Saturday, December 31, 2011

If You Didn't Like Bush, then how in Hell.....?


"The candidate supported by progressives — President Obama — himself holds heinous views on a slew of critical issues and himself has done heinous things with the power he has been vested. He has slaughtered civilians — Muslim children by the dozens — not once or twice, but continuously in numerous nations with drones, cluster bombs and other forms of attack. He has sought to overturn a global ban on cluster bombs. He has institutionalized the power of Presidents — in secret and with no checks — to target American citizens for assassination-by-CIA, far from any battlefield. He has waged an unprecedented war against whistleblowers, the protection of which was once a liberal shibboleth. He rendered permanently irrelevant the War Powers Resolution, a crown jewel in the list of post-Vietnam liberal accomplishments, and thus enshrined the power of Presidents to wage war even in the face of a Congressional vote against it. His obsession with secrecy is so extreme that it has become darkly laughable in its manifestations, and he even worked to amend the Freedom of Information Act (another crown jewel of liberal legislative successes) when compliance became inconvenient.

"He has entrenched for a generation the once-reviled, once-radical Bush/Cheney Terrorism powers of indefinite detention, military commissions, and the state secret privilege as a weapon to immunize political leaders from the rule of law. He has shielded Bush era criminals from every last form of accountability. He has vigorously prosecuted the cruel and supremely racist War on Drugs, including those parts he vowed during the campaign to relinquish — a war which devastates minority communities and encages and converts into felons huge numbers of minority youth for no good reason. He has empowered thieving bankers through the Wall Street bailout, Fed secrecy, efforts to shield mortgage defrauders from prosecution, and the appointment of an endless roster of former Goldman, Sachs executives and lobbyists. He’s brought the nation to a full-on Cold War and a covert hot war with Iran, on the brink of far greater hostilities. He has made the U.S. as subservient as ever to the destructive agenda of the right-wing Israeli government. His support for some of the Arab world’s most repressive regimes is as strong as ever.

"Most of all, America’s National Security State, its Surveillance State, and its posture of endless war is more robust than ever before. The nation suffers from what National Journal‘s Michael Hirsh just christened “Obama’s Romance with the CIA.” He has created what The Washington Post just dubbed a vast drone/killing operation,” all behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy and without a shred of oversight. Obama’s steadfast devotion to what Dana Priest and William Arkin called “Top Secret America” has severe domestic repercussions as well, building up vast debt and deficits in the name of militarism that create the pretext for the “austerity” measures which the Washington class (including Obama) is plotting to impose on America’s middle and lower classes."


- Glenn Greenwald

Unconstitutional

Fight. Harder.

Mike Rivero Tells It Straight

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Home of the Brave


They use to call it "the home of the brave."
"These colors don't run," the bumper sticker said.
"I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it," someone once said.

Now the Eagle has flown.
The nest is bare.
In his place is the new national bird: Chicken Little.

Home of the Craven.
The weak.
The suspicious.
The cowardly.

Calling out the SWAT team for every loud noise.
Treating cupcakes as potential bombs.
Strip searching elderly matrons.
And young children.
And pretty girls.
(Especially the pretty girls.
Can't be too careful, you know.)
Shoot first, ask questions, well, never.

And our new motto.
Not "E Pluribus Unum."
Instead, "Ad Absurdam, Ad Nauseum."


sj

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Friday, December 16, 2011

Pass This On




This is the point of no return.

sj

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Word.



Truth from Low Key.
I hope you dig it.
Because now YOU'RE a "terrorist," too.

sj

Friday, December 9, 2011

LA Fights Back




Bravo, Los Angeles!
I wonder if anyone will be next?


sj

Calling Officer Friendly.....

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Thursday, December 1, 2011

IT'S WORSE THAN YOU THINK




This is what they're NOT telling you on the TV news.


sj

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Saturday, November 26, 2011

The Last Straw

Friday, November 25, 2011

U.S. being declared a "Battlefield" -Military can arrest and Lock Up ANY U.S. citizen - We are about to become Nazi U.S.A. - Seriously! Bill Going to vote on floor Monday (11/28/11)



This is it! This would take away any last freedoms we think we may have.

