Sh*t That Mitt Told Me

Mitt Romney's campaign sticker theme is "Believe In America." Very vague, isn't it? Well that's true about Romney as a candidate and a person, period!  Just like it took him years as a candidate to release any tax return to hide his great wealth, so his slogans and his presidential plans will be vague until he has the ability to spring them upon unsuspecting Americans.

Romney has been calling himself a "fixer," proclaiming that he is a "successful businessman" who knows how to fix problems and will do the same for the U.S. Government as he has done for businesses he controlled.

Yet five years ago, when Romney was beginning his run for the Presidentcy in 2008, the New York Times in a detailed report, noted that "He made his money mainly through leveraged buyouts, mortgaging companies to take them over in the hope of reselling them at big profits in just a few years."

Romney has bragged about being able to make "the hard choices" to solve problems. Yet, just as he bragged after finally releasing one past tax return, that "I never paid a penny more than I owe," so too has
he made sure that he never LOST a penny either; instead escaping as a robber baron while causing massive loss and suffering to the families whose members he laid off.

He also brags about "saving" the 2002 Olympic Games. Yet, the scandal concerning bribes to get the Games to his Mormon Capital, Salt Lake City, he made sure was quietly contained, so that his Church would not become involved. Yet rumors were present, not only about involvement the Church may have had in the bribe scandal, but also, whether Romney had Olympic money funnelled to his Church,
through such means as paying for spanking new big parking lots on property owned by the Church, etc..

And now, this very day, in 2012, rumors are swirling, as Lee Fang reports on Op-Ed News, that Romney, if elected President, will choose close Mormon multimillionaire friend, Jack Gerard, as his White House Chief of Staff. Gerard happens to be the president of the American Petroleum Institute, the top oil lobbying association in the country!

So then, Mitt Romney will surely "fix" the problems of his wealthy Mormon friends if elected President, but for those millions of Americans
who were laid off by the "Romney's" of the nation's top 1%, his national "fixes" will make him nothing but "MITT THE SHIT" to them.

The OTHER 1%, Our REAL heroes: Those risking their all for economic, social, & spiritual justice

The REAL heroes in the United States are NOT who the Government & the Government manipulated media claim they are: The Military, The FBI & CIA, and the Police. No, they are the women, men, & even children who are willing to publicly march and speak against the U.S. policies which oppress the poor, murder and maim thousands around the world every year, and systematically fuel HATE rather than LOVE.

Yet, Republican & Democratic politicians, news networks, talk show hosts, and the majority of TV shows and movies praise daily as heroes the above mentioned entities who actually are the oppressors and the forces that try to guarantee that there will never be any REAL change in the United States.

Meanwhile, those oppressors are always on the prowl for more critics to infiltrate; for more dissident leaders to frame for "terrorism" or some other set-up "crime." They are always using every means to COVER-UP their violation of human and civil rights, by such means as actually making it a "crime" to videotape their brutality, by destruction of documents; by shielding lawyers for dissidents from having access to what information remains because of "national security."

In the Occupy movement, we have heard about the 1% and the 99% percent
over the past year. For years before the Occupy movement and still now,
I have always believed that in the United States there was the 1% who were
those who controlled the wealth and the power & who oppressed those who
didn't have it; but ALSO just 1% who REALLY knew what that controlling 1%
was doing & publicly tried to change it ... the REAL heroes...
while the controlling 1% is fully aware of this and is daily trying to wipe out
that OTHER 1%, if not physically, then at least by destroying their lives, their
families, & their opportunities to speak and act!  ...Then there are the other
98% of the population that are largely self-absorbed, that go along like sleep
with what the Government, the Government heroes, and the media tell them.

What is our task then? To support the REAL heroes in their quest for economic, social, and spiritual justice in what ways that we can, and to change any of those "sheep" into mindfully aware human beings.

This New Year's Thought is Relevant for May Day Too!

After reading about May Day 2012 demonstrations in the U.S. and around the world, I realized that my blog post of January 2, 2011 needed to be shouted out today as well! And we need to thank our REAL heroes: those willing to endure police brutality, arrest, infiltration, and ongoing harassment, for their public cries for justice & human rights, and their public expression of democracy within "democracies" that don't practice it!

"A stand can be made against invasion by an army; no stand can be made against invasion by an idea."

Victor Hugo

A new year ... same old wars.  It can be frustrating and anger

producing. Yet we must remember that all the trillions of dollars

spent on military force will not crush the ideas of the demand for

economic justice, social equality, and the rights of freedom of

speech and association.  There is something hardwired within the

millions of poor people that are continuing to be denied these

things, that these are basic rights. And, therefore, those rights will

continue being pursued in 2011.

Pursuing the Same Failed Policies On Latin America & Brazil

Both U.S. Political Parties continue to believe that admitting U.S. foreign policy failures to the world is a sign of weakness. And God forbid that the U.S. appear as anything but the overarching strongman and cop to the rest of the world!

Yet the rest of the world continues to "talk behind the bully's back" about how "he" really is a weakling, because a power that is really strong would use "brains" first rather than "brawn."

