able to invent miracles?

     My trust is in science. They, the one percent, are devouring God.

Photo above, Basilica di San'Apollinari in Classe, Ravenna, by Marta Steele; photo at top, Angkor Wat, by Liza Steele.

(c)

15 December 2011: Truth-Sleuth Back in DC to Sign Book (Palast, that is)

At the National Press Club in Washington, DC, last night--largely a mainstream milieu--Greg Palast was the featured star in the room for eclectic journalists, the Sarah McClendon Room, where another recent guest had been Helen Thomas.

     Around a long, narrow table in the overcrowded room, press and others feasted on both the Club's popular cuisine and the steadily rising star's witty discussion of chosen portions of his book.

     Introduced by Andy Craig as the greatest reporter in the English-speaking world, Palast immediately claimed instead to be a dull guy on BBC News in London.

      The greatest reporter was there to discuss his most personal book yet, in order to draw more people in, he said, because the word must spread and he continues to be amazed how the mainstream media (MSM) in this country can turn their back on the stories he reports all over the world and at the horrendous and outrageous crimes thereby condoned.

     Not that the homeland government is any bastion of rectitude. Palast has covered that before. Dan Rather lost his job for reporting one of Palast's Bush-bashing stories in this country, even though he was right. Cronkite's protégée has since done more muckraking in another of Palast's favorite areas, election fraud (and probably more).

     The audience laughed when Palast told of his Number One Vulture, Paul "Goldfinger" Singer, calling his office to threaten them with the file he is keeping on Palast. Why, the office has a file on him, too, and it's climbing to the bestseller list.

     Number one Vulture is also Number One donor to the Republican Party, the Have-Most?

     Paul Krugman called Singer the one-percent of the one-percent of the one-percent.

      Wait, wait--there's more: Goldfinger purchased legislation from New York to legalize gay marriage. Such an icon. Like Cheney, he is deeply sympathetic to GLBT issues as the father of a gay son, who married his partner soon thereafter.

     Perhaps Vultures' Picnic should be retitled Job Creators' Picnic? They do promise to hire hundreds of thousands of us if Canadian sands importation is allowed. But the pipelines are in such awful condition, flouting explicit federal guidelines, Palast also reports, and the one guilt-ridden "Pigman" (pipeline engineer) who admitted to the shoddy maintenance was imprisoned.

     The MSM was too busy with Michael Jackson's personal anesthesiologist or something similar to report on this technological outrage.

      Not sexy enough.

     There are heroes as well as villains in Palast's narrative.

     And how dare BP maintain its self-righteous logo as a green gas station? Not only is the most recent blowout in Louisiana attributable to cost corners cut--in this case nitrogen-laced [read: cheap] cement--there was another two years ago that was successfully kept out of the limelight courtesy of another corner cutter well known for its masterful construction projects in Iraq, Halliburton. The blowout two years ago took place in Baku, Azerbaijan. Read the gory details in Vultures' Picnic. And spread the word.

     Quipped Palast soon after, quoting from his lively narrative that the [British] National Union of Journalists is fighting for First Amendment rights in the UK, which has none: You can borrow ours. We're not using it.

      Back to BP, Palast told us that the British behemoth, which supplies half the fuel consumed by the U.S. military, had already been warned many times about the need to update and maintain its rigs and associated polluting devices--oops, I mean a euphemism of some sort. The scandal had been revealed by the PBS news series Frontline.

     Chevron had been held up to BP as a positive role model. Evidently no one had read Palast's exposé about the oil mogul's artwork in the Peruvian jungle (discussed in the same chapter of Vultures' Picnic). But besides that, one standard exists for the entire consortium of devils: BP-Chevron-Shell-Exxon-Conoco, and all use the same equipment. Palast called the Louisiana rig "a trash can fire in front of the firehouse."

     As for the Exxon-Valdez disaster in mid-Alaska, they began by spraying seltzer water on the fire. Then, having heard the myth that "little critters" devoured all the oil pollution that infested the Louisiana Gulf, he visited there and found huge "tarmacs" of oil. The help had simply skimmed the oil off of the top layer of the scenic water. And I read that the Gulf states had their best tourist season last summer. I wanted to ask about that.

     Then Palast spoke of his trip to Peru to meet the Cofan chief whose two sons had been killed by swimming in Chevron-infested waters. One died promptly while the other died slowly of leukemia.

      Chevron denied responsibility for such bouts of "kiddy cancer." There was no proof that Chevron's oil was the culprit--no individual designer's label as proof.

     Then there's the Fukushima disaster--Japan creating its own answer to the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings after abstaining from the nukes race while the rest of the "civilized" world invested millions in it.

     The towers were not built to withstand earthquakes. Why? Who knows, except that the same company that built them, Shaw Corporation, has been retained by Obama to build four more nuclear power plants in this country, after years of inactivity in this area.

     Twenty-five power companies wanted the contract. Shades of Halliburton in Iraq but even more lethal?

     "Vulture": a scoundrel who scouts out old debts of developing nations, buys them, and then fleeces the nation for amounts other loaner countries forgive. That's money, incidentally, donated largely by us, the U.S., as aid to the impoverished, and look where it ends up--$1 million being withdrawn from a Swiss bank account owned by Goldfinger and spent to purchase a lavish wardrobe by the king of Zambia (who has since been imprisoned, Palast told us last night).

      The British know the story. Palast has to rewrite it engagingly, with illustrations publishing budgets won't do justice to, to try to reach the public here. We've started to hit back, the 99 percent, empowered by the few journalists who tell the truth and then lose jobs, speaking of jobs. Seymour Hersh was dumped by the New York Times, for example. And Bill Moyers's retirement from PBS was at their strong suggestion. If we don't bite back, we'll be devoured. They should create jobs for us so that we won't have the time to bite back as we are doing now.

*****

The Q&A session was most informative. We learned that there is tremendous coverage of Palastology in black ghettos.

     Now, it's simple for all of us to understand why a tenant who irreparably damages space he is leasing will be dumped out on the streets, but when such incidents are writ large, what happens? The Exxon-Chevron etc. folks are thriving. I mean, how can we punish vultures in the wild for stalking carrion?

     What a world.

     Well, more and more whistleblowers are daring to go public to help divest society of the assumption that a culprit big enough can range free while us little guys fill prisons for misdemeanors that include civil disobedience. We lead the world in number of prisons, by far. God bless U.S.!

     Has Palast been hacked? He assumes so. Has to go on with work; hired someone who hacked into his computer when he found it and never brought it back. Such levels we attain confronting the impossible and sharing it with all.

     What of Piers Morgan? Thriving here, but he can't go home to the UK. CNN didn't care and they have an international spread.

      We need investigative producers as well as reporters--that's another way to get the word out. Cinema speaks to the public as well as Palast's enthralling prose.

     He wants to bring his stories home. How? Not to mainstream Progressives like Mother Jones. There's too much chatter on MSNBC.

      "How?" he asked us.

      A final question was huge. It concerned the death of the media--consistent with the rise of corporate personhood, thanks to last year's Supremes' decision. Should we grasp onto the enlarged public awareness as a window of opportunity?

     If corporations continue to have this status, we're at the mercy of an oligarchy. We MUST galvanize the public.

     Names are more powerful than labels. In Vultures' Picnic, Palast names names and in this process can inspire our nascent defiance to remove corporate masks. All ideas are most welcome.

     George Soros? Ben and Jerry? Kennedys?

      Yoo-hoo!

(c)

11 December 2011: On the Genius of the Occupation

I am spending most of my time these days on a book and haven't written for OEN or Words, UnLtd. in a month.

     Were I more active, I'd study the form and idea of "occupation" and what it means for the millennium, and I hope not just this decade. I hope that it has usurped 9/11 and the advent of the tyranny of fear and the Tea Party and offered an answer, not a shivering question.

     As the ideal spreads from physical encampments to materialization of what they imply--as if the one percent didn't know what we wanted, as they profess they don't---I knew we could transcend it when they began to kick us out. I knew that the real encampment is within the system, not outside it, like an invasion, but an occupation of what is ours, from our souls to foreclosed-on homes, an act of genius that will be reenacted in other domains as we clarify what we want.

     Let us occupy their consciences, their churches. Let us ask them what they want or profess to want by visiting them once a week. Jesus demands that we walk in his footsteps, proclaims that we can sooner thread a camel through a needle's eye than see a wealthy man in heaven. Do they question this as they mouth these words of wisdom each week? Do they think or just grab?

     What does that parable mean? Why a camel? It's Sunday after all and "Judaism has been occupied," at least for a few hours, here in DC--what an unfortunate way to alienate people like me from attending what may have been a significant event, to name it "Occupy Judaism."

     So let's go to Jesus Christ. Why of all things a camel? Those in North Africa dying of the drought have lost their humps, but Jesus implies a well-fed camel, doesn't he? It's a passing reference.

     A camel stores nutrition (water?) in its hump to be able to survive long treks through the desert. To shrink it down to thread may be theoretically possible(?) but it implies first of all shrinking its hump, its life savings, as it were, to nothing. I can read into this what the one percent is doing to the rest of this country and the world--trying to thread us through the eye of a needle, utter demolition.

     Is that all? Are we the wealthy ones? Are we not simply demanding our share of things rather than craving yachts, fifty different homes all over the world, fancy cars? Are we now not turning to our resources and resourcefulness to triumph and shrink them down to the nothingness that their greed represents?

     What of the needle? Shall we mend our clothing with them, force them to buttress our necessities the way we have enabled their ascent and ids turned full-force against civilization and everything it implies?

     Have I occupied Christianity or merely the warped mentalities of those who profess the religion but have strayed so far from the teachings they claim to affirm once a week? We must be choosy about occupations, which are crucial to our survival as the Revolution. Jews died with Christians, white and black, to achieve the birth of the civil rights movements in the mid-twentieth century.

     "And the first one now will later be last," to jump from Jesus to a twentieth-century genius who blessed us with this song of hope as we began a process our children are taking up and continuing.

     I read the newspapers when I can and find things even there that I'd given up on between 2000 and 2008, the Bush 43 regime. There was no such thing as good news back then. Today the good news is that a new Russian Revolution seems to be rising. Among all those standing up against repressive regimes, I have to say that I find the Saudi Arabians the bravest among these super-brave souls willingly going up against weapons of death to win back our souls and autonomy--though what we want may differ, it's what we want that we are daring to fight for above ground now.

     To paraphrase Ben Franklin and draw strength from what our founding fathers contributed to the world, "Its a revolution, if we can keep it."

     Hard rains are a'fallin'. And even Warren Buffett can't control the weather. We shall define piece by piece, enact physically what we want and began to express from those coast-to-coast encampments. Evidently they need a house to fall on them, and it will be their mansions.

(c)

23 November 2011: Thanks to Giving . . .

Thanks to taking, the 99 percent are finally taking to the streets, their streets, our streets.

     Thanks to this giving, this risking of life and injury, the Arab Spring has revived in late autumn, just in time to face winter in the eye and unfreeze all of our hopes.

     Thanks to savagery, the Native Americans are fighting their way, slowly, out of the ruins of their former empires here. And yet, when I asked one of them whether they celebrate Thanksgiving, the chief said, "Some do, some don't."

     When I asked another how he can live in a country that so savaged his civilization, he said, "Why don't we just love one another?"

     I read a poem by an Onondaga Indian this morning thanking Nature for her bounty; thanking our teachers, "reminding of how/To live in harmony,/ . . . / and for all, the gifts of creation and love . . . /and for all that is forgotten/WE REMEMBER/. . . OUR MINDS ARE ONE.

     On behalf of the carnage of years past, I ignored Thanksgiving on and off for years. I dislike most of the traditional foods anyway.

     But beyond that "Last Supper" of harmony, I thank God, again for the nascent Revolution and pray that somehow the predicted China Syndrome in Japan, that ultimate wrath of Nature, can be averted.

     Sitting here rather imprisoned in many ways, by the limitations of Western culture and two broken legs, I thank God for the freedom to heckle the president, and how he received those Occupiers' words with grace.

     I thank God for my words allowed to stand at Opednews.com and elsewhere, though not for censorship elsewhere and pray for Internet freedom, what is left of it, to endure.

     I thank God for criticism and praise, though too much of either commits spiritual murder.

     Let us pray for the Nature that the Onondaga Indians so treasure, which is being laid waste as surely as their civilizations were. Bring it back. We need our turf to absorb the rain, to prevent flooding, to grow our food, to nurture us with beauty. A fractured, bald America violates their religions and the God we pray to, even the frackers among us, in and out of churches, mostly in.

     Thank God for the few enlightened Republicans among us: people like Stephen Spoonamore, David Iglesias, Dr. Charles E. Corry, Mike Connell when he finally decided to spill all and then died soon after, taking essential truths with him. There are others.

     Thank God for the forced family togetherness wrought by this cruel recession forcing college graduates and victims of foreclosure to move in with family where this is possible--the vile silver lining of a ruthless cloud of greed that the nascent Revolution, thank God, will fight into the iron walls of its own making. Lock them in their safes with their dollar bills and stock certificates

and we'll start all over again. Thank God for new beginnings that strive toward the good--to materialize it out of abstraction into reality, the ultimate challenge.

     Thank God for our foolish dreams that keep us pushing the rock up the hill. Surely someday we'll get there and push the rock down to smash greed--that's a long way down.

     Thank God for all the good we have and the will to perpetuate it, always fighting the evil that coexists with it. That's another battle we must win--the perpetual one within ourselves.

     Thank God for our knowledge of the right time to give and the right time to take, where this wisdom exists. Let all share it.

     Thank you for plowing through all of this verbiage and happy Thanksgiving. I hope you like turkey more than I do.

(c)

19 November 2011: Shar Leahey: The Same Old Songs? or Rumors of Peace?

Sharleen Leahey is back with new and old songs with the same message: war sucks, where is peace, why don't we have it when all reason and emotions long for it? Ask any Neocon. I did.

