'Occupy Wall Street' Protests and the Fight For Economic Democracy

Police keep in close proximity to protesters as they walk near Wall Street, in New York, September 26, 2011. Demonstrations continued into the evening Monday as protests aimed at corporate greed continued in and around the financial district of Manhattan, entering into a second week. (Photo: Robert Stolarik / The New York Times)

http://www.truth-out.org/onward-wall-street/1317230850


Onward to Wall Street
28 September 2011
by William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

In case you haven't heard, there is an ongoing protest taking place on Wall Street. There is no shame in being ignorant of the event; the "mainstream" news media has gone out of its way to ignore what is happening down there, Yahoo's email service was recently busted for blocking messages having to do with the protest, and Twitter - that bastion of protest messaging for the people who organized the Arab Spring movements - has reportedly been quashing Wall Street protest-oriented tweets out of hand.

If a tree falls in the forest and the "mainstream" news doesn't report it, did it happen?

Of course it did. Ask the tree.

Well, let's be honest. There has been some reporting of these events. The New York Times - arguably the paper most obliged to cover a protest on the island of Manhattan - did deign to notice the Wall Street action a few days ago. In the annals of "obnoxious," this particular report [3] stands tall:

"A blonde with a marked likeness to Joni Mitchell and a seemingly even stronger wish to burrow through the space-time continuum and hunker down in 1968, Ms. Tikka had taken off all but her cotton underwear and was dancing on the north side of Zuccotti Park, facing Liberty Street, just west of Broadway. Tourists stopped to take pictures; cops smiled, and the insidiously favorable tax treatment of private equity and hedge-fund managers was looking as though it would endure.

Some said they were fighting the legal doctrine of corporate personhood; others, not fully understanding what that meant, believed it meant corporations paid no taxes whatsoever. Others came to voice concerns about the death penalty, the drug war, the environment.

The group's lack of cohesion and its apparent wish to pantomime progressivism rather than practice it knowledgably is unsettling in the face of the challenges so many of its generation face - finding work, repaying student loans, figuring out ways to finish college when money has run out. But what were the chances that its members were going to receive the attention they so richly deserve carrying signs like "Even if the World Were to End Tomorrow I'd Still Plant a Tree Today"?"

As the excellent blog Hullabaloo pointed out [4], the snark directed toward the Wall Street protesters is vividly contrasted by the long, luxurious backrub given by the Times to the goose-steppers of the Tea Party, back when they had their own little shindig in the Big Apple in the salad days of 2009:

"The Web site TaxDayTeaParty.com listed its sponsors, including FreedomWorks, a group founded by Dick Armey, the former House majority leader; Top Conservatives on Twitter; and RFCRadio.com.

The idea for the demonstrations grew in part out of a blast from Rick Santelli, a CNBC commentator who on Feb. 19 at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange said that the Obama administration was promoting "bad behavior" in helping people who were at risk of losing their homes and that Americans should protest with a tea party in Chicago.

"I'm not happy with the way our government is managing our taxes," said Jo Ouimete, 54, of Northampton, Mass., who was holding an umbrella with an American flag pattern, even though the sun was shining. The umbrella had a tea pot on top and Red Rose tea bags hanging from it."

Hm.

What a difference an ideology makes, eh? The "Tea Party" is backed by more than a few of the bricks that make up the foundation of the financial citadel, and so they get lavish coverage...and never mind how embarrassing some of the outfits on the scene may have been. A hat made entirely out of tea bags? Stylish...and completely unremarked upon.

Issues of fashion aside, the Wall Street protests are drawing a certain kind of attention never paid to the "Tea Party" crowds. Jeanne Mansfield, writing for the Boston Review, describes her experience [5] with the NYPD:

As we circle Union Square, about twenty NYPD officers haul out orange plastic nets (the kind used to fence off construction sites) and close off the road, diverting the crowd. But the detour, too, is closed, leaving us only one option: straight down Broadway. The lighthearted carnival air begins to get very heavy as it becomes clear that we are being corralled. The main group, about 150 protesters, keeps on down the street, but the police are running behind with the orange nets, siphoning off groups of fifteen to twenty people at a time, classic crowd control.

A new group of police officers arrives in white shirts, as opposed to dark blue. These guys are completely undiscerning in their aggression. If someone gets in their way, they shove them headfirst into the nearest parked car, at which point the officers are immediately surrounded by camera phones and shouts of "Shame! Shame!" Up until this point, Frank and I have managed to stay ahead of the nets, but as we hit what I think is 12th Street, they've caught up. The blue-shirts aren't being too forceful, so we manage to run free, but stay behind to see what happens. Then things go nuts.