A Bill that allows the military to become the police and declares the U.S. as a battlefield, then the military can take and detain any U.S. citizen in the battlefield! They never have to charge you with anything nor give you a trial with this bill! In other words, if they don't like what you say or do, you can be picked up and held for the rest of your life without ever be given a reason nor trial!


You can call or email your Congresspeople to vote against it.
After all, they've been SOOOOO responsive to the People's will so far, right?

This bill is nothing short of a declaration of war against the American People.
If you haven't already stocked up on arms and ammunition, better do it right now.
We are fighting the 4th Reich.

sj




Friday, November 25, 2011

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

What Country IS This????


For a couple of hundred years, countless good and decent people have given their blood, sweat tears to make America fulfill its promise of liberty and justice for all.
Trying to make those lofty words something real, something more than legalese gibberish scratched on parchment.
Something worth believing in.
Living for.
Even dying for.

But our country has been progressively taken over by a small minority of corrupt, greedy and power-obsessed psychopaths. It didn't happen over-night. This fight has been going on since the beginning.

Today, the America of myth and legend, the beacon of freedom and hope to the world, is dead.

Whether we can make it be reborn and rise from the ashes, remains to be seen.
One thing for certain.
There's only one other option:
To remain forever a slave.

sj

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

But You Can Leave Your Hat On



Hurrah! for Lord Godiva.
Now THAT'S what I call "bareback."
No better way to ride.
The ultimate in "close contact."

Now, let's just get rid of that bit.





sj

Monday, November 21, 2011

The Last American President



He was a "cold warrior" who had a change of heart.
He planned to demolish the CIA.
He planned to get us out of Vietnam.
He was repulsed by Operation Northwoods, which called for false flag attacks on Americans to be blamed on Cuba to justify an invasion there.
He signed an executive order returning the power of printing our money to the Congress, where it Constitutionally belongs, taking it away from the Federal Reserve.

And so, they murdered him.

And every following President has been an accessory after the fact in that murder.
Every President after JFK has been nothing more than a pimp for the bankers and their minions.

You're long gone, Jack.
But not forgotten.

sj

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Never Refer to Cops as "Pigs..."


...it's an unfair insult to pigs.


sj

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Missing by Bruce Springstein



Favorite of mine.
I hope you dig it.

sj




Woke up this morning, was a chill in the air

Went into the kitchen, your cigarettes were lying there

Your jacket hung on the chair where you left it last night

Everything was in place, everything seemed all right

But you were missing

Missing...


Last night I dreamed the sky went black

You were drifting down and you couldn't get back

You were lost and in trouble so far from home

I reached for you, my arms were like stone

I woke and you were missing

Missing...


I searched for something to explain

In the whispering rain, and the trembling leaves

Tell me baby where did you go

You were here just a moment ago


There's nights I still hear your footsteps fall

I can hear your voice moving down the hall

Your smell drifts through the bedroom

I lie awake, but I don't move

Missing you...

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Good Start




I'd add immediately shut down all the wars we're involved in, cut the military budget, and scale back the military to a truly defensive level -- and while we're at it, let's completely de-militarize the police.


sj

Monday, November 7, 2011

Good-bye, Joe


Smokin' Joe Frazier, the heavyweight champ whose rivalry with my personal hero Ali made boxing history, has died of liver cancer. He was 67.

He was a courageous fighter, and by all accounts, a very decent man, too.

Sorry to see him go so soon.


sj

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Coincidence Theory



If you still aren't sure whether the "main stream media" all take their marching orders from the same source, have a look a this clip.

Watchdogs of democracy?

Or lapdogs of fascism?

sj

Resistance is victory

Thursday, November 3, 2011

From 0-90 in 2 Seconds



This clip hits a nerve in me.
I can't stand bullies. I go from zero to "off the scale" on the anger-ometer in about half a heartbeat.
Maybe because, as a child I was subjected to the same kind of thing.
Daily.
For transgressions real or imagined.

This girl is apparently being beaten by her father for downloading music files on the internet.
She's 16.
Note how many times daddy uses some form of the word "fuck."
And I'm from Chicago where "fuck" is the city motto.

Note also the parents' demand that this girl meekly submit to being punished.
Remind you of anything?
How about the commands of police officers making an arrest that is, in itself, unlawful?
Yeah.
Absolute submission to authority, whether that authority is right or wrong.
Teach your children well.