     So shall we dismiss this holdover from the sixties? Or shall we listen yet again and realize that her message transcends time, that the longing reaches back to the Old Testament, that Virgil, amid all the bloodshed prophesied in book 6 of his Aeneid, bemoans these events as "bella, horrida bella"--anaphora adding to the lament: "WAR, HORRID WAR."

     The sixties kids changed so much and then moved on, but who could blame them? The American dream was still within their grasp. Today the same type of kids are moving back home, saddled with debt in a newly evolved nightmare, candy from babies is lining the wallets of the real babies, the "top" one percent, or are they the bottom one percent? Let's face facts and trample on that grim reality, as we finally are.

*****

And so Shar was glowing at a recent Joan Baez concert. Joan travels the world singing of peace, even as Shar wanders as far as she can with the same message. Her songs are her own--lyrics, melodies, and arrangements.

     Shar glowed with energy after Joanie wearily left the stage, longing for sleep. She need not worry. There are others, like Shar.

     With Shar the sixties are alive. A few of us keep the torch burning despite the cold, polluted wind of hatred.

     There are eight songs on the new cd Rumors of Peace. Well, these days, it seems that we may anticipate less war, though the Egyptian dissidents are tiring of the military takeover and beginning to assert themselves again. I cannot fathom the bravery of such people, only write about it.

     "Direction," the first song, is all about love and separation. Are they symbiotic? Joan Baez sang longingly of her imprisoned David, but once he was freed and they were reunited, divorce followed.

     What do we really sing about, listen to--the ultimate mystery? See my review of Greg Palast's Vultures' Picnic. Maybe if we really learned to love, as the peacemakers do, then we'd really learn to love, the ultimate mystery we've learned in the face of the rank pollution of morals we call war. In Greek mythology Love and War are symbiotic--Venus married to Mars (Aphrodite + Ares).

     "What Would Woody Write?" asks Shar's second song. She calls him a "mystic" who always paid his dues and brought us together like a gathering storm. He'd be right at home, Shar. He left his wife and kids in search of peace, fighting for it on the roofs of freight trains, unable to rest while things weren't right. "People are sick of fighting back," she claims. Some of us are. If Woody reappeared, would some of those "some" regain the heart that's needed never to stop fighting?

     Perhaps Woody would sing the same songs. Human nature hasn't changed, just the American dream, a goal that distracted rather than empowered ideals. But we need it back. Can it live in peace or must it live off of poverty?

     "Corporate News" calls on journalists to tell the truth, a hard task even during the days before the Truth Sleuth joined our ranks, up against the cement wall of death threats. At least he lives on.

     Dissenting voices are off the air--Palast plays to few audiences--dissenting voices are off the air (most recently, thank God, they won't be ignored, though the one percent are doing their best to sweep us away, Bloombroom--) while Diane Sawyer holds center stage with her blond hair and all the privilege that entails. Step on your rosy-rims, my Wellesley sister, and listen hard beyond those prison bars of the dollar sign. Rich men are making the rules, sings Shar, "cheering every bomb dropped from the sky." What a beautiful line. Joan, what have they done with the rain?

     "Who Killed Joey"? asks Shar next. ALL OF US. We can't rest until he's resurrected and Wood Guthrie can rest in peace.

     "He was only a kid." Think about it. No cliché. These are babies fighting for all of us. Babies still hold ideals. Old age loses those brain cells we all need to hang onto--these kids who are so much smarter even when exploited. If war must pollute the planet, perhaps they'd prefer to die. We should give them a better raison d'etre than that. Shar invokes the image of every Cindy Sheehan, the mother standing on the grave of her murdered son, standing for peace.

     In temporary desperation, Shar turns to nature for solace with "Wild Geese," surrendering to the cycle of seasons, a peaceful process--"Oh what a sound!" Shar, I hope I have this right. Seasons, in turn, surrender to the light, a benevolent leader we all love.

     "The Way" reinvokes the mother victimized by human hatred and its blind and violent offspring, war. Dying for a lie, mothers' children board the bus of death in fatigues, what an apt term for the clothing of war. Joan is weary, as are all of us, but Shar sings on, empowered by the dream of nurturing our young, swelling mothers' hearts with the promise that life will go on after war is defeated.

     Our messianic place, Jerusalem, next takes the stage and Shar's dreamy tones hope that Abraham's children will lay down their swords--we must farm the blood-soaked earth and keep hope alive, so that out of that carnage a new world may emerge.

     Between her words are so many dreams, the nonverbal that her lovely tones sing out in sweet harmony with her words. Shar must be listened to--there are so few sixties-style dreamers taunting the deserters whose children now return to them from college asking why.

     "New World" offers hope to them and to all of us. How? We shall encircle the guns, all of us, the 99 percent. The dark morning of winter will yield now to a spring in which we will have the time to "breathe, think, walk, talk, sing, and dream." What a dream. We ignore it to our peril.

     Without Shar's songs we are doomed. Like Joan, with her rare gift to reach us with beauty, which no one in their right mind can resist, we must never stop protesting until the New World, beyond the present Armageddon, rises like her songs.

     Listen and never forget. We all have a dream.

For more on the indefatigable Shar, see my review of April 5, 2011, "Back to the Future?". Visit her website, to hear some of her beautiful music and then, inevitably, click on the tab "Buy CDs." "Rumors of Peace" and her other albums are on sale for a song.

(c)

13 November 2011: Smart Security or Dumb Dollar$?

The urgent need for U.S. budget priorities to shift from war to peace was the theme of the Thirty-Second Annual Conference of the Coalition for Peace Action (CFPA) on the Princeton University Campus today.

     Among the featured speakers were Dr. Gordon Adams, a professor of foreign policy at American University who worked as a senior advisor to the president on national security and foreign policy, and Judith LeBlanc, National Field Director of Peace Action and former national co-chair of United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ).

     A resident of Washington, DC, Adams spoke of his hometown as a "puzzle palace" faced with two major issues at a crucial point in history he referred to as an "inflection point": correct budget allocations and appropriate relations with the rest of the world.

     "We can no longer afford what we're doing here and in the rest of the world," he said.

     $30 bn to $60 bn of military funding has mysteriously disappeared from military funds, unaccounted for.

     The good news is that we're ending one war and winding down on another; our economic focus should not be the deficit but jobs. U.S. entitlements have grown from $6 tn to $12 tn in the previous ten years.

     Our attitude toward the military, in a complete about-face from the nineteen seventies, is overly fearful and reverent. At the same time, national security ranks only number ten in a list of priorities measured by a Gallup poll from a sampling of Americans. Money, jobs, and health care are far more important to us today.

     As to the Supercommittee, their nervously awaited decision is really meaningless and completely subject to the whims of Congress and will not be enforceable until January 2013 anyway--and we all know what major event happens before that.

     Adams called the committee's decision process an "Indonesian Shadow Play," that is, two-dimensional puppets as pantomiming silhouettes behind backlit white cloth.

     Military spending was cut every twenty years most recently: in the decades following 1950, 1970, and 1990--each time the budget was slashed by 30 percent; now that 2010 has arrived, a little "push" is needed, said Adams. Leon Pannetta, Secretary of Defense, is worried about the loss of $450 bn, 8 percent of the projected military budget.

     Military budgeting aside, the second important aspect of this inflection point in time is how to engage with the world. We have a unique opportunity to rethink this relationship. There is no longer a need to "reset" our weaponry--it is entirely up-to-date and in good condition and sufficiently diversified.

     Will money saved on this aspect of our national security be redirected to the needs of the people at home? A substantial percentage of our military are noncombatants "running the back office," as Adams put it--there is a 33 percent overhead.

     In 1989, at the end of the Cold War, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell cut military forces by fifty thousand; throughout the following decade, 700,000 military troops were cut, as were 300,000 from civil service.

     In the District of Columbia, said the professor, the U.S. is said to "shape" the world, as its "system administrator." The world is our "global commons." Are we indispensable? We must rethink this issue. Two points have made it to the table: 1) "coin," that is "counterinsurgency," which justifies our nearly ubiquitous presence in so many troubled areas around the world; and 2) $30 bn is spent annually on our nuclear armaments, the number of which must be reduced to zero.

     "What do we need a military for?" he challenged us. Think about it.

     For land war? Where? Not Iran or Pakistan. We must stay away from others' ground wars. No welcome mat awaited us during the Arab Spring.

     There is no threat of terrorist attacks or any other argument for maintaining a large military.

     Is there a need to secure the Internet? Outer space? Our waters?

     No, no, and no.

     But the real problem is uncertainty. That is why we need a military, Adams was told. But, he told us, the traditional threats are no longer threatening us.

     We can shrink the military. We are safer than we were during the cold war. There are no existential threats--no doffed shoes hitting desk tops, no threats that we will be buried by an enemy.

     We must alter the narrative.

     Adams ended his presentation with two poems: one by Kavafi, "Waiting for the Barbarians," which questions how civilization as we know it can exist without the immanent threat of invasion; and another that he wrote that ends with a child's plea to end wars and bring his daddy home.

     Judith LeBlanc was pleased to be addressing a live audience in this age of cyberspace and telephone communication, backgrounding what she called "the fierce urgency of now," quoting Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

     In 1966, MLK also said that "nothing is more tragic than to sleep through a revolution."

     How, then, can we bring the Occupation movement (I will refer to it as OWS) into the political mainstream?

     Evoking Adams's linguistic dexterity, LeBlanc referred to it as our "magic movement moment."

     Three-quarters of the American public share the main concerns of OWS: the economy, tax breaks for the rich, unemployment, homelessness, the huge number of uninsured Americans, and so on.

     We must parent major political shifts to bring about peace and justice--no small endeavor. We must be proactive at the level of international politics, that is, our interactions with the world. The AFL-CIO has called for demilitarization of our foreign policy, joining OWS in this demand.

     We are in a revenue crisis, not a deficit crisis, said LeBlanc. The grassroots must assert this, the 99 percent. David is fighting Goliath. We must build a human needs budget, not a defense budget.

     "If facts could win the day, no one would smoke cigarettes," she told us.

     Solidarity with other groups is essential. We need a new peace and justice movement, bringing together peace groups, workers, faith communities, and others in strategic alliances.

     Jimmy Hoffa has corroborated this need for solidarity. Quoting MLK again, LeBlanc said that bombs dropped on Afghanistan harm our communities at home.

     Next week, on November 17, OWS will celebrate its two months of existence with a party, joined by Rebuild the Dream, centered around the need to bring our tax dollars home from war.

     The first action will be to attempt to stop the opening bell on Wall Street. Townhall meetings will be held in the subways. A line of cabs will next accompany lines of Occupiers crossing the Brooklyn Bridge.

     Inspiration will be drawn from walking many miles in other people's shoes, she said.

     Problems do exist with OWS, including flareups caused by agents provocateurs and the presence of chronically homeless people among them. In response, OWS is offering workshops on nonviolent resistence and other effective means of effective communication with opponents.

     Given that 42 percent of the world's military spending comes from the coffers of one country, the United States, an amount that exceeds that spent by the next sixteen countries combined; and given that the $2.5 bn cut from LIHEAP, a program that provides heating and air conditioning to indigents, is equal to forty hours of Pentagon spending; and given that the $2.2 bn deducted from Community Development Block Grants is equal to thirty-five hours of Pentagon spending; and given that some 39 percent of our 2011 budget consists of military expenses--

all of the above according to Jo Comerford, director of the National Priorities Project in Northampton, Massachusetts--

how can thoughts emanating from MLK, Mahatma Gandhi, or Nelson Mandela not keep us awake at night instead of letting us sleep through the revolution?

     The founder of the 25% Solution, Professor Prasannan Parthasarathi of Boston College, lauded Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) for putting military spending "on the table" in Congress--how can our pressing needs be neglected?

     As Swami Tattvavidananda Saraswati said, seeking security will keep us insecure.

(c)

Bloomberg on Gloom-day or Doomsday?

A gloomy but spry and dignified Michael Bloomberg spoke to a group of about forty today at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, but took no questions afterward. The event was co-sponsored by the American Action Forum, self-described (on its webpage) as a "center-right" think tank, with whom CAP has been dialoguing and debating.

     Why did the mayor come all the way here on taxpayers' money? Maybe it was his own, but he had a message for the president and his Congress: "Start making the right [my] decisions or it's down the tubes with the United Empire of America!" (I made up that quote, paraphrasing most of his message into a few words; now I'll get to the point. I do ask questions, bracketed throughout this article, since it was frustrating to have so many of them unanswered.]

     Preceded by greetings from CAP president Neera Tanden, Elaine Chao, Secretary of Labor in George Bush's cabinet, said that conversation is important; she believes in our entitlement programs and is concerned for future generations. Praises she heaped on the 108th New York City mayor were many: [in his homestate] he cut crime by 35 percent; and substantially improved public health programs, smoking laws, and the rate of high school graduation, as well as restored New York's employment figures to what they were before the recession.

     Bloomberg himself continued by noting the twenty years his business, Bloomberg News, has thrived; he governs 8.4 million people, 40 percent of whom are immigrants he is deeply concerned with.

     The promise of this country is not Obama and his Congress's "something for nothing" mentality that has swelled the deficit for so many years while taxes have been lowered. The promise of this country is to keep our "eyes on the stars and noses to the grindstone," he said. Our economy is built on ambitious but unfunded programs [Isn't there borrowing from Social Security, which is funded?]

     Fourteen million Americans are unemployed and out national debt is now $10.3 trillion, growing by $4 billion each day [he can relate to that]. In ten years, each one of us will be $72,000 in debt. We are burdened with a deficit of $1.3 trillion. The District of Columbia (this is how he referred to Obama and his Congress) is gourging itself on debt; its expenditures far outweigh its revenues (he was speaking too quickly for me to take down all of the statistics he quoted).

     Spending money we don't have will destroy our economy.

     Our practice of deficit spending and tax cuts yields mixed results, he said, but at this point we're better off economically than Europe. But this policy does not foster job growth, and increased consumer spending is not the answer but rather a catalyst of increased credit card debt. Businesses are unwilling to take risks given this uncertain terrain.

