From the Nanny State desk:

An elderly scofflaw just moved a table and a chair from shadows of the cold coastal fog on Main Street to the bright warm sun around the corner on Hill, despite the Santa Monica Fun Police's strictures against such an action. The old reprobate is no doubt unaware that his transgression may cause the store owner to suffer a $1000 fine for public amenity abuse.

Who are the animals?

The cynical campaign to turn the "actor and model" Jiff into a media star came to Main Street this week with a visit to one of the local coffee shops for a photo shoot with the mini-dog for which it appeared that the little critter's entourage of six to eight photographers, videographers and hangers-on had no permits. With typical self-absorbed Hollywood arrogance, his handlers had him prancing around on tables and slopping up whip cream-topped drinks in blatant disregard for common sense, public sanitation, and health and public safety regs. Are there no "jackie cooper laws" to prevent the exploitation of defenseless pets? Does PETA think dancing monkeys are "adorable"?

Factoid

21% Of Americans Spend More On Their Cell Phones Than On Groceries.

Don't know what it means, but it's not good.

This Exists:

Citizens united against Citizens United

This is the wording of the proposed constitutional amendment passed last week by the Senate Judiciary Committee:

SECTION 1: To advance democratic self-government and political equality, and to protect the integrity of government and the electoral process, Congress and the States may regulate and set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections.

SECTION 2. Congress and the States shall have power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate legislation, and may distinguish between natural persons and corporations or other artificial entities created by law, including by prohibiting such entities from spending money to influence elections.

SECTION 3. Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress or the States the power to abridge the freedom of the press.

Economic Populism at Heart of Emerging Debate Among Democrats

Published on Friday, July 11, 2014 by

Campaign for America's Future Blog

[Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), center, accompanied by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, right, make statements introducing Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) seated at left, to the committee during his confirmation hearing to become secretary of state, replacing Clinton, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)]

by Robert Borosage

Over at The Washington Post, the usually sensible Greg Sargent endorses the notion that divisions among Democrats are “mostly trumped up.” The tension between the Wall Street wing of the party and the Warren (as in Elizabeth) wing is an overblown fiction of a press corps desperate for some action.

It’s true that the prior divisions on social issues have dissipated, as liberals have swept the field. Obama’s halting attempts to wean the US from its foreign wars have garnered widespread support. And on economics, Sargent argues that Democrats “largely agree on the menu of policy responses to the economic problems faced by poor, working and middle class Americans — a higher minimum wage, universal pre-K, higher taxes on the wealthy to fund a stronger safety net, job creation and job training — whatever the broader rhetorical umbrella is being used.” Even Hillary says she agrees with Thomas Piketty that extreme inequality is a “threat” to our democracy.

There are differences on how aggressively to go after the big banks or whether to expand Social Security, Sargent admits, and a debate underway about “whether to push the Democratic Party in a more populist direction,” which he declines to define. But generally, he argues, there’s broad agreement that Hillary or any Democratic candidate will run on.

All of this is true except the conclusion. There is a broad agreement on what might be called a “populist lite” agenda — one that has been put forth repeatedly by Obama and frustrated by Republican obstruction. And the reforms — from the minimum wage to universal pre-K — are important and will make a difference.

But it strikes me as bizarre to suggest that there is no serious debate among Democrats when the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the country and a key power in Democratic circles, has just called for the resignation of Obama’s education secretary. Democratic House and Senate leaders refuse to allow even a vote on fast-track trade authority sought by the president, and a majority of the Democratic caucus lines up against Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. Progressives in both houses demand bold action on jobs, on taxing and investing that the president resists. Democrats revolt against the White House desire to trim Social Security benefits.

In fact, there is a fundamental debate brewing in the party, grounded on very different perspectives that lead in significantly different directions.

On one side are the passive voice populists, which include both Clintons and Obama. They argue that our Gilded Age inequality is the product of technology and globalization, as if these were autonomous forces like the weather. The effects — a declining middle class, stagnant wages, spreading misery — can be ameliorated by sensible policies, like the agenda Sargent ticks off. Most of all, Americans need to make certain the next generation gets better education and training so they can better compete in the global marketplace. Universal preschool is a first step to that. But the largest thrust — driven by the party’s deep pocket donors — is an assault on teacher’s unions and public schools, investment in charters, public and private, and a focus on high-stakes testing to measure teacher and school performance.

