Electronic Pen

MARK VORPAHL FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Fueled by a long simmering anger over the economic crisis, the continuing enrichment of a tiny corporate elite who brought this crisis on, and the lack of any political voice for the great majority of people, the Occupy Wall Street Movement has spread to hundreds of cities across the nation, mobilizing hundreds of thousands in an undeniable display of strength. The growing involvement of unions in these developments both testifies to how broad this discontent is and its potential power to mobilize and organize millions. The 99 percent have had enough, and growing numbers are now taking to the streets to make an impact.

We are witnessing the birth of a social movement that has the potential to win economic justice. Having only recently exploded onto the scene, there are many directions this movement may take. The only certainty is that, since the conditions that fueled it are not going away any time soon, it is, at the very least, a harbinger of larger struggles to come.

Some have argued that the Occupy Wall Street Movement has a relationship to the Democratic Party similar to the Tea Party's relationship to the Republicans. This is wrong on several counts. The Tea Party and its message was cooked up, funded, and molded by corporate interests such as the Koch brothers. It attempted to mobilize people by tapping into their fears of where the country is going while dressing up a corporate political agenda in populist rags. There was never a doubt that this would eventually strengthen the far right in the Republican Party who quickly identified with the Tea Party's cause.

Relations stand very differently between the Occupy Wall Street Movement and the Democratic Party. This movement has no big Wall Street interests channeling funds into their organizing activities. By targeting economic inequality and injustice brought on by Wall Street's rule, the movement has placed itself in direct opposition to the largest financial contributors to and policy makers of the Democratic Party. While Democratic Party politicians may mouth support for some of the issues that have united the movement, any measures they can effectively promote will not come close to adequately addressing working peoples real needs.

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Before this weekend' SB 185 veto by Gov. Jerry Brown, which would have opened the door for UC administrators to consider race, gender and other issues in the admissions process, Ward Connerly, the king of anti-affirmative action initiatives, showed up on the UC Berkeley campus to bless the "Increase Diversity Bake Sale,' and grab a few more minutes in the spotlight.

You're Ward Connerly. You were once a member of the University of California Board of Regents. You were the King of Anti-Affirmative Action initiatives; chiefly responsible for the 1996 California Civil Rights Initiative (Prop. 209) which passed with 54% of the vote. A year later, you founded, and became the chairman of, the Sacramento, California-based American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI). In 2003, you placed Proposition 54 on the ballot, an initiative which aimed to prohibit the government from classifying any person by race, ethnicity, color, or national origin, except for medical purposes, and which the voters rejected. You showed up all over the country pushing anti-affirmative action initiatives. You became a darling of the conservative movement; called by some, "the champion of equality."

You're Ward Connerly. In 2006 your Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, a measure banning affirmative action in state "hiring, contracting, and admissions to public schools" passed by 58-42 percent. Two years later, however, your anti-affirmative action campaigns came to a screeching halt, as your Super Tuesday for Equal Rights campaign, which the Colorado Independent called "a nationwide thrust to dismantle affirmative action programs in five states," failed dismally. "In three of those states, [Connerly's] measure failed to make it onto the ballot, and [on the] Thursday [after election day] ... it collapsed in Colorado. Nebraska was the only state ... to approve the proposal," The Colorado Independent reported.

In an interview with The Colorado Independent shortly after the 2008 election, "Connerly said that he might curb his 12-year-long effort, which produced wins in California, Michigan and Washington state in years past and in Nebraska this year. 'Well, I love to read. I love to write. I do have other interests,' he said. 'I would like to pursue those things. I would rather do those things than get involved in these initiatives.'

"'Contrary to what is said, I don't need this for my financial well-being. I don't need it for my psychological well-being,' he added, referring to an allegation that he paid himself $7 million from the two nonprofits that funded his Super Tuesday for Equal Rights campaign. Connerly spent more than $350,000 in Colorado this year, according to campaign finance reports."

In 2006, according to The Colorado Independent, Connerly's "salary totaled $1.6 million, a figure that prompted members of Congress to call for an investigation as to whether or not Connerly has excessively profited from his organizations."

You're Ward Connerly. You've never lacked funding for your mission. According to People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch, "The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee gave Connerly $700,000 in 2001 for the anti-affirmative action campaign in California. That same year he got $200,000 from Richard Mellon Scaife, and another $150,000 from the Olin Foundation. In 2005, Connerly was named a 'Bradley Prize' honoree by the Bradley Foundation and awarded $250,000 by the right-wing foundation." Media Transparency reported that between 1997 and 2004, Connerly received nearly $3.8 million from ACRI.

You're Ward Connerly and you haven't been in the news for a while.

Now, you've been reduced to being the poster child for a racist bake sale.

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DANNY SCHECHTER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Who is behind the Wall Street protests?