     Communication between business and government is not the best, he continued. Business has no confidence in government because its tax policies are uncertain. The dearth of job growth impedes economic growth and there is broader uncertainty about fiscal stability.

     We need action now, asserted the mayor.

     All of the CEOs with whom he has spoken agree that we need a real deficit reduction plan as was the case during Clinton's eight-year tenure, when there was more market certainty. Politicians must become more concerned with the private sector [as opposed to lobbyists? He didnt say.). The best economic stimulus is long-term deficit reduction. The deficit at this rate will rise to $1.3 trillion in ten years. Current solutions only scratch the surface.

     The Supercommittee is in a gridlock. More harm was done in two months, when Congress couldn't agree to increase the debt limit, than in the last two years. Our credit rating tanked to AA+; the situation is worse than "deja vu all over again."

     Bloomberg named the Supercommittee's impasse "partisan paralysis." The "automatic cuts" that may result from their indecision will devastate the national security and public safety and overtax both us and future generations; more jobs will be lost and hence also economic growth.

     Cutting programs is not the way to go, said this Independent, reaching out to liberals at this point. Our status on the world stage will deteriorate. We need leadership from the president and Congress. It's not enough for Obama to submit plans and then step aside. We need real action.

     If Congress walks away now, circumventing negotiations until 2013, interest rates might increase, which will devastate the economy, making the $1.3 trillion figure meaningless. Growth will decrease deficits. Other countries will surpass us by creating jobs and more while our deficit disease deteriorates to an emergency level.

     We need a long-term plan, concentrating on economics instead of politics. We can't tax our way out of the problem. All sides must give a little, rising above special interests and politics. Entitlement reform is essential, said the Independent, reaching out to conservatives now.

     We also need more revenue. The broad middle of society here wants compromise, the mayor asserted. How can we accomplish this? By cutting Medicare and Medicaid [what of the destitute, an older black woman asked me after the event]. The government must control spending. The cuts must extend over the next ten years.

     The world is passing us by, Bloomberg reiterated. The Gang of Six must embrace cuts in Social Security. One out of every two children born into the most recent generation will live to be one hundred--how will their retirement be supported? In the past there were five workers to support each retiree; now the proportion is two to one.

     Aside from OPEC, probably, he said, Social Security occasions the largest transfer of money in the world. We must increase the age qualifying the employed for retirement--that will make Social Security solvent for the next seventy-five years; tort reform is needed; the U.S. spends $7500 per capita on health care, while Europe's total is not only far less, but its people enjoy a longer lifespan that we do.

     We need affordable health care [of course].

     We must maintain the graduated income system that keeps our tax allottments fair, he continued. We must allow the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2012--he himself at first supported them but has since changed his mind. Simpson-Bowles never made it to the floor for debate. Europe ignored deficits to its destruction. Clinton's program of deficit reduction was highly effective. The deficit here will destroy the economy. OUr income taxes are lower than most of those in Europe!

     In New York, however [ahem], state income taxes are higher than in some states and, by not raising taxes on the rich, the Empire State held on to its big businesses. But the Supercommittee should not allow tax cuts, and Obama should veto any that cross his desk.

     We need to increase revenues and eliminate tax loopholes and farm subsidies and cut back on allocations to energy programs; in this way we can balance the budget by 2021. It is up to us to get Congress to adopt an agreement that will foster fiscal responsibility.

     There is no such thing as a cure-all, said the mayor, anticipating questions from progressives he did not take. Corporations here pay the highest corporate tax rates in the world.

     Much about our future will become apparent in the next two weeks as we track the Supercommittee's progress. We must rise above politics as loyal Americans, mindful of that "can-do" spirit that defines us. It's in our hands.

     Bloomberg summed up his ideas with two chief drivers of our country's destiny: letting the Bush tax cuts expire and a good outcome from the so-far moot state of the Erskine-Bowles debates.

     The distinguished billionaire economist quickly exited at that point. I listened to a conversation between an Independent [whom I accused of being a Libertarian] and a Progressive. They seemed to be corroborating each other while I kept disagreeing with the former, not wanting to make him feel bad, as I told him, but dying for the sort of dialogue that en masse may be the action we need to take to save the economy. Let's all be Erskine-Bowles.

     They left and that's when the black woman, who had been listening to us, observed that much more is needed. "No one cares about poor people," I responded. My mother [who is not poor but one of the 99 percent] already lost some of her Social Security, I told her. She nodded.

     The Independent had told me we must reform our entitlement programs. "Reform" has been a euphemism for "reduce." Why are we avoiding that terrible word? Because we must reform them indeed, or else bleed the lower class to extinction which, believe it or not, will have dire repercussions for the economy.

     I would have asked Bloomberg about defense cuts to increase the billions still backing up Social Security distributions. That issue was not mentioned. How else can we help people? By not hurting them. It's as simple as that.

      The Independent gentleman with whom I spoke identified himself with the 99 percent even as he expressed admiration for the mayor, who would like to remove the Occupy Wall Street people from their encampment at Zuccotti Park. At least the Independent listened to my responses. At least Bloomberg came to speak at CAP.

     Next time, big as he is, he needs growth as much as the economy does. Next time he should field questions. We can take it from there.

(c)

6 November 2011: Palast the Truth-Sleuth, Vultures' Picnic

"The new normal is serial disasters: economic and ecological."--Naomi Klein

"The rush for black gold is worse than the gold rush."--Anon.

Profession-wise (he is both a wise man and a wise guy), it is hard to pin down Greg Palast. He calls himself an international journalist, which he is, more appreciated overseas than here, though that is changing (measured in book sales, I would reckon).

     He has been called the best living investigative reporter and the only one--but then he describes his protégés, "Matty Pass" and "Miss Badpenny," and let's face it, there are others.

     They are just not as forthcoming with their work and their souls.

     He has been honored as a Patron of the University Philosophical Society at Trinity College in Dublin, along with Jonathan Swift and Oscar Wilde, but I can think of another author he resembles more, Upton Sinclair.

     Even though his books deal with intricate technicalities that span a wide range of knowledge, and even though he has lectured at Oxford, Palast is no academic, but does draw laughs describing one crook who has retreated to Oxford to study Latin, already proficient in ancient Greek--Michael Straus, that is, owner of the hedge fund Montreux, working with others to use junk bonds to rob starving Liberia of money it doesn't have.

     The drachma was good enough for ancient Greece, but Europe, in its effort to bring together highly disparate cultures, has invented the Euro, so that when one country's economy falls, the others go like dominoes. United they fall.

     Angela Merkel doesn't like being asked what's in her wallet, but the stock market goes up every time she leans toward donating enough to rescue floundering Greece and other peripherals including Ireland and Spain.

*****

Like Palast, Vultures' Picnic answers to many descriptors, but to me the most accurate one is tragedy, both in objective and subjective content.

     The tragedy is ours and is depicted in terms of everywhere from the North Pole to Liberia. It always involves the richest preying on the poorest, the dirt-poor--in Libya, for example, beggars on the street, reduced from rank poverty to limbless on the street, having watched their parents' dismemberment to shreds.

     His sparse style invokes Joe Friday's--the facts, sir, just the facts. Hair-raising but somehow readable, because the man also has a sense of humor, dry as dust, completely unpretentious, filled with the power of four-letter words reaching out to all who are literate, as far as narrative can go. Even his asides are facts.

     I even went so far as to write in my notes that "Palast makes atrocities fun to read about." The principals are so unctuously (no pun intended) despicable, Palast's encounters with them so ridiculous, often wasted time, but he never ceases to return to that drawing board that stops nowhere before it maps out the truth. The book ends in frustration and despair, not exactly catharsis. He hasn't fixed everything yet. And he needs his portable office, so that taking to the streets is not yet his way to go.

     An example of the humor-dust that rises out of tragic content: the tsunami that hit Chenega village on Prince William Sound, on Good Friday in 1964, because no one had thought to alert the people there, gutted it entirely, killing most of its people. One man survived by clinging to the cross at the top of a church steeple--"the only verifiable instance in which Jesus saved," quips Palast, and one can understand such blasphemy given the world he prowls around in, though, I admit, he does take vacations no one can deny he needs.

     Then there's the ruthless image of oil wells built on the receding ice of North Pole territory that reveals more underground treasures--how low can they go? Way, way under the ocean. Ocean pollution is a concept I have coexisted with where once, for some reason, I thought of it as the last unclouded expanse on this planet.

*****

The word must spread as far as possible. The revolution has begun and must be given such oxygen. There's a reason we're out on our streets. They've stolen all the Manhattan mansions and Sutton Place townhouses. Those proffered to the less wealthy were fish bait and when the bubble burst, so went dreams, belly-up, replaced by Foreclosure. Bankruptcy. Homelessness. Dependency.

     Palast doesn't alter history (as one reviewer wrote); rather, he reveals it, because all events, from a homeless man tying his chewed-up shoelace to the queen's coronation, are history. The real current events, the backstage machinations that really run reality, must be exposed. It's a wonder Palast is still alive and walks the streets--"blessed be those who write death threats," he implies at one point, because publicity, such as it is, is one thing, but crystallizing the actions that must follow is another.

     Nothing short of the revolution now in its nascent gasps can meet the diamonded-studded bully head-on, garnish it, and throw it out to the people. He gives it a name, Hamsah, "an All-Seeing Eye in a mystical hand," which is a huge step in the direction we must go. Like an evil spirit, Hamsah must reply, "I'm called Hamsah," an Arabic diacritic pronounced like a "slight pause followed by a guttural breathing," among the other definitions that Palast gives, which include the number five; and indeed, at the end of the book, his diagram of the highest-level vultures depicts the five fingers of that "all-seeing eye."

     It's all about oil, not real estate; the Oilcan Harrys buy it up with money gobbled up by vultures. This scenario is repeated, one domain after the next, jumping from place to place in a way that dizzifies--how can anyone occupy the ionosphere so much of the time and stay sane, or at least rational? Jump from Azerbaijan to the North Pole in a single bound? He sleeps on planes? No, that's where Palast does his thinking, abstruse charts, diagrams, memos, emails, and other forms of contraband content spread out beneath his furrowed brow and fedora. He is rudely awakened from sleep once in the book, at 5 am, but quickly becomes ecstatic with surprise.

     I wrote a poem about our present economy. with apologies to Shakespeare:

All's well that ends well.

Oil wells end all.

All's well that ends oil.

     Even the ongoing Fukushima disaster is about oil--the emergency generators that didn't work when they were crucial were powered by diesel. Corners cut to save "shekels" by big-time, no-bid contractors like Halliburton caused the gusher that vaporized the Deep Water Horizon platform in New Orleans--smaller spouts can be seen from a small plane, shooting out of what once was the Gulf and is now closer to Gulf gasoline.

     The Exxon Valdez deadly collision with the last Pleistocene culture on earth, blamed on a drunk pilot, was actually the fault of other financial corners cut in the construction of the mammoth rig, which skimped on the radar that would have prevented a massive tragedy: whales and the sea were the basis of this culture, which used every portion of the world's largest mammal for survival, not profit as does Japan. Mammals and other fauna just can't coexist with a massive oil spill that still hasn't been cleaned up. Gestures have been plenty, but beneath the sand, just a few inches, your probing hand is stained with the stuff. The images of pelicans and other birds doused in oil, paralyzed by it, haunt us all.

*****

The many skills this "gumshoe" brings into his work outnumber those of his colleagues, and that may explain why he has unearthed so much more than his nearest competitor, and also why he treads new ground, aside from disillusioned graduate studies with trickle-down supply-siders like Milton Friedman (he later shares space with Joe Stiglitz, Larry Summers, and Tim Geithner). From wood shop and metal shop in the high school on the wrong side of the tracks to corruption investigation, witty journalism, chemistry, and how to power up a broken boat rudder (and so much more), and the versatile brilliance that can assimilate all this knowledge and apply it in ways that exasperate and sometimes stymy the earth-bound vultures fixated on oil.

     Palast also teaches his readers, in comprehensible terms, all about junk bonds and hedge funds and bundled garbage sold for a fortune that afflicted us with the latest recession. There's also the fall of the Greek economy (for dummies) that we can consult whenever we need to. The anecdotes are so extensive, so far-reaching, encompassing so much of today's corrupt reality.

     Palast may be the biggest threat of all to the status quo. Long may he live--he's still a babe at 57 with that piercing curiosity most of us lose way too soon, and an intellectual, he slyly adds, slipping in classical quotes he promises to reward us for finding.

     But the content distracts. reality trumps Spenser's Faery Queen, though Palast knows how to use even that if he needs it.

     He can't succeed in love, which he confesses he knows nothing about--that may be his ultimate mystery.

     But he ends with Hamsah's hand, a symbol of power, having traversed the horrors of how gasoline ends up in our engines. Enough of it has been spilled, all over creation, to empower many an engine. "Crime, power, mystification" is the thread that runs throughout the book. I say oil is even more fundamental, hugely trumping windmills and solar power, whose advocates are simply not ruthless enough, I say, to spread one iota as densely as do oil spills.

     Crime unpunished as a black youth caught stealing $100 languishes behind bars.

     The amount of truth from this indefatigable Truth-Sleuth is unending--one discovery only yields another heinous crime that the punitive powers manage to dismiss. A glaring exception is the light Palast shines on then Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee John Conyers, who jumped up from his project of subpoenaing Karl Rove and Tim Griffin for attempting to perpetrate caging, which eliminated Democrats from the 2004 presidential polls that fed us four more sleazy and tainted years of Bush 43. Palast, by the way, caught Griffin in the act, forcing him to switch careers--he is now a congressman (for more on this, see Armed Madhouse).

     Conyers jumped--who else in Congress would jump at a message from Palast? Kucinich?--and confronted Bush 43 with the Goldfinger bribery-masquerading-as-charitable-donations scandal, which he had learned about by listening to an interview of Palast on Democracy Now!