The white-shirted cops are shouting at us to get off the street as they corral us onto the sidewalk. One African American man gets on the curb but refuses to be pushed up against the wall of the building; they throw him into the street, and five cops tackle him. As he's being cuffed, a white kid with a video camera asks him "What's your name?! What's your name?!" One of the blue-shirted cops thinks he's too close and gives him a little shove. A white-shirt sees this, grabs the kid and without hesitation billy-clubs him in the stomach.

A white-shirt, now known to be NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, comes from the left, walks straight up to the three young girls at the front of the crowd, and pepper-sprays them in the face for a few seconds, continuing as they scream "No! Why are you doing that?!" The rest of us in the crowd turn away from the spray, but it's unavoidable. My left eye burns and goes blind and tears start streaming down my face. Frank grabs my arm and shoves us through the small gap between the orange fence and the brick wall while everyone stares in shock and horror at the two girls on the ground and two more doubled over screaming as their eyes ooze.

The heavy-handed police response to peaceful protesters gives lie to the notion that this is all a hapless mess. The folks down on Wall Street are, we are expected to believe, totally disorganized and slightly embarrassing. Nonsense. This is one of the most important actions in modern American history, and it is being undertaken by average citizens who have lost homes, jobs and hope in one of the greatest thefts of all time. For years, a great many people have been screaming for justice to be done, with no tangible results. Now, these protesters have taken that message to the bank's front door, and they are getting maced by the police for their trouble.

The onus is not on these protesters. They're there, doing it. The onus is on us to pile in with them, to make the crowds and the central message unavoidable and un-ignorable. The goal of the Wall Street protest is to get the rock rolling down the hill. That's done; the rest is up to us.



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[4] http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/protesting-in-real-america_25.html
[5] http://www.bostonreview.net/BR36.5/jeanne_mansfield_occupy_wall_street.php
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Why The President Must Awaken From His Present Political Coma--And What It Means for 2012

President Barack Obama during a news conference about debt ceiling negotiations, July 29, 2011. (Photo: Philip Scott Andrews / The New York Times)

http://www.truth-out.org/president-reverse/1312300026

All,

All I can say here is WAKE UP MR. PRESIDENT because your present political course/coma is helping no one but our mutual enemies...

Kofi


A President in Reverse Tuesday
2 August 2011
by William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

"Obama's starting point was a demand for a "clean," unencumbered bill to raise the ceiling; House Speaker John Boehner said no. What would have happened if Obama refused to budge? We don't know because that's not his style. It would be nice, someday, to find out."

-- Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post, 8/1/2011

The United States of America is different today, different in a fundamental and dramatic way, and is a better place now only for a few thousand people who are rich enough to remain above the effect of this transformation. For the rest of us, the 99% who stay up nights worrying about health care bills, retirement, finding a job, keeping a job, and aging parents who now dangle above a deliberately frayed safety net, it is a colder and more dangerous country we call home.

If I hear one more person try to tell me the deal cut between Congress and the White House was as good as we can expect, that it isn't all bad, I might vomit on them. This whole thing has been a disaster, and no amount of spin can alter the fact. Mr. Obama has taken to the habit of abject retreat with such gusto that he should be outfitted with one of those beeping devices they put on trucks to alert people when they go in reverse. At least that way, we will have some warning the next time this Democratic president backs away from the very policies and priorities he was elected to protect and defend.

We sure could have used such a signal during this debt-fight calamity.

I want a clean debt bill. Beep-beep-beep, never mind.

I want, no, I demand revenue enhancements - not from new taxes, but from closing loopholes - and I will reject any bill that does not include them. Beep-beep-beep, forget I said that.

We must protect Social Security and Medicare. Beep-beep-beep, but now I look good to Independent voters, or something, right?

It has become an all too familiar sound, really.

I will close Guantanamo. Beep-beep-beep.

There needs to be a public option in the health care reform bill. Beep-beep-beep.

The Bush-era tax cuts? Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.

An interesting thing happens when someone backs up. They get smaller in your vision, receding slowly but surely until they are all but invisible. So it is with this president, who goes into the 2012 election season a small fraction of the man who would supposedly make history.

