Choices

When you wake up tomorrow, decide.......

......which one you really want to provide nourishment.......

Witnessing The D.C. Occupy Battleground, Close & Personal

Demonstrators at the new Martin Luther King
Memorial in Washington keep his dream percolating

Jobs.  Education.  Fairness.  Three of many basic human rights being increasingly stripped from the people, here and around the world.

It's no wonder that today was a global day of protests, in cities stretching from San Francisco to Athens.  Here in the nation's capital, Al Sharpton spearheaded a march that took protesters all the way onto the grounds of Dr. Martin Luther King's towering memorial, set to be dedicated on Sunday by President Obama.

 

Will the light of justice ever get through enough to turn this crazy world around so we'll ever see a semblance of balance and equity restored, when the one percenters at long last get their blood-sucking fangs out of the rest of us?

Over at D.C.'s Freedom Plaza, where that city's "Occupy" forces are battle stationed, there were lots of signs of hope and determination that the people will prevail in this desperate struggle for survival.

Clearly one of the big ones is this business of blowing $11,000,000,000 every month to fight two wars of aggression in the Middle East (and agitating for yet another one, against Iran), while giving the elites even more welfare, is the final straw.  This, and all the while demanding that we need to "sacrifice" more and more??

Unfrigging believable. 

Then again, the military-industrial powers that be never let rhyme or reason intrude upon a big fat blood-soaked profit, did they.  Some of the other sights in Freedom Plaza:

So many scenes that resonated with memories of past protests against "the establishment"--but this one has an altogether different feel to it.  More than just a sense of fighting off corruption.  This time it's for our actual survival.

Made me really ruminate today.

I proudly wore the same anti-Teabagger shirt from a year earlier when I attended commedian Jon Stewart's famed DC counter-rally protesting that lunatic Glenn Beck and his fan of right-wing crazies.  This time, however, there's not a whole lot to chuckle about.

Everything seems to be at stake now.  Those ravenous Wall Street hyenas are more insatiable than they've ever been.  They're having millions more of us for lunch, breakfast, dinner, and getting increasingly fatter and more aggressive with each passing day.

Dr. King would have reacted to this appalling situation just as he did in that famous march on Washington nearly 50 years ago.  The dream was also about making a living wage and sustaining a life with dignity and hope.  Sadly, unlike the victory of winning Civil Rights, this battle continues without end and the coporate forces are hell-bent to turn just about all of us into indentured servants or outright slaves.

Doesn't matter really what profession you might be.  Teachers are a choice target for the ruling class predators.  But everyone is in their crosshairs, except of course their stockholders.  We will continue this fight, however, because the obvious fact is that we've got nothing and everything to lose at this point. 

Last year the Nation magazine referenced King's great concerns for economic justice:  "In a November 1956 sermon, King presented an imaginary letter from the apostle Paul to American Christians, which stated, 'Oh America, how often have you taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes... God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject deadening poverty.'"

Those detestable Republicans recently made progress in killing a jobs creation bill, along with further gutting what was already a pitiful excuse for medical care reform.  Meanwhile, corporate profits are skyrocketing as Wall Street banksters horde over $2 TRILLION in cash, refusing to invest in any of that "miracle free enterprise job creation" for the ten to twenty million unemployed Americans.

  Martin, we need you now, more than ever. 

 

Is the Right-Wing STILL Befuddled Over How And Why This "Occupy" Rebellion Is Sweeping The Country?

It is just this kind of corporate parasite-coddling--being perpetrated of course not only in Michigan but everywhere--that finally unleashed the long-overdue backlash.

And what started on Wall Street has now spread to over a thousand cities across the nation.  What, after all, have we got to lose?  These 1 Percenters have no intention of stopping their ravenous feeding until the other 99 percent (you and me) are reduced to the status of  Middle Ages serfs.

Fahget about it, oligarchy punks.  Now come the days, no matter how long they take, of reckoning.

A lot of the MSM (mainstream media) like to go on about the protesters having "no agenda" other than anger.  Come now, they know perfectly well what the agenda is:  REFORM!
And reform of what, pray tell? 

The other day, Alternet's Les Leopold provided a superb, crystal-clear 10 point assessment of "the problem" that needs fixing.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize this American Rocket of ours has been hijacked by unscrupulous, rapacious, lying thieves, who are flying us right into oblivion, fast.

Read up and take action, before it's too late.

