On January 31, family farmers will take part in the first phase of a court case filed to protect farmers from genetic trespass by Monsanto’s GMO seed, which contaminates organic and non-GMO farmer’s crops and opens them up to abusive lawsuits. In the past two decades, Monsanto’s seed monopoly has grown so powerful that they control the genetics of nearly 90% of five major commodity crops including corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and sugar beets.
In many cases farmers are forced to stop growing certain crops to avoid genetic contamination and potential lawsuits. Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto admits to filing 144 lawsuits against America’s family farmers, while settling another 700 out of court for undisclosed amounts. Due to these aggressive lawsuits, Monsanto has created an atmosphere of fear in rural America and driven dozens of farmers into bankruptcy. Please join us in standing up for family farmers everywhere against Monsanto's abusive seed monopoly.
Presidential candidate Barack Obama won the Democratic primary last time around largely on the strength of his extremely limited and inconsistent opposition to the war on Iraq. Then he chose as his running mate Senator Joe Biden, a man who had led efforts in the U.S. Senate to support the invasion. Obama's staff told reporters that he would be inclined to keep Robert Gates on as Secretary of War (or “Defense”) — exactly the same plan proposed by Senator John McCain's campaign. Obama said he'd like Colin Powell to be a part of his administration, and repeatedly announced that his cabinet would include Republicans. Obama had approached leading warmonger Congressman Rahm Emanuel about becoming his chief of staff.
Obama's commitment to de-escalation in Iraq was questionable, and his commitment to complete withdrawal nonexistent. He supported the idea of launching attacks on Pakistan and Syria. He said he wanted more troops in Afghanistan and wanted them there for a long, long time. Three times in three debates McCain proposed cutting military spending and Obama avoided the topic. Obama proposed significantly enlarging the largest military the world had ever seen. Obama refused to forswear the use of aggressive war or even first-strike nuclear attacks. He claimed that Bush and Cheney had not committed any crimes that he was aware of.
To buy much of this requires you to hold deeply ridiculous beliefs about the American economy. You must believe that Obama bears responsibility for events that predate his presidency and deserves applause for the demand created by aging cars and worn- down machinery. You must believe that Congress, which controls fiscal policy, and the Federal Reserve, which controls monetary policy, bear little or no responsibility for the economy, but that the president, who controls neither fiscal nor monetary policy, is the primary driver of job creation. You must believe that governors have absolute power over state economies and that global demand is irrelevant. You must also renounce belief in Christmas — or at least its influence on the consumer-driven economy.
Virtually no one really believes these things. But partisans and the news media routinely act as if they are true. They make up a useful shorthand that is arguably good for the political system: Better for presidents to believe re-election hinges on economic performance than, say, on the quality of their attack ads.
Yesterday I had the satisfaction of having a pleasant conversation with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I had not seen him since 2006, more than five years ago, when he visited our country to participate in the 14th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement of Countries in Havana. During the summit, Cuba was elected for the second time as president of the organization for a three-year term.
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With all four I spoke about some of the difficulties facing the world at the time; problems that have become progressively more complex.
Turn off your televisions. Ignore the Newt-Mitt-Rick-Barack reality show. It is as relevant to your life as the gossip on “Jersey Shore.” The real debate, the debate raised by the Occupy movement about inequality, corporate malfeasance, the destruction of the ecosystem, and the security and surveillance state, is the only debate that matters. You won’t hear it on the corporate-owned airwaves and cable networks, including MSNBC, which has become to the Democratic Party what Fox News is to the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party. You won’t hear it on NPR or PBS. You won’t read about it in our major newspapers. The issues that matter are being debated, however, on “Democracy Now!,” Link TV, The Real News, Occupy websites and Revolution Truth. They are being raised by journalists such as Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi. You can find genuine ideas in corners of the Internet or in books by political philosophers such as Sheldon Wolin. But you have to go looking for them.