George W. Bush took the historic budget surplus left by President Clinton and squandered it on tax cuts, further enriching those few thousand people who didn't need the money. Mr. Bush delivered us into crushing debt with two interminable wars, which many of those few thousand people continue to profit from wildly. A number of those people - the Wall Street and banking magnates - are directly and personally responsible for the recklessness and greed that very nearly annihilated the American economy, and as of this date, not only have they eluded justice for their crimes, but have been richly rewarded.

They were rewarded again with this bill. Try to spin it any other way, and you're wasting your time with me. They were rewarded, and the weight of that reward will fall on your neck and mine. Again.

As bad as this situation is, it could have been a great deal worse. "Cut, Cap and Balance" would have blown the economy to the far side of the moon, as would Boehner's initial failed attempt at this legislation. There are cuts to the defense budget, and the social safety net did not take it in the teeth as savagely as the berserkers within the GOP caucus desired. And, yes, we did manage to avoid defaulting on the debt limit for the first time in history.

That is hardly the point. In the end, Mr. Obama accepted the premise proffered by the GOP that the debt limit increase had to be tied to massive cuts. This was simply not true, and he failed utterly to make this clear. He demanded new tax revenues from closed loopholes be part of the deal, and then surrendered that position. He swore to protect the social safety net, and spent virtually the entire debate trying to give it away.

This was not a case of two steps forward and one step back, but was instead no steps forward and two steps back. The kind of cuts included in this bill are exactly, precisely the wrong medicine for an ailing economy, and for the people who make up that economy. We now stare down the yawning barrel of a double-dip recession, and that's only if we're lucky.

Worst of all, Mr. Obama has proven to the Tea Party nutjobs that hostage-taking works, that threatening not only the American economy but the global economy with comprehensive disaster is a proper way to pursue policy initiatives. Imagine if a member of the House Insanity Caucus had broken into a nuclear missile silo and threatened to launch unless Reagan's face was carved on Mt. Rushmore...and got what he wanted, and was allowed to go free.

What's next? You really think they won't try this again at the first opportunity? Of course they will, and why not? It worked like a charm.

They got away with it, just like Mr. Bush and his cronies got away with lying us into war while bankrupting the country, just like the "defense" contractors who skimmed billions from the war funding, just like the Wall Streeters and banksters who stole our future from us.

They got away with it, and so they will try it again somewhere down the road...and there will be Mr. Obama, receding slowly into the distance. Again.

William Rivers Pitt On Political Cowardice, Corruption, Hypocrisy, and Demagoguery in the National Debt Crisis Debate

President Barack Obama speaks to reporters during a news conference about the nation's deficit and increasing the debt limit, at the White House in Washington on July 11, 2011. (Photo: Doug Mills / The New York Times)

http://www.truth-out.org/so-despair/1311620664

All,

Another scathing yet right on target statement by truthout columnist William Pitt. All I can say in response is to paraphrase the 1964 presidential campaign slogan of the notorious late founder of Neoconservatism in this country (and Ronald RayGun's major mentor!) Barry Goldwater: "In Your Heart You Know He's Right"...

So This Is Despair
by William Rivers Pitt
26 July 2011
Truthout | Op-Ed


"At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily."

-- Flannery O'Connor

It is difficult to describe this emotion. I’m used to disappointment, fairly comfortable with heartbreak, and am well acquainted with rage. Over the course of my lifetime, my presidents have been Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and now Obama…and each, in his own way, has been worse than the last.

How can I say that? Easy. The problems of Nixon are still with us, and have grown worse by orders of magnitude through each successive administration. Certain presidents have exacerbated the situation beyond their expected purview, but generally speaking, each one has adopted the worst ideas of his predecessor, and in nearly every instance, has made those problems worse.

But this…this is too much.

The timeline as I understand it: the far-right GOP caucus in the House decided to use the debt limit as a hostage to fortune in their decades-long quest to eliminate Social Security and Medicare. The current Democratic president saw this, and in a pure anti-Lakoffian flail that explains everything you need to know about the man, accepted the deranged premise put before him and went to work on the annihilation of the social safety net…but with the proviso that we find some new tax revenues by closing some loopholes…maybe…please?

Not good enough. House Speaker Boehner walked away from the debt-limit talks, not once but twice, because he can’t control his caucus and because he had this Democratic president right where he wanted him. The president blew up – in as much as “No Drama” Obama ever blows up – and wondered what is needed for the GOP to say “Yes” to anything. Read between the lines of that presser, and you get this: “I tried to give them Social Security. I tried to give them Medicare and Medicaid. I gave those things willingly, despite cries of outrage from my ungrateful, foolish, obnoxious left flank, and asked only for a pittance in tax revenues in exchange. Shame on the GOP for not rampaging these social programs when I offered them the chance to do so.”