The Republican minority leader, Eric Cantor, has searched up and down in his usual rigorous manner and found the culprit.

In his knee-jerk view, it's President Obama.  His latest crime: encouraging these "mobs:"

In one sentence, he blamed the President who, in GOP conspiracy think, is to blame for everything, including bad weather. He also not so subtly conjures up the memory of the Mafia, New York's perennial bad guys.

In one phrase, Obama stood accused of encouraging these.... pause for righteous indignation-MOBS!

Never mind that if you spend any time at Occupy Wall Street, you will encounter as many criticisms of the President's policies---save the questions about his birth and "real Americaness" -- as you would at a conclave of the Tea Party.

Only the criticism is different. In the latter world of make-believe, he is a hard line Socialist. In the former, he is, in effect, a Republican, a backer of the Wall Street capitalists the occupiers are battling.

And if my memory of history has not faded, wasn't it the British who called the original Tea Party a "mob?"

Let's not let the facts get in the way of a partisan shmear.

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Why not be completely honest about our political bona fides and tell it like it really is and come clean with the American people. The time for pretense has long since passed. Right-wing pols and their media advocates should come right out and tell everyone that they plan to keep lying their way into office, just as they have in the past. And the rest of us should admit we will probably let them get away with it.

How about putting a retrospective of Republican lies and deceptions together - a primer on how to survive the wages of truth in the golden age of the 21st century. After all while some of us were shocked by the antics of then president Bush searching behind lecterns and under tables for WMDs at Washington's annual press-conference dinner, laughter could be heard from many of the guests. If that behavior in the midst of the blood bath under way in Iraq couldn't elicit at least a few boos of outrage, clearly Americans had already begun to lose their moral perspective. Unfortunately, questions about our invasion of Iraq were masked by false patriotic fervor that kept our mistakes from being realized until it was way too late, and a terrible blunder became part of our flawed decision-making process.

It didn't seem to matter though as time wore on. Despite what many experts declared was a failure to accurately assess the importance of engaging in the right course of action in the right field of battle over the right issues, President Bush and his 'policy experts' continued their misguided wartime strategy. And to this day members of the former administration insist that the wrong stuff was actually the right stuff and weren't we lucky to have a team of hardliners leading the way.

Kudos, they say, to former vice president Cheney for asserting once again in his book that torture in the semantic guise of enhanced interrogation was a brilliant tour-de-force. We may have chosen the wrong course of action, trashed our reputation along the way and exacerbated an economic meltdown by misdirecting funds and cutting taxes during an ill-defined military action. Nevertheless Cheney insists he wouldn't have changed a thing. We were duped into accepting insultingly flawed policies by a glib leadership that continues to flaunt stupidity and waste as the price it says for keeping us safe. What is even more amazing than our failure to detect the flawed nature of that administration's policies is the fact that a grinning Cheney and his daughter can be found at Republican events trying to take credit for the Obama administration's recent foreign-policy coups and more amazing still, being greeted with standing ovations.

So let's be honest from here on in. If, as it is said, fifty is the new forty isn't failure the new definition of success? We have fallen for the Orwellian version of world events and have become quite comfortable with it. It doesn't seem worth the struggle, then, to whip ourselves into a frenzy trying to cleanse the past until it more closely resembles the version of ourselves we find most politically pleasing and useful. Let's not bother spending time examining the choices we have made or even taking the time to rewrite history because people are often happy to just let bygones be bygones. We have turned mediocre leaders into heroes and used fear instead of logic to make the case for whatever strategy serves the political needs of the moment for candidates and office-holders alike.

Threading our way through the thicket of lies and innuendo isn't, as a rule, a gratifying use of our time and probably isn't a worthwhile pastime in any case. If we are unwilling to exercise our minds and follow a train of thought through to its logical conclusion we had better throw in the towel now and stop acting as if we cared about 'getting-to-the-bottom of-things.' If we are content to back away from difficult issues because the battle of ideas is just too daunting and we don't have the stomach for it then we might as well stop pretending we are after finding a better way.

The voices of unreason have been hard at work on the right. Progressives should be working just as hard to bring intellect and wisdom back into fashion or simply admit we aren't up to the challenge.

JACQUELINE MARCUS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Summarized by the environmental organization, Friends of the Earth, the Canadian oil and gas company TransCanada hopes to begin building a new oil pipeline that would trek close to 2,000 miles from Alberta, Canada to Texas. If constructed, the pipeline, known as the Keystone XL, will carry one of the world's dirtiest fuels: tar sands oil. Along its route from Alberta to Texas, this pipeline could devastate ecosystems and pollute water sources, and would jeopardize public health.