     The Democratic success in 2008 put another president in office but somehow freed Goldfinger, but consider the good side: he's not in Congress yet.

     Now, after all this, and his other publications, who is more qualified to stand back and discuss life in general, as occurs often in Greek tragedy, than Palast, after turning his own life inside-out for us toward the end of the book?

I know this is an incredibly simple story: Indians in white hats with their dead kids, and oil millionaires in black hats laughing at kiddy cancer and playing musical chairs with oil assets.

But maybe it's just that simple. Maybe in this world there really is Good and Evil.

Maybe Santa will sort it out for us. . . . Maybe Lawyer Yellow Pants will wake up on Christmas Eve staring at the ghost of Christmas Future and promise to get the oil sludge out of the Cofans' drinking water.

     Want more content? This isn't a New York Times book review. Buy the book at Greg's website or any other bookstore brave enough to sell it.

(c)

28 October 2011: Ohio Heroes on Path to Deposing Rove

Bob Fitrakis, Cliff Arnebeck, and other Ohioans on the King-Lincoln-Bronzeville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell team of expert attorneys are out to depose the Bush-Cheney kingpin of lethal corruption, Karl Rove (currently a Fox News talkshower,) and ultimately "to discover enough evidence to name him as the architect of the ongoing criminal conspiracy that election theft represents in Ohio and the nation," said Fitrakis last July.

     Fitrakis is referring not only to the tsunami of corruption that illegally handed the Ohio presidential results to Baby Bush in 2004, thus putting him over the top with the Buckeye State's twenty electoral votes; the "Ohio hero" is also referring to an uncounted and uncountably staggering quantity of other such events across the nation in both Election 2004 and Election 2000 that outrageously put Bush into the oval office twice.

     In the latter instance, in an eerily parallel event, Florida's twenty-seven electoral votes fell into Bush's column in 2000, winning him the election this time as a result of selection by SCOTUS, which took over the decision that legally belonged to the Florida Supreme Court, according to that state's constitution.

     In both Ohio and Florida, the secretaries of state, Kenneth Blackwell and Katherine Harris, respectively, played dual roles as directors of elections and chairpersons of the Republican campaigns to (re-)elect Bush as president. Such patterns, at both the local and federal levels, pose severe threats to the survival of democracy, Fitrakis and his colleagues have warned many times.

     "Bush's Brain," in addition to former vice president Dick Cheney, is Rove, according to Fitrakis & co. and many others horrified by the level of criminality that has so far gone unpunished, who are working at every level from grassroots to federal court to clean up our electoral system.

     After cleaner elections, still rife with corruption at every level, in 2006 and 2008, [midterm] election 2010 was called by author and activist Mark Crispin Miller the most corrupt election in U.S. history.

     Rove, who began as an intern with the Utah Republican Party in 1969 and worked his insidious way up to the post of Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to Baby Bush, was forced to resign in mid-2007, along with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others, in connection with the scandalous and illegal firing of nine U.S. prosecutors in 2006-2007. The grounds were trying to force the prosecutors to pin down cases of voter fraud that simply didn't exist.

     Rove is unofficially known as the top of the heap of a network of corruption flouting the U.S. Constitution if not international law. Bush even praised him as "architect" of his presidential victory in his acceptance speech in November 2004.

     Fitrakis, Arnebeck, and colleagues would promote him in this capacity to the national level, with apologies to Frank Lloyd Wright, I. M. Pei, and all of their peers and colleagues.

     King-Lincoln-Bronzeville began at the state level in Ohio as a class-action lawsuit aimed against SoS Blackwell and colleagues for massive levels of corruption [with Rove and Blackwell at the helm], as a result of tireless investigations (180 bullet points at the Ohio level alone), to publically inquire "whether the rights, privileges, and immunities guaranteed to Plaintiffs by the Civil Rights Act, and the First, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution have been violated by the past and ongoing conduct of Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell in connection with past elections in Ohio"; or, in more condensed form, "Improper Election Administration."

     Sadly, the suit was initiated with the hope of sanitizing Election 2006; instead, it was protracted, seemingly ad infinitum. The election of Democrat Jennifer Brunner to the post of SoS left by Blackwell expedited this laborious process, addressing the problems created by the infinitely hackable election systems. She decertified all of them, but too late to undo the damage of the Ohio debacle, with their facile accessibility, via a "man-in-the-middle" process [a deliberate computer hacking setup] that sent votes down to a cave of iniquity in Chattanooga, Tennessee--a massive computer network, which laundered them and relayed them back to the office of the SoS, enough to hand Bush the victory electronically.

     Bush ultimately won the Buckeye State, despite everything, by a slim margin of approximately 123,000 votes. Kerry mysteriously conceded on October 5, prematurely in the opinion of many, with 250,000 votes still uncounted. To date, this hastiness has not been explained to the satisfaction of all of those who worked so hard for the Massachusetts senator.

     On July 20, 2011, Fitrakis and his fellow prosecutors filed a new brief that decisively proves that the Ohio election was stolen. Included are a diagram of the election production system--the "man-in-the-middle" structure and the deposition of the late Michael Connell, the staunch Republican IT guru for the Bush family and Karl Rove since 2000 and creator of the system.

     Enough information was extracted from Connell to shift Rove's prognostications, which contradicted poll predictions, to a victory for Obama instead of McCain at the eleventh hour before Election Day--Monday evening, November 3, 2008.

     Rove had been that sure, until that eleventh hour, that Connell's elaborate system would effectively hand victory to yet another Republican president.

     The shift was as sudden and accomplished as the vote jumps at 11:15 in Ohio on Election Day in 2004 that subtracted 400,000 from Kerry's total--poof!

     The Ohio attorneys' filing also includes the contract signed between Blackwell and Connell's company, GovTech Solutions, and a graphic architectural map of the secretary of state's election-night server layout system.

     Most recently, in response to the filing, according to Fitrakis in a recent email, "we are waiting for the court to rule on the state's motion to dismiss parts of the case and proceed immediately to trial.

     "As for Rove--initially we're just trying to depose him to see what he knows. Ultimately our goal is to discover enough evidence to name him as the architect of the ongoing criminal conspiracy that election theft represents in Ohio and the nation."

     Fitrakis is skeptical that the trial will lead to a settlement, because every state office in Ohio is controlled by Republicans; Rove will do his best to avoid testifying under oath, he said.

     "He's hired high price law firms to get out of taking a deposition just as he did with Conyers in the U.S. Congress [avoiding two subpoenas by the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee]. Rove will use all levers of influence from criminal investigation by his friends in the FBI to any other means to avoid being held accountable for what he did in Ohio in 2004."

     Magisterial IT expert Stephen Spoonamore, who joined the Fitrakis team as key witness in September 2008, studied the system and supplied the suspected conclusions on how exactly the heist was accomplished, translating them into language we all can comprehend, backing up his conclusions with the diagrams supplied in the latest filing.

(c)

10,000 Black Men Named George and the March for Jobs and Freedom

I was chosen to review this 90-minute made-for-cable documentary, or probably flattered, because indeed I was, at the prospect of reviewing a film about ten thousand black men.

     Who, me? Why not an African American? Me?

     Then I wondered how I could possibly accomplish the review. So I stalled.

     Then after a week I donned my headphones and sat riveted for an hour and a half and ultimately cried.

     Then I wondered why a story so magnificent could have been filmed in 2002 and not spread around widely.

     I was watching the story of the man who organized the 1964 March for Jobs and Freedom, thus gifting this world with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., one among several invited speakers, nor did he lead off.

     And much led up to that day we celebrate as a festival of freedom and justice, January 15.

*****

Well, the armature is formulaic: long struggle uphill from obscure and condoned racist abuse to separate-but- equal, dignified autonomy, helped by FDR's election to the presidency, which enables the support of the National Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters by the A.F. of L., a guarantee of legitimacy. Jim Crow was pushed down a notch, certainly, but still chewing on his oversized cigar like the right-hand man in the struggle, the sleazy Chicagoan Milton Webster.

     More specifically, in 1925, the sleeping car porters, all black, are nominally unionized in the Employes [sic] Representation Plan (ERP), but deriving no benefits from it--hugely underpaid at $60 a month, which was skimpy even for the Roaring Twenties--going without pay if the trains are not full, given no time off between train trips, and forced to absorb the plentiful abuse heaped on them by passengers, who promise tips in return for demeaning them. Some passengers ride trains for this sole purpose.

     The uphill battle begins as the country hovers on the brink of the Depression, bubble not burst yet--the rich are getting richer, but here's the difference between then and now: the rich had something to lose if the trains weren't full. Now the lower classes foot the bill.

     The first scene portrays a debonair if not elegant porter catching a passenger in a Pullman compartment stealing towels from the bathroom into her suitcase. He politely asks her not to steal them and she demands to see the manager, to whom she lies--the towels were planted there by . . . Asa Philip Randolph. The situation is hanging when a head-on collision solves the impasse.

     In another scene, a sensual, drunk white woman lures him into her compartment, strips, and attempts seduction. One wonders how Randolph escaped as he seemed to have, intact.

     The film title refers to all Pullman porters being called George, in a slimy, racist tribute to the founder and first owner of the Pullman Company, one of the largest in the country then--George Pullman. Ten thousand was the number of votes that gave birth to the new union by a landslide.

     To his credit, Pullman wanted to help ex-slaves achieve employment and a new life; he saw trains as a symbol of freedom and escape for blacks. At least that's the story given by the "rat" discovered spying for the corporation while masquerading as one of the would-be founders of the union. The scene of this scrappy older man, Leon, being weeded out as the source of leaks to the other side, whimpering his confession, is effectively pathetic. Stretched beyond endurance, brainwashed and bribed, he watches his wife of forty-three years walk out of the room and his life.

     By betraying the nascent union, he has betrayed her, she says. The ladies' auxiliaries, composed of the workers' wives and other female family members, play an indispensable role in the process, as material and spiritual supporters.

     But back to the chronological plot: Randolph is forced to resign from his job by the Pullman execs--the alternative is firing of his comrades, which the hero won't abide.

     A veteran organizer of numerous failed unions, he changes jobs, writing and producing a socialist newspaper, The Messenger, whose small circulation is supported by his beautiful wife's thriving beauty shop.

     This selfless heroine looks white until the camera is practically on top of her. If I have any criticism of the film other than its predictable production and outcome, it's the presence of a white female in a black role. She is the only woman in the cast who receives a supporting role. The black women are strictly in the background or cameos at best.

     The acting is, by the way, notable, with ugly Milton Webster's portrayer, Charles S. Dutton, stealing the show even in his role as a sleazy stereotype.

     This is the era when white unions were forming all over the country; white train conductors were unionized.

     The first conference is called and the event is published in white newspapers, prompting one white exec to call Randolph "the most dangerous Negro in America."

     Calling ERP a meaningless sham, the founders establish dues of $10 a year, resolve to cease accepting tips, and the independent labor group is conceived, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

     Six thousand dollars is collected from some six hundred workers; Randolph accepts a token salary to lead them. He is prompted to consult with a powerful black ex-bailiff in Chicago, Milton Webster, whom he finds chewing on a cigar and draped around by a sleazy waitress who also makes eyes at the newcomer, who hides his disgust as he tries to shake sleazebag into sobriety.

     He succeeds once "Web" is convinced he's onto something. "If he's not tough enough, we're all dead," says Web, one of the forgettable lines in the film that does overcome a lot to succeed.

     More memorably, Web expresses admiration for the Whites for trading a bottle of bourbon for Manhattan Island and taking the rest of the country far more brutally. Brought over in boats, we're still in chains.

     He is the black waiter on the train with the gumption to crack a wiseguy white in the face, starting a large brawl in the narrow dining car. He is the provocateur to violence while Randolph insists on the inverse.

      The conclusion is ultimately a draw. With would-be union members surging in a crowd about to vote, Webster threatens the white intruder attempting to interrupt the progress, with a riot. Off slinks another skimpy wimp. Voting, not violence, becomes the language toward justice.

     Randolph's wife Lucille, meanwhile, is approaching rank poverty as the Pullman people have bought off her customers and they have boycotted her business, passing out leaflets calling the Randolphs Bolsheviks.

     Another confrontation revolves around the ERP rulebook; firings occur though the rule is for hearings to precede them, which do not occur.

     "This is a white people's country," growls one of the Pullman execs.

     The A.F. of L. will only support the struggling founders once FDR is elected. Prior to that they are sympathetic but not quite more--the "present climate" is not conducive, says William Green. Striking is "too risky" an alternative also, a "last resort" to avoid.

     Meanwhile, support for the nascent union grows to half the sleeping car porters in the country. The Pullmans interject the contradiction between presence at meetings and work schedules that belie it, concluding with the charge that for the ERP proxy is not allowed. When Web responds violently, the meeting quickly adjourns.

     Then support expands to 53 percent, more than half. The Pullman execs spend more on sabotage than on the workers' wages (not really a surprise--it summons up the OWS movement, one of whose major complaints is the sacrifice of the peace economy to obscene war expenses more than twice that of the nearest competitor).

     As Randolph anticipates preparation for "the real thing," his number two man, the soft-spoken Ashley, also former darling of the Pullman execs, exits from the back door into an assault that permanently maims him but also greatly strengthens his white-suited, stiffened presence when he rejoins the group toward the end of the film to insist that Randolph not cave to a deal to step down as the Pullmans promise to recognize the union without him.

     The Depression becomes at least as much of an antagonist as the Pullman execs at this point as workers become unable to pay their dues. Randolph's hundred percent commitment is then clarified; the couple could never have children and so parented sweeping social changes instead.

     He tells the discontented workers that their children's future is in the balance, that they must not abandon things now, even though the union can't afford the support it was founded to provide.

     Back then, as I mentioned above, workers were irreplaceable, though the execs do consider Philippine and Mexican scabs they consider Westernizing in six weeks.