To hell with that.
No wonder the country is in the toilet.

But I saved the best for last.
That cowardly sonovabitch swinging the belt IS A JUDGE!!!!
Judge William Adams of Texas.
And the kicker?

He reportedly oversees CHILD ABUSE CASES!


sj

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Urge for Goin'



I always come back to this tune.
This time of year,
I always ask myself,
Why am I not someplace like Jamaica?
Riding along the clean sand at edge of clear, blue-green water,
The warm wind like a lover's soft breath against my skin...
I never have a good answer.
But I never seem to go.

sj

Thursday, October 27, 2011

International Equestrian Federation to Approve Horse Torture




PLEASE ACT & FORWARD

The FEI are voting on November 11th in Rio that BLOOD dripping from horses mouths is OK in competition!!!





The German FN and Sjef Janssen agree with this ~ WHY??? ~ So they can WIN medals by openly abusing their horses, (tighter nosebands, harder hands, grinding teeth, horses biting themselves from pressure and tension). Dressage is supposed to be harmonious, relaxed with the horse in self carriage, remember?

Kyra Kyrklund is against it, as is Monica Theodorescu, Philippe Karl & Bea Borelle, Ingrid Klimke, Christine Stuckelberger and many many more...

Today you can voice up and sign the 10,000+ strong petition and its gaining momentum ~
SIGN it now, here:~ http://no-fei.com/

Go and join the FACEBOOK page of Claudia Sanders which is gaining unreal support.
http://www.facebook.com/groups/291566070872803/


Personally, I think anyone who bloodies a horse's mouth should get a little bloody themselves, and I'd be more than happy to arrange that. What a completely despicable idea.
Thanks to Frank Bell for sending this information along.

sj

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Serve & Protect?




In "the land of the free" when the People exercise a Constitutionally-guaranteed right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances, how does the government respond?

Once again the police are used as bully-boys, and they seem to enjoy the role.
Serve and Protect.
Yeah.
Serve the rich.
Protect the powerful.

Oakland cops, you're a disgrace.


sj

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Listen.

Does the word "gestapo" ring a bell???




You're next.


sj

No Torture. Period.


Sent this email to Canadian Attorney General Robert Nicholson regarding Dubya's jaunt north.
You might want to say something, too. Hey, you never know....


To: Nichor@parl.gc.ca
Subject: Former US President George Bush

Dear Sir:

In case it has escaped your notice, I regret to report that my beloved country has gone down a terrible path for the last decade.

Mr. George Bush, as President, led the charge into hell by lying us into an illegal and immoral war against peoples who had done us no harm. Mr. Bush also, by his own admission, ordered the torture of certain persons, a violation of US law --- and Canadian Law, too, if I understand correctly.

I regret to further inform you that our current president and congress are either too corrupt, too stupid, or too cowardly to enforce the law and bring the smug Mr. Bush to justice for either murder or torture. Yet it is imperative that no such criminal be afforded any place of refuge anywhere on earth.

Therefore, I must beseech you, our traditional good neighbor and friend, not to hesitate to enforce your own laws as they pertain to the villainous Mr. Bush, but, indeed, to pursue justice in this case with all the vigor and determination it deserves.

Torturing even a guilty person is inexcusable.
But If you think, for just a moment, of the horror of torturing persons who were, no doubt, completely innocent of any wrong-doing, surely the outrage and disgust any decent human being must feel at such a prospect will goad your conscience into action.


Thank you very much.


Sincerely.....




sj

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Obama Belongs...


...in the joint.
He can have a cell right next to Dubya and Cheney.

sj

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Rigged Games


I used to play poker a little. Not so much any more.

I favored draw poker.


Poker’s basically like this:

You get dealt some cards – everybody gets the same number.

You get a chance to swap some cards – everybody gets that chance.

Then you take the cards you’ve got in your hand and you try to make a winning hand out of it.

Either you’ve got better cards than everyone else – or you can make everyone else think you’ve got better cards.

Sometimes a guy with “good cards” doesn’t know how to play them, and so he loses, while a guy with not such “good cards” plays them very well and wins.

There’s really no such thing as a “winning hand.”

Any hand can be a winning hand; any hand can be a losing hand. It’s all in how you play your cards.

