Forum Post: "Obama A Prostitute of rich and powerful" A Letter from Rocky Anderson
Posted 11 years ago on Sept. 22, 2012, 1:50 a.m. EST by gsw
(3410)
from Woodbridge Township, NJ
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Rocky-Anderson-Writes-Resp-by-Rocky-Anderson-120919-35.html
By Rocky Anderson Posted by Daniel Geery (about the submitter)
Become a Fan (30 fans) -- Page 1 of 2 page(s) opednews.com
Tom Hayden recently wrote an article imploring people to support President Obama. Someone wrote to Rocky, forwarding the Hayden article, urging Rocky to give up the fight. Imagine there not being a voice like Rocky's at this moment in our nation's history! Here is Rocky's response (sender's name removed):
Dear __ -
I read Tom Hayden's piece several days ago and think it is so beneath him -- particularly the "white liberal-left" and "white blindness" racist condescensions. There are, of course, many in the Black community who are justifiably appalled at Obama's performance (or lack thereof). See here and here. If Hayden wants to make this about race, perhaps he should focus on the fact that, after four years of Obama, far more Blacks are living in poverty and four times as many Black women in the U.S. are dying in connection with pregnancy and childbirth than White women.
Hayden never would have written such an apologist piece for an imperial militarist and corporatist regime in the '60s or '70s. Can you imagine such a piece by him then, gushingly endorsing Nixon because of his overtures to China, his signing of the Clean Air Act, and his establishment of the EPA?
Amazingly, he writes as if he is clueless about Obama's miserable performance regarding climate change and energy -- and the fact that tuition rates have skyrocketed under his administration. He worries in the first paragraph of his piece about what Romney would or wouldn't do regarding these issues -- as if Obama hasn't made it all far worse.
And doesn't it occur to Hayden that the reason so many Americans are misinformed is because our President is such a lousy leader/communicator? (Why else would "only six percent of Americans believe[ ] the stimulus had created any jobs"?)
We could have had a single-payer Medicare-for-all health care system had Obama stood up against the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Even with the vast majority of the American people favoring single-payer at the time, our President wouldn't even let it see the light of day -- then rapidly and cowardly abandoned a public option.
I've described my "strategic" thinking to you before. You know full well that I am campaigning to help encourage and inspire a broad-based people's movement -- the only way we'll ever achieve real social, economic, and environmental justice in this nation. You apparently think it healthy for everyone just to shut up and be polite in the face of the Obama administration outrages. Amazing for someone who writes and teaches about the virtues of citizen engagement. Truly amazing.
Apparently you just don't want to face your utter complicity in the outrages of the Obama administration and the Democratic Party. You would like to see everyone just get in line and be quiet about illegal wars of aggression, the abandonment of the rule of law, the shredding of due process and habeas corpus, the abysmal health care system that causes the deaths of thousands of poor and middle class people (particularly people of color) every week, and the caving in to Wall St. campaign contributors at the vast expense of most people in the U.S. (and abroad).
Would you have imagined four years ago that you would be a cheerleader for a president who brags about his personal participation in deciding who will be killed in several nations, knowing that hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent men, women, and children will be killed too? And does it ever occur to you why so many so-called "terrorists" despise the U.S. and want to strike out against us? Or that we're creating more enemies and instilling more hatred and hostility toward the U.S. as a result of our disregard of so many nations' sovereignty and as we kill and maim people throughout the Muslim world with such reckless abandon? (I wrote this before the recent killings of the U.S. Ambassador and three other diplomats in Libya and the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo -- further evidence of the hatred we have generated by our international belligerence.)
Would you ever have imagined you would so enthusiastically support a president who orders that U.S. citizens be assassinated? (So far, at least three U.S. citizens have been killed by drones -- one of whom was a 16 year-old boy.) Would you have imagined you would support a president who asked for, and signed into law, the authority to kidnap people anywhere (including U.S. citizens) and have them imprisoned up to the rest of their lives, without charges, trial, legal assistance, or the right of habeas corpus? (Imagine what you'd be doing and writing were that same president a Republican. The crass partisanship, instead of principle, that causes so many Democrats to blindly support this president is morally astounding.)
Damn straight I'm angry -- and disgusted. Please read Ionesco's Rhinoceros, an allegory about the rise of fascism in Europe. Whenever you write lately, I hear you "harumphing" and can imagine that horn growing from your forehead. In a decade, you can be really proud of your refusal to stand up in opposition to the march toward authoritarianism, the capitulation of our government to Wall Street, and the gross violations of civil and human rights.
It's just amazing how "pragmatists" like you are selling out so conveniently, as our Constitution is being shredded and as our nation continues to cause so much misery in the lives of millions of people around the world. And as the administration persecutes and prosecutes those who inform us about government crimes and other misdeeds, while allowing the criminals to go free.
Please feel free to distribute this as you see fit. (I'll do the same.) As I mentioned to you when you were in SLC, I'd love to debate you any time and any place about all of this. You and others need to be shaken into understanding what your blind obsequiousness is doing to our nation and world.