Web forums all across the Democratic Party spectrum celebrated the president’s resolve. He showed them, didn’t he?

Well…wait. I saw a president in a state of high piss-off because he tried to give away Social Security and Medicare, but couldn’t convince the far right to take the proffered opportunity. They’ve been trying to do this very thing for three generations, and here is Obama practically sweating bullets in his desire to give them the victory they have pined for since Goldwater was in short pants. Sure, it’s proof that Boehner is at the mercy of the Tea Party freshmen in his caucus, but in which universe is this called victory? This Democratic president was angry because he was being denied the opportunity to preside over an historic roll-back of the New Deal?

Poor baby.

Oh, but we weren’t done yet. The “Grand Bargain” was still in the offing, now splintered into two or three or twelve different iterations, but all ultimately coming down to the same thing: trillions in cuts for the most vulnerable Americans, no new tax revenues from the rich or anyone else, and the bonus prize sought most passionately by the Democrats was the chance to kick this whole fight down the road to 2013, so none of these failures would be forced to address the question before their next all-important election cycle.

Help Truthout build a future for commercial-free journalism: become a Member today by clicking here. [3]

Sell out Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for a chance at an easier ride at the ballot? Where do I sign?

The Bush-era tax cuts for rich people appear nowhere in the discussion, despite the fact that eliminating them would go most of the way towards resolving this “crisis.” We are still fighting three wars, and the “defense” budget remains largely untouchable. I have not heard an American politician talk about jobs in over a year, even though a robust jobs program would add revenue to the budget hand over fist.

At the time of this writing, matters stand thusly [4]:

We don't yet know what the final deal to raise the debt ceiling will be. But now that Harry Reid is developing a proposal with $2.7 trillion in cuts and nothing in revenues, it's a safe bet that it won't include any tax increases. Which means that whether Republicans realize it or not, they've won. The question now is whether they can stop.

John Boehner is proposing a deal with about $1 trillion in spending cuts and a short-term increase in the debt ceiling and a bipartisan congressional committee charged with developing a large deficit reduction package that would be immune to amendments and filibusters and would be the price of the next increase in the debt ceiling. Harry Reid is developing a package of spending cuts that Democrats could accept and would reach Boehner's $2.4 trillion mark.

If you take the Republicans' goals as avoiding a deal in which they have to vote for tax increases and denying Obama a political victory, it looks like they have succeeded. That success has come with costs - they've done themselves political damage, are risking a crisis that could do the economy tremendous harm, and have left the Bush tax cuts unresolved, which means they might end up watching taxes rise much higher than if they'd taken Obama's offer - but it's still been a success.

A great many people who should know better continue to look at this situation as if Mr. Obama has some fantastic rabbit he…is…just…waiting to pull out of a hat, thus foiling the GOP and securing our future forever. For a brief moment a couple of weeks ago, I shared that optimism, but the last several days have slapped me soundly out of that fugue state.

I see a president on his knees, hands outstretched, offering the best ideas and policies liberal governance has ever devised up to the voracious carnivore of GOP opportunism. I see the end of the New Deal, and a far crueler America emerging from the aftermath. I see a Democratic president voiding his bladder on all that he is supposed to uphold.

Mr. Obama got on those knees again Monday night, on national television no less, and once again begged the GOP to devour Social Security and Medicare. He gobbled up the flawed, flayed premise of the far-right's deranged argument, again, and pleaded for the chance to give away the core of what he was elected to defend.

I thought I was done being ashamed of my president.

I was wrong.


"Austerity is here. We've been Shock Doctrined. With a gun to the head of the economy, Republicans and Democrats are ready to bleed fundamental bedrock American programs like Social Security and Medicare to pay for the economic crisis that has nothing to do with retired people or health care."

