Why the Left Should Take Him Seriously...

Glenn Beck's Redemption Song

About halfway through Saturday’s “Restoring Honor” rally on the DC mall, I realized that I was starting to like Glenn Beck.

Let me explain. It’s not that I really liked Beck, but more that I experienced his likeability. Whether or not he’s sincere, I came to admire his ability to project sincerity and to create coherence out of his incoherent rambling about religion, race, and redemption.

As a result, I’m more afraid for our political future than ever.

First, to be clear: Beck is the embodiment of everything I dislike about the U.S. politics and contemporary culture. I disagree with most every policy position he takes. I find his willful ignorance and skillful deceit to be unconscionable.

So, I’m not looking for a charismatic leader to follow and I haven’t been seduced by Beck’s televisual charm, nor have I given up on radical politics. Instead, I’m trying to understand what happened when I sat down at my computer on Saturday morning and plugged into the live stream of the event. Expecting to see just another right-wing base-building extravaganza that would speak to a narrow audience, I planned to watch for a few minutes before getting onto other projects. I stayed glued to my chair for the three-hour event.

What I saw was the most rhetorically and visually sophisticated political spectacle in recent memory. Beck was able to both connect to a right-wing base while at the same time moving beyond the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement, potentially creating a new audience for his politics. It’s foolish to make a prediction based on one rally, but I think Beck’s performance marked his move from blowhard broadcaster to front man for a potentially game-changing political configuration.

There is no cavalry coming over the ridge to save the people from massed capital. Certainly not the Democrats, whose self-caged left wing now finds its marginalized encampments under lockdown by their own president’s hostile patrols, while the GOP and its Tea Party irregulars howl from the circling darkness. That’s what happens when progressives maneuver themselves onto the same side of the battlefield as Goldman Sachs, as they did with abandon in 2007-08, deliriously fighting their way into a cul-de-sac in which they are now surrounded.

 Six Questions for Gerald Celente...

 who is "wandering in darkness"?

"A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

Beck, to a certain extent, has it right. In 1963 King was on the same tack as another man professing confidence in the American system to engender justice out of an innate, individually virtuous moral tropism to do the right thing -- Barack Obama in 2008. King was wrong then, just like Obama is two generations later. It’s a matter of class war, not individual character traits.
King moved to the left in the mid-60s. He had to. In Riverside Church in New York, a year before his death he gave a far more powerful speech than 1963’s “I have a dream” address. He called the U.S. government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today… A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. …[T]rue compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar... it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
This was a far cry from what White Power wanted from King, which was the soft rhetorical pillow on which all Dreamers could lay their heads: MLK’s 1963 dream that “we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”

On August 28, 2010,, forty-seven years after the March for Jobs and Freedom, America has plunged into the vortex of long-term mass unemployment. No jobs, particularly for young blacks.
So much for jobs. What about freedom?

Thirty years ago, fewer than 350,000 people were held in prisons and jails in the United States. Today, the number of prisoners in the United States exceeds 2,000,000. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics concludes that the chance of a black male born in 2001 of going to jail is 32 per cent, or 1 in three. Black boys are five times as likely as white boys to go to jail. Former prisoners are permanently relocated on society’s margins, these days some 5 million of them, denied the right to vote in most states. Professor Michelle Alexander, in her book The New Jim Crow argues convincingly that we have a purposeful system of mass incarceration, with blacks as the prime victims.
Today, in this fearful crisis there is no effective black leadership, starting with President Obama who has marvelously has fulfilled his function as political sedater of black aspirations, starting with the promotion of his own success story. “Yes, we can.” Oh, no they can’t. It’s not in the Master Plan. Black politicians are well aware that most of their black constituents will stay with Obama till the end, whatever he does. So most of them remain quiet – and yield the stage to an opportunist like Beck, flanked by Ms. Palin. Malcom X, who called the 1963 March on Washington “a picnic” and “a circus,” would have had a good laugh about that.

 Militainment...looking at militarism and pop culture...

(Part I, 10:00 minutes)

 Three Vanishing Acts in the Gulf...

(Erika Blumenfeld)

Slow Violence and the BP Coverups

The CTEH Cover Up

A few days later, Steve and I were talking in the chemical-laced dusk of a car park. The Louisiana night was a strange brew of oily vapors and ginger blossom. Steve was slumped against his car, exhausted by his fifteen-hour day. The red tip of his cigarette burned on-off in the dark like a warning signal. As we talked, the nightly, muffled thrup-thrup of distant helicopters began. A number of people had told me about these strange, night flights, as helicopters and planes headed out on mysterious missions. I asked Steve where they were going.

“They are looking for oil,” he said. “The helicopters go out first at dusk. When they spot oil, they radio the gps locations back to the Coast Guard. Then between one and three in the morning, the planes go out and spray the oil with dispersants.”

“Why do they go out at night?” I ask. “They are hiding the oil with dispersants, Steve said. “They don’t want people to know how much oil there is out there. And they don’t want people to know how much dispersants they are spraying. It’s one of the big secrets down here.”