Hayden and you are so optimistic about what you can push Obama to do during the next four years. (It all reminds me of abused spouse syndrome.) Where have all of you been during the past four years to push Obama to bring war criminals to justice? To bring those who have illegally spied on U.S. citizens to justice? (It's worth noting that you supported Obama four years ago after he lied to us as a U.S. Senator and voted to grant retroactive immunity to telecommunication companies that had committed federal felonies by providing the Bush administration with confidential information about their customers.) To end the drone killings of innocent people? To break up the too-big-to-fail banks and regulate Wall St. to protect the American people (and millions of others throughout the world) from another financial melt-down? To combat, rather than exacerbate, climate change? To end the disastrous "war on drugs"? To reduce, rather than continue to increase, the world-record incarceration rate, particularly of people of color? To provide decent health care to all Americans? To end poverty, rather than sit back and support a president who never speaks of it and who has "led" this nation while the poverty rate has increased to 1965 levels (and while our child-poverty rate is the worst in the industrialized world, except for Romania)? Are you aware of his pitiful record on presidential pardons? Or the fact that maternal and infant mortality rates are almost the worst in the developed world? Are you aware that he perpetuated yet another big lie in his embarrassingly sycophantic speech to AIPAC about Ahmadinejad supposedly saying (he never did say it) that Israel should be wiped off the map?
Obama's not a statesman, nor is he a "leader". He is a prostitute for the rich and powerful -- and has betrayed, with tragic results, the sacred trust placed in him by the American people. The greatest problem we face is that too many, like you, seem to have no line you will draw. Are no crimes too great, is there no undermining of the rule of law too egregious, for you to refrain from saying "No more"?
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Thank You Rocky by Hubert Steed on Wednesday, Sep 19, 2012 at 2:44:07 PM I am really disappointed in Hayden by Ruth Hull on Thursday, Sep 20, 2012 at 2:07:54 AM Well said sir by Arthur M. Howard-(Scotoni) on Thursday, Sep 20, 2012 at 4:41:42 AM Power To Truth by D'Marie Mulattieri on Thursday, Sep 20, 2012 at 10:23:59 PM Want to post your own comment on this Article?
yeah Rocky!
I would be very happy if Rocky Anderson made it into office.
Jill, Gary and Rocky would be a great debate.
I would love to see that. But imagine if they debated with the donkey and the elephant? They would make a mockery of them :)
Thats why I believe it only takes a small group of people, maybe 10-15, who are outside the D/R parties, to get into congress and shake the thing around.
A dozen people who are in there to expose all the corruption. To simply raise hell.
Right, if rocky, and Jill and the rest were on state ticket, then we could back that.
Voting third party. Will vote Rocky, if on ballot.
Wonder if he is on the ballot in my state...will have to check out his website. I had been leaning towards Gary Johnson. I know he will be on the ballot in all 50 despite the efforts of the RNC.
Gary has good narrative. I'm not libertarian.
Twitter link says Rocky and Gary may have debate.
Here's Rocky's twitter link: https://twitter.com/RockyAnderson
www.voterocky.org
Comparison of Gary and Rocky http://www.isidewith.com/johnson-vs-anderson-on-the-issues
Rocky is better than status quo vote.
whoot
As is Gary
Preview the debates at Rocky's site, below.
http://www.voterocky.org/coming_up_third_party_debates?utm_campaign=keep_alive&recruiter_id=74427&utm_medium=email&utm_source=voterocky
http://freeandequal.org/debates/four-candidates-confirmed-for-the-2012-presidential-debate
Rocky on The Young Turks, Third Party Candidate Series Monday October 1, 2012 -- 7:00-8:00pm ET Watch Rocky and Cenk Uygur discuss third-party politics and the presidential debates on Current TV's The Young Turks.
Democracy Now! Live in Denver, CO Wednesday, October 3, 2012 -- 9:00-10:30pm ET Rocky Anderson is joining Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman with Jill Stein for a third-party debate streaming live and running concurrently with the Obama-Romney debate.
2012 Free & Equal Presidential Debate Tuesday, October 23, 2012 -- 9:00pm ET Rocky joins Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, and Virgil Goode to debate the duopoly at University Club of Chicago. You can learn more at their website here -- there will be a live video feed available on their website.
When Hayden said
The 1965 Voting Rights Act, which racists and Republicans have attempted to thwart from its passage to the present day;
I was done. Racists, sure, but he needs to do a fact check on the Republican thing.
A little anti Obama partisan campaigning?
Occupy debates, till their open. Occupy election, till non-duopoly non-neoliberal globalists can join in, occupy government until it serves the people.
This post is especially for democrats, like my mom, who have a "99 percent" sticker on car, but also had an Obama(thankfully, it has now worn off, but she still sends campaign money) and "not a republican" sticker."
Read some more Chris Hedges, please. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_prophets_like_cornel_west_make_liberal_sell-outs_attack_20110523/
I'll put some link in a moment. http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/09/what-citizens-united-et-al-wrought.html
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/where_liberals_go_to_feel_good_20110124/
I know Chris Hedges work. I Support his ndaa lawsuit! That doesn't change your onesided anti Obama partisan campaign attack.
And you send me more anti Obama links.? LOL.
You campaigning for Rocky?
Good luck. Rocky can take it all! Go Rocky.!
Well congratulations on supporting the status quo government.
I'm sure Obama will get message to fight for 100 percent now you are on his campaign staff here at Ows site.
I do not support the status quo!. I support creating a new system from the ground up, horizontally, with real direct democracy.
Elections? Until the new system emerges I support holding the line against the right wing wackos who proudly push the conservative policies at the center of ALL our problems.