Undergirding this is an acceptance that we can’t really afford to do even the minimum in public education or child poverty, so the focus has to be on cheaper ways to make progress. This assumption also fuels the interest in cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits, experimenting with public-private partnerships to raise funds, and so on. All this assumes that we’re close to the limits on taxes, that corporate tax reform should be “revenue neutral,” (that is, companies should not contribute one dime more to our investment or budget needs), and that taxes on the wealthy can’t produce much additional revenue.

The activist-voice populists disagree fundamentally with both the analysis and the prescription. They argue that extreme inequality results from rules that were rigged to benefit the few and not the many. That leads to the demand for structural reforms to change the rules: fair and balanced trade and tax policies to replace those created by and for the multinationals; breaking up big banks and curbing Wall Street’s casino as opposed to accepting banks that are too big to fail and too big to save; progressive tax reforms to create revenue for the public investments that we need in everything from education to infrastructure to an expanded safety net; empowering workers and curbing CEO license to ensure workers share in the profits they help to produce; expanding Social Security and public pensions while moving further towards true universal, affordable health care.

These differences are only now emerging, as the failure of the recovery forces a bigger debate about our economy. The Wall Street wing presses forward with corporate trade deals that are opposed by a growing majority of voters. The bankers bear no accountability for their pervasive frauds and lawlessness, while most Americans are looking for perp walks. Well-heeled lobbies block any sensible tax reform, while polls show Americans strongly want the rich and the corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. Obama has already felt the revolt of the Democratic base against his plans to pare Social Security benefits. Clinton and Obama have been essentially AWOL in the war on labor and collective bargaining, essential elements of any strategy to rebuild the middle class.

Obviously, many of these questions pit the wealthy Wall Street and Silicon Valley donor class against the vast bulk of Democratic voters who are struggling in this economy. It’s not surprising that smart politicians have moved to adopt the populist lite agenda to appeal to the latter without offending the former.

But the divisions are likely to grow because most Americans are struggling in this economy. (Most still think it is in recession.) And with the deck still stacked against most Americans, little is likely to change without a new deal (to borrow a phrase).

And in addition to this is Hillary’s apparent intent to run to the right of Obama on foreign policy — to champion more interventionist and hawkish views at a time when Americans want to rebuild at home. If she pursues this course, it will likely spark a new debate around foreign policy that Obama’s relative caution largely avoided.

Democrats have always been a big-tent party. The divisions between Southern segregationists and Northern liberals were apparent. The battles over civil rights, women’s rights, choice, wars and gays and guns were fierce. Many of these debates now have largely dissipated as liberals have won and the party’s base has evolved. The New Dem scorn for traditional liberals and labor drove big primary fights.

But the new debates over economic direction and the likely battle over policing the world are just beginning to take shape. And if the economy continues to reward the few and not the many, the divisions won’t need to be trumped up.

[Robert L. Borosage is the founder and president of the Institute for America’s Future and co-director of its sister organization, the Campaign for America’s Future. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.]

Won't Be Fooled Again #257,963

Hey, you! Yeah, you with your "It's Hillary's Turn" bumper sticker. Has Obama taught you nothing? The Neolibs -- knowing which side of the bread is buttered -- are lining up for jobs in the next Clinton administration, the one that will make Obama's look like the New Deal. It's not Hillary's turn. The One Percenters don't get another turn. It's the turn of the American people.

See, Hillary Clinton Flaunts Her Surveillance State Baggage by Robert Scheer (TruthDig).

Damaged Collateral

U.S. banks are getting out of the business of international remittances -- cash transfers -- because law enforcement requirements to prevent and monitor terror funding and drug money laundering are becoming too irksome. Guess who will be hurt by this. Drug smugglers? Nope. Terrorists? Uhn-unh. Mexicans and to a lesser extent Central Americans? Yep. Because cash transfers to Latin America make up by far the largest share of remittances. And ordinary people are far less apt to have the resources to negotiate around petty bureaucratic obstructions.

Swamp in the Desert

As the course of events in the Middle East twists and turns, it's going to be fun to listen to the White House and the State Department try to explain how the Assad regime in Syria, less than a year ago so pestilent we were prepared to bomb it out of existence; Iran, charter member of the Axis of Evil, Assad's primary backer and, until just the other day, "the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism;" Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese sidekick; and expansionist Russia, in the gunsights of US sanctions over its bullying of Ukraine, became our new best friends, and why our "ally," the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is on the opposite side of nearly every fight we pick.

Burger king

Worth noting: If you're headed out for fast food, keep in mind that In-and-Out Burger, whose fresh ground chuck burgers Consumer Reports lauds as "standouts," pays its workers at least $10.50/hour, well above the minimum wage and the White House's proposed boost to $9/hour.

Aaachtung!

Extremely rude Santa Monica building inspector just came into Starbucks on Main Street to issue a "second warning" about verboten chairs and tables outside the store. Aside from the absurdity of the city's attitude toward commercial activity on sidewalks (amenities that enhance the quality of urban life, btw), there is no reason for a public functionary to take an aggressive attitude toward a citizen at all, let alone over a minor infraction of an arbitrary rule. Is Starbucks dissing petty authority? The republic's foundations shudder.

The month my bathtub made more than I did

The bathtub of my $35 a month Lower East Side walk-up on the cover of National Lampoon. That's coffee, by the way: this was art directed (it was bad, but not that bad).

The Long War: Endless. Pointless.

"Ultimately, the public is at fault for this catastrophe in Afghanistan, where more than 1,000 G.I.’s have now lost their lives. If we don’t have the courage as a people to fight and share in the sacrifices when our nation is at war, if we’re unwilling to seriously think about the war and hold our leaders accountable for the way it is conducted, if we’re not even willing to pay for it, then we should at least have the courage to pull our valiant forces out of it." -- The Courage to Leave by Bob Herbert (New York Times 2010-06-11)

President Obama and I are both in Palm Springs today, with the not insignificant difference that no one has offered me $38,000 to have dinner with them.

'Bout sums it up

 

Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars...

Talk about disruptive technologies.

Not only is SpaceX's new Dragon V2 space transport able to carry up to seven astronauts to and from the international space station, not only is its thermal protection system sufficient for the spacecraft to be capable of lunar missions, not only will it be able to return to earth with the precision of a helicopter (paving the way for interplanetary tourism), but its eight SuperDraco engines were produced entirely with a 3-D printer (using a super-alloy called Inconel), making it the first 3-D printed rocket engine to take flight.

Dragon V2 will begin shuttling passengers to and from the space station in late 2016.

Welcome to Tomorrowland.

Act like a national party

The Democrats should use their pac money for a national congressional campaign; instead of backing a few potential "winners" here and there, they should tie the GOP's reactionary majority to its truly lunatic fringe, turn every vote in the country into a judgement on Republican radicalism, make it clear that you can't have that nice Monica Wehby in Oregon, say, without getting Joni Ernst, the new Republican nominee for Iowa’s Senate seat, who is anti-amnesty for immigrants, hates the Nixon-backed Clean Water Act, and wants to privatize Social Security.

Actually, Monica Wehby doesn't seem that nice, but you get my point.

The Beat Goes On

“So today, Mosul fell. Mosul is the second largest city in Iraq. The Iraqi government we 'installed,' has now 'lost' Fallujah, Ramadi, Mosul and other large swaths of the country we invaded at the cost of thousands of American lives, tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and a couple trillion dollars. (What could your school district do with a trillion dollars?).

"One more maddening day in this 11-year illegal, immoral, greedy and stupid war. Today in Mosul, that Iraqi Army YOU pay for, freaked out, threw down their guns, and literally RAN away. I have friends and acquaintances who lost sons in all three of those cities. I can only imagine what they're feeling tonight. FOR WHAT? FOR WHAT! I am so sorry we couldn't do anything to stop this when it started. A few million of us tried. Last week, Richard Clarke, Bush's former head of counter-terrorism, said he now believes that his fellow members of the Bush administration committed 'war crimes.'

"I continue to await the perp walk.” -- Michael Moore

Take the "D" Train

Despite his own modest appraisal of his piano playing, Duke Ellington did fantastic duos and trios with Jimmy Blanton, Louis Armstrong, Mulgrew Miller, Billy Strayhorn, Max Roach, Charlie Mingus, Ella Fitzgerald, and more.

He's the Willie Nelson of jazz.

                                                       (Richard Avedon, 1963)

Duke Ellington, Charlie Mingus, Max Roach: Money Jungle

Living big at $7.25 an hour

The Times spent a few column inches yesterday mulling over the mystery of why the poverty rate hasn't budged in 30 years. Gosh. I don't know. I'm sure it can't have anything to do with the systematic decimation of organized labor and the shipping of American jobs to China and Mexico. Can't see how starving the free universal education system could have anything to do with it. It can't be because of all that expenditure of public wealth on the liberal project of empire-building instead of on the building roads and bridges and harbors and airports and hospitals and schools and housing here at home. Can't be that. You can't blame the war on drugs, or the creation of a vast army of former inmates without jobs, or the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars on incarceration instead of education, on building prisons instead of schools. I'm sure it has nothing to do with Bill Clinton's welfare reforms. Surely it wasn't because the minimum wage wasn't linked to inflation or to worker productivity so that as the decades rolled by low end jobs were worth less and less. Couldn't be that. Certainly it had nothing to do with the mortgage crisis. Or allowing the banks to bleed us dry. Or slashing services for the poor and middle class so that taxes for the very wealthiest could be slashed, too. I can't think what the reason might be. Can you?

“The most valuable sense of humor is the kind that enables a person to see instantly what it isn't safe to laugh at.” -- Donald Rumsfeld

Many of you frequent flyers will recall that for a time TSA had signs and loudspeakers prohibiting humor attacks at security checkpoints. “You are reminded that any inappropriate remarks or jokes concerning security may result in your arrest,” warned one loudspeaker message in Dallas last fall. It's ironic that a sign at Burbank's Bob Hope Airport should say, "No jokes."

This came to mind because of the announcement this week by the U.S. Secret Service that it has issued an RFP for software that can detect sarcasm. Since we are decades from producing a computer with a sense of humor, it's likely the service will have to make do with a program that sorts through a giant database of pre-screened tweets and emails looking for tells: wannabe terrorists would do well to get in the habit now of putting smiley faces and LOLs in all their social media posts.

The fact that no one can be absolutely certain the Secret Service itself isn't kidding is evidence of how difficult a task deciphering snide remarks will be. The safest thing is probably to assume that, like TSA, the service is deficient in the skill set needed to detect and catalog gradations of wit, and to try to help them out with some practical alternatives. I started to suggest that, instead of wasting resources developing software that will never be operational, the service ask working comics to apply their expertise to the problem, until I remembered that the functionaries interviewing prospective government humor analysts would be the same ones who can't see the whimsy in an airport sign prohibiting jokes; they'd just end up with a government facility full of Dennis Millers.

More effective might be a change in staffing practices: the service should immediately stop hiring seminary dropouts and returning Mormon missionaries and limit their recruiting to inner city Jews, blacks, Irish and Italians.

This is a serious problem needing serious attention. We certainly don't want anyone arrested at a fund-raising dinner or a Fourth of July picnic for asking the agent groping him, "Do you want me to do you now?," let alone for bringing up his fling with Hitler's mother.

“Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.” -- William James

Clarification

The government of China is charged with spying on behalf of companies it owns. This is completely different from the American government's spying on behalf of companies that own it.

The War Party outvotes the Democrats and Republicans

This is not an endorsement of his candidacy -- no doubt there are other issues to consider, but it's worth noting that in his campaign Ted Lieu, one of the horde running to succeed Henry Waxman, has taken a stand against unconstitutional domestic spying.

That this is important is demonstrated by the fact that Jim Sensenbrenner's Orwellian USA Freedom Act just breezed through the House, 303-121 (here's the roll, if you want to see how your rep voted). Most members from both parties are eager to continue unconstitutional, warrant-less bulk spying against U.S. citizens. Leaders of the opposition included the reliable Florida firebrand Alan Grayson and our own Zoe Lofgren, who in debate said "regrettably, we have learned that if we leave any ambiguity in the law, the intelligence agencies run a truck right through that ambiguity."

Only 70 Democrats and 51 Republicans voted against the bill, which enables and codifies large-scale, unconstitutional domestic spying. No incumbent who voted for this monstrosity (looking at you, Nancy Pelosi) deserves your vote on June 3rd or in November. Many CA Democrats did vote to protect constitutional rights, but citizens in places like Mill Valley, the Bay Area, Davis, Sacramento, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, the Coachella Valley and San Diego need to ask themselves if they are outraged enough to withhold their support from the likes of Pelosi, Jared Huffman, John Garamendi, Mike Thompson, Doris Matsui, Ami Bera, Jim Costa, Lois Capps, Julia Brownley, Judy Chu, Adam Schiff, Brad Sherman, Grace Napolitano, Raul Ruiz, Linda Sánchez, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Maxine Waters, Juan Vargas, Scott Peters and Susan Davis.

