LBJ MLK and Selma

Just a quick observation.

Apparently, the controversy over the movie "Selma" revolves around whether LBJ is depicted as supportive enough for civil rights legislation and the Voting Rights Act.

The movie, and a lot of the historical record indicates that LBJ came to office with a legislative agenda which was essentially a series of initiatives focused on helping the poor while also building infrastructure in the United States.

FDR was LBJ's idol, and he considered ending poverty and building the United States infrastructure of transport, power and communications, especially in impoverished areas his primary focus.

So what we have here is a period in American history where the debate is:

Should we protect voting rights and insure civil rights for all citizens first, or work on ending poverty and improving the lives of all Americans first.

So like today's politics. Good to see not much has changed.


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Police officers are not soldiers

We are blurring the lines between soldiers and policing, and that is a huge part of the more general issue of disproportional use of force in the US.

Drug raids by SWAT teams look an awful lot like house raids in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the increase in the use of raids of this type does an awful lot to dehumanize the populace in the eyes of those participating in the raids.

Too many cops exposed to this approach to policing can begin to see the job from the perspective of soldiers operating in a hostile area, that all affronts to authority must be met with force and dominated.

Far too many incidents, involving the mentally ill (now a Supreme Court case), people of color and poorer whites (the common denominator being poverty) have come to light demonstrating excessive use of force.

Perhaps dialing back the size and scope of swat teams, ending the drug war, stopping patrols with military weapons and riot gear...and reminding everyone that the mission of a police force is not subjugation...but to serve and protect our nations people.

Maybe we can start by pulling cops in paramilitary gear out of port authority and penn station.

This isn't Afghanistan.


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Wouldn't we all agree...

Wouldn't we all agree that if history has taught us anything, it's that when a very few aggregate most of the wealth, and opportunity is provided unequally, the world that is eventually created is either totalitarian as the wealthy pay soldiers to protect them, or anarchy as the population eventually rolls out the guillotines?

Wouldn't we agree that when the products of society are more efficiently shared, instead of aggregated, that the overall civilization we live in is improved? When more are educated, more educated conversations ensue. More value is had by all.

What has lead to abusive communist and socialist regimes? The prior abuses of monarchic or despotic laissez faire capitalist societies. The reactionary revolutions of the past are avoidable in the refusal to allow the excesses of the past.

Economic justice is the simple idea that it should be possible to afford a basic living - to eat and have shelter- by working any full time job.

A better world results when we don't go bankrupt and our families don't become impoverished when we get sick.

When higher education is an opportunity not ruled out by income, we create a ladder for everyone.

When education is truly a level playing field, our country is stronger from the aggregation of prepared minds capable of collaborating on a brighter future.

It really isn't that hard. And I guarantee that at a fundamental level, most of us agree that these are essentially the right things to focus on. We are so used to being spun that the reality in front of our eyes has lost shape and clarity. It's really not that complicated. We move forward as a species when we expand the knowledge and abilities of more human minds. The more of us we raise up, the more humanity rises.

Ubuntu. We are nothing without each other.


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You're not Howard the Duck.

You are not trapped in a world that you never made. You help make it, we help make it the way it is.

We are unlike the other animals and species we share this planet with in that we make our own ecosystem.  There is no economy, government, religion, culture, or any human system of power or wealth distribution or perspective that we ourselves have not created. We choose to make the world we live in, and we choose our outcome as a species.

I say this because whenever I have a conversation about what I see as the misplaced priorities all around me, the answer is typically a shrug, or some general sneering expressed at my lack of understanding regarding how complex "the system" is, and that thats just the way "it" works.

But we control "it" we decide "it"..so don't tell me how fucking complicated it is. At least share in the collective responsibility we bear in a world where -

We do the absolute minimum or less to work on stopping humanity from making our world less habitable for ourselves and the other animals who live on it.

We pay people on reality TV more than we pay teachers.

We pay a football coach more than we pay the dean of the school.

We value TV celebrities more than we value scientists.

We answer  someone's hunger with a scramble to figure out why their hunger is their fault.

We let our government engage in wars that are about our own imperialism.

We let our racism and our prejudices define how we feel without acknowledging that racism and prejudice is something we all have, something we all have to learn to deal with.

We consistently devalue real labor, and increase the rewards for labor which does little to enrich the many, but much to enrich the few.

We are okay with giving for profit company's more money and more profit, funding wars and the largest military the world has ever seen, but FDR's four freedoms are unattainable,  education, healthcare, freedom from hunger, better human quality of life issues..these are all unattainable for the majority...but certainly taken by the few.

We are okay with rhetoric that divides us..yet anyone who travels knows that individuals will always change a preconceived perception towards a group.

Don't say "we can't do it, capitalism..its too complicated..our government won't" ...etc, etc. Don't put the problem elsewhere.  We're not trapped in a world that we never made.  We've chosen this one.

We make it. We can change it. It's all on us.

Snowden is a TRAITOR!