I encourage everyone to vote their conscience. I am in NYC. This state will go blue. I can vote for Jill Stein. And I may. I have voted green before. I'm not gonna discuss how I vote.
I encourage all swing state voters to be sure that they aren't helping the enemies of the 99%.
Until the new system emerges I support working for reform. Protesting, and pressuring all pols for progressive change that will help the 99%.
You are clearly anti Obama partisan. I said so.
You got a problem with that? It's true!
Yes I used to be a democrat, whole life partisan like you.
Now I am justice party long shot.
I will not be a cog in the war machine neo-globalist corporate takeover of humanity.
I read about people just going along, supporting the system http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_careerists_20120723/
I am registered independent, I have voted 3rd party as I said. All irrelevant.
Vote however you like.! I don't care! My comments are not an effort to get you to vote a certain way.
I simply want to identify your post for what it is!
An anti Obama partisan political campain ATTACK!.
Maybe the candidate you are pushing should focus on his accomplishments or plans. Something positive. Avoid the negative politics of personal destruction that has infected our corrupt system for decades.
Maybe YOU should push your candidates positive plans instead of these childish name calling politics of personal destruction. Maybe he has nothing positive.
But hey. You can partake in your partisan campaign however you think best. I'm simply calling it what it is!
Here's his solutions.
http://www.voterocky.org/solutions
If you read them, you'l clearly see they align more closely to your multitudinous policy proclamations than the incumbant.
Here's a sample:
Rocky Anderson’s Approach Toward Solutions The Anderson administration will focus on the key moral and economic elements of our foreign policy. There will be a key distinction made between militarism and empire-building (historically, the primary emphasis of our foreign policy), and national defense (i.e. the security of our citizens).
Our policy will be based around three pillars:
Eliminate militarism and empire-building: The US will never again engage in an illegal war of aggression. (The U.S. and its allies prosecuted defendants at the Nuremberg Tribunal for aggressive war, an international crime.[8]) The Anderson Administration will respect the UN Charter and international law, and cease aid and assistance to countries that do not. Moral leadership: We will no longer support regimes that abuse human rights and suppress democracy. Economic rationality: We will close down all overseas military bases that are not demonstrably critical to our security, along with at least a 50% reduction in the Pentagon budget. (The U.S. military budget is now larger than the military budgets in all other nations combined.) This money will be allocated to domestic priorities, including reducing the accumulated debt and interest burden. As Martin Luther King said, every dollar spent on a missile is a dollar taken from a child’s education, or the food budget of a poor family.
every missile detonated destroys a child's inheritance
Wonderful. I ain't interested. I've read a little of his positions. Good luck to you.
But I'm not askin for his positions.
My comments are simply an effort to call you out for this anti Obama partisan political campaign attack.
Good luck in all your good efforts. And good luck to Rocky! Go Rocky!
http://www.alternet.org/chris-hedges-tells-dinesh-dsouza-his-obama-film-void-facts-reality-intellectual-depth?page=0%2C0. I think snoozes good link disappeared, as it was in response to racist remark whose post is now not here.
[In] 2008 the financial industry was on its knees. It thought it had been caught in the vast criminal enterprise of fraud it had carried out. George Bush and the Karl Rove Agenda were utterly discredited. And Obama was a gift to the corporate state. He functioned in the same way that HIV-positive models and people of color function for Benetton and Calvin Klein when they put up their billboards a few years earlier. And I think that all of these debates about Obama, or about Romney, ignore the fact that the personal narratives of these candidates is irrelevant. It makes no difference. We have undergone a corporate coup d’etat. And the center of power, as Occupy Wall Street aptly demonstrated is Wall Street, not Washington. These are political puppets. They are the masks, the faces for corporate power. And Obama was an especially effective face or mask. And as much as it pains me, I might even agree with Dinesh. But Obama doesn’t wield power. He knows where the centers of power lie. He serves those centers of power, otherwise he wouldn’t be in office.
Shooze had another Chris Hedges link ... The end of American democracy I would argue is the 2010 Citizens United ruling and whatever Obama’s past, whatever Romney’s past, is not particularly relevant because internally it’s corporate lobbyists who write our laws, who write our legislation, and who control most of the airwaves. Roughly a half dozen corporations Viacom, General Electric, Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp control what most Americans watch or hear
Ok! I will expand just a little bit. Those corp 1% oligarchs depend on conservative polices, and at least some dems to support those policies.
Those 1% plutocrats need to keep the country moving right as we have for 30 years.
If we truly want to change this corrupt corpocracy. We must repeal the conservative polices the oligarchs require and replace them with progressive concepts that help the 99%.
There is a difference between facsist and conservative.
Conservative and liberal policies have both been perverted into facsist corporate backed nonsense.
There is a difference between fascist and conservative"? Whaaaat!
Please.
I reject you distraction, and your definition of the policies at the root of ALL our problems as fascist.
tax policy that favors the 1% is conservative! Policy that favors weak/no regulation is conservative! Not fascist.
Policy that favors war mongering is conservative! not fascist! We disagree!
Wrong answer!
And which liberal policy do you see as at the root of any of our problems?
ACA strenghtens the Insurance industry, they are the ones who wrote it. Liberals want universal (which is what I want). Conservatives want the gov out of it. Fascists want what they got- no cost controls with forced participation.