As it happens, Steve knows a good deal about dispersants. Before coming to work on the oil spill, he worked as a contractor for Halliburton; he now works in the Gulf for a company dealing with environmental toxicity and health hazards. It took a couple of hours talking and half a bottle of Southern Comfort before Steve revealed the name of his company. “I work for CTEH,” he said. Then he dragged his hand hard over his eyes. “I can’t believe I just told you that,” he said, but it was clear he wanted to.

Founded in 1997 in Arkansas, CTEH (Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health) specializes in toxicology and risk assessment. According to its website, CTEH “specializes in the specific expertise of toxicology, risk assessment, industrial hygiene, occupational health, and response to emergencies or other events involving release or threat of release of chemicals.” As it happens, CTEH is the company down in the Gulf that is quietly monitoring the levels of chemical toxicity of the oil-spill and its possible impact on the health of offshore workers involved in the clean-up.

CTEH is part of the Joint Unified Command based in Houma, Louisiana, where BP shares its office with the Coast Guard. The CTEH website is frank: CTEH is “proud” of its role in the Unified Command response. The website is less frank, however, about one stunningly important omission. CTEH is being paid by BP.

CTEH, in other word, is monitoring the possible toxic effects on workers of the chemicals BP has unleashed, and it is doing this at BP’s expense. In short, CTEH is being paid by BP to check up on BP. This is a conflict of interest so flagrant it is like a murder suspect hiring the forensic experts who will examine the murder scene.

Another massive fish kill, this time in Louisiana, has alarmed scientists, fishers and environmentalists who believe they are caused by oil and dispersants.

On Aug. 22, St. Bernard Parish authorities reported a huge fish kill at the mouth of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet.

“By our estimates there were thousands - and I’m talking about 5,000 to 15,000 - dead fish,” St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro told reporters. “Different species were found dead, including crabs, sting rays, eel, drum, speckled trout, red fish, you name it, included in that kill.”

The next day, a thick, orange substance with tar balls and a “strong diesel smell” was discovered around Grassy Island, near the fish kill, according to a news release.

Taffaro admitted that there was oil in the area, but cautioned against assuming it was the cause of the fish kill.

Dr. Ed Cake, a biological oceanographer, as well as a marine and oyster biologist, has “great concern” about this fish kill, and many others in recent weeks, which he feels are likely directly related to the BP oil disaster.

“As a scientist, my belief is that this fish kill is 75 percent likely due to hypoxic conditions, not enough oxygen in the water to sustain life,” Dr. Cake said. “Because it was both bottom dwelling fish and crab, and other fish from the middle of the water column, whatever caused this covered the entire water column. That gives me great concern. The scientist in me says there was some other triggering mechanism.”

Dr. Cake believes the “triggering mechanism” is likely oil and toxic dispersants from the BP oil disaster.

Just after leaving the boat launch, we pass a shrimper coming back in.

“How did you do out there?” Craig asks him. “Nothing. Nothing at all,” the despondent fisherman replies. “How much do you usually catch?” Craig asks. “Hundreds of pounds, sometimes a thousand pounds,” comes the reply.

Craig looks at me and says, “That’s not good.”

Minutes later another shrimper passes us, returning to port. “How’d you do?” Craig asks. “We caught 12 shrimp,” he replies, “That’s one-two shrimp.”

 US, dead country walking?

America: a walking dead-zombie country (Interview with Max Keiser)

Related to the deflation in the U.S., many pundits compare the United States with the deflationary Japan of the early 1990’s until today. Do you agree with this analogy or do you rather share the opinion as it was expressed by Egon von Greyerz, the co-founder of “Matterhorn Asset Management AG” in Zurich, who said that the U.S. is in a very different situation than Japan was and is?[3]

When Japan started their deflationary spiral, they had huge savings. America has no savings. The best comparison for me is to compare the U.S. in 2010 with Argentina in 2000.

Why so?

Because the problem in America is that the bankers and the politicians conspire to loot the country of whatever money they can yet steal. We see a kleptocracy in action and the people will be left homeless and starving.

This is done by design?

People steal money on purpose (laughs). The kleptocrats steal money, because they want to steal money. They don’t accidently steal money. It’s done on purpose. It’s premeditated. Thieves steal money, because they want the money.

 The Audacity of Hope...

Day 205 - Audacity

Dear Mr. President,

This morning I woke up to news of a US organization working to send their own aid ship in defiance of the Gaza blockade. This ship will be called The Audacity of Hope, and, because it has also been endorsed by Rashid Khalidi, it is being linked to you by some right-wing media sources. I can see why it might be annoying to suffer the criticisms of political convictions you don’t actually have, so I would imagine that you viewed this news as one more headache. I heard it, and, for a moment, all I wanted to do was throw out my plans for the next year and join the crew.

I’ve spent the day talking myself out of it. As much as I want to go, to stand with those brave people willing to defy the unjust and cruel policies of the Israeli government toward Gaza, I have obligations. Completing my education this year is something I need to do, not only for myself but for all of the people in my life who believe that I can. Going out into the world to fight oppression and injustice is something that will have to wait another year. Still, I believe with all of my heart that this is the right thing to do, and so I am donating what I can to their efforts. The magnitude of Israeli crimes toward the Palestinian people and the people of Gaza, especially, demand resistance.