Voting will not alter the corporate systems of power. Voting is an act of political theater. Voting in the United States is as futile and sterile as in the elections I covered as a reporter in dictatorships like Syria, Iran and Iraq. There were always opposition candidates offered up by these dictatorships. Give the people the illusion of choice. Throw up the pretense of debate. Let the power elite hold public celebrations to exalt the triumph of popular will. We can vote for Romney or Obama, but Goldman Sachs and ExxonMobil and Bank of America and the defense contractors always win. There is little difference between our electoral charade and the ones endured by the Syrians and Iranians. Do we really believe that Obama has, or ever had, any intention to change the culture in Washington?
Phi Beta Iota: Brother Hedges is missing the big picture. He's right on the fundamentals–where the real debate is–but he is missing the very real possibilities represented by We the People Reform Coalition. Neither the Green Party (accredited) nor the Justice Party (not accredited) have the strategic understanding necessary to flip the system. That can only be found at We the People Reform Coalition, and its two-step plan for leveraging our collective power to demand the Electoral Reform Act of 2012 in time to allow a third wave – a coalition cabinet, not just a solitary individual president – to be elected, effectively trashing the two-party tyranny in a non-violent legitimizing revolution. The economy is being “juiced”, unemployment is actually 22.4%, we anticipate a humongous socio-economic crash in the USA in 2013-2014, and speculate that this will lead to a violent revolution that begins with burning to the ground the mansions of those who comprise the 1%, most of them rapidly going into exile.
US: For the record. Declaring “war” on the United States, a militant Palestinian faction — Ma'sadat al-Mujahidin — claimed responsibility for a 19 January forest fire near Reno, Nevada. The group threatened more action and set a 3-month deadline for the “enemies of Islam” to “disavow” Israel's control of contested lands and its “actions against our Muslim brothers.”
Comment: Palestinians have threatened attacks inside the US, but the few details suggest American activists started this fire, if it proves to be arson. The group's bravado exceeds its demonstrated capabilities.
Phi Beta Iota: The fire was an accident, and the elderly man that disposed of hot ashes improperly has come forward. However, the combination of the accident and the false claim highlight once again how vulnerable America is to acts of man that leverage the sustained idiocy of what passes for socio-economic design. There is a race on between the forces of legitimate democracy and fundamentalist terrorism–not only Islamic fundamentalists but Christian fundamentalists and eco-terrorism fundamentalists as well as Occupy anarchists. The USA is now in Bill Moyer's Stage Six–Occupy was a grand success (and also SOPA, KEYSTONE, and the recall movements in Wisconsin and Montana)–but we are far from achieving the strategic campaign that specifically embraces each sub-movement for democracy as a distinct but coordinated elements. We the People Reform Coalition tries to do that but everyone–especially the Tea Party, Occupy, and the various splinter movements associated with Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, and Patrick Buchanan–refuse to consider a grand strategy–they are all still in the self-centered stage of “me is we” instead of “we is me.” 2012 is a turning point year at multiple levels–unless we achieve a non-violent revolution that restores the legitimacy of governances Of, By, and For, we anticipate a very violent 2013 – 2014.
The debate over corporate power and money in politics is beginning to generate some significant light – good analysis, integral thinking, creativity – as well as heat – passion, slogans, quick response. If both of these forces of nature can synergize we might get some seriously transformational results out of the process.
The Alternet article below by Steven Rosenfeld gives an excellent overview – the best I've seen so far – of many major streams of thought and action currently being played out regarding “money in politics”. It is an excellent contribution to helping us see the bigger landscape through which all these streams are flowing. (After the article, I've excerpted nine of the best comments on it, the ones with additional thought-provoking approaches to handling the problem.)
As a journalist, Rosenfeld is fairly – and with due complexity – presenting diverse perspectives so that we – citizens, activists, voters – can see them with all their strengths and weaknesses and make up our own minds. This is a gigantic gift and, in my view, one of the highest forms of journalism. The subsequent comments add to such journalism's service to our democratic collective intelligence.
But something is still missing. Even higher forms of democratic collective intelligence can be called forth, more dynamic uses of this rich diversity, namely productive conversations of the following two types:
