You are part of an unbroken line of heroes spanning two centuries — from the colonists who overthrew an empire, to your grandparents and parents who faced down fascism and communism, to you — men and women who fought for the same principles in Fallujah and Kandahar, and delivered justice to those who attacked us on 9/11.

The most important lesson that we can take from you is not about military strategy –- it’s a lesson about our national character. Because of you, we are ending these wars in a way that will make America stronger and the world more secure.

— President Barack Obama, Address to Troops at Fort Bragg, December 14, 2011

The lies of war are forgotten as easily and readily as the wrappings of Christmas or the resolutions of a new year.  Like a child still in diapers, the lessons of war must be learned again and again until finally they are taken to heart.

The lies of the war in Iraq are so easily buried that six out of seven Republican candidates for president of the United States have publicly pledged to go to war in Iran based on the identical unsubstantiated claims that led us to war in Iraq.  The lessons of that ill-fated war, the largest strategic blunder since Vietnam, are so readily put behind us that even before that colossal disaster officially ended, six of seven Republican candidates pledged his and her allegiance to the same neoconservative brain trust that guided us into the snake pit.  And the White House is not far behind.

Those of us who remember the war in Vietnam and the years we committed to ending it will find the bipartisan rationalizations of the Iraq War all too familiar and profoundly disturbing.

The lie that drove the Vietnam War was the Domino Theory:  If we lose one nation to the red menace of communism, then we will lose them all.  On that basis, three generations of western powers (Britain, France and America) chose a little country on the doorstep of China as their playground of war.

It required over three million lives to prove that a child’s game was not a legitimate basis for a foreign policy.  It only made sense because it fit on a bumper sticker and because our leaders were dominated by military minds in search of power, glory and the spoils of empire.

The great postwar lie of Vietnam was that we lost the war because we were never fully committed.  The politicians in Washington held our generals back.  Between 1965 and 1968 we dropped over a million tons of missiles, bombs and rockets on North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia but we were never fully committed.  We sprayed 12 million gallons of the deadly chemical defoliant Agent Orange over wide swaths of Southeast Asia but we were not fully committed.  At the height of the war in 1968 we deployed over half a million soldiers, including the first conscripts since the Korean War, but we were not fully committed.

Short of nuclear bombs, we were as committed to that unjustifiable war as any nation could have been yet the lies of war survive.  The lies of war take on mythological characteristics and believing them becomes a ritual of patriotism.

Little wonder we commit the same strategic mistakes, the same errors in judgment, the same acts of criminal inhumanity, the same ultimately desperate and self-destroying measures over and over again.

In the wake of Vietnam, America’s leaders were confined to small-scale interventions until George Herbert Walker Bush, former Director of the CIA, conspired to wage war in Iraq.  Though the Gulf War was short-lived, its military success inspired President Bush to announce: “The specter of Vietnam has been buried forever in the desert sands of the Arabian Peninsula.”

Forever was not a long time as his eldest son was to initiate two wars that brought the specter of Vietnam back into focus.  One was the ongoing ten-year war in Afghanistan and the other was a return to his father’s war in Iraq.

Few will recall the lies of the father but the lies of the son are too fresh to be so soon forgotten.  They include not only the infamous weapons of mass destruction but also the later claim that virtually all the world believed the lie.  For the record, we lost our appeal before the United Nations Security Council to justify military action on the basis of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.  The International Atomic Energy Agency thoroughly debunked our claims and the measure was withdrawn when it became clear that the Council would vote overwhelmingly against our cause for war.

Members of the Bush administration falsely claimed that Saddam Hussein was a party to the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.  They falsely claimed that Iraq harbored and worked with Al Qaeda operatives.  These claims were so clearly and demonstrably false that even President Bush was forced ultimately to disavow them.

The lies of war had served their purpose.  Once the first bombs lit up the Baghdad skyline, supporting the war became a matter of patriotism.

The next lie was that our actions had nothing to do with Iraqi oil and everything to do with establishing democracy in the Arab world.  That lie was exposed when our first action was to protect the oil fields.  Well before an Iraqi government could be established we contracted Iraqi oil to the highest corporate bidders.  Mission accomplished.

The lies of war are really not that difficult to detect.  It only requires an open mind, an appetite for facts, and a willingness to think.

The lies of the Iraq War will survive unless those of us who witnessed them, from the soldiers who sacrificed to the citizens who supported and opposed them, unless each of us vows to accept the truth and pass that horrid account forward to future generations.

We can be grateful that a president elected largely on the promise of ending the Iraq War has officially done so, though we remain mindful that thousands of American-hired mercenaries remain behind to guard the largest diplomatic embassy on earth.

We understand at our stage of development that a president cannot apologize for the harm done in the name of our nation.

We understand the wisdom of separating the war from the warrior.