     Another dispensable tableau is Randolph's despair: "This is work for someone else--the next generation. "You've come too far," says the beautiful Lucille. "This time I win or die," responds Randolph shortly thereafter.

     Hollywood lines like that always harbinger victory. But suspense is not lost. The execs try to bribe Randolph with a check for $10,000. Randolph is superhuman, never close to unfaithfulness or bribery.

     When FDR is sworn in, things change quickly; lobbying in DC is active. The percentage past fifty percent earns the Brotherhood the right to the A.F. of L. umbrella.

     Says Barton Davis, a Clark Gable clone and chief antagonist, "Randolph will unite all the Negroes." Some white guys proceed to offer Randolph a blank check worth any six figures he writes in. We know what happens.

     The Railway Labor Act passes, with ten thousand signatures sent from the union to DC.

     Ten years in the making, the union takes off and Randolph persists, still young enough to assemble the March for Jobs and Freedom in 1964, quite a leap but quite a climax.

     This flawed film packs a wallop. The production is dwarfed by the content.

     I don't mean to be snide nor to dismiss emotion as schmaltz. I ended up in tears as the DVD ended happily.

     Now we're making another film live, the OWS. Let's hope for more victorious schmaltz. Don't knock it, Marta.

(c)

19 October 2011: Confronting Discimination in the Post-9/11 Era: Challenges and Opportunities Ten Years Later

The George Washington University Law School, along with the U.S. Department of Justice, today hosted two panel discussions: first, looking back; and second, looking forward--the former referring to the Post-9/11 Backlash and the latter, to the Remaining Challenges, Emerging Opportunities.

      There was a disconnect between the conclusions that most Muslims are happy in this country but that Islamophobia is getting worse. How can this be? Let's go through the proceedings, which featured several prominent figures in the U.S. DoJ. How can we expect them to know everything?

      Indeed, in his closing remarks, Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, referred back to the nineteenth-century Know-Nothing Party, which warned against allowing Irish people to occupy government posts. They feared that they would attempt to impose the Church's canon law throughout the country.

      The uninformed contingent in this country expresses similar concern about Sharia (Muslim law), whose meaning certainly diverges from the dictatorial stereotype perpetrated by the ruthless governments in Iran and Syria, among others (see my blog on Sharia, 26 July 2011, "What Sharia Is and Isn't").

      Will we ever learn? The event was introduced by the dean of the George Washington University Law School, holder of an endowed chair as well, Paul Schiff Berman, who immediately looked back to the interment of the Japanese Americans during World War II.

      Deputy Attorney General James Cole, second in command after Eric Holder, continued that thread farther back--what are the foundations of this country? Many ideals, but the first settlers were all fleeing religious persecution and this is inscribed forever in the First Amendment, the right to freedom of religion; said James Madison, this country will be an asylum and shelter from oppression.

      Indeed, ethnic oppression rears up again and again throughout our history and throughout world history, but as long as we speak up, as Mr. Perez reminded us, these events will be put in their place--history.

      And meanwhile, of course, diversity is the fabric that made this country great; we're more alike than different and have much to learn from each other.

      9/11 changed this country in ways not anticipated and placed national security at the top of our priorities while human rights became a distant second. Prejudice against the Muslims, Sikhs, and South Asians rose quickly. They were to blame. Hate crimes proliferated.

      As if Islam were the only distorted source of terrorism. Cole reminded us of terrorist outbreaks in Norway recently and Oklahoma in the mid 1990s. Extremism is polymorphic and springs from all peoples at some point or other in history.

      It is the role of the DoJ to protect the human and civil rights of all: our mosques, churches, synagogues, temples, ashrams--wherever we worship--to build trust and respect.

      Cole expressed hope that in another ten years the mindset that gives birth to terrorism and hate crimes will be fully outdated.

*****

The first panel was moderated by Roy L. Austin Jr., deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, who launched the hour-and-a-half-long discussion by finding hope at the bottom of the horrific debris of 9/11.

     Ralph M. Boyd, former deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, was first to speak.

      We must distinguish between the "dull virtue" of tolerance and actually embracing new ethnic groups; it is the nature of this beast to diversify more and more with each generation. Witness the number of languages we now can choose among when using ATMs--and there are so many more spoken in this country.

      In the very un-American toxic air after 9/11, the bulk of the hate crimes committed in the following decade occurred in the first three weeks. In response, a new position was created in the Department of Justice, that of Special Counsel for Religious Discrimination.

      But much remains to be done.

      Stuart J. Ishimaru, commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said that the number of charges of employment discrimination skyrocketed 250 percent after 9/11 and tripled over the years since then, particularly in Texas, California, Arizona, and elsewhere. Progress has been made since then, he said, and he looks forward to more.

      Farhana Khere, executive director of the group Muslim Advocates, said she worked to organize coalitions across the country to combat discrimination in the form of racial and religious profiling and to strengthen Muslim communities while at the same time fighting against allowed surveillance.

      In the wake of 655 hate crimes committed the first week after 9/11, even President George W. Bush spoke out against the lethal stereotyping of all Muslims based on the perverted extremism of a pathetic few.

      It was an experience in itself to hear the name of Bush mentioned favorably throughout the panel discussions, but always referring back to his stance against blind discrimination born of scapegoatism born of that shock heard round the world.

      Said Amardeep Singh, director of programs for the Sikh Coalition, the issues born of 9/11 are still very much with us today. Quoting Martin Luther King, that the moral arc of history bends toward justice, he said he maintains his optimism while recalling the most horrible moment of his life--when his mother told him to take off his turban and he refused.

      Violence against Sikhs happened quickly after 9/11. In Providence, Rhode Island, a Sikh man was arrested for carrying around a religious object that looked like a sword, a kirpan.

      All Muslims were forced to register their presence here; twelve hundred were held for criminal investigation and tens of thousands were deported, staining the image of this country irreparably; the U.S. government owes these people a formal apology, said Singh.

      Added James J. Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, his department was located next to the White House, but evacuation was not possible since their phones were ringing off the hook reporting threats and fears. His office was given police protection.

      "We lived 9/11," he said. Each of us has a personal story of how we experienced it individually. The United States was in shock. We were in mourning.

      In the midst of the mayhem, said Zogby, Senator Ted Kennedy phoned him to tell him about protective legislation he was working on and a Japanese-American memorial to say "never again."

      Threats retreated in favor of institutional discrimination, for example opposition to the building of mosques. Eighty thousands Muslims did not register their presence and to this day are in hiding and can't be accounted for.

      Hatred of Muslims is evident in the Republican debates now being telecast, he said. An industry of hate is fomenting hate and hasn't gone away. Organizations persist in legitimizing hatred. There are two Americas: one "pro" Muslim and one that opposes these hapless Americans.

      Questions from the audience, selected by Roy Austin from index cards submitted, clarified that Muslim youth were becoming more engaged in combatting the prejudices against them; that investigations conducted after 9/11 on behalf of national security were hugely intimidating and other methods might have created less fear and panic.

      When the question "Is Islamophobia growing?" came up, the answer, from James Zogby, was yes and no; divisiveness has grown since 2010; politicians are exploiting fear for their personal advantage; fear of Sharia is spreading; people call Obama a Muslim; we need strong support to combat this systematic discrimination.

      Said Amardeep Singh, Islamophobia is more hidden and hence more insidious. In San Francisco 80 percent of youth have suffered from it; it is their generation that is bearing the brunt of this disease. Added Amber Khan, there is the misconception that Islam teaches and promotes violence. Fully 45 percent of American Muslims are black and so disadvantaged by two forms of discrimination.

*****

The second panel, oriented toward the future, was introduced by information from the Pew Survey on Muslim Americans. Dr. Scott Keeter, director of survey research, and Gregory A. Smith, senior researcher for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, were the presenters.

      According to Keeter, 1,033 American Muslims were surveyed from April 14 to July 22, 2011 in four different languages (English, Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu). Sixty percent were first-generation Americans, 15 percent second generation, and 22 percent third generation, the victimized youth mentioned above.

      Seventy percent of those surveyed were U.S. citizens; many watch as much television as do Americans on average; that is, 58 percent watch one hour or more each day. They thrive on social networks and enjoy sports and videogames. American flags are displayed by 44 percent of their homes--defensively, it was added later.

      In terms of degree of happiness in this country, the majority were happy here; 15 percent were dissatisfied, a higher figure than that characterizing the general public. Fifty-six percent say they don't want to assimilate; 33 percent say that they are assimilated; 66 percent say that the quality of life is better here than in their former countries of residence, and 23 percent find the two experiences roughly the same.

      Said Gregory Smith, Muslims who are well integrated and assimilated still face problems. Thirty percent attribute these to negativity, 20 percent, to ignorance and prejudice, 15 percent to plain ignorance, and 7 percent to religious or cultural issues.

      They did not want to discuss any economic difficulties affecting them. The overarching priority was understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims.

      But in terms of the quantity of discrimination, the figure for the last twelve months hasn't changed from that measured in 2007. Five percent experienced assault in both time periods.

      As stated above, younger Muslims experience more abuse than do older Muslims, and very religious Muslims are more abused than their less observant co-religionists. The media do not treat them fairly, governmental policies are discriminatory and, obviously, it is far more difficult to be a Muslim American since 9/11.

      On the question of whether or not a mosque should be built near ground zero, 80 percent of Muslims were aware of the issue, 72 percent said it should be allowed (but only 38 percent of American Muslims among them), and one-third of them were dubious on the subject.

      Fully 80 percent live in areas that do not object to the building of mosques, but controversies exist all over the country. Few Muslims perceive Americans as friendly, but "friendly/neutral" was a descriptor used by many. One-third say people have reached out to them.

      Among foreign-born Muslims, 41 percent are Middle Eastern, 14 percent Pakistani, and 5 percent Iranians. The American public is more wary of Muslims in general than of Muslim Americans (the difference is 5 percent).

      Finally, Bush's protective stance positively influenced his fellow Republicans after 9/11.

*****

The panel began with a discussion of the recent wide publicity of police violence and violation of civil rights, which is upsetting Muslim communities. Community outreach by the government is flawed and must improve.

      This speaker, Sahar F. Aziz, associate professor of law at the Texas Wesleyan School of Law, said that the outreach was male-dominated and more female leadership is needed. All our issues revolve around discrimination, she said, and then quoted President Obama's recent speech dedicating the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial: "Change is difficult . . ." for Muslim children as much as for anyone else.

      Dwight C. Holton, former U.S. attorney and current senior litigation counsel, District of Oregon, said that FBI training portrays Muslims as violent or prone to violence. They must be disabused of the idea that we are at war with Islam. Attorney General Eric Holder is strongly committed to rectifying these falsehoods, he said.

      His effort to better orient law enforcement officers toward the Muslim community in Oregon marks the highlight of his fifteen-year career, said Holton. Part of this policy is building trust through hospitality. He held a dinner for fifteen Muslims, which he considered would probably be reciprocated fifteen times.

      His policy also involves bringing together religious groups, businesses, doctors, and others to promote better "inter-communication."

      Efforts to further civil rights must be aggressive and effective, he said. The filled auditorium bodes well--we are all here to discuss civil rights. What can we do? Muslims do not always report assaults--police must encourage them to. The government should reveal how its policies have changed from 9/11 until now; more attention should be paid to Islamophobia and propaganda, and more people should speak out against religious bigotry and hatred.

      Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America, spoke of his group Shoulder to Shoulder, which fights Islamophobia as well as bigotry and hatred. Dialogue should take place in mosques, synagogues, and churches, he said, and weed out those who are preaching hatred.

      We must learn from experience, asking where did it work? and what can we learn from it?

      Rabbi David Saperstein, director and counsel of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, praised the "vibrancy and robustness" of this administration in the area of civil rights. Every religious tradition can be used to justify both the good and the bad that we come upon.

      We must always put a human face on events and see them in human terms. As far as bullying is concerned, in both secular and religious schools, we must teach and learn the beauty of diversity and avoid defining any group in terms of its worst moments, which does infinite harm.

      Said the rabbi, Muslims are in an impossible situation; we must stand shoulder to shoulder in a battle between good and evil. The role of the interfaith community is indispensable--those dissatisfied with the way things are always receive the most attention.

      And regarding the contagious stereotypes being perpetrated about Sharia, this country would be outraged if the laws of other religions were accused of "taking over America." We must pass legislation guaranteeing religious freedom in each state.

      "We must learn about each other, not just talking but doing."

      We must work together serving the community. We should become a model for the world of "how to do it right."

      Together the legal communities and religious communities can change the world.

      Among the questions raised by this audience emerged the anecdote from Imam Magid about Jewish women donning head scarves to psychologically protect Muslim women afraid to go shopping in their religious attire.

      The habit of law enforcement officials entering Muslim buildings to do "threat assessments" should be curtailed in that it violates civil rights.

      Jews are improving interfaith relations by "twinning" with mosques and other successful programs they should share with other denominations--Muslims are still new to the U.S. religious community. Toward a better understanding of them, we should understand the structure of their communities.

      We've come a long way. Imams speak about the Holocaust with more credibility than do Jews. Filmmakers create dialogue on issues that challenge all of us. Muslims are at the forefront of fighting against violent extremism. What changes are needed and which ones have been accomplished? Changes should occur quickly!

      How can Muslims run their charities without getting into trouble?

      Muslims should not be afraid to speak out in criticism of the U.S. government.

*****

The event closed with remarks by Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division.

      He asked what the DoJ would do as a result of this conference, stressing that the enforcement of civil rights must be a bipartisan undertaking (Republicans in general are far more critical of Muslims than are Democrats).

      Teddy Kennedy would say that this country has a long way to go.

      We need an open and honest critical dialogue. We are one nation for all, with no asterisks or footnotes added. Our actions are governed by rules of engagement; we need engagement since we are partners in crime solving and engagement begets action.

      The Obama administration has seen two areas of major growth within the purview of the DoJ: LGBT issues and prejudice against Muslims, Sikhs, and South Asians. More hate crimes were prosecuted this year than in a long time; there is a need for reflection and recalibration; profiling at airports should occur with "a scalpel, not a meat axe."