With so many candidates in contention, the open primary next month gives you an opportunity to express your support for constitutional government.

Ain't it the truth

"From our use of drones to the detention of terrorist suspects, the decisions we are making will define the type of nation and world that we leave to our children." -- President Barack Obama, 2013-05-23

Know your place

I realize it was unseemly for irascible congressman Alan Grayson to openly lobby for a seat on John Boehner's select committee to "investigate" the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi!, and no doubt speaker-in-exile Nancy Pelosi saw it as a test of her authority (what isn't?), but it's counterproductive not appoint the aggressive former prosecutor to challenge what he called the GOP's "dredging up one fake scandal after another fake scandal"? Pelosi's selection of Elijah Cummings, the ranking member on Darrell Issa's out-of-control and off-the-wall House Oversight Committee, was probably unavoidable, but the rest of the choices -- Adam Smith, Adam Schiff, Linda Sanchez and Tammy Duckworth -- are reliable backbenchers who can be trusted not to make too much of a fuss over GOP bullshit.

What would Eugene Debs do?

The Democrats are attempting to con Bernie Sanders into running for president as a Democrat.

This would have two salient benefits for the Party of Wall Street.

First, it would shore up its quadrennial marketing hustle as the champion of economic justice for working people and the middle class.

Second, it would destroy Sen. Sanders reputation as an independent social democrat, effectively silencing the most effective opponent of political business-as-usual; in order to run in the party's primaries he would be required to pledge to support the eventual nominee -- if that is Hillary Clinton or someone of her ilk, as it will be, he would be committing himself to backing a politician who stands in contradiction to everything he has fought for politically.

Even if he didn't actively campaign for the Democratic ticket in the fall, his silence would undermine his credibility, and hurt the cause of reform by allowing the issues he has championed -- jobs, infrastructure, progressive taxes, fair treatment for veterans, affordable universal health care, energy efficiency, etc. -- to be ignored, and the campaign to once again to hang on the question of which candidate is the lesser evil.

Democrats Need Bernie Sanders to Run for President by Michael Kazin (The New Republic)

Heh heh

Lowering the Bar

On that day when Cyrus Vance the Enumerated, whose father was likewise a patrician Democratic Party hack, inevitably seeks higher office, he will put himself forward at best as a proponent of economic justice, at worst as the lesser of evils. Will you believe him?

The Disturbing Verdict Against Cecily McMillan by Maurice Isserman (Dissent)

Pass

The only solace I take from the news that Matt Miller is running for Congress is that I can't imagine anyone -- Left, Right or Center -- voting for him.

From the Kleptocracy Desk:

This is how American democracy is done now: To the tune of $1,000,000, according to Bloomberg News, two childhood friends of Florida state representative Paige Kreegel are bankrolling his bid for a U.S. House seat.

Danish Exceptionalism

We spend our lives swimming in a sea of propaganda about American exceptionalism, bullshit that gets in the way of our demanding benefits of citizenship that are rightfully ours.

Papa and Me

Came to my attention this morning that Ernest Hemingway and I both worked for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Just sayin'.

A little history never hurt anybody

[Striking families at Ludlow before the massacre, April 20, 1914]

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre, described by Howard Zinn as “the culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history. This was the Colorado coal strike that began in September 1913 and culminated in the ‘Ludlow Massacre’ of April 1914.” Zinn first learned of the Ludlow Massacre from a song by Woody Guthrie. The song inspired Zinn to learn more about the massacre that “nobody had ever mentioned in any of my history courses [and] which no textbook of mine had ever mentioned.”

For the centennial of this major event in labor history, the Zinn Education Project is offering resources to teach outside the textbook about the Ludlow Massacre here.

Resource: The Zinn Education Project

RIP

I can't quote a single sentence from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, yet I remember whole worlds.

Our political theater

Fred Dalton Thompson, who never quite filled the role of Senator and failed to be convincing even as a candidate for President, was "type cast" as avuncular senators, presidents and district attorneys on video and celluloid? Well, in his post-Senate career, Randal Howard "Rand" Paul looks to be a natural to play weasels, gunsels and con men.