You have to put up some money in order to have a chance to win. That’s the “ante” and it goes in the pot. Then you go around and guys bet on the hand they have.

Then they discard some cards and draw new ones, hoping to improve their hand.

And then there’s another round of betting.

You can keep up with the bets, or you can fold – in which case you sacrifice all that you’ve put in so far.

If you play your cards well, you win the pot, however much or however little it is.

If you win the pot, you keep the money.

If you don’t win the pot, you lose your money.

Fair and square, right?

Sure.

Now imagine this:

You’ve got five guys at the table and maybe another 5 guys waiting for a turn to play or watching. Maybe at a classy game there are a couple of guys serving drinks and munchies to the players. Maybe some female admirers, too. Or, hell, some male admirers, for that matter.

Now this one particular guy has a funny take on the game.

First of all, he doesn’t want to ante-up. Instead of taking 10 bucks out of his own wallet to get in the game, he has this Big Thug with him – his “bodyguard,” he says. Huge beefy Neanderthal, armed to the teeth. And he sends this goon around the room to make everybody ELSE chip in for his ante.

Then, when he wins, he keeps the pot, all right. But when he loses, he sends his “bodyguard” around to make everyone ELSE chip in to cover his losses.

HOW he wins is a little creative, too. When HE’S holding a straight flush, he agrees that a straight flush beats 4-of-a-kind. But when HE’S holding the 4-of-a-kind, he claims that it beats a straight flush – and his Bodyguard is there to make sure everyone “plays by the rules.”

It’s no surprise that, by the end of the evening, this guy comes out way ahead.

Now it’s customary for everyone to chip in to cover things like food, booze and entertainment, and leave a nice tip for the servers and clean-up crew. Naturally, the biggest winner is expected to graciously chip in extra, maybe say to the biggest loser “hey, it’s on me this time.”

But not THIS guy.

He’s tossed down as much hooch as anybody else, and stuffed himself on chips, sandwiches and egg rolls. But he doesn’t kick in one lousy dime. Not even a tip for the servers or the entertainment. He leaves it to everyone ELSE to cover it.

He does pay his “bodyguard” well, though. You can see why.

And then, to add insult to injury, this guy crows about what a great card-player he is and tells the rest of us that, if we lost money in the game, it’s our own fault for not being as good a gambler as he is.


Maybe I’m too simple. But it seems to me that this is the same rigged game the big corporations, and the bankers, and their ilk are running on the rest of us – that 99% of us who play the game fair and square.

The rich guys get all kinds of breaks and favors from the government (their bodyguard) that we’re forced to chip in for or ELSE. It’s called “taxes.”

Then the rules flex and change to favor the rich guys – enforced by the government bodyguard, of course.

The rich guy enjoys all the “common” things that we all use – but never chips in to pay for any of it. When he makes money, he keeps it; when he loses money, he gets “bailed out” with our coerced tax money.

And then he has the nerve to claim he’s a “self-made” man.


Me, I wouldn’t stay in a rigged game. Would you?

I wouldn’t invite that guy back, either.

Might even have a quiet chat with him sometime.

Without his bodyguard around.

You follow?


sj

Monday, October 17, 2011

Good Cop, Bad Cop



I don't hesitate to point it out when a cop is stupid, crooked, brutal or otherwise unworthy to wear the badge and have the respect and trust of the People.

So I have to do the flip side of that, too.
When a cop does the right thing, is honest, and actually does "serve and protect" someone other than the rich an powerful, I have to stand up and salute.

This makes TWICE in the last week or so.
Could it be the start of a trend?
Probably not.
But wouldn't that be great?

sj

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Finding the Path




My friend Kim just lent me a copy of this dvd and I watched it this morning.
If you're involved with horses in any way, I strongly recommend it to you.

sj

Friday, October 14, 2011

Makes a Damn Good Point




So far Congressman Paul is the only candidate who's talking about ending the wars.
That's enough to get my vote right there.


sj

Thursday, October 13, 2011

One Good Cop


This photo suggest that there might be at least one good cop out there.

Every police officer takes some kind of an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and trumps any state or local law that conflicts with it.

If police officers kept their word and honored that oath, they would not be attacking people who exercise their Constitutionally-guaranteed right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances -- they'd be protecting them.

Yeah. I'd pay big bucks to see that.


sj

Be Part of the Solution

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Connecting the Dots...