      The Department of Homeland Security recalibrated what it was doing. We must be sure to have quality control, continuing to engage, act, and reflect. There is a false dichotomy between security and civil rights; both must be conducted in tandem.

      Remember [as Gandhi said] that silence is anything but golden in the face of oppression. We must always speak out to silence it.

*****

Regarding the disconnect I detected between two foundational realities evident in the narrative this morning, I must conclude, at this point, that complexities breed contradictions. Or perhaps Islamophobia is not really on the increase--note the statistic above that the quantity of discrimination hasn't changed since 2007--so much as public awareness of it is being raised by the interfaith groups that Rabbi Saperstein asserted more than once were key to resolving these latest issues that catch the United States in a self-contradictory mode. Self-contradictory because self-criticism is built into our fabric as much as hypocrisy is. I shall once again quote Noam Chomsky: "This is the greatest country in the world."

(c)

Confronting Discimination in the Post-9/11 Era: Challenges and Opportunities Ten Years Later

The George Washington University Law School, along with the U.S. Department of Justice, today hosted two panel discussions: first, looking back; and second, looking forward--the former referring to the Post-9/11 Backlash and the latter, to the Remaining Challenges, Emerging Opportunities.

      There was a disconnect between the conclusions that most Muslims are happy in this country but that Islamophobia is getting worse. How can this be? Let's go through the proceedings, which featured several prominent figures in the U.S. DoJ, plus academicians, clergy, researchers, and activists. How can we expect them to know everything?

     Indeed, in his closing remarks, Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, referred back to the nineteenth-century Know-Nothing Party, which warned against allowing Irish people to occupy government posts. They feared that they would attempt to impose the Church's canon law throughout the country.

      The uninformed contingent in this country expresses similar concern about Sharia (Muslim law), whose meaning certainly diverges from the dictatorial stereotype perpetrated by the ruthless governments in Iran and Saudi Arabia [nowadays, Syria is a much better example than Saudi A.], among others (see my blog on Sharia, 26 July 2011, "What Sharia Is and Isn't").

      Will we ever learn?

      The event was introduced by the dean of the George Washington University Law School, holder of an endowed chair as well, Paul Schiff Berman, who immediately looked back to the interment of the Japanese Americans during World War II.

     Deputy Attorney General James Cole, second in command after Eric Holder, continued that thread farther back--what are the foundations of this country? Many ideals, but the first settlers were all fleeing religious persecution and this is inscribed forever in the First Amendment, the right to freedom of religion; said James Madison, this country will be an asylum [yes, often an insane asylum] and shelter from oppression.

     Indeed, ethnic oppression rears up again and again throughout our history and throughout world history, but as long as we speak up, as Mr. Perez reminded us, these events will be put in their place--history.

     And meanwhile, of course, diversity is the fabric that made this country great; we're more alike than different and have much to learn from each other.

     9/11 changed this country in ways not anticipated and placed national security at the top of our priorities while human rights became a distant second. Prejudice against the Muslims, Sikhs, and South Asians rose quickly. They were to blame. Hate crimes proliferated.

     As if Islam were the only distorted source of terrorism. Cole reminded us of terrorist outbreaks in Norway recently and Oklahoma in the mid 1990s. Extremism is polymorphic and springs from all peoples at some point or other in history.

     It is the role of the DoJ to protect the human and civil rights of all: our mosques, churches, synagogues, temples, ashrams--wherever we worship [what's this symbol?] to build trust and respect.

     Cole expressed hope that in another ten years the mindset that gives birth to terrorism and hate crimes will be fully outdated.

*****

The first panel was moderated by Roy L. Austin Jr., former [no] deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, who launched the hour-and-a-half-long discussion by finding hope at the bottom of the horrific debris of 9/11.

     We must distinguish between the "dull virtue" of tolerance and actually embracing new ethnic groups; it is the nature of this beast to diversify more and more with each generation. Witness the number of languages we now can choose among when using ATMs--and there are so many more spoken in this country.

     In the very un-American toxic air after 9/11, the bulk of the hate crimes committed in the following decade occurred in the first three weeks. In response, a new position was created in the Department of Justice, that of Special Counsel for Religious Discrimination.

     But much remains to be done.

     Stuart J. Ishimaru, commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said that the number of charges of employment discrimination skyrocketed 250 percent and has tripled over the years since then [since when?], particularly in Texas, California, Arizona, and elsewhere. Progress has been made since then [since when?], he said, and he looks forward to more.

     Farhana Khera, board member of the group Muslim Advocates, said she worked to organize coalitions across the country to combat discrimination in the form of racial and religious profiling and to strengthen Muslim communities while at the same time fighting against allowed surveillance.

     In the wake of 655 hate crimes committed the first week after 9/11, even President George W. Bush spoke out against the lethal stereotyping of all Muslims based on the perverted extremism of a pathetic few. He made clear, publicly, that the 9/11 hijackers were distorters of Islam.

     It was an experience in itself to hear the name of Bush mentioned favorably throughout the panel discussions, but always referring back to his stance against blind discrimination born of scapegoatism born of that shock heard round the world.

     Said Amardeep Singh, director of programs for the Sikh Coalition, the issues born of 9/11 are still very much with us today. Quoting Martin Luther King, that the long moral arc of history bends toward justice, he said he maintains his optimism while recalling the most horrible moment of his life--when his mother told him, on the day of the attacks, to take off his turban and he refused.

     Violence against Sikhs happened quickly after 9/11. In Providence, Rhode Island, a Sikh man was arrested for carrying around a religious object that looked like a sword, a kirpan.

     All Muslims were forced to register their presence here; twelve hundred were held for criminal investigation and tens of thousands were deported, staining the image of this country irreparably; the U.S. government owes these people a formal apology, said Singh.

     Added James J. Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, his department was located next to the White House, but evacuation was not possible since their phones were ringing off the hook reporting threats and fears. His office was given police protection.

     "We lived 9/11," he said. Each of us has a personal story of how we experienced it individually. The United States was analogous to a human body, he said, that had been traumatized and then went into shock. We were in mourning. But, he added, he was told by many, “you, because you're a Muslim, cannot be part of this mourning.”

     In the midst of the mayhem, said Zogby, Senator Ted Kennedy phoned him to tell him about protective legislation he was working on and a Japanese-American memorial to say "never again."

     Overt Threats have lessened in favor of institutional discrimination, for example opposition to the building of mosques. Eighty thousands Muslims did not register their presence and to this day are in hiding and can't be accounted for.

     Hatred of Muslims is evident in the Republican debates now being telecast, he said. Further, an industry of hate is fomenting hate and hasn't gone away. Organizations persist in legitimizing hatred. There are two Americas: one tolerant and accepting of Muslims and one that opposes these hapless Americans.

     Questions from the audience, selected by Roy Austin from index cards submitted, clarified that Muslim youth were becoming more engaged in combatting the prejudices against them; that investigations conducted after 9/11 on behalf of national security were hugely intimidating and other methods might have created less fear and panic.

     When the question "Is Islamophobia growing?" came up, the answer, from James Zogby, was yes and no; divisiveness has grown since 2010; politicians are exploiting fear for their personal advantage; fear of Sharia is spreading; people call Obama a Muslim; we need strong support to combat this systematic discrimination.

     Said Amardeep Singh, Islamophobia is more hidden and hence more insidious. In San Francisco 80 percent of Muslim youth have suffered from it; it is their generation that is bearing the brunt of this disease. Added Amber Khan, there is the misconception that Islam teaches and promotes violence. Fully 45 percent of American Muslims are black and so disadvantaged by two forms of discrimination.

*****

The second panel, oriented toward the future, was introduced by information from the Pew Survey on Muslim Americans. Dr. Scott Keeter, director of survey research, and Gregory A. Smith, senior researcher for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, were the presenters.

     According to Keeter, 1,033 American Muslims were surveyed from April 14 to July 22, 2011 in four different languages (English, Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu). Sixty-three percent were first-generation Americans, 15 percent second generation, and 22 percent third generation, the victimized youth mentioned above.

     Seventy percent of those surveyed were U.S. citizens; many watch as much television as do Americans on average; that is, 58 percent watch one hour or more each day. They thrive on social networks and enjoy sports and videogames. American flags are displayed by 44 percent of their homes--defensively, it was added later.

     In terms of degree of happiness in this country, the majority were happy here; 15 percent were dissatisfied, a higher figure than that characterizing the general public. Fifty-six percent say they don't want to assimilate; 33 percent say that they are assimilated; 66 percent say that the quality of life is better here than in their former countries of residence, and 23 percent find the two experiences roughly the same.

     Said Gregory Smith, Muslims who are well integrated and assimilated still face problems. Thirty percent attribute these to negativity, 20 percent, to ignorance and prejudice, 15 percent to plain ignorance, and 7 percent to religious or cultural issues.

     They did not want to discuss any economic difficulties affecting them. The overarching priority was understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims.

     But in terms of the quantity of discrimination, the figure for the last twelve months hasn't changed from that measured in 2007. (In a way the current measurement is positive, said Smith, but the downside is that the negatives have not improved.) Five percent experienced assault in both time periods.

     As stated above, younger Muslims experience more abuse than do older Muslims, and very religious Muslims are more abused than their less observant co-religionists. The media do not treat them fairly, governmental policies are discriminatory and, obviously, it is far more difficult to be a Muslim American since 9/11.

     On the other than question of whether or not a mosque should be built near ground zero, 80 percent of American Muslims were aware of the issue, 72 percent said it should be allowed, and one-third of them were dubious on the subject.

     Fully 80 percent live in areas that do not object to the building of mosques, but controversies exist all over the country. Few Muslims perceive Americans as friendly, but "friendly/neutral" was a descriptor used by many. One-third say non-Muslims have reached out to them.

     Among foreign-born American Muslims, 41 percent are Middle Eastern, 14 percent Pakistani, and 5 percent Iranians. The American public is more wary of Muslims in general than of Muslim Americans (the difference is 5 percent).

     Finally, Bush's protective stance positively influenced his fellow Republicans after 9/11. I would say, on the basis of the narrative, that Republican Islamophobia or hostility has worsened since then.

*****

The panel began with a discussion of the recent wide publicity of police violence and violation of civil rights, which is upsetting Muslim communities. Community outreach by the government is flawed and must improve.

     This speaker, Sahar F. Aziz, associate professor of law at the Texas Wesleyan School of Law, said that the outreach was male-dominated and more female leadership is needed. All our issues revolve around discrimination, she said, and then quoted President Obama's recent speech dedicating the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial: "Change is difficult . . ." for Muslim children as much as for anyone else.

     Dwight C. Holton, former U.S. attorney and current senior litigation counsel, District of Oregon, said that FBI training portrays Muslims as violent or prone to violence. They must be disabused of the idea that we are at war with Islam. Attorney General Eric Holder is strongly committed to rectifying these falsehoods, he said.

     His effort to better orient law enforcement officers toward the Muslim community in Oregon marks the highlight of his fifteen-year career, said Holton. Part of this policy is building trust through hospitality. He held a dinner for fifteen Muslims, which he considered would probably be reciprocated fifteen times.

     His policy also involves bringing together religious groups, businesses, doctors, and others to promote better "inter-communication."

     Efforts to further civil rights must be aggressive and effective, he said. The filled auditorium bodes well--we are all here to discuss civil rights. What can we do? Muslims do not always report assaults--police must encourage them to. The government should reveal how its policies have changed from 9/11 until now; more attention should be paid to Islamophobia and propaganda, and more people should speak out against religious bigotry and hatred.

     Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America, spoke of the group Shoulder to Shoulder, consisting of twenty-six organizations that fight Islamophobic bigotry and hatred. Dialogue should take place in mosques, synagogues, and churches, he said, and weed out those who are preaching hatred. We must learn from experience, asking where did it work? and what can we learn from it?

     Rabbi David Saperstein, director and counsel of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, praised the "vibrancy and robustness" of this administration in the area of civil rights. Every religious tradition can be used to justify both the good and the bad that we come upon.

     We must always put a human face on events and see them in human terms. As far as bullying is concerned, in both secular and religious schools, we must teach and learn the beauty of diversity and avoid defining any group in terms of its worst moments, which does infinite harm.

     Said the rabbi, Muslims are in an impossible situation; we must stand shoulder to shoulder in a battle between good and evil. The role of the interfaith community is indispensable--those dissatisfied with the way things are always receive the most attention.

     And regarding the contagious stereotypes being perpetrated about Sharia, this country would be outraged if the laws of other religions were accused of "taking over America." We must pass legislation guaranteeing religious freedom in each state.

     "We must learn about each other, not just talking but doing." We must work together serving the community. We should become a model for the world of "how to do it right."

     Together the legal communities and religious communities can change the world.

     Among the questions raised by this audience emerged the anecdote from Imam Magid about Jewish women donning head scarves to psychologically protect Muslim women afraid to go shopping in their religious attire.

     The habit of law enforcement officials entering Muslim buildings to do "threat assessments" should be curtailed in that it violates civil rights.

     Jews are improving interfaith relations by "twinning" with mosques and other successful programs they should share with other denominations--Muslims are still new to the U.S. religious community. Toward a better understanding of them, we should understand the structure of their communities.

     We've come a long way. Filmmakers create dialogue on issues that challenge all of us. Muslims are the first line of defense in fighting against extremism in this country. What changes are needed and which ones have been accomplished? Changes should occur quickly!

     How can American Muslims run their charities without getting into trouble?

     Muslims should not be afraid to speak out in criticism of the U.S. government.

*****

The event closed with remarks by Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division.

     He spoke of what the DoJ would do as a result of this conference, stressing that the enforcement of civil rights must be a bipartisan undertaking (Republicans in general are far more critical of Muslims than are Democrats).

     Teddy Kennedy would say that this country has a long way to go. Perez shared Kennedy's oft-quoted famous statement, “Civil rights remains the unfinished business of this country.”