We know the president cannot inform our soldiers that they were fighting the wrong war for the wrong reasons.

But when the president announces that we have created an opportunity for the Iraqis to thrive and prosper as a democratic nation, he is not only being disingenuous; he is perpetuating the lies of war.  When the president declares that our fight in Iraq was for Iraqi freedom and international justice, he is paving the way for another unjust war in America’s future.  He is attempting to bury the specter of Vietnam.

Leaving Afghanistan for another day, we should all agree that the Iraq War was wrong from its inception.  It was never about democracy.  It was never about justice.  It was always about oil and strategic advantage.

Wrong is wrong.

We have heard this song before.  It takes us back to the soaring oratory that uplifted the masses and propelled a one-term senator to the presidency.  Then as now, the president correctly and brilliantly deconstructs the problem: The middle class is under siege, hemorrhaging skilled and unskilled jobs to cheap labor markets overseas, resulting in depressed wages and declining benefits, depleted retirement funds, union busting and unregulated industries.

But, then as now, his solutions fail to approach the heart of the matter.  Proclaiming a new world economy based on innovation, he advocates government funding for research and education, science and engineering, progressive taxation, regulation, consumer protection and a commitment to building and rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure.

These are all worthy ideas that the president strings together with a rising intonation in order to avoid the obvious, central and core solution.  Consequently, he builds to a dull crescendo, sounding a sour chord and all too familiar refrain:  Technology and innovation will save us.

The president prides himself on his knowledge of history, so much so that he summoned the memory of Theodore Roosevelt in this address.  Unfortunately, history does not uphold his case.  Technology and innovation have never sustained the middle class.  They have created fortunes and whole industries but how it affects the working people depends entirely on where the industries are located and how the workers are paid.

Take a good look at the major innovations of the Free Trade era:  The personal computer, the laptop and the smart phone are all made in China and serviced in India.  Solar technology created advanced solar collectors and panels, creating a thriving industry in China.  Hybrid vehicles may be assembled in America but by-and-large they are constructed in foreign nations where the cost of labor trumps all other concerns.  Even our bridges are made in China.

Within the parameters of a global Free Trade economy, there is no innovation that can revive American industry.  The idea that innovation and education are going to create jobs for 300 million Americans is a pipe dream, a fantasy and, in this case, an excuse not to address the heart of the matter.

The obvious answer and the one that perpetually evades the president and the majority of his party is Fair Trade.  American workers can compete and win on a fair playing field but no one can compete with dirt-cheap labor.  The masterminds behind the new global economy have built corporate profits by exploiting the cheapest possible labor overseas and simultaneously undermining labor in our own country.

What is Fair Trade?  It is built on the conviction that all nations that engage our nation in trade should uphold the rights of labor, including the right to organize, and pay their workers living wages.

How would Fair Trade be implemented?  The most direct route would be to reserve preferred trade status to nations that protect the rights of labor, provide basic health and retirement benefits, and pay living wages to their workforce.  All other nations would be subject to a tariff proportionate to the cost of compliance.

The message to China, India and all other nations that now benefit from the imbalance of trade would be clear:  Pay your workers at home or pay to protect our workers at the border.

Human rights and the critical issue of carbon emissions also come into the equation but if the goal is rebuilding American industry, then the heart of the matter is labor.

Why is Fair Trade off the table?  There was a time when simply raising the cry of “Protectionism” could defeat any such proposal but after decades of job exportation, Americans are losing their fear of words.  Protecting our workers in the current environment is a moral imperative.

Accordingly, Fair Trade is alive and well in the United States Congress.  Even Republicans in the House and Senate are afraid to go on record in opposition.  The Trade Reform Accountability Development and Employment Act proposed by Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Representative Michael Michaud of Maine would fundamentally reshape America’s trade policy, bringing labor to the forefront.

Unfortunately, the silence of the White House enables congressional leadership to keep the measure from coming to the floor for a vote.  President Obama presses forward on Free Trade deals with Korea, Columbia and Panama, ensuring the exportation of jobs to even more nations.

Even progressive economists are reluctant to address trade policy, preferring to attack trade imbalance through so-called currency manipulation.  The idea is if our trading partners increased the value of their currency it would be more expensive to buy their goods and less expensive for them to buy ours.  If the revaluation were large enough and sustained, it would certainly have an effect.

The problem with the currency approach is that it allows the tenets of Free Trade to stand.  It does not end the anti-labor measures enforced by austerity regimes under the dictates of the International Monetary Fund.  That is why even the prototypical corporate candidate, Republican Mitt Romney, feels free to advocate punitive actions against China based on the charge of currency manipulation.  It leaves workers out on the lurch and the rights of labor out of the picture.  Moreover, all nations manipulate currency.  That is the primary function of the Federal Reserve.

