WILL THE PROTEST BE HEARD BEFORE IT BECOMES MORE FORCEFUL AS PEOPLE GET ANGRIER??

The Occupy Wall Street movement is out to focus the nation's attention on decades of increasing inequality.  Joshua Holland wrote: If Top 1% Hadn't Ripped Off Trillions, You'd Likely Be Making Thousands of Dollars More Right Now.  To read the whole article, click here.

Yotam Maron writes:  Click here for his advice on how the protesters can beat Wall St.  These two articles were written after only two weeks of protest.  At that point the protest was believed to be disorganized and leaderless with no specific goals.

The protest is gradually taking form.  Leaders are taking their places and people are listening to them.  The 'real' protesters are obeying health and economic considerations, cleaning up after themselves.  Having been used to assigning a committee to study the problem, Washington remains at sea about the protest since none have taken the time to listen to the protesters or their constituents.

News flash to the Washington elected officials:  Stop trying to guess what this is all about; stop listening to those powerful, rich 1% who paid for you but are not those to whom you swore an oath on the Bible (totally ingenuously it would appear);  angry people should be heard because anger only escalates when ignored.

Signs say much that can be read when not heard.  To see some of the sign (note people carrying them are not all college students) 

The 1% may lose their control over the country, the lobbyists may not be followed, and even the Supreme Court should do well to watch their judgements that fight histories views.  Corporations are not people!  Judge Roberts, what could you be thinking???

OUR VATICAN EQUIVALENT: THE SUPREME COURT

It seems that the Supreme Court acts as though they feel they were appointed by God.  There are many who believe that court of Justice Roberts has sold out Democracy    The court can only follow laws, not create or change them.  So why don't those who make laws do just that...figure out a way to make a law that would overturn that ruling?  At the moment it seems to be because the majority in both houses doesn't seem to have the wisdom, creativity, love of country and fairness to the people to do that.

Joshua Holland wrote:  "The floodgates are open, and American democracy is at risk. But the decision didn’t emerge out of thin air. Rather, it was the culmination of the development, over more than a century, of a bizarre theory of jurisprudence that holds that corporations enjoy the same Constitutional rights as human beings"

"For years, it was believed the concept was enshrined in the law by the Supreme Court in 1886, but in his groundbreaking book, Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became People -- And How You Can Fight Back, historian and radio host Thom Hartmann revealed that the principle was in fact the result of what may be the greatest corporate fraud ever perpetrated on the American people.".  Asynopsis of the book follows:  "
Was the Boston Tea Party the first WTO-style protest against transnational corporations? Did Supreme Court sell out America's citizens in the nineteenth century, with consequences lasting to this day? Is there a way for American citizens to recover democracy of, by, and for the people?

Thom Hartmann takes on these most difficult questions and tells a startling story that will forever change your understanding of American history. Amongst a deep historical context, Hartmann describes the history of the Fourteenth Amendment--created at the end of the Civil War to grant basic rights to freed slaves--and how it has been used by lawyers representing corporate interests to extend additional rights to businesses far more frequently than to freed slaves. Prior to 1886, corporations were referred to in U.S. law as "artificial persons." But in 1886, after a series of cases brought by lawyers representing the expanding railroad interests, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were "persons" and entitled to the same rights granted to people under the Bill of Rights. Since this ruling, America has lost the legal structures that allowed for people to control corporate behavior.

It's time for "we, the people" to take back our lives. In this revised and expanded second edition, Hartmann incorporates specific examples from today's headlines, and proposes specific legal remedies that could truly save the world from political, economic, and ecological disaster."
Does the term corporate fraud sound at all familiar?

Our elected politicians have it within their power to correct the ridiculous ruling that equates people and corporations as well as the making of donations 'free speech'.  Perhaps some of the groups that are constantly asking for donations to exist might take up the banner to get some change in the House and Senate and stop the obstructionist Republican party from pushing the country into further decay and oblivion.

TROUBLE: STUPID CAN'T BE CURED

Joshua Holland wrote another provocative article. This time he writes:
You Can’t Have Bipartisanship if the GOP Base is Psychotic After defining psychosis, he justifies his diagnosis by the following statistics:

• “Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not?” Yes 42%, No 36%, Not Sure 22%.

• “Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?” Yes 24%, No 43%, Not Sure 33%.

• “Do you believe ACORN stole the 2008 election?” Yes 21%, No 24%, Not Sure 55%.

• “Do you believe Barack Obama is a racist who hates White people?” Yes 31%, No 36%, Not Sure 33%.

• “Do you believe your state should secede from the United States?” The answer here is Yes 23%, No 58%, Not Sure 19%. On this basis, Kos declares: “42 percent of Republicans aren’t really patriotic.” Among Republicans in the South, secessionism is stronger at Yes 33%, No 52% Not Sure 15%.