Friday, October 7, 2011, hundreds of people from across the country were given an opportunity to voice their concerns about the pipeline at a State Department hearing, ahead of President Barack Obama's final decision. I watched the selected speakers, representing millions of Americans opposed to the Keystone pipeline, give powerful explanations on why it should not go through as planned. The reasons were grounded in science, and from oil-history lessons that were never learned by this government: Oil spills happen. There is no way to prevent them and when they do happen, the oil companies have no sufficient way of cleaning the crude oil from the ocean, fresh water and land they contaminate. When spills happen, they permanently destroy our precious resource of clean water and agricultural land. The toxins are cancer producing chemicals that poison the wildlife, seafood, and eventually humans. For example, the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the largest oil spill in history, has left the Gulf an ongoing toxic dead zone.

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WILL DURST FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Ah, October. Patio umbrellas down. Storm windows up. The turning of the leaves. The crisping of our ears. Playoff baseball. Halloween just a few weeks off. We'll get back to the most bracing month of the year a bit later, but first a few words about the recent decision by major banks to charge customers five bucks a month to use ATM cards for routine purchases. And those few words are, "You greedy stinking ravenous money-grubbing avaricious pigs."

How much dough do you have to make? I mean, I get it. You are not non-profit organizations. Few of us are. Your task is to find new ways to make more moolah. Same here. You just happen to be a whole lot better at it than the rest of us. And with the scratch to rewrite the rules, the skids get greased in your favor. Good for you. But, do you really need all the greenbacks? Every single dime? Really?

What were your profits last year? Like a bazilliondy dollars? Shouldn't that be enough? Do stockholders require double-digit returns every quarter? Incredibly foolish to expect hubris after causing the worst financial crisis in 80 years, but wouldn't it be wiser to leave behind a couple of bucks for the rest of us? You know, so we can do business with you. Commerce. Otherwise you'll have all the capital, no customers and be forced to restrict all your interactions to other banks, and trust me, you're not going to like that.

Or is that the ultimate goal? To gather together all the money in the world, becoming a money museum? Then we pony up pretty colored stones just to look at the money we no longer have. And you know what happens then? You make it your mission to control the world's supply of pretty colored stones. Go ahead. We'll switch to smooth pointy sticks.

This is not your money we're talking about. This is my money. You're supposed to pay me for your use of my money. That's the deal. What's the interest rate on savings accounts now, .02%? Oh right, the fed is maintaining artificially low interest rates to boost economic climes. But shouldn't that mean the interest rate on my credit cards goes down too? I'm paying 20%. In some states that's known as usury, and is illegal. For crum's sake, you can strike a better deal on the street with Vinnie.

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ROBERT CREAMER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

As most Americans know by now, the new law that limits the amount that big Wall Street banks can gouge from merchants (and ultimately their customers) every time they receive payment from a debit card went into effect October first.

Up until then the banks were charging merchants an average of $.44 per transaction - almost four times their average $.12 cost.

The new law, sponsored and passed by Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, despite vicious pressure from the banks, gave the Federal Reserve the power to set a "swipe fee" that would allow banks to cover their costs and receive a "reasonable" profit. The Fed ultimately decided - over consumer group objections - that a 100% profit was "reasonable" and allowed big banks to charge an average of $.24 per card swipe.

A hundred percent profit on revenue would be considered a pretty sweet deal by most small businesses, but it wasn't enough for some of the big banks - most notably Bank of America. B of A decided that to offset its lost ability to siphon money out of middle class pockets by way of merchant fees, they would be more direct. They announced that to make up for their lost revenue, they would begin charging customers who used debit cards a flat fee of $5 per month.

Durbin - and consumer groups - immediately responded with a suggestion that the best way to protest the new fee was for consumers to vote with their feet - leave B of A and get another bank that didn't charge such a fee.

That suggestion certainly makes sense. My wife, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, left Bank of America over a year ago to protest their opposition to the Dodd-Frank bill and moved her business to a community bank.

But, there is a problem. The reason why the Durbin regulation on debit card fees was necessary in the first place is that the debit card market is totally uncompetitive. Before the law was passed, "swipe fees" were set by Visa and MasterCard - who control 80% of all card transactions. In other words, they were not subject to competitive market pressure of any sort. They were fixed by the Visa-MasterCard duopoly.

According to FDIC data, five banks - Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citi Corp, and US Bank - now control 57.86% of the retail banking deposits in the United States. The top ten banks control 70.7% of deposits.

Bank of America by itself controls almost 20% of the market. That's not competition, that's oligopoly. And that allows the big banks to think they can assess their customers more and more in fees because there is so little competition in the retail banking sector to stop them. Not only does each of these banks have a disproportionate share of the banking business, but the big banks are counting on consumers deciding that it's just too much trouble to change banks.

Once you're a bank's customer it's not just a matter of withdrawing your funds and opening an account somewhere else. You have to change your automatic payments to vendors that many people now pay online. You have to change your direct deposits. Maybe you have a loan at a bank, or credit cards or some other incentive to stay put. Let's face it, in the modern world it's a pain to change banks.

The combination of the difficulty in changing banks and the limited competitive pressure that results from an oligopoly truly stifles price competition.

For the discipline of a competitive market to work, traditional competitive theory requires that several key criteria be met. A truly competitive market in the classic sense requires that products are interchangeable (like commodities), that consumers have perfect information - and most important that no single market participant control a large enough share of the business to set the "market price." If the conditions for competitive markets pertain then classic economic theory holds that the "market price" should settle at the marginal cost of each new product.

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STEVE JONAS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

So there was Mitt, addressing the cadets and faculty at The Citadel, in Charleston, SC. You know, that Charleston, the capitol of the first state to secede from the Union, on December 20, 1860. Why they were so concerned that the spread of slavery into the territories might be slowed or even stopped that they couldn't even give Lincoln the courtesy of waiting until he was inaugurated the following March. You know, that Charleston, which celebrated the 150th anniversary of that day just last year, as if it were a national holiday, not a mark of the start of a rebellion. You know, that Charleston, from whence in the 2000 Presidential GOP primaries Karl Rove spread the rumor that Sen. McCain had fathered a black (ohmygosh) baby. You know, that Charleston, where the debate as to whether to fly the rebel battle flag over the State capitol is still ongoing. That's where Mitt took the opportunity to tell the world, that "God created the United States," has in the past led the world, and that under his presidency, in the 21st century, the US was going to continue to lead it, whether "the world" liked it or not.

He would do this by, in his first hundred days, among other things "review" the timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan (and it would not appear that for him shortening it would be a considered option), restore cuts in missile defense, permanently deploy carrier groups off the coast of Iran, increase military spending over all and increase the armed forces by 100,000 men. (He apparently didn't mention how he would go about financing these measures or how he would recruit the additional troops, but that's another story.) And he told the assembled throng that yes indeed, God created the United States, to be a world leader, not a follower. It is on these latter two points that one might in particular raise some questions.

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

His passing leaves a space like
Seeing doors with no knobs:
Even more than ever, we're now
Living in the era of no Jobs.

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

If there is a populist change afoot making the pragmatic case to rebalance economic income in America, Elizabeth Warren is its political voice.

In a nascent campaign for the Massachusetts Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy and now occupied by Republican Scott Brown, Warren has broken through the DC Democratic tacit oath to "see no evil" where it exists in the financial and corporate world.

In a debate this week among Democratic hopefuls vying in the primary for the right to take on Brown, Warren put it bluntly:

The people on Wall Street broke this country, and they did it one lousy mortgage at a time. This happened more than three years ago, and there still has been no basic accountability, and there has been no real effort to fix it.

"Everyone has to follow the law," Warren flatly declared during the debate.

But right now on Wall Street, the only people that the politicians and police are applying the law to are the protesters.

For years, those who corrupted our banking system have gotten away with the biggest financial heist in history - and gotten bonuses and a government bailout for bringing America to its knees.

Shortly after announcing her candidacy this fall, Warren embarked on a "talking tour" in which she violated the Capitol Hill (and White House) commitment to put corporations on some sort of deified pedestal. With her ability to speak in frank, simple terms, she told one gathering: "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his [or her] own. Nobody!" She then went on to list all the ways in which government services, education and research support the private sector and enhance corporate success. (The Internet, it should be noted, grew out of a series of government research projects - and corporations are making billions upon billions of dollars now from this "public commons" research.)

You can't strengthen a financial system by rewarding those who grotesquely undermine the nation through manipulation for personal enrichment - and, to boot, expect the government to provide them with services and educated workers for free.

Warren knows that, and she is offering a welcome dose of common sense. What's more, she's opening up the floodgate for like-minded politicians to, as George Lakoff would say, "reframe" the national debate.

This isn't about class warfare, Warren argues, this is about the reality of how we prosper as a nation.

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ROBERT KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

It's a Sunday afternoon, around 5pm, and the sun is sinking and there's a chill is in the air. Ah, Chicago: Vibrant with culture, crime and capital, yet quiet at this hour of the ebbing weekend.

I'm downtown and I'm not sure if the future is calling, but my heart is pounding as I walk west on Jackson to LaSalle in the shadow of the great edifices of capitalism.

At 230 South LaSalle, in front of the Federal Reserve Bank, about a hundred people are gathered in informal clusters. Signs abound, some in people's hands, others propped against the curb or a wall: "Trillions are missing from the Department of Defense." "Wall Street needs adult supervision." "I am Troy Davis." "Sick and tired and denied all benefits. I am the 99%." On the sidewalk, written in orange chalk: "If Iceland can let banks fail, so can we."

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We must stop pretending we are serious people engaged in serious debate about the future of our country. We are in fact an over-hyped conglomerate operating on a media-inspired premise that reasonable choices abound in the midst of the rubble-strewn morass that frames our heavy-handed, largely meaningless political dialogue.