Their is a difference between stronger regulations and regulations that are meant to drown out the competition. Why cant you see that? Do you see anything has changed from Frank Dodd? It hasnt. Its still happening. And the big banks are only consolidating.
Im not against SS, Im against the people running it and destroying it, taking my retirement money and using it for bombs.
Dodd Frank is barely 1 qtr written/implemented because repubs have delayed the massive job of writing the new regs!
The repubs have vowed to repeal Dodd Frank and Big banks have contributed 2 -1 to repubs. Dems will create further bank regs & even break up banks if the people protest for these real changes.
ACA includes the major weakness you mentioned because of repub intransigence, & obstruction. Public option WILL come. States are working on it now. And that is how it WILL happen!
And Social Security will be fine! If we can keep repubs from destroying it with privatisation.
Fascism? Nah. I disagree.
Tax policy that favors the 1% is from lobbying the gov, which is fascist not conservative.
War is due to corporate infuence, which is fascsist.
Just so you know, many on the right that arent too educated like to claim that liberal policies lead to facsist.
Many times stuff that liberals claim is more regulation really is just creating more barriers of entry for competition on the people that funded their campaign. Dodd Frank is a great example. Hasnt solved anything, just makes life for the little guys a lot harder.
This latest health care act is pure corporatist garbage. Removing the gov would be conservative. Universal would be liberal. Forcing poor people to buy corrupted services from the insurance cartel is raw fasist.
I disagree. Your inaccurate use of fascism is just a distraction.
Conservatives in the US support the tax policy that favors the 1%, and the war mongering policies.
So you are against stronger regulation as well as the ACA? You've already told me you are against Social Security as well.
Surprise surprise! Are you gonna say you aren't a republican too.?
So then the ACA is liberal, and fascist is that right? LMFAO.
Nope. We disagree. ACA only needs one last improvement. Public option.! Put the private health care corps out of business.
Can we agree on that?
http://endthelie.com/2012/04/29/chris-hedges-inverted-totalitarianism-brand-obama-and-the-corporate-state/
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/democracy_in_america_is_a_useful_fiction_20100124/
Vq...I don't see a reply button to you below. (not cone of shame again????)
One thing that would be interesting to do is like when tea party occupied and bothered the health care debate. Although I do like the debate to proceed in an orderly fashion, I think the corporate candidates should feel the voice and opposition of the people.
I think there should be massive widespread protest of citizens united, like bill Moyers said, every house, yard and stoop should have a sign encouraging reversal of citizens united.
I think we should start a concerted effort of letter writing to all media, encouraging them to examine this issue until it is resolved.
I think no more votes of mine will go to a corporate candidate who does not vociferously encourage and fight to reverse citizens united.
I think we should all occupy our state capitals on weekends until citizens united is overturned.
Then we should do same on next priority issue, maybe all public funding of all candidates, including 3rd parties, to end monopoly of duopoly.
Then take the next issue.
At least we could get some exercise, also, there should be carpools to the capital, and everyone should get candidate to sign to abolish citizens united, or we the people will work to defeat them.
Excellent article I think I remember reading it almost 3 years ago.
Things are pretty bad. but that is why we have OWS and are pushing for real change like ending campaign money. And more.
Is there something else you wanna do besides the protest movement and it's many issues?
What do you think we should do?. The article does not lay out the plan for solution, but I do of course Hedges lawsuit efforts. That is the right approach even though he claimed the courts were not effective.
Not interested? Im shocked...
Now that sounds partisan VQ.
"Not interested?"
Whatever!
How do you constantly manage to confuse partisanship with just being fed up with the status quo.
Im pretty sure you do this on purpose to marginalize those who want change.
"The crass partisanship, instead of principle, that causes so many Democrats to blindly support this president is morally astounding"
This ^^^ was one of best lines from Rocky's letter.
Its astounding alright. Its down right pathetic. People are completely brainwashed. This country has the best PR people on the planet.
You don't know what you are talkin about. If someone is really fed up with the status quo they would attack all pols, at least they would not limit their attacks to one politician.
I'M fed up with the status quo.
I also believe ALL our problems stem from conservative policies, from dems supporting those policies, from people/the country moving right for 30 years and allowing the 1% plutocrats to rig the system against us and take over our govt.
So I express that towards all pols. If someone ignores these realities and attacks one pol then they are simply engaging in a partisan attack!
Do you also blame one pol (Pres Obama) for everything?
I blame all of em. But the current president is a Dem, and the Senate is still Dem. So they have 2/3 of it under their control.
If Romney wins (he wont) then it would his name you would be hearing.
Bottom line is the president has a ton of control of things. Thats why that spot gets a ton of criticism.
I ain't interested in you rweak excuses for only attacking one pol (the pres). You neglect the roots of these problems because they are the responsibility of your repubs.
You never criticize the repubs because you are a partisan republican.
Please. You ain't kiddin anyone but yourself!
Then you wonder why you are viewed as the dumbest person on here constantly.
Fascsist policy, endorsed by the D and R parties, is what is to blame. Too bad you cant open your eyes to see the bigger picture.
I don't wonder why you resort to name calling. Because you invariably wind up unable to debate with intelligent substance.! LMFAO
Which so called "fascist policy" has been endorsed by D & R's. This should be good..