Those countries south of the U.S. border know that the U.S. "drug war" started by Republican hero Ronald Reagan in 1981 has been a waste of billions (or now trillions!) of dollars in taxpayer money that could have lifted millions of citizens out of poverty.  Why didn't the U.S. learn anything from its 13 year history with Prohibition of alcoholic beverages between 1920 and 1933, when crime dramatically increased, revenue from taxes dramatically went down, and the Great Depression began, while prosecution of "scofflaws" was wasteful and ineffective.

Secondly, this same Ronald Reagan is lauded by Republicans as "ending the cold war," allegedly between the communist east and the capitalist west. Yet in 2012 we are still blacklisting Cuba and enforcing a ridiculous embargo while we are still stealing Cuban land to maintain a prison where torture is practiced in Guantanamo! Our neighbors to the south all see the hypocrisy in this, but the U.S. government doesn't have "the balls" to admit to this folly of more than a half century!

Next time there is a summit planned for the countries of the Americas, wouldn't it be a treat to see the United States be the only one who is excluded: kind of like "the bully made to sit in the corner by himself."

Oh well...one can dream....   

Enough Is Enough!

     Just as the United States supported the South African apartheid government when most of the world was supporting the victims of this apartheid, so, to a much greater degree, it continues to support the Israeli apartheid government, and provides billions of dollars every year to support the Israeli discrimination, imprisonment, maiming, killing, and land theft that goes on every day.

     Tomorrow, March 30, is Land Day, commemorating the bravery of 6 Palestinians who were murdered by Israeli forces in 1976 when they were trying to keep their land from being appropriated by the Israeli government. For the 36 years following, the apartheid government of Israel has been nothing less than a slow form of genocide against the Palestinian people.  Yet no country in the world has had their wrongdoing protected more than Israel, thanks to the threat of the United States to punish economically and militarily any country who would use means at their disposal to protect the Palestinian victims of these past 36 years.

     It is disgraceful that the United States Government continues to bully the United Nations and its "coalition" about "human rights abuses"in countries it does NOT control, such as Syria, North Korea, Iran, and Cuba, and to whine and moan about the "nuclear intentions" of Iran, when it blatantly partakes in the daily human rights abuses of the Israelis and for decades has protected Israel from any international nuclear weapons inspection, even though this renegade country has always ignored all admonitions from the United Nations, has launched assassinations in other countries, and threatens to invade the sovereign territory of whoever it perceives as a threat!

     The Palestinians have suffered in Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights for far too long. Let's hope that their massive peaceful protest tomorrow on Land Day will finally cause some "coalition" country to have the balls to say "no more!" to their participation in the Israeli and U.S. evils against the Palestinian people!

Vietnam II: A U.S. Anti-War Movement Should Demand That All U.S. Troops Leave Afghanistan

After the massacre of Afghan civilians by another alleged "lone gunman" this past week, I was appalled to hear the U.S. and British heads of state recommit to having troops continue the senseless killing, now in its 11th year, in Afghanistan. However, since I was not surprised by that, I am more disturbed that the U.S. Government, with the daily propaganda of its captive media outlets, has been able to mute any significant anti-Afghan protests. One would have thought that, with the economic destruction brought about by the policies of the Bush regime, that "Vietnam II" protests would be the norm, FORCING the media, by now, to make this issue front and center in their reporting.

I dare say that the latest war crime is only one of many committed by U.S. troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan during the past decade, the majority which have been covered up by the U.S. Government, and the military in particular. Bush and Cheney were responsible for making the torture and killing of Iraqis and Afghans for sport an acceptable "entertainment" in the eyes of many right-wing recruits, so such incidents as the latest should be no surprise. But let us hope that this terrible incident finally encourages more and more Americans to publicly condemn the Afghan war and to vocally demand that the billions of dollars wasted on this war be returned to pay for the needs of the millions of Americans presently suffering from lack of jobs, housing, and health care because of the reckless decisions of its leaders since 2001.

The US will continue to do what it damn well pleases....

Two major headlines today were no surprise to this writer: 1)Attorney General Eric Holder says it is okay for the US Government to kill one of its own citizens if they are plotting a "terrorist attack," and 2)Obama assured Israeli demogogue Netanyahu that "we've got your back" on whatever is done to Iran.

These two bellicose nations: the US and Israel are always ready & willing to spend trillions of US taxpayer dollars to get their way through military force and intimidating bribery and blackmail, never caring how many MILLIONS of people suffer from their crimes. Since the new millenium began, even the pretenses of obeying international law, or the US Constitution, have been, piece by piece, stripped away.

Pre-emptive wars, assassinations, "acts of valor" strikes in any country at any time are a REALITY in 2012 with these "unbreakable bond" countries, as Obama calls them.

How strange it is that the COUNTRIES much of the world would call the greatest "terrorists," are so brazen to disregard their own actions and their terrible consequences, while reserving the right for themselves to say what individuals and groups throughout the world are "terrorists," and to make it a CRIME to even communicate with those who are blacklisted by them.

Do Americans ever wonder how many FEWER alleged "terrorists" they would have to worry about, if their government focused on making friends instead of enemies; celebrating different systems of government, rather than forcing uniformity; seeing other nations as equals, rather than slaves to US & Israeli ambitions???