----TRUTHOUT

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What the Fight Over the National Budget and the Debt Ceiling Is Really About

http://www.truth-out.org/looming-betrayal/1310137478

"What we need is a "Grand Vision", not a "Grand Bargain."
--Democratic Party Congressional Leader Nancy Pelosi
July 7, 2011

All,

The ONLY question worth addressing here is this: Whose side is the President on? This really ain't rocket science we're dealing with you know. Either Obama will finally show some real political guts and visionary leadership in this national budgetary fight and aggressively call out the Republican right on their deadly bullshit, lies, and brazenly open attempts to destroy the poor, working, and middle classes in this country or he will simply roll over like a whipped dog and meekly beg his (and our) enemies for the mere "right to exist." As Pitt forcefully points out in the following article millions of people fought, suffered, and actually DIED for the absolutely essential social safety nets of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and many millions more desperately need the programs that they have in fact paid for and invested in over many decades. I'm thoroughly sick and tired of the White House pretending that our very lives can be "incrementally" bartered away or traded on the "open market" with genuinely corporate criminals who have literally stolen TRILLIONS of dollars from the American public and continue to spit in our faces like we're nothing but refuse in the streets. What really rankles is the ludicrous notion still astoundingly suggested by far too many people that "we" still "owe" this President something after we gave him a record breaking 70 million votes in 2008 following the largest and most effectively organized grassroots campaign in electoral history (staffed I hasten to remind everyone by literally millions of volunteers who along with many millions more helped give this President the largest primary and general election war chest in U.S. history!). So ENOUGH with us "giving" this man ANYTHING else at this point except a big hard kick in the ass to relentlessly DEMAND that he deliver on what he said he was "gonna do" once in office. And as for those black folks who foolishly thinks Obama's ethnic/racial identity is proof (ha!) or guarantee (gasp!) that he will automatically "do the right thing" and that we should simply support him because "he's a brother the racist white folks hate" it's painfully clear that utterly pathetic and self defeating Clarence Thomas Syndrome defense is not only absurd but SUICIDAL. After all "the racist white folks" hate us ALL. What else is new? So much for weakass and delusional "identity politics." Like always the only politics worth fighting for in the end (and the beginning) is revolutionary politics...

Kofi


A Looming Betrayal Saturday
9 July 2011
by William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Baby don't you do it Don't do it Don't you break my heart Please Don't do it Don't you break my heart...
- The Band


Exactly what the hell is going on around here?

On Thursday, headlines on both the Washington Post and the New York Times announced that President Obama had put both Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block, as part of some "grand bargain" with House Speaker Boehner and the GOP to cut the deficit and avoid blowing the August 2 debt limit deadline. The deal, as reported, would also include as much as $1 trillion in "new revenue" to be raised by closing off and eliminating loopholes in the tax code. No tax increases of any kind were on the table.

The Post put it this way [4]:

The White House meeting, which began shortly after 11 a.m., came as Obama pressed lawmakers to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue.

The remarks ahead of Thursday's meeting indicated that GOP opposition to tax increases in the debt-limit discussions has not softened - despite a statement by Cantor on Wednesday that Republicans would consider closing some tax loopholes if such a move were offset by tax cuts elsewhere, as well as a new willingness on the part of the White House to consider major changes to Social Security and Medicare as part of a far-reaching deficit deal. House Republicans on Thursday reiterated their support for reform of such entitlement programs.

As part of his pitch, Obama is proposing significant reductions in Medicare spending and for the first time is offering to tackle the rising cost of Social Security, according to people in both parties with knowledge of the proposal. The move marks a major shift for the White House and could present a direct challenge to Democratic lawmakers who have vowed to protect health and retirement benefits from the assault on government spending.

(Emphasis added)

My reaction to this news, along with most everyone else aligned with the left side of politics, was predictable. I was aghast, dumbfounded, sickened, and enraged. The Republican Party has been working hammer and tong to eliminate these vital programs since the day they were first conceived. Sometimes their efforts were out in the big wide open, such as George W. Bush's doomed privatization proposal. If it wasn't their hood ornament, it was at least always on the dashboard, right out front, a core element of their philosophy, and always somewhere in their platform. In all those years, however, the GOP had only managed to nibble at the edges of these programs, having never summoned either sufficient muscle or sufficient will to kill them off entirely.

Stay informed with Truthout updates delivered straight to your email inbox. Click here to sign up. [5]

And now here is a Democratic president, after all those years of struggle to defend and protect the social contract created by these policies, offering them up for destruction because he can't seem to stop himself from agreeing with Republicans. Here is a Democratic president who happily accepts the premise of their devious arguments, and who appears unwilling to summon enough spine to rebuff the debt-ceiling-default tactic being deployed by the GOP in an act of national hostage-taking. Instead, hey, why not, let's rip these programs to shreds and fulfill the deepest, darkest fantasies of the far right.

The AARP, for their part, began sounding the war drums [6] almost immediately:

AARP will not accept any cuts to Social Security as part of a deal to pay the nation's bills. Social Security did not cause the deficit, and it should not be cut to reduce a deficit it did not cause. As the President and Congress work to negotiate a deal to raise the debt ceiling, AARP urges all lawmakers to reject any proposals that would cut the benefits seniors have earned through a lifetime of hard work.