     We need an open and honest critical dialogue. We are one nation for all, with no asterisks or footnotes added. Our actions are governed by rules of engagement; we need engagement since we are partners in crime solving and engagement begets action.

     The Obama administration has seen two areas of major growth within the purview of the DoJ: LGBT issues and prejudice against Muslims, Sikhs, and South Asians. More hate crimes were prosecuted this year than in a long time; there is a need for reflection and recalibration; profiling at airports should occur with "a scalpel, not a meat axe."

     The Department of Homeland Security recalibrated what it was doing. We must be sure to have quality control, continuing to engage, act, and reflect. There is a false dichotomy between security and civil rights; both must be conducted in tandem. Remember [as Gandhi said] that silence is anything but golden in the face of oppression. We must always speak out to silence it.

*****

Regarding the disconnect I detected between two foundational realities evident in the narrative this morning, I must conclude, at this point, that complexities breed contradictions. Or perhaps Islamophobia is not really on the increase so much as public awareness of it is being raised by the interfaith groups that Rabbi Saperstein asserted more than once were key to resolving these latest issues that catch the United States in a self-contradictory mode. Self-contradictory because self-criticism is built into our fabric as much as hypocrisy is. I shall once again quote Noam Chomsky: "This is the greatest country in the world."

(c)

16 October 2001: Dedication of MLK Memorial

The weather in Washington, DC, could not have been more opposed to the original day for which the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial had been planned. On August 28, recovering from a mid-level earthquake, the District was hit by Hurricane Irene.

     MLK's daughter, Rev. Christine Lang Farris, explained the postponement. August 28 was the date on which MLK had delivered his immortal "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1964. To have held the dedication on that day would mean that we aspired no farther than it. To hold it nearly two months later signified the progress we anticipated, for what has been accomplished since then may be seen in some ways as retrogression--contentment with short-term changes and subtle forms of Jim Crow creeping back into the system, most evident in the strict/stricter voter i.d. laws now infecting more and more states.

     The dedication was also a tribute to the heroism of those who marched and toiled with MLK in the late 1950s and 1960s, some of whom were present, both named and anonymous, and to all of us who work toward the goals of the dream--equality in every aspect of life, which the one percent must realize is ultimately of benefit to all. Right now, remarked Ambassador Andrew Young at a later event, that diseased, greedy fraction of the population is "like a drunk driving a Ferrari on the Autobahn."

     The proceedings began at 8 a.m. this morning for the tens of thousands who had arrived even earlier with an hour of music of various forms, including two different Gospel choirs, one from MLK's Ebenezer Baptist Chuch in Atlanta. The speeches began at 9, from a spectrum of civil rights heroes, after it was noted that Washingtonians haven't gotten beyond the revolutionary goal of taxation with representation. There was a recent march on this issue--we don't give up easily.

     First to speak was a close associate of MLK, Julian Bond, who said that the true message of anyone is how long it survives after the person's life. It seems that the only place in the world where MLK's message doesn't resonate is Wall Street.

     Said Rev. Farris, the next speaker, she remembered the day her baby brother was born and watched him ascend from that time (1929). Eighty-two years ago, who would have envisioned an African American president?

     "Great dreams can come true."

     Of all presidents, it was Ronald Reagan who declared January 15, MLK's birthday, or the Monday closest to it, as a holiday. (The reverend did not even mention that name.)

     She lauded the first black fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, to which her brother belonged, for financing the thirty-foot colossus, as tall as her brother was short--his height of five feet, seven inches, was diminishing to him, she said, but certainly did not prevent his astounding ministry. [This latter observation actually came later from Andrew Young.]

     Farris briefly highlighted other milestones in MLK's life, including the Nobel prize he received in 1964, and then expressed the wish that "today mark another step of the dream." Rev. King's daughter, Rev. Bernice King, reminded her audience of the credit due to her mother, Coretta Scott King, who raised their four children as a wife and then a widow, imbuing them with their father's teachings and values and then led efforts to establish MLK Day as a national holiday.

     She reminded us of the hatred of King that existed the year in which he died, 1968, in contrast with his official status as the only memorialized "father" on the mall who was neither president, nor any level of political official, but a minister and founder of a new age of U.S. history and the world.

     We must move from racial justice to economic justice, she said, going beyond the dream to address the hideous imbalance of society in our age as more and more people join the ranks of poverty.

     We must shift from our orientation toward gaining things to concentrate on people, continued the reverend, quoting her father; our survival depends on our ability to remain alert, to struggle and to pray to avoid fatigue, so that we can arrive at that height MLK famously labeled with lines from a hymn: "Free at last, free at last; thank God that we are free at last," in the "I Have a Dream" speech.

     It took another King family member, Martin Luther King III, to bring in the present Occupations in DC, New York City, and throughout the country and the world: we are seeking justice for workers, the middle class, senior citizens, and students entrapped in enormous college debt.

     "We've lost our souls." This country's biggest industry is its prisons, where the predominant population is black or brown, in higher numbers than those races among this country's institutions of higher education.

     None of us can be free until all of us are; now is the time to stand up for all humankind. "It may get worse before it gets better."

     A large monarch butterfly flew about the audience throughout the morning. I hoped it was a good omen, as it seemed to be.

     Veteran newscaster Dan Rather spoke next, having covered the civil rights marches and abuses at the beginning of his long and eventful career. He deplored the dearth of media coverage back then; his bosses in Atlanta, CBS, did not choose to cover the events of 1962. Today the media are colluding with special interests, he continued. The weight King carried was heavier than the colossal statue of him here.

     Rev. Jesse Jackson, who marched beside MLK in the 1960s, recalled that Congressman John Conyers began planning this memorial three days after King's death. It would be situated within 132 miles of the Jamestown, VA, settlement where slavery in what would become this country has its roots.

     MLK's last plans concerned occupying the District, he said. The government must attend to poverty; racial justice by itself is insufficient [if such a contradictory arrangement is actually possible]. We are a nation in pain, a sinking ship.

     We must remain nonviolent. Jackson ended with a quote from the biblical book of Job: "Thought you slay me, yet I get up again with faith in God."

     Said Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), one man accomplished what no president could--to teach us to let go of hatred and to eliminate the Jim Crow segregation that required separate public facilities for blacks and whites.

     Now we are changed, a better nation, and the world is a different place. Obama's election is a downpayment; we're not there yet, still needing to "create a more perfect union."

     Economics is the new dictator of this country, said Ambassador Andrew Young. When the savings and loan companies went out of business in the late twentieth century, the banks took over lending, something they knew nothing about. Moreover, the Republicans eliminated the boundary line between commercial banks and investment banks.

     He compared the thriving economy of Atlanta with the rest of the nation, describing a job-friendly environment; mayors in that peachtree city have been black for the last forty years. We must end poverty with literacy, studying economics and winning the battle over voting rights.

     Rev. Joseph Lowery, third president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, quoted from MLK's Nobel prize acceptance speech: "I accept, with abiding faith in America and audacious faith in mankind. He refused to bellieve that daybreak could not shine in this country and dare believe in the rights of all to education and food, dignity and equality.

     "Men can bring up what bigots have turned down. Thank God for the past and present and look forward to the future."

     Poet and academic Nikki Giovanni addressed the women among us--we must overcome, feel the spirit of greatness, and be redeemed, she said.

     Corporate sponsors who were next to speak occasioned some amount of uneasiness--General Motors CEO Dan Akerson spoke of the great speeches of the sixties--JFK's inaugural address and MLK's "I Have a Dream"; GM has supported the $120 million project for two decades--"it is our responsibility to make this country better."

     Akerson had remarked earlier that his company's generous support of the memorial was one way to pay back the citizens of this country for the bailout that brought GM back to life and productivity. Similarly, Tommy Hilfigger's father told the fashion mogul as a child that the two greatest figures at the time were JFK and MLK. The famous designer was several years ago involved in an unfortunate faux pas on a popular daytime TV show. He has certainly compensated by today supplying the entire audience with souvenir baseball caps [note all the white caps among the audience--see photo above] as well by as his additional generous support of the project.

     A most poignant moment in the program was the appearance of veteran actress Cicely Tyson onstage accompanied by twelve-year-old Amandela Stenberg. Tyson called out to women heroes to become powerful role models and then introduced us to our future; the charming child spoke clearly and proudly as she honored the four girls her age slain in the church bombing in Birmingham in 1964.

     She said that MLK had eulogized them as having led meaningful lives, as she planned to.

     Acress and singer Diahann Carroll recalled asking MLK how he could live life so dangerously with a wife and children depending on him. His answer was that his family was as committed to his ideals as he was and worked in harmony with him.

     AFSCME secretary-treasurer Lee Saunders brought the Occupation back into the narrative, drawing a parallel between the importance of labor rights and civil rights. "We must always speak out," he said. "We are marching on to victory and to restore democracy."

     Rev. Al Sharpton identified the new memorial as "a marker for the fight today and our future." The fight won't stop until MLK's dream is fulfilled. Justice cannot exist when others are attempting surreptitiously to revive Jim Crow and when one percent of the population hold 40 percent of the wealth. "We must retire those who block us."

     Balancing the budget with funds from our entitlements is out of the question, he continued. "It's not about Obama but our mama." We had faith and have risen from the depths to the White House. Marian Wright Edelman, activist and head of the Children's Defense Fund, remarked that we must honor MLK not just today but always to rescue the American Dream.

     She recalled his last sermon, at the National Cathedral, in which he referred to Jesus' regret that a rich man ignored the opportunity he had to help the poor. She said that since that sermone the number of poor people in this country has nearly doubled, from 25 million to 44.2 million.

     She exhorted the audience to speak up on behalf of their children and the future. We must break the vicious cycle between the cradle and prison among poor populations, she said.

     After King's death, she went to speak to a group of discouraged adolescents to dissuade them from violence and looting, to ensure a better future. One youth responded, "What future?" He didn't feel that he had any.

     It is this tragedy that we must address head on, she reiterated.

     As one of the choruses began a spirited and moving performance of "Glory Hallelujah," the cameras moved to the site of the new memorial, where the Obama family, accompanied by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Vice President Joe Biden, and others (I think I saw Sonia Sotomayor) walked slowly in the vicinity, admiringly. Salazar spoke briefly, followed by the climax of the activities (some may dispute this), President Obama's speech. "Four more years!" cheered many in the audience as he began. [At this point I was standing in a crowd, so couldn't take notes; the following brief summary is pulled from my memory as well as secondary sources.]

     It was such a dramatic juxtaposition--the dreamer, thirty feet high, looking down upon what many might say was, if not his dream, something that would certainly surprise and overwhelm him were he to return for a visit.

     The president noted how the height of the statue was consistent with the way in which MLK towered over us; the amazing preacher "stirred our conscience" and made this country a more perfect union. He said that he knew we would overcome because of King's example--"he saw what we might become."

     In another reference to the Occupations defying the wealthiest one percent, Obama said that King "would want us to challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing those who work there."

     [That in itself is a challenge.]

     He noted parallels between the difficulties and miseries afflicting society today and in the sixties and exhorted us to remain nonviolent and infused with the energy MLK inspired in us then and forever as he navigated the conflict between what "is" and what "ought" to be

     He emphasized that King's project did not come to fruition overnight or even in years, but stretched out even longer. [The implication was that Obama's own aspirations couldn't be achieved quickly but require more patience than the public allows him. This, I anticipated, is a talking point we will probably hear often in the months leading up to 2012.]

     The president encouraged us again to draw strength from all of the adversity experienced in the past--this he would try to imbue in his daughters, that their are times of tribulation and self-doubt and discouragement, points in that mountain we climb called life [my bad metaphor], which also offers overwhelming rewards.

     "Change has never been simple or without controversy."

(c)

14 October 2011: Coffee, Tea, or Us: How Leaders and "Followers" Feel about WSO

MSM are hot with on-the-spot coverage of the soon-to-be-worldwide "Occupy _____" movement.

     It's about time we invaded our own space, given this country's propensity to occupy other countries and regions.

     Oh, to fill up Wall Street and block so much! Oh, to fill the world, to strip the "emperor" once and for all and share his clothing equitably.

     Good old CBS [new to us?], anticipating the one-month anniversary of the Occupation, has forced statements out of expected supporters and detractors. Obama acknowledges the validity of our motives. Bill Clinton quotes protesters indirectly and hopes our efforts will spark a "positive" debate.

     Billionaire Bloomberg says we're off target because on Wall Street the employees earn $40 thou to $50 thou, "struggling to make ends meet." I'd add that we're on target opposing his ambiguity--did he order the "cleanup" as mayor or billionaire? Take a guess.

     Herman Cain calls us "anti-American" and "jealous," not wanting to achieve the American Dream "the old-fashioned way." Does that mean open a pizza parlors, perhaps a franchise of his, or forty acres and a mule?

     Eric Cantor is amazed that anyone can support us, Mitt sees our actions as "class warfare," and I believe the sincerest of all reactions among the six is another comment snatched from Obama: "I like being an underdog."

     Now what does he mean by that? Trying to represent people who are trying to push through his 2008 campaign agenda?

     And get this: among us "plain folks," according to NBC, the movement is "clearly growing," among "dozens of cities across the country."

     Tomorrow's globalized leviathan promises to involve "800 cities in 71 countries."

     More stats: we have more support than the Tea Party, 37 percent versus 26 percent.

     My favorite, in a poll conducted last week by New York magazine, informs us that six protesters among one hundred polled at Zuccotti Park claimed to be "not liberal at all."

     My second most favorite is the stat that we have the most support, in the economic realm, among those who earn $75k or more--40 percent.

     35 percent of the poorest favor us and 11 percent don't. I reckon they are harder to reach, more communicatively challenged than the rich.

     Among the one hundred protesters, New York found that 75 are fed up with the Democratic Party, and among these 34 believe the U.S. is no better than al Qaeda, as Chomsky is said to believe--but he's also said that this is the greatest country in the world and that's why he stays here. Go figure.