I bet you don't answer, or just personally attack me ! Try to answer honestly you seem pretty sure of this issue, you can do it.
It is when the state values corporations more than people, and people have no voice, like 80 percent want reversal of citizens united.
Corporate welfare, tax cuts for billionaires, capital gains tax breaks, militarism, stealing of democracy by supreme court of USA.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/biil-moyers-exposes-c4-tax-free-unlimited-anonymou/
Lobbyists running free in congress, perverting voice of the citizens
Yeah these are all the things we are protesting against.
We let it happen we can & will change it. call it fascism, I don't care what label is attached. I call it the conservative agenda that I've watched implemented for 30 years. (with dem support)
But we are fighting against it. And we will win and change it.
Right?
[Removed]
Offensive, ignorant, racist, & immature.
Say what you will about Chris.
He will admit the truth.
http://www.alternet.org/chris-hedges-tells-dinesh-dsouza-his-obama-film-void-facts-reality-intellectual-depth
We need more good news like this to restore confidence
Ex-Pierce Commercial Bank VP pleads guilty to loan-fraud charges A Puyallup banker whose prodigious generation of home loan applications made him one of the nation’s top mortgage loan originators during the housing bubble told a federal judge Tuesday that many of the loans were based on false information. JOHN GILLIE; STAFF WRITER
Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/09/18/2301092/ex-pierce-commercial-bank-vp-pleads.html#storylink=cpy http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/09/18/2301092/ex-pierce-commercial-bank-vp-pleads.html
I actually had one of those guys try and get me to sign such a mortgage.
He wrote in all kinds of falsehoods and lies on the application.
I didn't sign..........:)
All those guys who did that should be in prison.
IN fact ARMs should be outlawed.
Thank you shooz. Chris Hedges ain't a god. And I don't see him goin after the real war mongering criminals, and enemies of peace & constitutional freedom much (the repubs).
Are you new here?
HA! Been here for months! N you know 'dat!
It's a nice change from the Obama is theless of two evils so I'm voting for him you hear on this form.
I don't see much of that. Vote however you like! What do you care how other people vote?.
Aren't you here to advance the economic equity, wall st reform that OWS stands for?
Or are you here to just attack Pres Obama?
The simple fact is people are not equal, some people are better at things than others. I am not equal to micheal Jordan in basketball and he shouldn't be held down so I can be equal. Now I agree crimes (finical or other wise) need to be handled but I don't think the whole system is bad because some tools break the rules. Enforce the rules regardless if who breaks them
Likening 3rd party talk is not actually attacking Obama is it?
So then you are not into financial equity, and wall st reform? Or you are?
Strengthen the rules. Expand the financial police. I'm for being strong on law and order. We should have as many financial police as street police.
Financial crimes do more damage than muggings. Certainly affects more people. We need to see a tv show called "fin cops". Get some of these white collar criminals in a perp walk on tv.
Just get a few in jail for 20 years we'll a little more honesty. They 1% plutocrats have rigged the fin regs to exclude personal liability and therefore low risk of jail.
Strengthen the laws. Put 'em jail. and take away all their ill gotten booty.
Exactly enforce the dam rules, ill be honest the term finical equality puts me off (for the reasons I stated ) I think you would get more traction with the American people with "enforce the rules punish those who break them"
You are probably right. But I believe the truth is wealth HAS been concentrated into the 1% plutocrats because of their rigging the system against the rest of us.
As such something has to be done to correct that injustice. Our economy NEEDS a strong middle class (like the 1950's) in order to have a robust growing economy.
In fact this is better for the 1% as well. They just don't know it.
When the 1% get all the wealth they hoard it, sit on it and live off of interest.
Better get the wealth back to the real job creators, the middle class consumers who will spend, create demand, and the need to hire.
I think wealth has always been con. To some extent I think tech. Has made us aware of the extent. I'm not sure how old you are but I remember a time when you had to go find someone to talk to them. I am a firm believer that the people make this country great not the gov.
"always been con"? huh?
How is my age relevant?
Yeah the people do make the country great. The gov should be an extension of that greatness and serve the people. The 99%!
Con = concentrated, your age was not the point mine was.
Never more concentrated than now! And the concentration has accellerated over the last 30 years.
I don't think either of ages really matter. I'm not being difficult I just think we could be old or young and still understand these problems.
My point with age is I'm old enough to remember when information was hard to come by and it was not quickly obtained that is all, I should of made that clearer. I just didn't want to out my old age lol
I hear you. now a days we do have a lot of info at our finger tips and that is mostly good.
But age is valuable in terms of experience, perspective & wisdom. I'm not young & I remember life before pc's let alone the internet. Ha!
So it's all good. but only a number.
I think without term limits on congress and senators they will all eventually go bad. Those jobs were not supposed to be life long jobs they should have or two terms then they are done; it's hard to be corrupt when your not there long enough
You all are so funny! Now I am trying to find the papers that state the President is God....Oh yeh....Here it is...on the dollar bill....."In God We Trust"!!!
LOL!!!
http://www.voterocky.org/do_we_want_the_best_government_money_can_buy
Why do incumbent United States senators and representatives take valuable time away from doing the people's business to grovel for contributions during hundreds of telephone calls placed from party campaign offices near Capitol Hill?
Why has the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House been rented out to huge soft money donors?
Why has the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives been filling up with multi-millionaires?