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

The Supreme Court has interpreted this to mean that no one can commit treason unless it’s with a country against whom our Congress has declared war. This means that neither the Vietnam War nor the Korean War nor the War on Terror can yield treasonous Americans, as none of these wars were declared by Congress. (MSNBC)

I find it very scary, that without evidence of real treason (which has a very clear constitutional definition) the court of public opinion, as well as both republicans and democrats, are trying Snowden on TV news. The other day, John Kerry had this to say:
When asked if he considers Snowden a traitor, Kerry said he wouldn’t “play word games about what he is or isn’t,” but went on to say that the 29-year-old is a “traitor to the oath he took to his fellow employees, to the duty he took freely by his own choice.” (New Yorker)
By this logic, ANYONE who blows the whistle on unlawful or immoral behavior is a traitor.  A cop who "rats on" other cops for corruption.  The soldiers who published information on Abu Ghraib.  Food processing plant employees who take photos of chicken processing. Employees of the federal government who blow the whistle on as clear a violation of the fourth amendment as one will find.
All traitors according to Kerry.
It would seem that this program has the backing of both parties, so for once we have unity in creating a nationally televised two minutes hate on Edward Snowden, and this is a partisan politics free fun fest.  The talking heads  went from defending him and attacking the program to attacking him in a two week period. You really have to ask why.
His run from the government seems clear enough - hes a fugitive for bringing this to light, as he knew he would be. There were other NSA whistleblowers who served time for leaks on this program, as documented here.
What happens with Snowden from here on out is nothing but a distraction. It is smoke and mirrors designed to distract all of us from the continued erosion of our rights in the name of this "war on terrorism" that started with 9/11.
If you think this technology has not already been used to monitor the activity of Occupy, and other lawful protest organizations, then you are being naive.
I predict that if we capture Snowden, we will have a very public trial, where his character will be torn apart and his motives made suspect. Failing this, we will continue to excoriate him in the court of public opinion with the media and the usual suspects presiding.
We will destroy the leaker, and distract from the leak.  When Edward Snowden is turned into an effeminate weakling who runs to Venezuela like the coward he is, you'll know that your fourth amendment rights are safely non existent.

Perfect Tyranny

The patriot act, hastily enacted after 9/11, was a huge turn away from policies which had at least put some policy control on domestic espionage.

In an atmosphere of fear and a ramp up to war, we allowed a hastily put together and Byzantine piece of legislation to be passed, in the hope that it would help our government keep us safe from harm.

What we gave our government is what any government would need to make it's citizens safe from an enemy which can strike from within.

The right to surveillance of all communications, which technology makes easier and easier. In our new age of all is digital, that surveillance, coupled with the increasing use of cameras allows for the monitoring of an ever increasing fraction of our lives, and with an exponentially increasing efficiency.

The control of encryption technology insures that citizens will not have an ability to prevent this.

The use of this technology will inevitably make it's way into law enforcement and intellectual property protection, making law enforcement more efficient.

And it will be abused. Because perfect law enforcement and absolute control of a society by its government has other names, and none of them have anything to do with freedom.

So if you don't like what's going on right now, and you think that blowing the whistle on it was the right thing, then please remember what we are really saying..

Which is: I will take my chances with crime and terror. With the possibility that a bomb may go off, and I will deprive my government of these tools to keep me in perfect safety because perfect safety is not worth it.

Perfect safety is a rubber room.

Providing any government with the tools of perfect tyranny, regardless of the intention goes too far.

Freedom is the ability to act without oversight, without being watched.

Freedom from fear ends with all of us in a controlled, monitored compound cowering in fear of our assailants and those who guard us from them.

Free societies require courage.

Not the kind that picks up a gun.

The kind that speaks truth to power, and votes, and says "not in my name".

The kind the NSA whistleblower displayed.

Call your representatives and tell them what Ben said...

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.




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Principles, pesky principles

The problem in America today is that no one understands what a principle is anymore.

Principles are guiding beacons. They are intended to define who we are, and they are rarely if ever compromised.

Principles may be expressed or implied in law, but they are not laws.

The principle of free expression may be codified in the first amendment, but the first amendment is not the principle of free expression.

Principles are awkward. They can force us to do things we don't want to do, like letting the nazis march in Skokie Illinois.

The principle of free expression demands that we defend the rights of others to express the ideas we hate the most.

Bringing in the law often provides wiggle room around these principles..for example perhaps finding some ordinance about the park or neighborhood to prevent the march.

The law allows the wiggle room to go around the principle when we find it to be inconvenient, while still patting ourselves on the back for the legality (rightness?) of our actions.

For historical perspective, the nazi party in Germany took the trouble to change the laws to make rounding up the Jews legal.

Apparently, they had a principle problem.

When we walk away from the basic principles we have as a culture, pay attention to how the laws change.

Pay attention regardless of whether you like or dislike the group it applies to, because when we abandon a principle for one, we can abandon it for all.

Our laws should reflect our principles, not the loopholes we need to create when we find them inconvenient.


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