AARP is strongly opposed to any deficit reduction proposal that makes harmful cuts to vital Social Security and Medicare benefits. Social Security is currently the principal source of income for nearly two-thirds of older American households receiving benefits, and roughly one third of those households depend on Social Security benefits for nearly all (90 percent or more) of their income. The deficit debate is not the time or the place to talk about Social Security. AARP will fight any cuts that are proposed to this important program, including proposals to reduce the cost of living adjustment for beneficiaries (COLA)--such as the proposed chained CPI--which AARP also believes should not be considered as part of the debt ceiling or deficit reduction negotiations.

AARP also strongly urges the President and congressional leaders to reject any proposals that would impose arbitrary, harmful cuts to the Medicare program or shift additional costs onto Medicare beneficiaries. Half of all beneficiaries live on incomes of less than $22,000, and many already struggle to pay for their ever-rising health and prescription drug costs.

Some have proposed requiring Medicare beneficiaries to pay even more for their Medicare benefits, either through higher co-payments or higher premiums. AARP strongly urges you to reject higher costs for people in Medicare. Before we shift additional cost burdens onto beneficiaries, Congress should address the real problem of increasing health care costs throughout the entire system.

Throughout the deficit reduction and debt ceiling debate, AARP will continue its efforts to raise the voices of our members who depend on Social Security and Medicare for their health and economic security.

But, wait, hang on a minute, because out came the White House on Thursday afternoon with denials compounded by denials that they were ever considering cuts to Social Security and Medicare, that the news reports were way off-base and possibly politically motivated, and that this White House would never consent to any deal that "slashed" those programs.

That's the word they used: "slashed."

But that's not the same as "cut," now, is it?

"Slashed" brings to mind images of total evisceration. They could very well be planning to create deep cuts in the programs, then stand back and say "Well, we didn't slash them, now, did we?"

Paranoid? Maybe. But maybe not. The "chained CPI" idea mentioned by AARP in their statement is a sneaky piece of business indeed. Instead of the standard annual cost-of-living increases to Social Security (COLA), the chained CPI takes a much more austere look at what a cost-of-living increase should mean. In effect, replacing COLAs with this chained CPI would spell, for all practical purposes, the end of cost-of-living increases completely. For millions of people who live on the brink, who rely on Social Security to avoid living in cardboard boxes and eating cat food, that kind of loss could very well tip them right over into the ditch.

There is no deal on paper as of yet, and the whole world is watching. Many people I spoke to on this were blunt: if the Democrats consent to any deal that damages or denudes Social Security and Medicare, then that's it, hats over the windmill, and turn out the lights when you leave. Obama and his people can hope and change their way across the campaign trail until they are blue in the face. They will not be getting the votes of these people. This administration has made it clear on more than one occasion that they do not think too highly of their own base, and by acting like Republicans, perhaps they believe they will earn the votes of enough independents to offset the damage.

Maybe they will, and maybe they won't, but that is not the point.

This is a matter of honor, plain and simple. An ocean of blood, sweat and tears has been spent bringing these all-important programs to life, and even more has been spent protecting and defending them. If this president consents to throw all that over in an act of political triangulation, he will be marked in my book for all time as a failure, a betrayer, and a disgrace.

In my book, and in many other books besides.





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[9] http://www.truth-out.org/content/william-rivers-pitt
[10] http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6694/p/salsa/web/common/public/signup?signup_page_KEY=2160
[11] https://members.truth-out.org/donate
[12] http://www.truth-out.org/?q=oh-please-moment-sp-running-interference-right-help-crush-social-security-and-medicare/1303110000
[13] http://www.truth-out.org/?q=gop-try-again-medicare/1305037565


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6BVvRwRYbg




Keith Olbermann's "Special Comment": 'The Value of A Nation' aired tonight , July 11, 2011 on his "Countdown" program on Current TV and demonstrates once again why Mr. Olbermann remains without peer the best political journalist and commentator on U.S. television. Thank you Keith!

William Rivers Pitt On The Clarity, Depth, Passion, and Integrity of Keith Olbermann

Keith Olberman in Washington, DC, in 2009. (Photo: afagen)

http://www.truth-out.org/the-olbermann-era67123

All,

It's not merely "comforting" to see that millions of people in this country including Mr. Pitt below strongly agree with me about the serious importance and crucial value of Keith Olbermann and his work but downright inspiring. It's very important in these disturbing times of political cowardice, opportunism, stupidity, and indifference to remember that great fighters never quit no matter what and thankfully for us Olbermann is above all else a truly great fighter...Stay tuned...