Who could have imagined a few short years ago, or even a few months ago, that we the people would willingly embrace the foolish few who claim to represent our grassroots economic interests. We even accepted this situation, as we watched our bridges and schools turn to dust. How quickly we forget the impact failed structures have on our daily lives at all levels of society. For it isn't only the obvious failures that leave us struggling to regain a sense of balance, it is also the tripwires of a thousand false starts and phony explanations that keep us from confronting the real issues that threaten our fundamental values and future well-being.

Some years back arguments raged over the rights of states to determine what was in their best interest in terms of safety and stability. Connecticut tried to keep its standards of weight-bearing tolerance on roads and bridges in line with agreed-upon standards of safety. In that instance Connecticut refused permission for tandem truck assemblages to travel its highways and bridges because the transportation department felt its roads would be unable to withstand the additional stress that would result.

But, in a column George Will chastised Connecticut for attempting to restrain the use of the federal highway system as it wound its way through Connecticut. He used an earlier reference to federal dominance by suggesting that perhaps Connecticut needed a "shot across the bow" to show just who was the boss in such matters. Not long after, as two double-length trucks sought to pass each other on the Mianus River Bridge, the bridge collapsed. Drivers had been noting for some time that they had heard strange rattlings as they traveled that part of the turnpike, but George Will and other enthusiasts who supported commercial interests carried the day before the roar of crushed beams and vehicles silenced further discussion.

Today in the face of growing deficits, financial struggles at every level of our society and joblessness we watch, more or less helplessly, as self-serving politicians keep us from finding anything resembling solutions. Instead, their best efforts are being reserved for bringing the president down. And, if commuters hear the distant rattle of a failing bridge it doesn't seem to factor into their thinking about what should be done about mending our dangerously fragile infrastructure. We are simultaneously lulled and terrified by descriptions of our imminent demise at the hands of terrorists, or our own ineptitude. In a global economy we focus on narrow horizons that limit our ability to set our sights on broader goals. What good does it do after all to just keep saying we need to cut spending and limit the size of government without first analyzing how the loss of specific jobs and programs would affect the nuts-and-bolts operation of the country as a whole?

And so we put up with idiots and ne'er-do-wells because we continue to conduct our lives and our government on the most superficial level. We spend our time watching as people who shouldn't be in the game in the first place struggle to stay in the game. Perhaps it has always been thus, but the hope remains that some great leaders are still waiting in the wings, people who have ideas and the willingness to stray from narrow partisan goals. At the moment we see the promise of a great country being squandered at the hands of small men of little consequence. A political environment filled with acrimonious, meaningless chatter that targets people rather than ideas, that has right-wing state legislatures threatening our basic freedoms by trying to limit access to our voting apparatus. Standing guard over our basic values is worth every ounce of energy we are capable of producing.

The death of Steve Jobs calls the rest of us to attention in the name of great ideas, the desire to create something of value and to find a sense of fulfillment. In a recent speech Jobs spoke to his listeners about the need to find something to do that they loved. That isn't always easy, but loving what you do and who you spend your time with is as worthy a goal as any to which we currently strive. Too often we seem to forget what loving our country really means buffeted as we are by waves of rhetorical distortions that keep us from identifying and dealing with our most pressing issues.

A BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT NEWS ALERT

The following is a statement from the US Congressional Progressive Caucus in support of the Occupy Wall Street Movement:

Washington DC - Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Co-Chairs Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva and Keith Ellison today released the following statement in solidarity with the demonstrators on Wall Street and around the country:

"We have been inspired by the growing grassroots movements on Wall Street and across the country. We share the anger and frustration of so many Americans who have seen the enormous toll that an unchecked Wall Street has taken on the overwhelming majority of Americans while benefitting the super wealthy. We join the calls for corporate accountability and expanded middle-class opportunity.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) took to the Senate floor this week to denounce how Bank of America is gouging Americans through excessive charges on debit card "swipe fees."

Debit card swipes, according to the Federal Reserve Bank, cost at most 12 cents (as low as 4 cents) to process, but the banks have historically charged, according to Durbin, on average 44 cents to the retailer. On October 1, a new law went into effect that put a ceiling on the swipe fees at about 24 cents. So, the Bank of America and other banks "too big to fail" are still getting at least a 100 percent profit for every debit card transaction, which is crippling some small businesses.

Moreover, the Bank of America represents the greed that is at the heart of Wall Street by not being content with a 100 percent profit. To circumvent the cap on grossly excessive swipe fees, the Bank of America is now going to charge customers $5 a month as a debit card "use fee."

"Bank of America customers, vote with your feet," Durbin urged in outraged reaction to the new "service charge."

"Get the heck out of that bank," Durbin exhorted. "They are overcharging their customers even for this new debit card reform. It is hard to believe that a bank would impose [such a fee] on customers who simply are trying to access their own money on deposit at the Bank of America."