"1. Wall Street caused the crash: Unless you are suffering from financial amnesia, you should remember that it was Wall Street’s reckless gambling that did us in. It was Wall Street banks and hedge funds, not home buyers, who created the enormous demand for high-risk mortgages to pool, to securitize, and to turn into Ponzi-like gambling structures with names like CDOs, CDO squared and synthetic CDOs. It was the money-grubbing rating agencies that blessed these pieces of garbage with AAA ratings. As a result, trillions of dollars of worthless toxic assets polluted our financial system. When the bubble they induced burst, our system crashed, causing 8 million working people to lose their jobs in a matter of months due to no fault of their own. Anyone who still blames low-income home buyers, or regulations or Greece -- or anyone other than Wall Street -- should be checked for dementia.

2. The Wall Street crash directly caused the gravest unemployment crisis since the Great Depression: We’re three years into the worst jobs crisis since 1937. Upwards of 29 million people are out of work or have been forced into part-time jobs. The number of people who have been jobless for more than 26 weeks is at post-WWII record levels. And there’s no end in sight to this misery. Meanwhile, Wall Street’s representatives in Washington want us to focus on cutting public employment and public services to address the debt that Wall Street itself precipitated. WE wouldn’t have a debt crisis were it not for the bailouts, the crash, the lost jobs and the soaring cost of jobless benefits that can be laid at Wall Street’s door. (The debt was also caused by tax cuts for the rich, and the bankers certainly don’t want to talk about that.) For those diversionary debt tactics alone, Wall Street should be occupied until it pays to replace the jobs it destroyed.

3. Wall Street profited from the bailouts and remains unaccountable: Taxpayers provided trillions of dollars in cash and asset guarantees to the wealthiest bankers and hedge fund managers in the world. But nothing was extracted from them in return. Here’s one egregious example: Goldman Sachs paid $550 million in SEC fines for selling mortgage-related securities that were designed to fail so that a large hedge fund could bet against them. The securities failed as planned and the hedge fund pocketed $1 billion in profits. But after we bailed out AIG, Goldman Sachs picked up nearly $12 billion for similar bets that AIG had insured. Goldman Sachs collected 100 cents on the dollar and those dollars were ours.

4. The super-rich are getting richer: When the economy was crashing during 2008, high frequency traders in hedge funds and banks made upwards of $20 billion from the turmoil. This trading scam provided no redeeming value to our economy. Rather, it was a hidden tax on our sorrows -- a transfer of funds from the many to the few. In 2010 the top hedge fund managers “earned” over $2 million an HOUR! The top 25 hedge fund managers took in as much as 650,000 teachers. Young people have the right to question these lopsided values. All of us have the duty to do something about it.

5. The super-rich are paying lower and lower taxes: While the government pleads poverty when asked to create a massive jobs program, our financial elites use every loophole available to avoid taxes. In 1995, the 400 wealthiest families paid about 30 percent of their income in taxes (after all deductions). Today their effective rate is less than 16 percent. And for what? What did society gain from their retained wealth? Not jobs, not debt reduction, only more Wall Street gambling.

6. Financial elites pay lower taxes than their secretaries: Venture capitalists and private equity fund managers, as well as some hedge fund elites, get a fantastic tax break called “carried interest” that allows them to pay a top rate of 15 percent on their income (rather than the 35 percent top rate regular people pay). This tax break, originally designed for small business partnerships, has made the mega-rich even richer. You might be wondering why this outrageous tax break continues for billionaires. The answer is simple: these elites are pouring money into Washington to make sure that Republicans and Democrats alike keep the loophole in place. Even some liberal Democrats are parroting the line that this tax break for billionaires is good for America. So when the occupiers say they are disenfranchised, they’re right.

7. None of those who caused the crash have been prosecuted: Raj Rajaratnam, the hedge fund billionaire, is going to the hoosegow for insider trading. Bernie Madoff is in prison for life for his Ponzi scheme. And about 40 others have pleaded guilty to insider trading crimes. Yet none of these scoundrels, as immoral as they may be, had much to do with the financial crash. They didn’t peddle toxic mortgage-related securities. They didn’t push predatory loans. They didn’t rate garbage securities as if they were gold. None of these perps pumped up the housing bubble. Those who did are still roaming free, financially armed and dangerous.

8. Wall Street is much too big and its salaries are much too high: The financial sector is supposed to be an intermediary that turns our savings into productive investments. It’s not supposed to be a casino and it’s not supposed to dwarf the rest of the productive economy. But after years of deregulatory foolishness, it has metastasized to destructive levels. From the 1930s until the mid-1970s, financial sector employees earned the same as those in other sectors, relative to their skills and experience. That’s the way it should be. But since we embarked on the long march of financial deregulation and tax breaks for the super-rich, people working in the financial sector have seen their incomes skyrocket compared to everyone else. The bigger that gap, the more danger we face. And unless we build a massive populist uprising, it won’t change.

9. Wall Street still owns the regulators: When you put too much money in the hands of the few and when you deregulate finance, you get a financial casino. That’s what happened in the years leading up to the 1929 crash, and it happened again in 2008. During the New Deal we regulated the tar out of finance, ending their reign of speculative terror. And it worked for nearly a quarter of a century as financial crises virtually disappeared. Since financial deregulation reappeared over the last 30 years, there have been over 180 financial crises around the world. So you would think after 2008, we’d be back to reining in the bankers. But, no…our leaders are afraid to stifle “financial innovation” (See next point.) The Dodd-Frank bill is weak and getting weaker, thanks to intensive Wall Street lobbying. High government officials still believe that Wall Street can lead the nation forward. The kids are telling us that we should shut down the casinos now. Right again.

10. Financial innovation is a joke: Washington genuflects before the gods of financial innovation: the adjustable no-money down mortgages with resetting teaser rates, the synthetic collateralized debt obligations that turn garbage mortgages into AAA securities, the credit default swaps that are financial insurance policies without regulation, the nanosecond trading programs that flip millions of stocks per second while milking slower investors, and the myriad of ways to make enormous financial bets using little or none of your own money. They tremble at the thought of whispering anything that might stifle these highly profitable Wall Street inventions. They are wowed by trading measured in nanoseconds, by the alphabet soup of securities, by the dark pools of financial trading and most of all by financial billionaires and their lobbyists. But to paraphrase former fed chair Paul Volcker, the only real financial innovation in the last 25 years is the ATM machine. The rest are simply gambling games designed to enrich Wall Street's elites who pocket the winnings and pawn off the losses on us. The protesters sense the game is rigged. It is.

Does Wall Street pay or do we? In the end, it comes down to a clear-cut struggle between the few and the many. (There’s that 99 percent again.) Who is going to pay for the jobs we need? Who is going to pay for the debt that was created to bail out Wall Street and prevent another Great Depression? Wall Street wants us to pay in the form of cuts in Social Security and medical coverage, reduced wages and higher taxes (for everyone but them). In fact, they want the kids to pay by working longer before they retire (if they can ever find a job), paying higher medical costs as they grow older, and turning their Social Security accounts into Wall Street playthings no one can rely on.

At the same time financial elites are arguing for fewer regulations and lower taxes on themselves and their fellow millionaires and billionaires. Financial interests are hoping we’ll simply forget who caused what and instead focus on debt, more debt and still more debt. They’re hoping we’ll blame government, regulations and taxes, while they laugh all the way to the bank – their banks. Some of us may be old and tired and fatalistic about all this looting, and sour about the chances for change. Thank god the kids still have their wits about them—and a fighting spirit.

Get out there and join them. And if you’re too old to stay overnight (like me), visit often and urge your unions, churches and community groups to join the fray. A progressive populist uprising only works when it’s large, vocal and full of spunk.

Go occupiers, go!"

DAMN RIGHT, Les.......Enough of this running alongside the plutocrats' buggy ride, begging for handouts while they count their plunder.

As is said in financial parlance, it's now time to call in that note--and get this promised "Change We Can Believe In"! 

El Charango -- Andean Musical Magic!

Say "hola" to Senor Charango everyone.

This 26-inch long member of La Famila Lute hails from Peru & Bolivia.  This traditional model, made from an armadillo shell, was invented in the early 18th century, though many of the contemporary ones are made from cedar or spruce wood.

It's said that when the conquistadores arrived in South America, they brought along the vihuela, the ancestor of Spain's classical guitar.  Whether or not the charango is a direct descendant is unclear but there's many stories about how the traditional charango was constructed from the soundbox of armadillo.
                               
One account has it that native musicians enjoyed the rhythm of the vihuela made but were unable to shape the wood to reproduce the sound.  So they grabbed the next best thing, a nearby armadillo.  Another story is that the Spaniards refused to allow the natives to practice their ancestral music and the charango was designed as a lute that could be concealed under a poncho.

To hear this typically 10-stringed instrument is an ethereal wonder.  Yesterday I had my first encounter with the Charango, played by an expert Bolivian in the heart of downtown D.C.  What a gorgeous sound experience it was.

There's even a short film, "El Charango," which expands on the history of this wondrous little guitarra.

