The Personal is Political: I am a Boston Red Sox fan to the end. I needed to clarify that lest anyone think anything else not that anyone would care. Having said that I will give you the rationale as to why I am even bothering to watch the Series this year in view of my beloved Red Sox -- well what shall I call it? -- EVAPORATION. It almost sent me to the psych ward! I jest and digress.
I am watching the series now because it is actually fun not to have too big a dog in the fight. It is simply enjoyable to concentrate on the fine points. Having said that there is a method to my madness for the team for whom I actually am rooting this time and that would be St. Louis!
I have three reasons why I am rooting for them. First, Texas means George Bush and I will not go into my angry, negative and Vesuvian eruptive thoughts I have about him. Second, Make that a ditto for Rick Perry except double the intensity. Third, the news opinionator Keith Olbermann picked St. Louis. If he says it I believe it. Since I love, adore, hang on every word he utters, think he is the best thing since the invention of the wheel and sliced bread I am HOPING he is correct.
Funny, the personal is political. I judge everyone and everything as to how much it leans politically left of center (not entirely but a lot). I cannot help it. I am a child of the late 1960's and marched to many a protest beat. I LOVED that era as it shaped all that I am. I even had to counteract my rock ribbed Republican father. However, even HE if he saw the rancid Republican field would vote Democratic and root for St. Louis too.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Nader is Correct!: I am no fan of Ralph Nader because I believe he ensured a Bush 2000 win even though the Shrub did NOT really win. Republicans of course steal things...if it's money or power they will steal it. They steal power to get YOUR money.
Digressing again. Read Raph Nader's message below for this year 2011 and if you think as I you will see he is right on point!
The question confronting the Occupy Wall Street encampments and their offshoots
in scores of cities and towns around the country is quo vadis? Where is it
going?
This decentralized, leaderless civic initiative has attracted the persistent
attention of the mass media in the past five weeks. Television cameras from all
over the world are parked down at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, two blocks
from Wall Street.
But the mass media is a hungry beast. It needs to be fed regularly. Apart from
the daily pressures of making sure the encampments are clean, that food and
shelter are available, that relations with the police are quiet, that
provocateurs are identified; the campers must anticipate possible police
crackdowns, such as that which has just occurred in Oakland, and find ways to
rebound.
There are enough national polls showing broader support for the Occupy people
than for the Tea Party people. Additional communities are installing their own
Occupy sites right down to small towns like Niles, Michigan (pop. 12,000) and
Bethel, Alaska where Diane McEachern is occupying the tundra. But, there is
trouble ahead.
First, police departments in other cities will be observing the nature and
reaction of mass arrests in places like Denver, Chicago and Atlanta. The
plutocrats’ first response is always to push police power against the people.
The recidivist violations of the ruling class are rarely pursued, yet the
rumbles of the lower class are often stifled. With the onset of colder weather
and looming police pressure, the protestors need new venues for their
demonstrations
Activists need to vary their tactics. I suggest citizens surround the local
offices of their Senators and Representatives. The number of Americans fed up
with a gridlocked Congress, beset by craven or cowardly, both marinated in
corporate campaign cash, can motivate an endless pool of activists who want
their voices to be heard.
We know that the Occupy people want to keep their opposition on a general level
of informed outrage and not get to the specific policy level. Fine. The 535
people in Congress, who put their shoes on every day like we do, are quite
susceptible to a fast rising rumble from the people. They don’t need specifics.
They know all about the savagely avaricious corporate paymasters and their
swarming lobbyists on Capitol Hill wanting ever more varieties of goodies and
less corporate law enforcement. What they need to know is that you’ve got their
number and that people are fed up and on the move.
More members of Congress than one might expect, with their finger to the wind,
start readjusting their antennas when they sense voter agitation. It is just
that for years, there has been nary a breeze from that crucial source, while the
corporatists have had their party year after year with their governmental
toadies on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Make no mistake; support for the power shift espoused by the 99 percent movement
is now only a breeze but a windstorm is coming. The protesters are feeling their
way – demonstrating before big banks and closing out their accounts in favor of
smaller community banks. Protests in front of the Manhattan mansions of the
superrich from the big media and the big hedge funds also make sense.
Each new protest gives the protesters new insights. The protestors are learning
how to challenge controlling processes. They are assembling and using their
little libraries on site. They are learning the techniques of open, non-violent
civil disobedience and building personal stamina. They are learning not to be
provoked and thereby win the moral authority struggle which encourages more and
more people to join their ranks.
In the Arab Spring of Cairo, Egypt earlier this year, it was said that a million
people in Tahrir Square lost their fear of the dictatorship. It can be said that
in this “American Autumn,” some 150,000 people have discovered their power and
rejected apathy. They have come far in so little time because the soil for their
pushback is so fertile, nourished by the revulsion of millions of their
countrypersons moving toward standing up and showing up themselves.