Why has democracy in the United States been eroded, while the special interests have had their way with Congress, often contrary to the best interests of the people of this country?
The answer to all of the above: MONEY CONTROLS. Money buys elections, it buys legislation, and it buys access to the most powerful people in our government. It's a variant of the Golden Rule: The people with the gold rule.
Rocky Anderson
So, why not put him in charge.....at least he'll represent everything you all truly want your GOD to be, regardless of how bad he will F** up the country....as they all do! Get my drift?
What a bunch of hypocrites you all are. LOL!!
So your waiting for jesus to come back to save the world? Or what?
Well, that would be stupid, now wouldn't it?
Who said anything about Jesus? Jesus would certainly be appalled at how low humanity has fallen.
After all, in today's world, money is god and god is money.....that is all this whole scenario is about. Who is going to control the goods, not how are you all gonna get outta this mess or save yourselves or the future generations.
A power struggle...that's all.
I for one am very happy to see all this rhetoric bull shyt for what it is. Bull shyt Rhetoric, with no end in sight.
LOL!
Yes.
Well, you mentioned God.. I just wanted a bit of clarity.
Glad you're laughing.
Money is a measure of power and wealth. Political power is in hands of wealthy, so things not going to change. http://occupywallst.org/forum/biil-moyers-exposes-c4-tax-free-unlimited-anonymou/
I prefer ballots, but they aren't effective when our government isn't representing the people.
Jefferson would have recommended a bit more direct action.
As I state in most of my posts.....it is time to put forward a new train of thought. Most people don't have that ability...and remain fixed on a system that is based on misconceptions....No puzzle in that.
If we want a return from our plutocracy to a democracy, with our interests - and those of our progeny - promoted, we must demand major reforms in our method of financing elections. Without that reform, tenable candidacies will be the exclusive domain of the wealthiest - or of those with the wealthiest sponsors, who will expect and demand a huge return on their investment.
What can we do, now that it is clear our elected political "leaders" do not have the courage or the conviction to do what is needed? We can demand that, before a candidate earns our vote, he or she must commit to support legislation providing for (1) an end to "soft money" contributions to political parties, (2) tighter regulation of "issues advocacy," (3) voluntary campaign spending limits, with public financing and free television and radio time as incentives for compliance, and (4) aggregate limits on PAC contributions, with lower individual limits than the present $5,000-per-election-cycle limit. Rocky Anderson. Do We Want the Best Government Money Can Buy? By Rocky Anderson, Published in The Enterprise, 12-22-97
Why bother voting? If corrupt politics got us into this mess, why is it logical to assume that more corrupt politics can get us out? Oh, that's right, not THIS guy, not THIS time. Only EVERY OTHER TIME IN RECORDED HISTORY.
Don't vote. Each vote is just one more voice consenting to be a slave, nothing more.
Not voting lets the two corporate candidates keep their percentage of the peoples vote. Only a vote for a third party will chalenge their legitimacy to lead.
No... refusing to be led challenges the legitimacy to lead. Will a third party dictator do any better? You are only lying to yourself. Once you give up on politics, you will see that a voluntary world is possible... but we all have to agree that we are equal. Nobody is better than you. Nobody should own you. Why vote for that? If you need a leader, go look in the mirror.
So in your voluntary world would there be no roads, no fire departments, no schools?. Would people just sit around and starve?
Roads, education, and so many other things existed before government took control.
Did you eat today? Did government make you? Or did you find a way to make it happen? You didn't just sit around and starve on your own? Why is it so hard to believe that people would figure out how to get what they want if they had MORE OPTIONS?
We can take an organ out of one person's body and put it into another, but we can't figure out a peaceful way to make roads? That's completely silly, right?
Alright I have to admit if I woke up tomorrow and their was no government, and we were blessed enough to have peace on earth, I would be a happy man. But don't you think it makes more sense to do your best in the world in wich you live?
It wouldn't be a utopia, there would still be the bad person here and there, but we would all be free to have choices and voluntary actions. You wouldn't have to try and use the force of govt on other people.
Yes, I do think we should do our best. Do our best to live productively and peacefully with our neighbors. This requires an unplugging from politics, since politics is just deciding who is going to use state violence on somebody else. The institutionalized violence has to stop if we are going to live together. And it can start by refusing to vote for more people to control other people.
I think your playing right int the two dominate partys hands. As long as they can keep the majority of disenfranchised people from voting, they've got this game in the bag.
Wait...so if everyone votes, they wouldn't have the game in the bag?
What if nobody voted? Would they have the game in the bag?
If you were running for office, and you wanted to dominate people and make tons of money, would you rather everyone vote? Or nobody vote?
if a significant number of people voted for a third party, it doesn't even have to be the same one, then yes they would not have it in the bag.
It is another means to send and spread a message.
If enough people voted for non-corrupt politicians things could improve. (big if)
Corrupt politics got us into this mess because people are tuned out and apathetic.
Because voting beats bullets.
Not voting means you are consenting to slavery.
Hardee har har! Please, puh-leeze, where the non-corrupt politicians at? This whole system is a corrupted mess...since $$$ buys anything and anyone....
Add different ingredients to the same ole nasty soup, stir it up, and voila....
THE SAME OLE SHYT!!!!
From what is being demonstrated from every viewpoint and position, there is no hope for this nation.
Not voting is a peaceful message that you won't play the game.