Andean music--takes me airborne!

Taking To The Streets And Takin' It To The AIPAC Beast -- Never Surrender!

They were loud.  They were demanding.  And all of 'em wanted justice as they showed up to deliver a clear message to this ferocious, relentless Israeli Lobby:  MOVE OVER!



Last Sunday's protest against the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Convention in Washington featured activists from all across the spectrum.  There was a group of orthodox Jews there, praying their hearts out that Zionism will go away and stop its assault on Judiasm.  




The Palestinians were in force, reminding everyone about one of the biggest Zionist lies promoting the fantasy that their homeland was a "land without people," which explains of course why the Nakba's survivors and their descendents--more than four million in total--make up the largest group of refugees in the world. 

 And lots of Americans showed up to fight AIPAC too, including yours truly.  This marked my first but not last time to rail in person against this grotesque,
pernicious "special interest" group that robs over $3,000,000,000 annually from our cash-strapped economy. 

During our march towards the entrance to the convention center, President Obama was delivering his loyalty oath to Tel Aviv's war machine, proudly boasting about "the cooperation of our militaries to unprecedented levels" and delivering "our most advanced technology to our Israeli allies."

Nice sanitized way to put it, Barry.  Our "most advanced technology"--bringing huge profits to arms dealers in the U.S. and campaign contributions to the congresswhores that send it--definitely produces significant results.

  


  

While Obama crowed about the purported "values that we share" with Israel, Code Pink protesters illustrated exactly what other "values" these entail in addition to the wholesale murder of women & children.

The AIPAC conventioneers got to see the replica of Israel's "separation fence," a monstrosity constructed with American tax dollars and Caterpillar bulldozers that Zionists conveniently employ to stop suicide bombers and mutilate what's left of Palestine with insatiable landgrabs for their cancerous colonies and Jewish-only connecting roads.

Surprising, too.  One would think that Obama might object to Apartheid, having witnessed its practice in South Africa and now being imposed on Palestinians with a brutal vengeance.

 There was also a replica set of these colonies--which Tel Aviv's  Gangster-In-Chief "Bibi" Netanyahu likes to call his "settlements in Judea & Samaria."  This accompanying sign would be a bad omen for Zionism's official place in history.

Judging from the yahoo's wildly received address before his Congressional lapdogs, it doesn't appear this accomplished ethnic cleanser is worried one little bit about it.  His AIPAC goons will take care of all the details.  In fact, it's been reported they now have three-quarters of the membership of both the House and the Senate to sign a letter calling for an official end to public criticism of Israel, no matter what war crimes it continues committing, and to urge the U.S. to "reinforce" its relationship with Tel Aviv.

Doesn't leave a whole lot of hope for a realistic peace process, let alone a just, enduring outcome.

Wouldn't it be nice if it were left up to our consciencious D.C. police department to remove those settlements from Palestine as efficiently as they did the ones illegally errected in front of the AIPAC convention hall?

The AIPAC androids didn't look to be worried about a thing, either.  In fact, they seemed to really be enjoying themselves, swaggering, smirking, and mocking the appeals for justice.

  

Which is exactly why this conflict goes on and on, no matter what, because there's just some that will never let go of the false notion that "might makes right," no matter what the consequences or how many people suffer as a result.  As long as AIPAC thrives and maintains its stranglehold on the American government, Israel will continue committing its war crimes with impunity and without delay.

We must always hope, however, and from the hope emerges the fire to keep battling these bullies and tyrants.

When that day happens, a new Palestine will emerge.  It will, as the opposite face of the replica wall revealed.

Inshallah!

Obama "Forgets" All About The Anniversary Of The Great Disaster Produced By Israel's Birth

Last week Mr. "Change We Can Believe In" Obama sent his best wishes on Israel's birthday.

"Sixty-three years ago," said the president, "when Israel declared its independence, the dream of a state for the Jewish people in their historic homeland was finally realized.  On that same day, the United States became the first country in the world to recognize the State of Israel. As Israelis celebrate their hard-won independence, it gives me great pleasure to extend the best wishes of the American people to the people of Israel and to honor their remarkable achievements over the past six decades."

Barry didn't quite elaborate on the "realized.....hard-won....remarkable achievements" details of all this.  Never mentioned the "P" word (Palestinians) in the rest of his birthday greeting. 

Nor did he ever bring up the term "al-Nakba," the catastrophe that  has consumed the Palestinian nation for the past 63 years and which, by stark contrast, was very much in the news yesterday.  Because yesterday, May 15, was the day in 1948 that the Zionists threw their ethnic cleansing operation ("Plan Dalet") into overdrive.