Parthenon of Books

In December 1983 artist Marta Minujin and several helpers spent 17 days building a full-scale model of the Parthenon in a public park in Buenos Aires. It was made almost entirely of books which had been banned by the country’s former dictatorship. “The Parthenon of Books/Homage to Democracy,” as it was titled, stood for about three weeks, after which the public was permitted to disassemble the piece and keep the books.

Movement politics may be the only route to social and economic justice.

Both parties having become irrelevant and unresponsive to the majority's political needs, and with neither seemingly capable of learning from experience, the time seems ripe for a new politics. Or, more likely, a new politics is inevitable. The Greens are still active and the Working Families Party is demonstrating growing strength and relevance. The question for the Big Two is whether they will adopt the demands of a growing popular resistance -- the GOP by becoming more rightwing, the Democrats more progressive -- or, like the Whigs, to resist change and wither away.

How much better we would be served as voters, if there were -- at least -- three parties: a reactionary Republican Party (to absorb the anger and frustration of the tea party and provide a vehicle for the fantasies of libertarian fundamentalists and the brotherhood of Ayn Rand); the centrist Democrats as currently configured (to represent the interests of militarists and security staters, neoliberals and the free markets cohort, and conservatives-formerly-known-as-Republicans); and on the left a Progressive People's Party (for the middle class and working poor, New Dealers, traditional liberals, progressives, social democrats and the rest of the 90% or so of the people presently unrepresented by the two establishment parties).

It has been more than 40 years since the U.S. began its long, slow decline into militarism, corporatism and the cult of laissez-faire, and it's unlikely that the Republicans and Democrats can fix problems they made. Decades of austerity for the poor and socialism for the rich have left them compromised and bloated by self-interest. It is now up to an angry citizenry to compel change.

The rest of the story:
-> "Today, the labor movement has been largely subdued, and social activists have made their peace with neoliberalism and adjusted their horizons accordingly. Within the women’s movement, goals have shifted from practical objectives such as comparable worth and universal child care in the 1980s to celebrating appointments of individual women to public office and challenging the corporate glass ceiling. Dominant figures in the antiwar movement have long since accepted the framework of American military interventionism. The movement for racial justice has shifted its focus from inequality to 'disparity,' while neatly evading any critique of the structures that produce inequality. The sources of this narrowing of social vision are complex. But its most conspicuous expression is subordination to the agenda of a Democratic Party whose center has moved steadily rightward since Ronald Reagan’s presidency." -- Nothing Left: The long, slow surrender of American liberals by Adolph Reed Jr. (Harper's).
-> "[I]f f there’s one thing the left needs, it’s a serious talk about its future. The alternative is the continued fragmentation of an inchoate movement, accompanied by a never-ending rightward shift in American politics and the continued ascendancy of corporate economic power." -- Has the Left Surrendered? The Overdue Conversation We Need by Richard Eskow (OurFuture).
"We need to talk about transformation – social, economic, and political." Enough Recrimination. Let’s Build a Populist Movement. by Richard Eskow (OurFuture).

Jazzcats Crossing the Hudson

Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, Herbie Hancock, Charles Mingus, Sun Ra, Eric Dolphy, Steve Kuhn, Phil Ranelin, Emuir Deodato and John Coltrane crossing the Hudson in a painting by Emanuel Leitze.

April is Jazz Appreciation Month.

Time to kick out the War Party.

If neither major party candidates in races for Senate, House or Prez in 2014 and 2016 will commit clearly and unequivocally to slashing military spending, vote for a third party or independent who will. If there isn't one in a particular race, don't vote; your abstention in protest will mean more than your endorsement of Business As Usual. The only way to force radical change is the behave radically.

Want to know more about why the F-35 is a bad deal for America? Check out Brave New Films new video here.

IP

It has always been common for retailers of a stripe to cluster together (think music instrument vendors and diamond merchants in midtown). There are several mega-projects in the development stage around the city. Why not hold one condition of project approval to be the inclusion of a street with, say, half the retail space reserved at affordable rents for booksellers? Rent control for bookstores.

What would the world be like if Native Americans had invaded Europe instead of the other way around?

Disservice animals

Service dogs transform the lives of many thousands of people with disabilities.