When you make up your suspect list, you'd definitely want to look into these "persons of interest."

sj

Friday, October 7, 2011

I've Got a Little List....


I don't know that the "Occupy Wall Street" movement has come up with a list of demands yet, but if they're stumped for ideas, I've got a couple.
If I were King of the Forest, or at least, President of the United States, these are the things I would do either immediately or within my first 100 days.


  1. Cease Fire, Stand Down, Fall back. Cease military ops in all countries. Bring all troops home from Iraq & Afghanistan. Close all foreign bases and bring troops home. Re-direct military budget to humanitarian use at home first, then globally as possible – with no strings attached.

  1. End the Federal Reserve Banking system. Return money-coining to Congress as per the Constitution.

  1. Prosecute GW Bush et al for violations of the law: murder, torture, fraud, civil rights.

  1. Prosecute and Impeach B. Obama et al for violations of the law: murder, torture, civil rights.

  1. Implement single-payer national healthcare

  1. Implement run-off voting system using verifiable paper ballots

  1. Impeach the several Supreme Court Justices for high crimes re: Gore v. Bush and People United

  1. Dismantle the TSA. Prosecute TSA officials for civil rights violations.

  1. Dismantle the Department of Homeland Security. Prosecute DHS officials as appropriate for civil rights violations. Cease and desist all surveillance on any person unless a proper warrant is issued (not a FISA “warrant”) by a judge in accordance with the 4th amendment.

  1. Break the Republican/Democrat monopoly on elections. Open elections to multiple parties and independents.

  1. Pare military down to minimum necessary on-call defensive force.

  1. Re-tool the weapons industry for peaceful ends. Criminalize the sale of military hardware outside the US.

  1. De-militarize the police. Eliminate SWAT teams. Prosecute officers for violations of the law. Establish civilian review boards with subpoena power and authority to suspend, fire and/or send cases to D.A. for prosecution.

  1. Stand-down the “Drug War.” Pardon and release all non-violent drug offenders. Cease and desist prosecutions for possession, use and/or sale of drugs and decriminalize drug use.

  1. Establish an Ethics Division of the FBI and prosecute government employees for violations where conflicts of interest appear, eliminating the revolving door between government officials and the industries they are employed to oversee.

  1. Eliminate corporate welfare and support small-business entrepreneurs with no-interest start-up capital.

  1. Establish a fair tax system. Either everybody pays or nobody does. Allow tax-payers to ear-mark how their taxes will be used. Streamline the tax code and eliminate the IRS.
Thoughts?
Suggestions?

I'd love to hear them. None of us is as smart as all of us together.

sj

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

If Only


...and take their jobs and use up their resources, too.



Too bad the Indians didn't treat the Euros the way the Euros treat everybody else.

sj

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Right On the Money




I may disagree on a couple of details regarding the role of the federal government vis-a-vis the role of state government, but what this lad has to say about the Federal Reserve Bank is solidly on point.

sj

Monday, October 3, 2011

"Hippie?????"

Another "dirty" "hippie" at the Wall Street protest.
All the king's horses and all the king's name-calling can't obscure the fact that the protest is a broad-based popular demonstration by the "99%" who, despite their many differences, all definitely have ONE thing in common: getting screwed by the 1%.

sj



Thanks to VVAW for sending along this photo.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Murder is Murder


ACLU Statement on Killing of Anwar Al-Aulaqi

WASHINGTON - September 30 - U.S. airstrikes in Yemen today killed Anwar Al-Aulaqi, an American citizen who has never been charged with any crime.

ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said, "The targeted killing program violates both U.S. and international law. As we've seen today, this is a program under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process, and on the basis of standards and evidence that are kept secret not just from the public but from the courts. The government's authority to use lethal force against its own citizens should be limited to circumstances in which the threat to life is concrete, specific and imminent. It is a mistake to invest the President – any President – with the unreviewable power to kill any American whom he deems to present a threat to the country."

ACLU National Security Project Litigation Director Ben Wizner said, "Outside the theater of war, the use of lethal force is lawful only as a last resort to counter an imminent threat of deadly attack. Based on the administration's public statements, the program that the President has authorized is far more sweeping. If the Constitution means anything, it surely means that the President does not have unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an enemy of the state."