Amongst those three-quarters of a million people driven from their homeland was an 11 year-old Palestinian Christian named Audeh Rantisi, whose family would be brutally force marched from their homes in July, 1948, by Israeli gunmen.

 Audeh's recollections are especially shocking--and heart-breaking:

"I cannot forget three horror-filled days in July of 1948. The pain sears my memory, and I cannot rid myself of it no matter how hard I try. First, Israeli soldiers forced thousands of Palestinians from their homes near the Mediterranean coast, even though some families had lived in the same houses for centuries. (My family had been in the town of Lydda in Palestine at least 1,600 years).

Then, without water, we stumbled into the hills and continued for three deadly days. The Jewish soldiers followed, occasionally shooting over our heads to scare us and keep us moving. Terror filled my eleven-year-old mind as I wondered what would happen. I remembered overhearing my father and his friends express alarm about recent massacres by Jewish terrorists. Would they kill us, too?

 We did not know what to do, except to follow orders and stumble blindly up the rocky hills. I walked hand in hand with my grandfather, who carried our only remaining possessions-a small tin of sugar and some milk for my aunt's two-year-old son, sick with typhoid.

The horror began when Zionist soldiers deceived us into leaving our homes, then would not let us go back, driving us through a small gate just outside Lydda. I remember the scene well: thousands of frightened people being herded like cattle through the narrow opening by armed soldiers firing overhead. In front of me a cart wobbled toward the gate.

Alongside, a lady struggled, carrying her baby, pressed by the crowd. Suddenly, in the jostling of the throngs, the child fell. The mother shrieked in agony as the cart's metal-rimmed wheel ran over her baby's neck. That infant's death was the most awful sight I had ever seen.

Outside the gate the soldiers stopped us and ordered everyone to throw all valuables onto a blanket. One young man and his wife of six weeks, friends of our family, stood near me. He refused to give up his money. Almost casually, the soldier pulled up his rifle and shot the man. He fell, bleeding and dying while his bride screamed and cried.

I felt nauseated and sick, my whole body numbed by shock waves. That night I cried, too, as I tried to sleep alongside thousands on the ground. Would I ever see my home again? Would the soldiers kill my loved ones, too?

Early the next morning we heard more shots and sprang up. A bullet just missed me and killed a donkey nearby. Everybody started running as a stampede. I was terror-stricken when I lost sight of my family, and I frantically searched all day as the crowd moved along.

That second night, after the soldiers let us stop, I wandered among the masses of people, desperately searching and calling. Suddenly in the darkness I heard my father's voice. I shouted out to him. What joy was in me! I had thought I would never see him again. As he and my mother held me close, I knew I could face whatever was necessary. The next day brought more dreadful experiences.

Still branded on my memory is a small child beside the road, sucking the breast of its dead mother. Along the way I saw many stagger and fall. Others lay dead or dying in the scorching midsummer heat. Scores of pregnant women miscarried, and their babies died along the wayside.

The wife of my father's cousin became very thirsty. After a long while she said she could not continue. Soon she slumped down and was dead. Since we could not carry her we wrapped her in cloth, and after praying, just left her beside a tree. I don't know what happened to her body.

 We eventually found a well, but had no way to get water. Some of the men tied a rope around my father's cousin and lowered him down, then pulled him out, and gave us water squeezed from his clothing. The few drops helped, but thirst still tormented me as I marched along in the shadeless, one-hundred plus degree heat.

We trudged nearly twenty miles up rocky hills, then down into deep valleys, then up again, gradually higher and higher. Finally we found a main road, where some Arabs met us. They took some of us in trucks to Ramallah, ten miles north of Jerusalem. I lived in a refugee tent camp for the next three and one-half years. We later learned that two Jewish families had taken over our family home in Lydda.

Those wretched days and nights in mid-July of 1948 continue as a lifelong nightmare because Zionists took away our home of many centuries. For me and a million other Palestinian Arabs, tragedy had marred our lives forever. Throughout his life my father remembered and suffered. For thirty-one years before his death in 1979, he kept the large metal key to our house in Lydda.

After more than four decades I still bear the emotional scars of the Zionist invasion....."

Yeah, clearly it would have been a rhetorical feat for Obama to have mentioned any of this in his "great pleasure" proclamation of the Israelis' "hard-won" achievement.

And the beat goes on.

Remember al-Nakba.  Remember hope.  Keep it alive, Palestinian brothers and sisters.