He qualifies his observations by saying, "But only on its face. They’re not actually psychotic, because the reality they hold was carefully crafted for them not only by extremists on the wingnut blogs, but by the mainstream leaders of their party and by Fox News, a major cable outlet." For the entire article, click here. If only the Republicans could have a magic mirror that shows them things as they really are!
Rather than assuming these people are psychotic, they seem to resemble sheep who will follow a wolf in sheep's clothing, misleading them all the way to their own losses for which they take no self-responsibility.

WHEN THINGS LOOK LIKE THEY CAN'T GET WORSE....THEY DO

Just when Mother Nature pulled the earthquake in Haiti and puts the world to task to help the millions in need, bin Laden makes a speech warning there will be more attacks on the USA. We find that issues that were raised during the election about ACORN being doing bad things, were made up by a new Watergate-type group. Our Fox media outlet allows its talking heads to promote violence when the Revolutionists are just waiting in the wings to take action.

Posted by Joshua Holland at 3:20 pm January 25, 2010
ACORN Smear Journalist Arrested for Alleged Attempt to Bug Sen. Mary Landrieu’s Office
"James O’Keefe, the young right-wing activist who posed as a pimp to “break” the ACORN “scandal,” has been arrested by the FBI, along with three alleged accomplices, for attempting to bug the New Orleans offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)." Read the whole article here. Modern technology has made violating personal phones and security easy. However, this atrocious act was so stupidly done, the perpetrators got caught. One has to wonder how many smarter criminals do the same and don't get caught.

Posted by allisonkilkenny at 7:14 am January 26, 2010 Schlock Jock Glenn Beck’s Hate Media She writes: "Hysterical demagogue Glenn Beck continued his verbal assault against Progressives this week by calling them “a virus” that feeds “on the host of the Republic, and in this case, the Democratic Party.”

Of course, this isn’t the first time Beck has used this hate speech against Progressives. Media Matters has done an excellent job documenting the venom consistently spewed by Fox’s newest ratings darling." for the whole article, click here.

Our citizens endure poverty, joblessness, hunger, lack of medical care...and the list could go on. We have the presumed news channels fostering hate mongering and violence. What is wrong with our people who enjoy this kind of hate from Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, Beck...primarily on one network!!!??? This says nothing about radio which isn't commented on too much on TV.

Is this really what the Free Speech Amendment was meant to allow? The First Amendment was adopted on 12/15/1791. Like the Bible, that was a world that could not conceive of the issues of 2010. Even little used books get revised. Isn't it time we tried to bring the world functioning up to date and stop allowing those who resist change to stop movement forward?

Every once in a while someone writes a really interesting column. Joshua Holland hits more winners than many I have read.

Priceless: Gay Rights Activists Take Over Christian Right Hate-Fest in DC
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet at 12:00 PM on November 17, 2009. "A techie hired by a group of radical clerics who went to the capitol to denounce homosexuals decided not to risk the bad karma.

I guess Dana Milbank just worships power and delights in picking on the marginalized. So while I've grown to detest him for years of snarky columns cherry-picking little vignettes to make progressives -- environmentalists, anti-war activists, human rights experts -- look like hopeless geeks who should be ignored when the GOP was in power, now that the Democrats are riding high he seems to be focusing that admittedly sharp pen on tea-baggers and the religious right -- the GOP's immoderate base.

Today he tells an interesting story that could have been titled: Reverend Smith Goes to Washington ...

Conservative Christian ministers from across the land, determined to test the bounds of a new law punishing anti-gay hate crimes, assembled outside the Justice Department on Monday to denounce the sin of homosexuality and see whether they would be charged with lawbreaking.

Needless to say, no arrests were made.

No hands were cuffed. In fact, the few cops in attendance were paying no attention to the speakers, instead talking among themselves and checking their BlackBerrys.

The evangelical activists had been hoping to provoke arrest, because, as organizer Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission put it, "we'd have standing to challenge the law." But their prayers were not answered. Nobody was arrested, which wasn't surprising: To run afoul of the new law, you need to "plan or prepare for an act of physical violence" or "incite an imminent act of physical violence."

But there was some drama ...

Instead of getting arrested, the ministers got something else: A couple of dozen gay activists, surrounding them with rainbow flags and signs announcing "Gaga for Gay Rights" and "I Am a Love Warrior." By the end, the gay rights activists had taken over the lectern and the sound system and were holding their own news conference denouncing the ministers.

That's rich, but it gets better ...

Cass turned angrily to the AV guy. "We're not on the clock, are we?" He turned with equal anger to Valk. "You guys gonna help us pay for the microphones?"

The gay activist smiled. "God," he said, "works in mysterious ways."

In this case, God took the form of Chuck Fazio, from DC Podiums. Fazio was hired by the religious conservatives to provide the sound system for the event, but upon learning of their cause, he decided to donate his proceeds to the gay rights activists and to give them a chance at the microphone before shutting down the amplifiers. "I don't want bad karma," he explained, noting with some pride that the lectern they were using was the same one used by Borat on a recent Washington visit.

Sometimes, I really do love America."

So do I when people who claim to be fair, act fair; those who claim to be moral, act moral; those who claim to be honest, really are.