Of course, if we were to insist that other nations respect the rights of labor, we would have to do a better job of protecting our own workers.  We could no longer allow individual states to effectively crush unions with so-called Right to Work laws.  We could no longer allow legislative attacks on collective bargaining without paying a price.

It is as if the entire liberal establishment, from the politicians to the intellectuals to the media, signed on to Bill Clinton’s Free Trade mandate back in the eighties and have adhered to that agreement ever since.

It was a deal with the devil, a betrayal of every working man and woman not only in America but throughout the world, and it demands to be revisited now.

In 2008 candidate Barack Obama said, “I voted against CAFTA, never supported NAFTA, and will not support NAFTA–style trade agreements in the future. While NAFTA gave broad rights to investors, it paid only lip service to the rights of labor and the importance of environmental protection.”

Where is that candidate now?  He disappeared upon taking the oath of office.

In retrospect, it seems amply clear that candidate Obama made a deal with Wall Street, his leading campaign contributors, before he embarked on his road to the White House.  Fair Trade was off limits.  It was the one territory he could not visit.  It was the one line he could not cross.

An original sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act (an affirmation of the right to organize and establish a union by majority vote) had President Obama remembered his labor roots in his address at Osawatomie, had he raised the banner of Fair Trade to initiate his campaign for a second term, then that address might have stood alongside Teddy Roosevelt’s New Nationalism or Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal inaugural address.

As it stands, it is the perfect symbol of his presidency to date:  A promise unfulfilled.

If we were to initiate the age of Fair Trade, it would fundamentally change the debate and ultimately alter the structure of the global economy.  The world would face a choice.  The European people would insist that their governments follow our lead.  China and India would fight back but they are as dependent on us as we are on them.  A bargain would be struck and a transition would be negotiated.

America would win back her industries and the middle class would re-emerge at the heart of the global economy.

It will happen in any case.  It is inevitable.  To continue on the path we are on will lead only to massive civil unrest and the result will be the same.  By initiating Fair Trade now we could avoid much of that inevitable pain and disruption.

If only we had a leader with the courage to break his pact with Wall Street in order to keep his promise to the American people.

I know the police cause you trouble
They cause trouble everywhere
But when you die and go to heaven
There’ll be no policeman there

— Hobo’s Lullaby by Goebel Reeves

On September 17, 2011, a group of protesters gathered at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan under the banner:  Occupy Wall Street.  Within weeks the Occupy movement and its message of income inequality and corporate dominance of the political process spread across the nation and the globe.  By the end of October occupations were reported in some 2,000 cities worldwide.

On or about November 10, a conference call engaging some eighteen American cities initiated a coordinated crackdown on OWS encampments.  Police actions from that day forward have been persistent, forceful and often violent.  How else do you explain the use of tear gas, pepper spray, batons and pepper pellets to disperse, corral and arrest non-violent protesters?

Evidence has emerged that federal authorities, including Homeland Security, were tapped to advise or coordinate the assault.  While a contentious debate has broken out concerning the particulars, who else but a federal agent could have coordinated mayors and police chiefs in disparate communities across the nation?

Moreover, if it is not so, where are the denials?  What political advantage can be gained by maintaining neutrality in this fight?  Is the president with us or with them?  As the late great Howard Zinn said:  You can’t be neutral on a moving train.

To the students who were pepper sprayed or the activists who were gassed or the protesters who were clubbed, it does not matter who gave the order or who remained silent to maintain deniability.

It probably did not matter who gave the orders to the officers on the street either.  The orders were given and the officers carried them out.  But it might have mattered how those orders were phrased.

I know something about what it is to be an officer of the law.  My father patrolled a beat in our town for twenty years.  In the summer of Watts he served as a liaison to the minority community.  An honest, fair and impartial cop, he told me what his captain said as he was called to duty at the community college where students were staging a protest of the Vietnam War:  “We are supposed to uphold the law and keep the peace.  We’re not supposed to take sides… but you know what side we’re on!”

I learned then that there were two kinds of law officers:  cops and pigs.  My father was a cop.  Those who lead with their clubs, those who pepper spray student protesters, and those who form lines of oppression against peaceful demonstrators and clear the way with tear gas and rubber bullets are pigs.

As a general lot, cops have always tended to be reactionary and intolerant.  Confronted with any dissident group, raw instinct draws them to an adversarial posture.  When pressed into crowd control they strike a pose and draw a line:  Us versus Them.

My father knew better back then and the police on the streets should know better now.  The cause of the occupiers is fundamentally different than the antiwar demonstrators.  The very same people the occupiers oppose are waging war against police, firefighters, teachers and nurses.  Police forces across the nation are being downsized, their salaries and benefits under assault, their right to collective bargaining challenged and their unions under siege.