"After helping to drive our economy off the cliff's edge in 2008, Bank of America was happy to accept a $45 billion dollar federal bailout for their stupidity, their greed and their mistakes," the senior senator from Illinois said with disdain. "And it was just as happy to take that money and hand out $3.3 billion dollars in employee bonuses in the same year 2008."

Remember that if you have a savings account - unless you have a ton of money - in many cases you are earning no interest or just pennies, even though the bank is lending out your cash and getting double-digit returns in loan interest.

Furthermore instead of investing in America, the Bank of America is gouging the nation. On top of that, according to the Los Angeles Times, "Bank of America said it would cut 30,000 workers over several years."

This is legalized criminal behavior. The New York Police Department is arresting the wrong people down in southern Manhattan. What's going on in the Bank of America and many other New York City financial institutions is the looting of the United States.

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Some years back an article in The New Yorker posited that there was one tired old man at the CIA making policy for the entire country. Their reasoning was that, although times changed and leaders came and went, there was something so consistent about our country's conduct of foreign policy the only sensible explanation was that a worn out old man in the bowels of the Pentagon was pulling the country's foreign-policy strings.

In the current overheated political environment strenuous efforts are made by the various pretenders to the White House throne that, according to campaign rhetoric, only they have the ability to change the way we do business in foreign lands even if upon closer examination it is clear we continue to engage in the same imprecise meanderings to which we have grown accustomed. Amazingly enough foreign policy is rarely on debate agendas nor is it addressed in substantive fashion in those snipey little intramural attacks that have taken the place of meaningful debate.

In fact all things considered, we rarely get very deeply into some of the most important issues of the day, informed for the most part by a random sampling of 'experts' who leave us grasping at the straws of truth, never fully satisfied and only modestly well informed. For all the books, articles and lectures delivered for our consumption we are left in the main with partisan rants and superficial conclusions. Given the state of our information highway we are a nation foundering in the shallow waters of factual shortcomings that ten to overwhelm our better nature as a people.

Republicans have been working hard to develop a group of lackluster backbenchers who may or may not have enough of the 'right stuff' to be serious candidates. They in fact rely on personal attacks and vitriol to make their case to the American electorate. When these folks stand before an audience of prospective primary voters they don't have a lot  of important facts to share; rather they drum up fear and anger on a grand scale and promote so-called conservative 'values' that keep the base happy but fail to broaden national perspectives. As Rachel Maddow pointed out recently Republicans used unemployment as a wedge issue that fizzled once their candidates were elected, choosing to focus instead on abortion and other narrow social issues to bring in their voting base.

It may or may not be that same creaky old guy in the Pentagon making policy for the country and keeping us locked in an unhealthy embrace, but we are nonetheless held captive in a death grip that keeps us from developing more productive foreign policy. Now when we have an opportunity to change how we operate we seem stuck in that awkward place where new ideas fail to gain traction and narrow social perspectives occupy far too much of the popular perception.

SHAMUS COOKE FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

At a time when the country is demanding that Wall Street pay up, Democrats and Republicans are insisting that China be punished instead. In a rare case of bi-partisan unity, the Senate voted 79 to 19 in favor of opening discussion on a punitive trade bill that would shut out Chinese products coming into the U.S. Another highly provocative incident showcased U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Admiral Mike Mullen, accusing the Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, of giving official support to the Haqqni terrorist network. This would make Pakistan an official state sponsor of terrorism, opening it up to a possible military invasion. After reading all the patriotic chest thumping in the mainstream media, it would be possible to forget that there are large anti-Wall Street protests emerging all over the nation. This is precisely the point.

Of course most Americans are completely bored with terrorist talk. They simply do not care who is currently leading Al-Queda, and are especially uninterested who their number 2 and number 3 are; many people doubt the very existence of these groups, or at least think that their power is incredibly exaggerated. Nevertheless, the U.S. government will continue to obsess about terrorists while assassinating anyone who earns the label, minus any evidence or trial. Why? Terrorism is the new communism, i.e., a reason to justify the U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya; a reason for U.S. military power to expand further yet; a reason to give this nation - both working people and the incredibly rich - a banner to unite under instead of fighting each other.

As the economy enters a double dip recession, be certain that the U.S. government will try to use the military as a way to compensate for an  economy in decline. The military is excellent at opening new economic opportunities for U.S. corporations; to exploit additional new oil resources and the new foreign consumers that will be compelled to buy U.S. corporate goods. Also, U.S. military hardware remains one of the strongest U.S. industries, thanks to the enormous sums of taxpayers money that the U.S. government funnels to the major defense contractors.