     Other stats are less "counter-intuitive": we have the most support in the Northeast and the least in the South (but 30 percent is 30 percent!) and more support from Democrats than from Republicans.

     In another CBS poll, among the general public, those who support Occupy Wall Street also support Obama by more than 60 percent.

     Cheers for the postponement of Bloomberg's pollution of Zuccotti Park. I don't have a stat for how much of the public bombarded his office by phone, email, etc., yesterday, but there must have been very, very many.

(c)

12 October 2011: Occupy DC: Dreary But Defiant

It's a crumby day in our nation's capital: overcast, drizzling in the wake of six arrests yesterday after a coalition from three different occupying groups failed to take over the Hart Senate building during a hearing.

     Chanting from the chamber balcony and carrying political signs in the building were some of the offenses, labeled more broadly as "demonstrating in a Capitol building."

     One of those arrested, Andrew Batcher of the D.C. area, said he was imprisoned for four hours and then released without charges or fines.

     The good news is that the press no longer ignores left-wing activism as it did during the days of the Iraq and Afghanistan war protests. Dana Milbank wrote a wry and disappointed op-ed on how watered down the Washingtonian efforts are, composed of "the usual suspects" plus some homeless people recruited to swell their numbers. [I might add, others who had traveled here from as far as California.]

     He himself infiltrated the coalition meeting that preceded the Capitol raid, extracting quotes that did not portray those brave participants, led by author and activist David Swanson, in the most positive light.

     So that's where we were in WaPo, at least from what I could find on the Internet. Politico and WaPo's free, abbreviated spinoff the Express contained more objective coverage.

     The groups' permit has been extended--good news--I'm not sure how long, but the maximum length of time allowed is four months.

     Today's schedule at the Freedom Plaza encampment includes a labor rights march to and rally at Farragut Square in support of building cleaners. There are also plans to picket a conference on health care at the Marriott Center, sponsored by CitiGroup and Morgan Stanley; another group plans to march to a homeless shelter.

     I spoke briefly with a woman from Seattle whose travels to the East that included both New York and D.C. coincided with the protests there. She said that in Seattle the police are going to remove protesters camped out in tents, though someone nearby had mentioned that if a tent displays a political protest sign, it falls into another category that is not such fair game.

     Another older man in military uniform and wheelchair, covered with political protest buttons, said that the government has treated him badly since his time in Vietnam that ended in 1974. Glad he joined the group, given the left wing's cold shoulder toward 'Nam vets back in the seventies.

     From a distance, the colorful tents resemble newly baked muffins, a welter of raised circles. I couldn't get a good picture of the scene, but when I asked for the words that went with it, the message to outsiders, especially Progressives, is, "Love to see you. Come down and lend support."

(c)

5 October 2011: Rally after the Conference

After the conference, 300 of the 2,000 who attended Take Back the American Dream rode buses to Capitol Hill and there listened to the eloquent Van Jones, followed by "just plain folks" telling their individual, sad stories about how the carnivorous recession has victimized their lives.

Beyond that, photos speak louder than words:

7 October 2011: Take Back the American Dream: Yesterday's (10/4) Press Conference

Let me begin with a thought instead of a report: our revolution is a push to get done the agenda Obama promised during his campaign. After three years, we've had it and are uniting all over the country into a/The revolution. We've even been joined by at least one Frenchman, who said the same thing is going on in his country.

     Something else I'd like to add: the most powerful two rhetorical elements during the last three days were, as I said before, statistics, but also antitheses, which really hit hard and evoke applause, just as certain meters did in ancient Roman rhetoric. "Nothing new under the sun," is an old Stoic saying.

     And now, despite the date above, I'll go back to a news conference yesterday I didn't report on because I was too tired.

     The event was moderated by Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future. Others present were Arlene Holt Baker, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO; Justin Ruben, head of Moveon.org; Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change; Inga Skippings, SEIU's communications director; and show-stopper Van Jones, co-founder and president of Rebuild the Dream.

     In her opening statement, Arlene Holt Baker criticized the president for prioritizing the national debt but expressed support of the American Jobs Act. Then she said something remarkable: that she and her fellow union members would be comfortable sitting out the 2012 election if neither candidate (I'm assuming the usual bipartisan structure with token other candidates) represents workers.

     "We will drive an economy that works for all," she said, anticipating the October Days of Action, the 10th through the 16th, though other activist events will follow upon this afternoon's "Jobs, Not Cuts" rally, launched by Code Pink at the K Street Busboys and Poets this evening.

     Justin Ruben of Moveon.org, next to speak, looked back at the brave defiance of the teachers' union in Wisconsin that inspired follow-up in other states including Ohio and Montana.

     Twice as many of us are launching our movement as introduced the Tea Party to the political scene, he said. Occupations are spreading across the county. Wall Street and its allied mega-banks must stop undermining the economy.

     Ruben anticipated November 17, the day that the Supercommittee announces its decision, as also a day of action and indignation if the decision weighs more toward the debt than toward jobs. Will taxes on the rich be raised?

     Van Jones reiterated his image of the American Autumn that corresponds with the Arab Spring [let it not be the American Fall, I couldn't help thinking]. He looked forward to a reallignment of U.S. politics and an end to the 30-year government of the one percent over the other 99 percent.

     Deepak Bhargava looked back to the 1.3 million in Ohio in opposition to the antilabor state senate bill (SB) 5 and the hundred of thousands of Ohioans who showed up to opposed the latest voter i.d. (read: suppression) law now being considered in the legislature. Then there is the Montana victory, the biggest movement in that state in 25 years. The next battle is over our entitlement trust funds and alternative sources of revenue for true needs of the government.

     Inga Skippings of SEIU spoke of the large volunteer base in her union of 2.1 million members that contributes so much energy and so many ideas, sharing our goals of jobs for all, protection of our entitlement programs, and taxing the rich and, moreover, making legislators more accountable for tasks that are not so much desired as indispensable to future well-being.

     Bob Borosage spoke of this vision of the possible and the need to inspire and empower the people.

     Van Jones took the podium exhorting writers to hang on to our notes, which are a first draft of history.

     He spoke of the Tea Party's "wrecking ball" that, unopposed, is demolishing the middle and working classes. The people are standing up to say, "Enough is enough."

     The banks would be out of business without us, he said. A sleeping giant is awakening. We're a better country than this, with college graduates $100,000 in debt.

     The well-organized Tea Party knocked the whole country off track.

     Borosage spoke of the six hundred thousand group leaders already signed up to support the Dream, with the goal of an ultimate million on this list. Involvement of every congressional district is involved, with another goal: 2,012 progressive candidates to run for office in 2012.

     "We'll shake up politics."

     He recalled the thrilling start of the Wall Street occupation, which started with 267 brave souls on September 17. We have zero faith, he said, having gone from hope to heartbreak in the preceding three years.

     There was talk of clean-energy jobs as our number 2 priority and the unfortunate bankruptcy filing by Solyndra, which defaulted on its $2.4 million government loan, part of a program launched by Bush 43 that was actually praised as one of that president's positive contributions to our side of things.

     That meant that the government loan program to green energy enterprise has been 99 percent successful.

     According to the Brookings Institute, there are now 2.4 million green jobs operative in this country, and the green economy is growing twice as quickly as any other nationwide.

     Questions were few, one comically dissing our entire project as totally off the mark and quixotic, more like a rally than a serious planning event to answer tough questions. She also noted that the Koch brothers were using our tactics toward their destructive ends.

     Van Jones stood up to her with strength and conviction, saying that this movement will go on and on; those who know about the middle class will fight for it and rescue America's finest invention, the middle class. "We're building an independent movement," added Borosage. The woman sat down laughing loudly, who knows why?

     After the proceedings I went up to ask Bob Borosage whether there's been any progressive push to bring our two Nobel prize-winning Keynsian economists into the Obama administration.

     Only at the pundit level [you rang?], he answered, turning the subject to a recent Obama appointee of labor expert Alan Krueger as Obama's top economic adviser, whom he praised in a luke-warm fashion.

7 October 2011: Take Back the American Dream: Day 3

I began today with a panel discussion on "Fulfilling the Dream: Interfaith Leadership in Progressive Movement Building," organized by Common Cause.

     Present were Jennifer Butler, of Faith in Public Life/Faithful America, moderator; Rabbi David Saperstein, of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; Dr. Sayyid Syeed, of the Islamic Society of North America; Rev. Lennox Yearwood, of the Hiphop Caucus; and Rev./Congressman Bob Edgar,of Common Cause. An Episopalian bishop was also present; she did not wish to be named.

     The first subject concerned how the concept of faith, among Progressives, seems to be intricately bound up with right-wing extremists like Jimmy Swaggart or Jim Bakker. [note: why not coin a term like "theophobia," along the lines of "Islamophobia," to put a name on this condition? "Creedophobia"?]

     We have to be received as real-live Progressives, who believe in the separation of church and state but nonetheless, as a group, whose concerns must be included among those of the many others expressed by the large variety of interests that form subsets of this branch of the Democratic Party.

     Consider the concepts of 1) ego disarmament, coined by the National Council of Churches, which entails that words and deeds come into existence without necessary association with a given author or performer [in the sense of "doer"]; 2) Godcidence, coincidences we tie with God rather than happenstance--we can end lethal poverty; 3) Read books that represent all faiths; then join together communities, shedding the "far right" image.

     Said Rabbi Saperstein, there are 300 thousand houses of worship in the United States, which makes them the most common form of organization, even ahead of the public school system. Emulating Saul Alinsky, we must organize a religious community with a progressive agenda. The resulting moral narrative will become more authentic.

     Referring to his organization Shoulder to Shoulder, Imam Sayyyid Syed said that the religious community was falling apart until recently. There was no reason for that pastor in Florida to burn a copy of the Qur'an--many Muslims have it memorized.

     But it is considered filled with statements of violence; then the controversy over the mosque planned in a neighborhood near ground zero detracted more from the Muslim narrative outside of their group. But Islam is a religion of compassion, peace, and mercy, he said. He shared with us a book he gave out those interested [me among them], My Mercy Encompasses All, which contains passages from the Qur'an relevant to these most important human virtues.

     Islam reasserted itself, working closely with the Council of Churches, Catholics, and Jews.

     Rev. Yearwood said that despite the bad image of the concept of "hiphop," he has a masters and Ph.D. degree in ministry and knows both Hebrew and Arabic. People of faith thus have a phobia among themselves, but atheist and agnostics have joined his huge group of 700 thousand youth of faith across the nation, "a 21st century civil and human rights organization."

     He referred us to his site www.hiphoprev.com for a film on this theme. "We have forgotten about faith; a panelist said that we need power rather than love, but love will be the most successful force." Next to speak, Bishop [name unknown] said that the religious community must be involved in progressivism; public opinion in the 1970s was negatively poised against what it saw as a mixture of religion and politics.

     Fearing this scenario that she had experienced in the South, the bishop moved to the District of Columbia and became a peace activist, worried about the fate of her two young sons and by extension those of all other families. Among her activities was marching in front of the South African embassy.

     She was a guest at the White House during the Clinton administration and there expressed her concern about gay bashing, which was not legislated on until the Obama administration years later. The bishop also militates against oppression of Latino immigrants.

     She said that she must be seen on the streets in her vestments: "We're the ones who can do it."

     She ended with a quote from Stephen Colbert, to the effect that if a Christian nation doesn't help its poor, we must help them or admit that we don't want to.

     Rev./Congressman Bob Edgar, executive director of Common Cause, proclaimed that he had five honorary doctorates and has been arrested five times. He regrets not having "stood up" more, on the importance of nonviolence and the power of civil disobedience. The genius of MLK, he said, was to stay the course. We are headed toward hard times and the faith community must be involved.

     According to the Network of Spiritual Progressives, there is a fear of economic decline among us all, and the question of what the faith community can do. Among all communities, people flock to religious institutions most of all. We'll fall without getting it together. Said the bishop, we must realize that the poor and needy are the same as us, not separate from us. We are together in this [world].

     And Rev. Yearwood added that in a St. Louis mega-church, he was given two rows in the front for fellow progressives, but none showed up. "We must continue to build trust," he concluded.

     Said Rev./Rep. Edgar, his sermons consist of one sentence followed by twenty minutes of explanation. "We are the leaders we have been waiting for. . . . "We love you and there's nothing you can do about it."

(c)

Taking Back the American Dream, Day 2: "Something's Happening Here

"Is there anything so miraculous in the universe as human consciousness? The more scientists study, the less probable it seems that there is anything else out there in the vastness of space besides complete, impersonal phenomena: seething masses of light and energy, nothing that thinks."
--"Consciousness II: The Miracle Reconsidered," November 1999

"To strive, to seek, to find, but not to yield," is how Tennyson's "Ulysses" chooses to spend his last years, disappointed, after all, at attaining everything he longed for and then quickly becoming bored in his premature retirement. The stillness he strove for those twenty years (see the November 1999 issue of Words) necessitates perpetual motion, it seems. What we really strive after is by definition unattainable because of our human limitations. Perhaps all our striving somehow realizes this even as we never stop. And that is the romance, the tragedy, and the infinite grandeur of the human condition. Be careful what we pray for, indeed. Because in the end we do not and cannot really understand it in its fullest sense."
--"Further Millennium Thoughts," December 1999

"Traveling is the concentrate of life. We become so preoccupied with preserving moments, impressions, and views. Each night after the frenzied activities that preceded and never encompass enough, I take out my notebook and scribble down every detail I can and every image that occurs. I scribble for myself in the future, as writer and rememberer, devouring the present tense that is so illusive always."
--"England I: Psycho-Architecture..." March 2000

"To sketch our ideal leader would be a challenge. What superhumanity this role requires and how few of us can measure up. He must partake of human nature and yet transcend it, for human nature is basically at fault for all the issues she must face: human nature, above all other things, which are, after all, conquerable. The only thing we will never really master is ourselves."
--"Lest We Forget," March 2000