Kofi


The Olbermann Era
by William Rivers Pitt
Tuesday 25 January 2011
Truthout

A quick confession that might not sit well with many Truthout readers: I was, on a personal level, quite ambivalent about the loss of Keith Olbermann's show, "Countdown," when he announced his exit last week. If "Meh" can sum up an emotion, then that's how I felt when I heard the deal went down.

Don't get me wrong here: I was, and remain, a great and devoted fan of Keith Olbermann and the work he did at MSNBC. I have been a devotee of Mr. Olbermann since his old-school moustache days anchoring the ESPN show “Sportscenter” during the golden age of that program. But I have spent the last several years experiencing his “Countdown” work in text form, i.e. reading instead of watching, and in ten-minute online video snippets, because I avoid all cable “news” programming the way cats avoid water. All of it, even the stuff I tend to agree with.

When "Countdown" first began in 2003, I watched it almost every night - the only cable “news” show I consistently tuned in to - but quickly soured on the whole experience. I just can’t stand it, any of it. I can’t stand the emotional manipulation that comes with all forms of televised “news,” and have for many times many a day now refused to let them in my head. I also never saw the point in getting all riled up at eight o'clock at night. What was I supposed to do with all that rage after nine? Punch the walls and kick the cat, maybe indulge in a little firebombing? Didn’t seem prudent.

The production of "Countdown" - the flashes, the music, the jump cuts - made me feel like I had rocks rolling around in my head. This was not solely an Olbermann problem for me; all cable “news” programming leaves me feeling the same way, which is why I swore it off years ago. If CNN or MSNBC played footage of puppies playing with baby pandas next to a pile of bunnies and kittens, it would still give me a headache. It wasn't Keith's fault. I'm just allergic to the medium itself, and have largely avoided it for more than a decade.

All that aside, there is no doubt that Mr. Olbermann’s “Countdown” was something very special. In a polluted sea of corrupted corporate “news” brainwashing, his was a voice of loud, angry reason. He paved the way for the excellence of Rachel Maddow to make its own impressive mark on the TV “news” landscape. He spoke a great deal of truth that had not been heard on the airwaves for far too long. By modeling himself and his show after Edward R. Murrow, even going so far as to use Murrow's iconic "Good night, and good luck" sign-off at the end of every broadcast, he gave us a daily reminder that the "news" was not always like it is today, and that it can - nay, must - improve for the good of the republic.

His very existence became a thorn in the side of the corporation that owns his network, and the corporations behind all the other networks. He kicked some cash to a few Democratic candidates - Rep. Gabrielle Giffords being one - and it turned into a nine-day wonder of a debate about broadcasting standards and the hypocrisy of MSNBC's upper management. It still cracks me up when I think about it: here were these corporate network owners who scream bloody murder about money equaling speech, but when Olbermann exercised his constitutional right to participate in the political process by way of that particular brand of "speech," he got a two-day rip and a public scolding. The whole charade shamed his bosses deeply and publicly, and probably had more than a bit to do with his eventual departure from the network he pretty much single-handedly put on the map.

To me and so many others, he was a beacon of sanity during the bleak darkness of the Bush years. Remember the timeline here: the 2000 election catastrophe was followed by a ceaseless cable “news” refrain of, "This is an orderly transition of power, nothing to see here, go back to bed," which infuriated everyone who knew that particular game had been fixed. This was followed by the push for war in Iraq ballyhooed by every cable network - "Navy SEALS rock!" - until the bullets started flying and the IED's started going off. All throughout, the myriad scandals and crimes of the Bush administration went largely ignored and unreported...until Keith came along, reminding us that, "Today is the 521st day since the declaration of 'Mission Accomplished' in Iraq."

Mr. Olbermann was one of the only voices in broadcasting who openly discussed the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame by the Bush administration. When the 2004 election results in Ohio were corrupted by brazen manipulation and vote fraud, it was Olbermann who raised the loudest televised cry. It was Olbermann who, day after day, hammered the awful truth about the invasion and occupation of Iraq. And it was Olbermann who pounded home the fact that the Bush administration was little more than a deranged criminal enterprise that threatened the very fabric of the nation.