This vanguard of larger protests to come is building on the personal stories of
desperate but failed attempts to find work; stories of heart-breaking inability
to pay for healthcare for themselves or their families’; stories of being
defrauded of their pensions, their tax dollars, their savings and their rights.
They demand accountability for the culprits who lied, stole and got away with it
destroying the economy. And they want Congress to never bailout the Wall Street
crooks, swindlers and speculators with taxpayer dollars.
Shining the light of the 99 percenters on the operations base of the corporate
supremacists and their Congressional minions in one location after another both
empowers and further informs those Americans who are seeing that showing up is
half of democracy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Tell your friends to visit http://www.nader.org/ and sign up for Ralph Nader's
weekly column.
Just click on the link that says: Sign up for Ralph Nader's Column
or click on the following link:
http://nader.org/index.php?/categories/9-Sign-up-for-Ralph-Naders-Column
Digressing again. Read Raph Nader's message below for this year 2011 and if you think as I you will see he is right on point!
The question confronting the Occupy Wall Street encampments and their offshoots
in scores of cities and towns around the country is quo vadis? Where is it
going?
This decentralized, leaderless civic initiative has attracted the persistent
attention of the mass media in the past five weeks. Television cameras from all
over the world are parked down at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, two blocks
from Wall Street.
But the mass media is a hungry beast. It needs to be fed regularly. Apart from
the daily pressures of making sure the encampments are clean, that food and
shelter are available, that relations with the police are quiet, that
provocateurs are identified; the campers must anticipate possible police
crackdowns, such as that which has just occurred in Oakland, and find ways to
rebound.
There are enough national polls showing broader support for the Occupy people
than for the Tea Party people. Additional communities are installing their own
Occupy sites right down to small towns like Niles, Michigan (pop. 12,000) and
Bethel, Alaska where Diane McEachern is occupying the tundra. But, there is
trouble ahead.
First, police departments in other cities will be observing the nature and
reaction of mass arrests in places like Denver, Chicago and Atlanta. The
plutocrats’ first response is always to push police power against the people.
The recidivist violations of the ruling class are rarely pursued, yet the
rumbles of the lower class are often stifled. With the onset of colder weather
and looming police pressure, the protestors need new venues for their
demonstrations
Activists need to vary their tactics. I suggest citizens surround the local
offices of their Senators and Representatives. The number of Americans fed up
with a gridlocked Congress, beset by craven or cowardly, both marinated in
corporate campaign cash, can motivate an endless pool of activists who want
their voices to be heard.
We know that the Occupy people want to keep their opposition on a general level
of informed outrage and not get to the specific policy level. Fine. The 535
people in Congress, who put their shoes on every day like we do, are quite
susceptible to a fast rising rumble from the people. They don’t need specifics.
They know all about the savagely avaricious corporate paymasters and their
swarming lobbyists on Capitol Hill wanting ever more varieties of goodies and
less corporate law enforcement. What they need to know is that you’ve got their
number and that people are fed up and on the move.
More members of Congress than one might expect, with their finger to the wind,
start readjusting their antennas when they sense voter agitation. It is just
that for years, there has been nary a breeze from that crucial source, while the
corporatists have had their party year after year with their governmental
toadies on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Make no mistake; support for the power shift espoused by the 99 percent movement
is now only a breeze but a windstorm is coming. The protesters are feeling their
way – demonstrating before big banks and closing out their accounts in favor of
smaller community banks. Protests in front of the Manhattan mansions of the
superrich from the big media and the big hedge funds also make sense.
Each new protest gives the protesters new insights. The protestors are learning
how to challenge controlling processes. They are assembling and using their
little libraries on site. They are learning the techniques of open, non-violent
civil disobedience and building personal stamina. They are learning not to be
provoked and thereby win the moral authority struggle which encourages more and
more people to join their ranks.
In the Arab Spring of Cairo, Egypt earlier this year, it was said that a million
people in Tahrir Square lost their fear of the dictatorship. It can be said that
in this “American Autumn,” some 150,000 people have discovered their power and
rejected apathy. They have come far in so little time because the soil for their
pushback is so fertile, nourished by the revulsion of millions of their
countrypersons moving toward standing up and showing up themselves.
This vanguard of larger protests to come is building on the personal stories of
desperate but failed attempts to find work; stories of heart-breaking inability
to pay for healthcare for themselves or their families’; stories of being
defrauded of their pensions, their tax dollars, their savings and their rights.
They demand accountability for the culprits who lied, stole and got away with it
destroying the economy. And they want Congress to never bailout the Wall Street
crooks, swindlers and speculators with taxpayer dollars.
Shining the light of the 99 percenters on the operations base of the corporate
supremacists and their Congressional minions in one location after another both
empowers and further informs those Americans who are seeing that showing up is
half of democracy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Tell your friends to visit http://www.nader.org/ and sign up for Ralph Nader's
weekly column.
Just click on the link that says: Sign up for Ralph Nader's Column
or click on the following link:
http://nader.org/index.php?/categories/9-Sign-up-for-Ralph-Naders-Column
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