I do regret any political problems this mission will cause for your administration, if only because I think it is a shame you haven’t adopted official policies that would warrant this criticism from the right. In your book, you talk about the courage it takes to keep having faith in our country, in change, in a better future. Your whole moral and philosophical worldview seems to demand equal rights, freedom, and the end of oppression. So I don’t think you should be offended by the name of the ship. Hope has been an audacious thing for Gaza, and for those who would see it freed. That the Americans organizing this act in the spirit of your writing is not nearly as surprising or difficult to accept as your own willingness to set that spirit aside when convenience or politics demand.

When I lived in Jerusalem I had a friend who confided in me that as a college student in the United States she attended events like these, wrote up reports and submitted them to the Israel consulate for money. It would be naive to assume this Israeli practice has ended. So, I want first tonight to address that person, or those persons, who may have come to this event for the purpose of reporting on it to the Israeli government.

I would like to remind them that it is they who hide in darkness. It is we who stand in the light. It is they who deceive. It is we who openly proclaim our compassion and demand justice for those who suffer in Gaza. We are not afraid to name our names. We are not afraid to name our beliefs. And we know something you perhaps sense with a kind of dread. As Martin Luther King said, the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice, and that arc is descending with a righteous fury that is thundering down upon the Israeli government.

You may have the bulldozers, planes and helicopters that smash houses to rubble, the commandos who descend from ropes on ships and kill unarmed civilians on the high seas as well as in Gaza, the vast power of the state behind you. We have only our hands and our hearts and our voices. But note this. Note this well. It is you who are afraid of us. We are not afraid of you. We will keep working and praying, keep protesting and denouncing, keep pushing up against your navy and your army, with nothing but our bodies, until we prove that the force of morality and justice is greater than hate and violence. And then, when there is freedom in Gaza, we will forgive … you. We will ask you to break bread with us. We will bless your children even if you did not find it in your heart to bless the children of those you occupied. And maybe it is this forgiveness, maybe it is the final, insurmountable power of love, which unsettles you the most.

 WikiLeaks...

Wikileaks and War Crimes

Four months before WikiLeaks rocketed to international notoriety, the Robin Hoods of the Internet quietly published a confidential CIA document labeled "NOFORN" (for "no foreign nationals")—meaning that it should not be shared even with US allies. That's because the March "Red Cell Special Memorandum" was a call to arms for a propaganda war to influence public opinion in allied nations. The CIA report describes a crisis in European support for the Afghanistan war, noting that 80 percent of German and French citizens are against increasing their countries' military involvement. The report suggests that "Afghan women could serve as ideal messengers in humanizing the [International Security Assistance Force] role in combating the Taliban because of women's ability to speak personally and credibly about their experiences under the Taliban, their aspirations for the future, and their fears of a Taliban victory."

On July 25 WikiLeaks published its massive cache of classified documents on the war in Afghanistan. Four days later, Time magazine posted on its website its August 9 cover story, featuring a horrifying image of a beautiful young Afghan woman named Aisha with a gaping hole where her nose once was, under the headline "What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan"—echoing the strategy laid out in the Red Cell report...

These two media events unfolded in starkly different ways. While Time has been praised for telling Aisha's story, WikiLeaks has been characterized as a criminal syndicate with blood on its hands. Former Bush administration speechwriter Marc Thiessen called for the United States to use whatever means necessary to snatch WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, including rendering him from abroad. Others have called for the United States to shut down WikiLeaks and prosecute its members. Michigan Republican Congressman Mike Rogers has called for the alleged leaker, 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, to be executed if he is convicted.

"This week we received contact through our lawyers that the General Counsel" of the Pentagon "says now that they want to discuss the issue," Assange told The Associated Press by telephone.

Assange added that the contacts have been brokered by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, or CID.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman denied any direct contacts between the Pentagon and WikiLeaks. He also said the Pentagon is not interested in cooperating with WikiLeaks, which has asked for help in reviewing the documents to purge the names of Afghan informants from the files.

"We are not interested in negotiating some sort of minimized or sanitized version of classified documents," he said.

If independent-minded Web sites, like WikiLeaks or, say, ConsortiumNews.com, existed 43 years ago, I might have risen to the occasion and helped save the lives of some 25,000 U.S. soldiers, and a million Vietnamese, by exposing the lies contained in just one SECRET/EYES ONLY cable from Saigon.

I need to speak out now because I have been sickened watching the herculean effort by Official Washington and our Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) to divert attention from the violence and deceit in Afghanistan, reflected in thousands of U.S. Army documents, by shooting the messenger(s) – WikiLeaks and Pvt. Bradley Manning.

After all the indiscriminate death and destruction from nearly nine years of war, the hypocrisy is all too transparent when WikiLeaks and suspected leaker Manning are accused of risking lives by exposing too much truth.