For me, Mr. Olbermann delivered his most memorable, impassioned and important "Special Comment" in 2006, in the aftermath of George W. Bush's press conference in the Rose Garden, in which Bush played the Nazi card and essentially implied that anyone who disagreed with him and his policies was an ally of al Qaeda. That night, Mount Olbermann erupted:

"It is to our deep national shame - and ultimately it will be to the President's deep personal regret - that he has followed his Secretary of Defense down the path of trying to tie those loyal Americans who disagree with his policies - or even question their effectiveness or execution - to the Nazis of the past, and the al Qaeda of the present.

Today, in the same subtle terms in which Mr. Bush and his colleagues muddied the clear line separating Iraq and 9/11 - without ever actually saying so - the President quoted a purported Osama Bin Laden letter that spoke of launching, "a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their government."

Make no mistake here - the intent of that is to get us to confuse the psychotic scheming of an international terrorist, with that familiar bogeyman of the right, the "media."

The President and the Vice President and others have often attacked freedom of speech, and freedom of dissent, and freedom of the press.

Now, Mr. Bush has signaled that his unparalleled and unprincipled attack on reporting has a new and venomous side angle: the attempt to link, by the simple expediency of one word - "media" - the honest, patriotic, and indeed vital questions and questioning from American reporters, with the evil of al-Qaeda propaganda.

That linkage is more than just indefensible. It is un-American.

Mr. Bush and his colleagues have led us before to such waters.

We will not drink again.

And the President's re-writing and sanitizing of history, so it fits the expediencies of domestic politics, is just as false, and just as scurrilous.

"In the 1920's a failed Austrian painter published a book in which he explained his intention to build an Aryan super-state in Germany and take revenge on Europe and eradicate the Jews," President Bush said today, "the world ignored Hitler's words, and paid a terrible price."

Whatever the true nature of al Qaeda and other international terrorist threats, to ceaselessly compare them to the Nazi State of Germany serves only to embolden them.

More over, Mr. Bush, you are accomplishing in part what Osama Bin Laden and others seek - a fearful American populace, easily manipulated, and willing to throw away any measure of restraint, any loyalty to our own ideals and freedoms, for the comforting illusion of safety.

It thus becomes necessary to remind the President that his administration's recent Nazi "kick" is an awful and cynical thing.

And it becomes necessary to reach back into our history, for yet another quote, from yet another time and to ask it of Mr. Bush:

"Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

The manner of Mr. Olbermann's departure remains shrouded in mystery; the man himself has made no comment on the matter, which may have something to do with the deal that was cut to end his contract two years early. Many have opined – correctly, in all likelihood - that the looming Comcast takeover of NBC Universal played a large role. As Buzzflash Editor Mark Karlin wrote over the weekend:

"According to James Wolcott of Vanity Fair, the chairman of Comcast Spectacor, Ed Snider, is funding a right-wing cable channel/Internet site called "RightNetwork." Wolcott sniffs at "RightNetwork" as a "pseudo-populist operation" starring an array of right-wing freaks.

Ominously, Wolcott notes "that it was Snider who invited Sarah Palin to drop the hockey puck at the Flyers' season opener in 2008, and Palin's been dropping pucks ever since."

There's little reason to doubt that Olbermann's abrupt exit from MSNBC was the first puck to drop as Comcast slap shots MSNBC away from being a progressive beachhead.

In one man we find the confluence of so many pressing issues. Mr. Olbermann stands at the center of the dire need for – and dire lack of – progressive voices within “mainstream news” broadcasting; he threw his shoulder against the wall of corporate hypocrisy; he stood and bellowed against the misdeeds of those in political power; and, ultimately, he stands today as the likely victim of the continued right-wing domination of the “news” media.

People are understandably outraged and disturbed over his abrupt and ill-defined departure from MSNBC…so how, in the face of all this, can I justify my “Meh” reaction?

Well, I already explained the first reason.

The second reason is simple: Keith Olbermann is not dead. He was not beamed to Neptune, never to be seen or heard from again.

Write it down, carve it in stone, make a note, and bet the farm:

Olbermann will be back.

Somewhere, somehow, some day, in one form or another, Mr. Olbermann will be with us again. We will hear or read his own words on the matter of his departure, and then we will hear him again, and again, and again. Giants do not fall easily, and this particular era of political commentary is not over by a long chalk. Edward R. Murrow had his own troubles with management in the darkness of the McCarthy days, and it did not keep him down or silent one iota. So shall it be with Mr. Olbermann in these dark days of corporate hegemony.

Same as it ever was.

Giants do not fall easily. Count on it.

In the meantime, good night, and good luck.