When it comes to threatening China with economic sanctions the motives are the same. The poor U.S. economy is forcing corporations to their knees, and the U.S. government is eagerly responding. Increasing exports is an excellent way to boost corporate profits, but the options are limited. Mass unemployment is forcing down wages, making U.S. products cheaper on the world market, but demanding that China lower the value of its currency is another tactic. Keeping Chinese products out of the U.S. market is viewed by China as an act of economic warfare, and it is. China will likely retaliate, leading to the possibility of a trade war.

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

"It's been a good year for faith-based films,' writes film critic Roger Moore: Given the pre-opening weekend outreach to churches across the country, the Kendrick brothers' new movie, Courageous, had an extraordinary opening weekend.

It was a fabulous opening weekend for Courageous, the Kendrick brothers' new "action-dramedy" movie. While Dolphin Tale, Brad Pitts' Moneyball, and Lion King 3D battled it out for the top three spots nationally, Courageous and 50/50 were basically tied for fourth and fifth place. The opening of Courageous, which was shown in half the theaters as the cancer dramedy 50/50, and brought in $8.8 million, and "ranks fifth all-time for a Christian movie, and only trails [Mel Gibson's]The Passion of the Christ and the three Narnia movies," according to Box Office Mojo.

In fact, the Orlando Sentinel's Roger Moore pointed out, the pre-premiere outreach "aimed at churches" paid off. As fandango.com reported, Courageous led in the "pre-sales race" for this past "weekend's new openings," selling more than $2 million in tickets.

And, in Kinston, North Carolina, where the Kendrick brothers' marketing strategy worked like a charm, the Bethel Free Will Baptist Church bought over 1,000 tickets, guaranteeing 5 sell-outs for the film.

Prior to its Friday, September 30, premiere, the Associated Press reported that producer and co-writer Stephen Kendrick "says God has done more with the films [that he's produced] than they could ask or imagine."

Stephen Kendrick, whose brother Alex co-wrote, directed and plays a lead role in the film, told AP that "we've come to him and said, 'God, what is your storyline? Would you help us? Would you guide the production? Would you help us in the editing? Would you connect the movie to the audience?'"

With Courageous (http://www.courageousthemovie.com/), Stephen Kendrick said that he hopes to "rock the nations" and convince men to "become the providers, the protectors that their kids need."

Kendrick told AP that "We're going after the issue of fatherhood. [In] this movie you follow four sheriff's deputies in Albany, Georgia, and then an Hispanic man who is a construction worker, and they are tackling the issue of trying to figure out what it means to be a great dad."?

The Kendricks' also have a new companion book, called "The Resolution for Men," which provides "a vision of fatherhood from birth to death," Stephen Kendrick told The Funhog Family blog.  "We talk about breaking the chains of the past ... .and then we talk about manhood, what does God's word say about what it means to be a man.... In Chapter 4 ... we break out in scripture; between puberty and twenty you have a seven year window ... [to claim] the attributes of man." The book also talks about fathers "winning the hearts of your kids, blessing them and discipling them."

Courageous, rated PG-13 for violence and drug content, was made for $1 million, largely used volunteers, and is the fourth film from Sherwood Pictures, a ministry of Albany, Georgia's Sherwood Baptist Church, where the Kendrick brothers are Assistant Pastors.

"With volunteers no one is watching the clock and we're all in it together," Alex Kendrick told Time magazine.

According to OneNewsNow, a news service of Donald Wildmon's American Family Association, "Sherwood has shared sneak peeks of Courageous with churches and community leaders across America."

"What we're hearing from people who've seen some of the early screenings is that this is a strong challenge that's very much needed in our culture," Executive Producer Jim McBride said. "That's what we've been praying for -- not just a movie that people would walk out and say, 'Boy, that was a great movie,' but a movie that would impact the culture, that would challenge men to step up and make a bold and courageous step toward being the godly leaders that they should be."

There's a "Take Action" link on the film's webpage, which asks several  burning questions: Who in your community will work to get Courageous distributed? Who will "step up and buy out a show time, providing 200-250 tickets for your congregation and the people they influence?" Which churches or businesses will "purchase 50-150 tickets to hand to people you reach out to every day?" And "will you personally purchase 25 tickets for the people in your neighborhood, Sunday school class, or couples small group?"

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

With the price of milk rising so high that many low-income New Yorkers can't afford it anymore, it's hardly comforting to know that - as BuzzFlash at Truthout detailed yesterday - the priority of the multibillionaire mayor of New York is "helping the banks."

In a rambling radio interview last week that reeked of royal aristocracy, Bloomberg asked workers to ask not what they can do for themselves, but what they can do for their companies. BuzzFlash is not making this up:

And people in this day and age need support for their employers. If the banks don't go out and make loans we will not come out of our economic problems, we will not have jobs so anything we can do that's responsible to help the banks do that is what we need.

Except the banks aren't making a lot of loans, and there is little demand anyway because there are fewer dollars around for Americans to spend. The banks are still gambling with our money; giving no interest for savings accounts; investing overseas; and handing out big, fat bonuses for their financiers who bet against the US economy.