More information on the government's targeted killing policy is available at:
www.aclu.org/targetedkillings


Am I the only one who sees the bitter irony in this?
So much has been made of Obama being the first black (though actually mixed-race) President.
And now Obama espouses the ethos of the lynch mob -- no charges, no trial, just string 'em up on "suspicion" of --- well, suspicion of exactly what is not quite clear.

Surely murder is a sufficient reason to impeach the bastard, don't you think?

sj

King Obama

Truth




Here's a great song from Jordan Page.
It picks up my spirits to hear young guys writing this kind of stuff.
Time to step up, man.

I hope you dig it.

sj

Friday, September 30, 2011

What if Cops Were Like THIS?

Choose.



OccupyTogether: The Best Among Us
by Chris Hedges

There are no excuses left.
Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history.

Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy.

Either you are a rebel or a slave.

To be declared innocent in a country where the rule of law means nothing, where we have undergone a corporate coup, where the poor and working men and women are reduced to joblessness and hunger, where war, financial speculation and internal surveillance are the only real business of the state, where even habeas corpus no longer exists, where you, as a citizen, are nothing more than a commodity to corporate systems of power, one to be used and discarded, is to be complicit in this radical evil. To stand on the sidelines and say “I am innocent” is to bear the mark of Cain; it is to do nothing to reach out and help the weak, the oppressed and the suffering, to save the planet. To be innocent in times like these is to be a criminal. Ask Tim DeChristopher.

Choose.
But choose fast.
The state and corporate forces are determined to crush this. They are not going to wait for you. They are terrified this will spread. They have their long phalanxes of police on motorcycles, their rows of white paddy wagons, their foot soldiers hunting for you on the streets with pepper spray and orange plastic nets. They have their metal barricades set up on every single street leading into the New York financial district, where the mandarins in Brooks Brothers suits use your money, money they stole from you, to gamble and speculate and gorge themselves while one in four children outside those barricades depend on food stamps to eat.

Speculation in the 17th century was a crime.
Speculators were hanged.
Today they run the state and the financial markets. They disseminate the lies that pollute our airwaves. They know, even better than you, how pervasive the corruption and theft have become, how gamed the system is against you, how corporations have cemented into place a thin oligarchic class and an obsequious cadre of politicians, judges and journalists who live in their little gated Versailles while 6 million Americans are thrown out of their homes, a number soon to rise to 10 million, where a million people a year go bankrupt because they cannot pay their medical bills and 45,000 die from lack of proper care, where real joblessness is spiraling to over 20 percent, where the citizens, including students, spend lives toiling in debt peonage, working dead-end jobs, when they have jobs, a world devoid of hope, a world of masters and serfs.

The only word these corporations know is more.
They are disemboweling every last social service program funded by the taxpayers, from education to Social Security, because they want that money themselves.
Let the sick die.
Let the poor go hungry.
Let families be tossed in the street.
Let the unemployed rot.
Let children in the inner city or rural wastelands learn nothing and live in misery and fear. Let the students finish school with no jobs and no prospects of jobs.
Let the prison system, the largest in the industrial world, expand to swallow up all potential dissenters.
Let torture continue.
Let teachers, police, firefighters, postal employees and social workers join the ranks of the unemployed.
Let the roads, bridges, dams, levees, power grids, rail lines, subways, bus services, schools and libraries crumble or close.
Let the rising temperatures of the planet, the freak weather patterns, the hurricanes, the droughts, the flooding, the tornadoes, the melting polar ice caps, the poisoned water systems, the polluted air increase until the species dies.

Who the hell cares?
If the stocks of ExxonMobil or the coal industry or Goldman Sachs are high, life is good.
Profit. Profit. Profit.
That is what they chant behind those metal barricades. They have their fangs deep into your necks. If you do not shake them off very, very soon they will kill you. And they will kill the ecosystem, dooming your children and your children’s children. They are too stupid and too blind to see that they will perish with the rest of us. So either you rise up and supplant them, either you dismantle the corporate state, for a world of sanity, a world where we no longer kneel before the absurd idea that the demands of financial markets should govern human behavior, or we are frog-marched toward self-annihilation.






Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. His most recent book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.


CommonDreams.org
Published on Friday, September 30, 2011 by TruthDig.com
Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org
Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/30-0