"...In the year since the last election the president has made concession after concession to drug and insurance companies, to private health care providers and their lobbyists. The White House, establishment Democrats and their echo chambers in the corporate media and even on the internet have worked hard to suppress voices advocating the simple, practical and elegant solution of single payer Medicare For All, which is still favored in polls by a substantial majority of Americans..." -- Bruce A. Dixon at Black Agenda Report, 11/4/09

...So Mr Obama has sorta-kinda fulfilled one campaign promise: the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp is to be closed. Within... a year. How we would laugh at some foreigner seeking our approval with this kind of initiative. Ahmadinejad: Okay, I'll stop hanging gay guys.... Next year. But this year -- hoo-ha! Line 'em up and keep 'em coming!

Why it should take a year is a question of some interest. I am not the greatest administrator in the world, but I do believe I could do it in a week, or a weekend, given the resources available to a president of the US...
-- Michael J. Smith 1/22/09

Zionists would do well to consider that the loudest American exponents of zionophilia can and do switch over to judeophobic demonization without missing a beat. They'll do it en masse the minute their leaders no longer consider Israel useful. Those leaders care for nothing but power in their own bailiwicks. History is very clear on that and on the utility of one elite to another; in particular those elite who make support for them a galling, expensive proposition.
-- "Harold M., 1/17/09, from the comments.

Eyes to see, eyes to see
But I had to look away
Didn't want my eyes to see
Coming of Judgment Day
Judgment Day, Judgment Day
Time has come at last
Saying last shall be first
And first shall be last

First is last...
( First is last... )

-- Kate Schutt, 2001

"...The Warren invitation is vintage Obama. Like Bush, Obama believes that he is the decider and that opinions differing from his own are to be ignored. Unlike Bush, he is savvy enough to pretend otherwise, and his smooth talking feel goodism fools many into maintaining a vow of silence about anything he does. The Warren invitation is yet another instance of the patronizing Obama telling the left that they shouldn't worry their pretty little heads about anything that he decides is inconsequential..."

-- Margaret Kimberley Black Agenda Report, 12/31/08

"...Must be a cry in defense for all humanity.

If it is used to justify brutality against others, it makes us no better than our past oppressors."

sadie_sabot

"...You cannot do what he did for so many years, without burning out, or becoming discouraged, becoming alienated, unless you have an adaptable character and personality, suited for confronting abuses of power-- one might call it 'the civic personality...'" -- Ralph Nader, 11/21/08.

"...We are supposed to believe that if Senator McCain wins this election, we will be subject to another four years of Bush policies. I deeply believe that if we continue to support these two political parties that have worked together to eviscerate the 1st Amendment by setting up 'Free Speech Zones' for demonstrators and tasering people that ask questions of our politicians and gutting the 4th Amendment by passing the FISA law, things will indeed get worse. These are developments that happened recently, I could write pages on how our rights under the Constitution have been violated in the past decade. If we continue to support the duopoly, after all that has happened, what incentive will they have for listening to the people? They will see it as a green-light to continue their anti-democratic behavior."

( L*w-C*rb Spam is Still Spam )

...I would like to enhance Kennedy's famous words on this 4th of July when the country sets off on another celebration of gross militarism and the deaths of millions of people while we never pay tribute to our First Nation peoples who were exterminated so white Europeans could despoil a beautiful land. My new proposal for the 21st C. is:

Ask not what humanity can do for you, but what you can do for humanity...

...WE need to open our eyes and not blindly follow politicians because of the letter that goes after their names on the ballot. In almost every case this election season since the presumptive nominees have been declared, it has been very difficult to distinguish the D from the R. WE should be demanding more from politicians and not allow the lowest common denominator to grovel and pander his way into the oval office, again. Haven't we had enough?

What WE can do for humanity right now is break our individual ties to War, Inc. WE have to educate our children that politicians like Obama just want them to do the dirty work of War, Inc and have no feelings or compassion for their cannon fodder or the families of the cannon fodder who will be mourning instead of celebrating this weekend...

...For a number of reasons I perceive hope as detrimental to our sanity and survival. First, I have no interest in “taking back America” because the America to which most left-liberals refer when mouthing this empty slogan is not an America that I want back. I want no part of “lesser evils” and political parties that collude in the demise of the nation, the planet, and its inhabitants. As long as any of us “hopes” for the return of that America, we delude and infantilize ourselves, waiting like toddlers for the appearance of Santa Claus. Tragically, the plump, jolly St. Nicholas the left longs to have back is not a pal, but a predator who delivers economic, environmental, social, and spiritual devastation in packages with more appealing gift-wrap...

...In the neighborhoods and communities where Wright and his colleagues and predecessors have worked for decades -- we might even say, for a couple of centuries -- they've been anything but invisible. In fact, they've been indispensable. But in the social representation sold by the "corporate media" -- as Wright quite correctly calls them -- the Wrights are merely a curiosity when they're noticed at all.

That has all changed. Obama may or may not be toast after this brouhaha, and I for one couldn't care less, one way or the other. But the lasting legacy, let's hope, is that Jeremiah Wright and what he has to say are once again on the agenda.

Dr King and Malcolm put some of these topics on the table, back in the day. Then they got killed, and Malcolm was shoved into the footnotes of official history, while King suffered the equally dire fate of plaster sainthood... -- Michael J. Smith at Stop Me Before I Vote Again, 4/30/08

...Every year, the National Urban League publishes a study, "The State of Black America," in which the ills and disparities that persist in this country are catalogued. Every year, the story is basically the same. The United States has a way to go that only public policy can address. However, when Harvard University/The Kaiser Family Foundation did a study on White attitudes about race several years ago, it found that Whites have little appreciation for the reality of Black life in America, from police harassment and intimidation, to imprisonment, to family income, unemployment, housing, and health care. But without an appreciation of the reality faced by many of our fellow Americans, the necessary public policy initiatives to change those realities will find difficulty gaining acceptance in the public discourse...

...I am glad that candidate Obama mentioned the existing racial disparities in education, income, wealth, jobs, government services, imprisonment, and opportunity. Now it is time to address the public policies necessary to resolve these disparities. Now it is time to have the discussion on how we are going to come together and put policies in effect that will provide real hope and real opportunity to all in this country... -- Cynthia McKinney, 3/18/08

I wonder how far Obama is willing to go with this collective punishment idea. Obviously, denying Palestinians access to food and medicine isn't intended to directly prevent the missile attacks (unless Obama lives in a magical world in which missiles are constructed of pita bread and fueled by aspirin). So the only "strategy" here is to inflict enough pain on the Palestinians to cause them to rethink their support of Hamas.

But if it's really about bringing the pain to people who aren't attacking Israel, in the hope they'll turn on the guys who are attacking Israel, then why stop with cutting off food? Why not give them food, but put poison in it? Too extreme? Okay, how about putting something in the food that gives them really, really bad stomachaches? I mean, they have to be shown there's a cost for their "support" of terrorists, right?

And can anyone think of a historical example where a "strategy" of this sort actually worked? Where it didn't cause people to rally around exactly the leadership we don't want them to support? Did the blitz cause Londoners to turn against Churchill, did 9/11 cause Americans to turn against Bush?

But sometimes I forget, they're not like us. -- "Steve B," as quoted by John Caruso 1/25/08.