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It is a disturbing feature of our society that truth has devolved into a rare commodity, most especially when election time rolls around. Somehow it has become the practice to allow lies and innuendoes to permeate political debate as if they had the same legitimacy as actual facts.

In the aftermath of debates and conferences there may be some retro-fitting of statements but at the time of their utterance they pass muster among pundits and partisans who maintain an air of polite deference to fellow participants. Thus, truth is often sacrificed in the heat of the moment to keep things moving and to allow the ridiculous to cavort among the more learned and deserving thought merchants. But it isn't only the innocent idiots who find their way to media stardom and who, despite the ridicule they encounter at times from their betters, maintain a certain presence. It is the menace inherent in their writings and speeches that defines them as something other than free-speech practitioners. Theirs is a special brand of hate and partisanship that seeks only to expand their fifteen minutes of fame and roil the waters of honest debate.

On the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks we were reminded of bravery about which our country can only stand in awe for what was accomplished in our name. There are many stories that touch us but none more than the leadership of Todd Beamer on United

Airlines Flight 93 whose words "Let's roll" led the assault on the high-jackers in the cockpit and brought the plane down short of its mission to attack Washington DC. In light of his singular leadership and communications from others who lost their lives on that day there is something particularly repellent about Ann Coulter's observations as she wrote about them in her column.

The natural inclination of those who experience great loss is to pursue the causes to their logical conclusions. But Ann concluded that the grief-stricken widowed pilots' wives were 'enjoying' their widowhood tremendously, an observation prompted no doubt by Coulter's own publicity-seeking persona and a culture that says you can say anything about anyone and chalk it up to the constitutional guarantee of free speech. At the time I assumed we wouldn't be hearing from Coulter any more because the American people would reject her poisonous prose, but she's still around appearing at conservative causes, writing books and spreading her noxious reflections across the land - - a sad commentary on the depths to which we have sunk as a nation.

And this is a condition that permeates all phases of our body politic and infects the minds of the public. One has only to consider the speeches of Sarah Palin, among others, who consistently misstate and deliberately muddy the waters of honest debate. Health care restructuring becomes socialized medicine and financial reform threatens to bring down the entire free-market infrastructure, no matter what damage has been done to our well- being in the name of these twisted versions of events. Somewhere along the line truth is lost and we fall prey to someone's personal vision of power.

Discussions of everything from national security to health care are so steeped in political rhetoric there is little room for rational discussion. In perfect Orwellian cadence, for instance, Buck McKeon, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, advanced the notion that in order to establish peace the US must undertake "a proliferation of power." His description of what we need to bring our armed forces up to snuff includes a wide-ranging assortment of weapons systems that may or may not be relevant to the kinds of conflicts in which we are currently engaged. Once again truth falls victim to the perceptions of a "dug-in" partisan who may have called the shots a touch too long.

It may be a tall order to keep after the truth, but it is a necessary exercise whenever the opportunity presents itself. We should be getting after media 'analysts' who allow guests to torment facts into unrecognizable shapes. This is not the time to be so damn polite. Truth is at times rude and intrusive

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is threatening to shut down democracy on Wall Street.

You might expect that from a man who is worth $19.5 dollars., and comes in 2nd place as wealthiest man in New York City, after one of the Koch brothers. Moreover, Bloomberg made a lot of money as a Wall Street financier, but he catapulted into the multibillionaire category by revolutionizing financial market information and selling a specialized terminal and access services to the financial industry (followed by Bloomberg media services).

In short, his fortune is directly integrated into the Wall Street status quo.

That may be why he told a New York City radio show host last week that "New Yorkers need 'to help the banks.'" The Village Voice headlined its story on the plutocratic pronouncements of Bloomberg, "Mayor Bloomberg: 'We'll See' If The City Will Let Occupy Wall Street Continue."

Bloomberg seemed in a baronial haze, claiming, "The protesters are protesting against people who make $40-50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet. That's the bottom line." Is the mayor mainlining Fox "news" as his source of information? He royally added, "so anything we can do that's responsible to help the banks ... that is what we need."

Yesterday, BuzzFlash at Truthout wrote that there is little doubt that law enforcement officials - at the behest of corporate-backed politicians - are infiltrating and planning ways to discredit the Wall Street autumn of democracy.

In his plutocratic cloud of personal financial interest and self-serving disdain for the right of assembly, Bloomberg resembles a monarchist, not a mayor.

If the Occupy Wall Street movement spreads and grows, you can count on Mayor Bloomberg to pull the curtains down on this exercise in America's basic right of redress.

As Thom Hartmann noted in a book excerpted on Truthout, Thomas Jefferson warned that "the artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy."

Bloomberg is just waiting to snap the mouse trap shut on democracy.

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