You say "If enough peopel voted for non-corrupt politicians things could improve"... has this ever happened in ANY of our lifetimes? If you think it has, you're lying to yourself. This line of logic is a COMPLETE fantasy.. which is why they continue to try and get everyone to vote. If you are invested into the system, you are invested into your own slavery.
the more people that vote , the more they will care about what the government does
Exactly. And once the government has been rendered obsolete, by people refusing to vote for anyone, then we can have a voluntary society where we all treat each other as equals.
No slave earned his freedom by consenting to be whipped. Voting is a sham. The sooner you realize this, the sooner we'll get on to productive solutions. The longer you play a rigged game, the longer you're a patsy of the system. Good luck with that. The system has been screwing people for generations. How's it working out? Terribly. But somehow continuing to do the same thing will get a different result? Never. It's a dream. A fiction. Stop worshiping the god of government. Let go. You don't need to be ruled.
Wait wait wait -- let's rewind to the part where you said that if you don't vote then the government will be rendered obsolete. You do understand that I'm still going to vote, and our democracy will keep moving on without your input, right?
Freedom isn't for everyone. Some people still cling to illusions. Some people still need the comfort of knowing that their masters are taking care of them. Some people need the security of knowing they have benevolent overlords watching out for them.
And some people believe themselves to be free and equal, and to the freeman, who does he vote for? I make my own decisions. I aspire to all that is excellent. I don't need another to pave the path. I don't need to bow to political fools. I have a mind, body, and spirit all capable of standing upright, looking all of my neighbors in the eye, and treating them all as equals.
Or you can keep groveling at the table of your masters. Maybe they'll toss you a crumb this time?
You're either born free, or consenting to be a slave. One is not both free, and a slave, at the same time. Have your democracy. Free minds don't need mob rule.
Keep voting. Because that's worked out brilliantly thus far. If you're capable of ignoring simple, observable facts, and hundreds of years of history, what can anything I say change? Good luck with that.
You absolutely failed to explain how government will become obsolete if you don't participate.
But I can explain how that makes you a slave. A slave is a person with no control, governed by people with no interest in his input or opinions. By voluntarily disenfranchising yourself, you effectively turn yourself into a slave.
--In the same way that a single vote has any effect.
One person doing it does nothing. What would OWS be with one person out at the park? But once society as a whole refuses to participate in government, THEN there will be a change in governance. Or are you not familiar with American history? The civil rights movement happend, NOT THROUGH VOTING, but through peaceful non-compliance. Or did you miss that history lesson?
Right, because voting means you have some control. Please tell me what control a person voting has on government, law, banking, schooling monopolies???? You're only lying to yourself. It's the illusion of control.
The culmination of the civil rights movement was the Civil Right Act, which happened because black people became effective a participating in government, not by boycotting it.
Your vision deends on all Americans voluntarily disenfranchising themselves simultaneously. That's not going to happen because the person who disenfranchises himself last wins.
"culmination"...wrong. The civil rights movement happened because black people were still not treated equally, the government hadn't been enforcing equal rights laws for a hundred years. A new law didn't change anything--government enforcement did. Voting didn't bring about the change--non-compliance did. Read Howard Zinn's People's History if you need a refresher.. Zinn himself talks over and over about how the SYSTEM OF CORRUPTION was still in place. That's the same system you're voting in. And then everyone is running around wondering why voting isn't working??? Hmmmmmmmm
I've actually been posting Zinn quotes from People's History here today. The conclusion that the system is corrupt does not automatically lead to a nihilistic determination to just give up. The alternative is progressivism. Taking an interest in improving the situation. If you're not a progressive then why are you here?
Oh, and "separate but equal" was the law of the land before black people learned to participate in our government.
progressivism. lol. It must be progress if you call it that! What's progressive about a monopoly of violence? A monopoly of law? A monopoly of governance? A monopoly of currency? There's nothing progressive about voting, nor two parties. What's progressive about taxation? Are you familiar with the Roman Empire?
You're the one who brought up the civil rights movement. Kind of a slam-dunk example of a success of progressivism. Wouldn't have happened if the oppressed had not learned to participate effectively in our democracy.
If you're concerned that government doesn't represent you, then you're not going to improve the situation by refusing to participate. And if you're concerned that government serves the interests of the moneyed elite instead of voters, then there are ways to lessen the influence of money over our political system.
One of the principle problems is that it's not possible to get elected without accepting private campaign financing. Your response to that problem is apparently to treat the government like some kind of evil empire that can never be improved. But eliminating all private campaign financing would change a lot of things, wouldn't it? Just like how black people changed things when they went from being three-fifths of a person to being separate but equal people, to simply being equals.
I don't have 150 years to wait for campaign finance to be reformed in the same manner as slavery.
The refusal to participate is the ONLY thing that has changed anything. Any voting that happens afterwards is only to placate people and bring them back into the fold.
Yes, non-compliance, civil disobedience were extremely important. Not voting is not a form of non-compliance however because the corrupt powers don't want you to vote. The non-compliance that works is that which puts a spoke in the wheel of the machine. Failure to vote doesn't do that.
Corrupt powers don't want you to vote? To the contrary...why are they spending so much effort marketing to the contrary? I can think of almost ONE BILLION DOLLARS that is evidence against your empty claim.