Why would you undermine that essential service by ordering fake collars and harnesses from mail-order companies just so your little shit-su doesn't have to wait outside for five minutes while you get your grande double-shot soy green tea latte with no sweetener?

Unintended Consequence, type 3: Perverse result

The State Department needs to be careful in its reaction to the Crimean situation. We don't want to box ourselves into having to oppose the secession of Texas on principle.

What's at stake

"The torture was widespread, vicious and conducted in secret 'black sites' around the globe. This is what is being lost in the Beltway power struggle between Sen Feinstein and the CIA. Lives have been ruined; some in US detention died violent deaths at the hands of their captors. In the grim American gulag at Guantanamo Bay, hunger-striking prisoners charged with no crime, some of whom have been cleared for release for more than a decade, are subjected to vicious force-feeding and torture techniques that date back to the Spanish Inquisition.

"Let's hope Feinstein's indignation is not quickly salved, and that the Intelligence Committee's oversight of the sprawling US intelligence agencies is invigorated, with real teeth. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden weighed in from political asylum in Russia, saying, 'We're seeing another "Merkel Effect", where an elected official does not care at all that the rights of millions of ordinary citizens are violated by our spies, but suddenly it's a scandal when a politician finds out the same thing happens to them." -- Amy Goodman in The Guardian (UK) March 13, 2014

Barbarism in Louisiana

Glenn Ford, a black man wrongfully convicted of murder by an all-white jury in Louisiana in 1984, a man who has spent the last 30 years on death row for a crime he did not commit following a trial filled with constitutional violations, is on the verge of being set free. Once that happens (and it could happen as soon as tomorrow after a hearing in the case) he will become one of the longest-serving death row inmates in modern American history to be exonerated and released.

Ford’s dogged lawyers and enlightened parish prosecutors in Shreveport both filed motions late last week informing a state trial judge that the time has come now to vacate Ford’s murder conviction and death sentence. Why? Because prosecutors now say that they learned, late last year, of “credible evidence” that Ford “was neither present at, nor a participant in, the robbery and murder” of the victim in his case, a man named Isadore Rozeman. -- Andrew Cohen (The Atlantic)

“After 30 years, Louisiana’s longest-serving death row prisoner will get his freedom soon. Glenn Ford is living proof of just how flawed our justice system truly is. We are moved that Mr. Ford, an African American man convicted by an all-white jury, will be able to leave death row a survivor. We are more determined than ever to put an end to the death penalty, once and for all.” -- Thenjiwe Tameika McHarris, Amnesty International USA Senior Campaigner

The rest of the story:
✓ Death Penalty (Amnesty International)
✓ A case involving a black man convicted by an all-white jury in Louisiana decades ago may be reopened: Freedom After 30 Years on Death Row by Andrew Cohen (The Atlantic)

How does holding religious property exempt from property taxes not amount to "an establishment of religion."

Third Parties Can Win

"When the major parties agree, as they often do in supporting, say, corporate-style education reform, a third party can promote ideas and issues that would be otherwise neglected. In Oregon, for example, the [Working Families Party] worked with local student groups to put forward a plan for rethinking college funding. They found a WFP-backed Democrat to sponsor it, and the measure wound up passing unanimously in the state legislature. The party is now working on a bill that would

The Working Families Party's Sauda Baraka 

create a state bank to invest Oregon’s public money at home instead of with Wall Street and provide cheaper loans to state residents. Such proposals are unlikely to come from the major parties, which each receive massive campaign contributions from big banks, even at the state level.

"Around the country, the party also backs familiar proposals like paid sick leave and an increase in the minimum wage. Though these initiatives didn’t originate with the WFP, the party’s 15 years of clout has given it enough leverage in the states where it works to demand politicians take a position. Elected officials who have had or want the WFP’s backing— which means on-the-ground support come election time as well as a stamp of progressive approval—have an incentive to back its policies.

"'Power has both an ideological element and a straight political muscle element,' says [WFP co-founder Dan] Cantor. 'Can you actually deliver the energy, ideas, troops, money, tactics, morale, volunteers that are needed in any given fight? The fight might be an issue campaign or an electoral campaign. What I think is quite delightful about Working Families is we do both.'”

The rest of the story:
With new strategies, the Working Families Party is shaking up the two-party system: The Third Party That’s Winning by Sarah Jaffe (In These Times)

Bernie Sanders for President!