Why are they spending a billion dollars encouraging people to vote, meanwhile militarizing the police and clamping down on non-violent protests? Because voting changes things? Purely naive. And if people in power could be honest, they'd tell you so themselves. All you have to do is look at their actions.
That money is being spent to get you to vote for Obamney. not to encourage you to vote for Rocky Anderson.
If Rocky Anderson is the new dictator, that doesn't change the fact that there is a dictator. New people in office doesn't change a corrupt government (with almost no exception) and almost all of human history will bear the truth of it.
Before there was any rights or voting things were way worse. Slaves had no vote or right.
We left Eden long ago.
Here's a sample of some 99 percent policies to help the 100 percent.
http://www.voterocky.org/wealth_disparity_policy_paper
If you don't have viable ideas good luck.
Voting has had nothing to do with it. Show me a single instance of rights gained without some form of civil resistance or disobedience.
If you don't understand the violence inherent in the system, you don't understand the system.
Voting is only consenting to be ruled. No more. No less.
Some religious nut bags get to "force" people to teach creationism against their better judgment.
and you would say that we should force them to stop.
I would say, nobody should force anything on anyone.
Get it? You advocate for violence and I do not. Simple.
I see.
You like it when someone "forces" someone else to be ignorant.
A kind of violence against the intellect.
That type of "force" is the kind you endorse?
Without using physical violence, how can one person force another to remain ignorant? The other can walk away. The other can return to their home. Or they could leave it. Without physical force, there is no forcing.
Oh, so the "choice" is to obey, or get the fuck out.
To teach the lie, or leave.
There is no truth in what you said.
A child would have no such "choice".
Home → Writings → Published Columns Written by Rocky → Democracy Clearance Sale By Rocky Anderson, Published in The Enterprise, 11-3-97
What do they take us for? A flock of sheep? Know-nothings? Or just forgiving twits who don't mind being taken for a ride?
It doesn't matter, really, what they take us for. What matters is that, to save our democracy, we must stop allowing this nonsense - this outright corruption - that has continued year after year, against our interests and against the interests of millions of others.
The wildness of much of our public land is forever destroyed because of the political contributions of a few huge oil, gas and coal companies. Their cold, hard cash becomes "soft money," which buys legislation in our democracy-turned-plutocracy.
Obscene amounts of taxpayers' money are parceled out to corporate campaign contributors. In this day of so-called "welfare reform," corporate welfare recipients are pigging out like never before at the public-money trough.
And our lives and health are placed at risk in return for campaign contributions from chemical and manufacturing interests.
Consider just one example of how the system works - and how our democracy is being destroyed by those who buy and sell legislation.
In the 1996 campaign cycle, tobacco interests passed on $10.1 million in payola to federal candidates through PACs and soft-money contributions. Of the soft money paid out by tobacco interests during 1995-96, $5,768,591 was paid to Republican Party committees and $1,064,680 was paid to Democratic Party committees. For the first half of 1997, the tobacco industry gave $1.9 million to political party committees and another $575,000 to candidates. All of that on top of nearly $8 million in fees and expenses for Washington lobbyists during the first six months of this year alone.
And that doesn't count the millions spent on lobbyists and campaign contributions at the state level, where tobacco interests buy influence in the most blatant manner. In a memo, one lobbying supervisor for Philip Morris described the situation in Texas, where there was a threat of raising the excise tax on tobacco products: "Our new comptroller - the person to whom the governor and legislators look for the state's financial guidance - will be John Sharp. The plan is to give early and large campaign contributions, to Sharp, thereby . . . at the very least buying [his] silence when it comes to locating new revenues."
Imagine that. A tobacco company "buying" the silence of a public official so that tobacco taxes won't be raised. Bribery is what these folks are talking about, pure and simple.
And just how crass, and how destructive to the public interest, does it get? Well, at the behest of tobacco industry lobbyists, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (recipient of $60,100 from tobacco interests during 1991-96) and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (recipient of $36,300 from tobacco interests during 1995-96), furtively slipped a $50 billion tax break to tobacco companies into the recent budget bill passed by Congress. The tax-break provision was even written by a tobacco industry lobbyist.
And where were the "fiscal conservatives" going to come up with the $50 billion? Recall the cigarette tax increase pushed through Congress by Senators Kennedy and Hatch, the revenues from which were to finance health care for economically-disadvantaged children? You guessed it. The $50 billion was to be diverted from health care for poor children to the most powerful drug cartel on the face of the earth - the US tobacco industry.
Through the tax-break provision, the taxpayers of this country were going to subsidize the payouts of the tobacco industry under any deal finally struck in settlement of the lawsuits brought against tobacco companies by 39 states. The ultimate rip-off by the most diabolical industry of our time.
Fortunately, the press caught the $50 billion give-away in the budget bill and the Senate, which had previously voted for it, was righteously indignant, voting to repeal it 95-3. Although the Senate's ultimate repeal of the tax-break provision was commendable, the fact that our senators were so easily bamboozled is a prime illustration of their carelessness with our money and of the clout and treachery of the tobacco industry.
As demonstrated so vividly by the tobacco industry and their premier lackeys, Lott and Gingrich, the millions in corporate funds being poured into campaign coffers are not gifts. Very simply, the "contributions" are bribes of our public officials - payments for doing the will of the "contributors" and betraying the public trust - a very lucrative investment when one considers the return.