I'm taken to task as impractical, unfairly I think, for suggesting Bernie Sanders and Bill Moyers should be president and vice-president.

But I was being practical.

If I was being idealistic, I'd have suggested Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader for those jobs.

Snews

The State Department reported Thursday that an increasing number of governments are suppressing political opponents and restricting freedom of assembly. Somehow it did so without mentioning the United States' huge gulag of minor drug offenders, capital punishment, routine solitary confinement, declining press freedom, the war on whistle blowers, political prisoners and mass deportations. Can you say hypocrisy?

Climate change.

Australia is going to burn to cinder. All those little island nations are going to be Atlantisized.

We've got gobs of land. Let's give them space to relocate.

The population of Australia would fit comfortably in Kansas. The entire nation of Kiribati could disappear into Queens or Brooklyn without a trace.

The first generation would work hard, vastly increase the number of neighborhood retailers and food shops, and send all their kids to college. And the second generation would move to Manhattan or L.A. or the Bay Area and become programmers, artists and stand-up comedians.

Win-win.

Third party? Now? How about now? No? Maybe now?

The arguments for a People's Party become ever more compelling. Clinging to the faith that the Democrats any more than the Republicans will dismantle the corporate-security state is like believing in angels.

In a new book, Ralph Nader reminds us that the militarization of American diplomacy began with Bill Clinton and that Obama has doubled down on the excesses of George Bush and Dick Cheney. In Unstoppable, Nader demands an end to “unconstitutional wars and unchecked militarism.” Barack Obama, he writes, “has extended the Bush doctrine by declaring his unilateral right, as secret prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner, to destroy anybody, anywhere in the world, including American citizens, suspected to be engaged in alleged terrorist activities, all this vaguely and loosely defined as anti-U.S. security," extending the illegal reach of wars of choice, invasions, incursions, and drone attacks, without regard for international law or national boundaries.

For the average citizen, the growth of corporate power bolstered by the security apparatus has been matched by a corresponding decline in quality of life. Enough is enough. Building new organizations, like a third party, and restoring old ones, like the Labor Movement, to challenge the status quo will not be easy. But without that effort, our national decline, now in its fifth decade. will continue until it is irreversible.

Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State by Ralph Nader (Amazon Kindle).

Tipping point?

A lot of Americans aren't just fearful; they are hopeless.

And while our circumstances do appear dire, there are several things worth remembering. One is that we can't predict future, so really we have no certainty that our nation's reversal of the last four decades will continue. Another thing to keep in mind is that when change does happen, it's often quick and unexpected.

We know that there are activists around the world working to make the place healthier and fairer; it's possible that their labors will come to nothing, that global capitalism and climate change will put an end to our little Enlightenment experiment.

But what if the failures of capitalism and the efforts to create alternatives are each reaching critical mass? What if change is going to come?

When you get involved in your community to build democratized economies, you are part of the global transformation: There's a Broad Consensus Among Activists Across the Country — Is Social Change Around the Corner? by Kevin Zeese, Margaret Flowers (AlterNet).

Just Do It

Devo "inspired us by demonstrating that art is all about conception, execution comes last." - Bob Lefsetz

Yes, You Will Be Able to Print Food with Your 3-D Printer

Interviewer: "... I know you have the necklace here made from 3D printer, and you have the purse over there. What other things down the road do you think 3D printing can really help with?"

ing: "The area that I'm very excited about is certainly metal to produce materials that are lighter and stronger and more flexible. Ceramic -- anything that you use ceramic to do can all be changed into 3D printing. It's exciting.

"And medical and bioscience, like one of the companies I'm involved with as advisor is printing meat and leather with slaughterhouses. So if one cow can feed an entire nation, we can produce high-quality protein to developing countries without having this unsustainable way of raising cows."

Interviewer: "How does that work? It still sounds like science fiction."

Ping: "Those will take longer. It's already possible today to print ground meat, but it's not quite there yet to print the consistency of steak or chicken or pork. But there are lots of hamburger patties and dumpling fillings, right?...The way it works is it uses stem-cell tissue engineering and in-vitro technology to print the structure of those natural meats and then let it grow. It's very exciting." -- from an interview with Ping Fu, author of Bend, Not Break - A Life in Two Worlds.