The rest of the workforce faces job exportation.  Public employees face privatization.  Charter schools are just an excuse to hire non-union teachers.  Private security forces will soon replace police and private contractors will take over fire departments in the name of budgetary restraint.

The occupiers speak for everyone who draws a paycheck.  Consider that the next time you are called to clear out an occupied encampment.  Consider it a dress rehearsal for the Hoovervilles to come, when thousands upon thousands erect makeshift camps not out of choice but out of necessity.

As for the mayors who gave the stamp of approval for this crackdown, your political careers are over.  The occupiers were doing your job.  They were performing a public service.  They provided food, shelter, clothing and care for the forgotten homeless.

We could see the writing on the wall early on.  At first the media was intrigued.  They characterized the occupy movement as the Tea Party of the left and tried to frame it as a partisan divide.  But the occupiers refused to sell out.  It was not a partisan movement.  The media then stepped up its criticism:  The movement was without leaders and without a clear message.  (Ironically, the message was as clear as ending the war.  It could easily be summarized as taking back our government from the corporate elite.  Us against Them.)  Next, they began to focus on health and safety, rats and public urination.  (Welcome to life on the streets.)  They took their cues from the mayors and ran stories on the detrimental effects on small businesses and the costs of policing the occupations.

It was all smoke screen.  It was all prelude to the crackdown that was to come.  The corporate media answers to their corporate masters and they tipped their hands.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the presidential wannabe with his Wall Street pedigree, took the lead in showing America how to step on the little guys who dared stand up against the real power brokers of the world.  How does libertarianism square with suppressing freedom of speech and the right to assemble in protest?  As if we didn’t already know, the mayor made it clear whom he stands with in his irrepressible quest for the highest office.

It’s over, Bloomberg.  You might have thought the media blockade was a stroke of genius but it didn’t work out.  We’re all reporters now and every act of brutality was recorded for posterity.

Before you pat yourself on the back, you didn’t stop the movement.  You only pushed it back.  You can’t kill an idea.  The movement will transform, grow and prosper.  It is written in the wind.  You might as well try to shoot down the sun.

As for the men and women in blue, the next time you are called to action to enforce crowd control on nonviolent protesters, the next time you are ordered to clear encampments in parks and public spaces, remember who cut your health benefits after September 11, remember who cut your wages and broke your unions, remember why your children will not be going to the university, remember how your neighbors lost their jobs, their homes, their pensions and take a step back.

t’s us against them and, like it or not, you are with us.

In today’s political universe, progressives have no place to go but Democrat.  So it is for minorities, labor advocates, environmentalists and antiwar protesters.  There is no choice in electoral politics but to side with the milquetoast moderates of the Democratic Party.

In this environment of winner-take-all and take it for granted politics, the most populous state in the union is also the most neglected and under-represented.  That is why a Democratic White House can get away with policies and programs that disregard the interests of California with a callousness that borders on disdain.

Things have gotten so bad in the golden state that even members of the Milquetoast Party are beginning to raise their voices:  Thirty two representatives of the California congressional caucus recently went public with their plea for effective relief from the foreclosure crisis, an ongoing catastrophe that blocks any chance of real recovery from the Great Recession.

On the heals of that failure to take effective action, the Obama Justice Department has actively declared war on the one segment of the California economy that shows great promise:  Medical Marijuana.

The Obama administration initially signaled that the federal government would not enforce drug laws against marijuana where voters had sanctioned it for medicinal purposes.  Then, without cause or reason, Attorney General Eric Holder woke up one day with a new religion.  He had seen the enemy and it was not Al Qaeda, it was not Mexican drug lords and the American gun dealers who supply them arms.  No, it was California pot growers, suppliers and anyone associated with the expanding industry, including media outlets that accepted advertisements.

It is time for Californians to unite behind the common interest of economic survival.  It is time for us all to speak out against the White House and its agents in the Justice Department.  It is time to deliver a simple demand:

Cease and desist!

We are already suffering the effects of your failure to bail out the poor, the dispossessed and what remains of a disintegrating middle class.  If you cannot help us and it is clear you have no intention of doing so, then at least get out of the way while we attempt to climb out of the ravine.

We have stood on the sidelines while your administration has churned out one Republican policy after another and called it victory.  We have stood by in near silence as you extended the Bush tax cuts for the elite, rolled back soft-core Wall Street regulation, peddled a health insurance mandate as comprehensive reform and offered up Social Security to the Republican god of deficit reduction.

That you are speaking out for jobs now when you know it has no chance of passing congress is pure political theater.  We know what follows:  Another temporary payroll tax reduction financed by creative cuts to so-called entitlement programs.  It will not be enough.  It will not even be close to enough.  You cannot plug the dam after it is broken.

As the Occupy Wall Street spreads and goes global, accomplishing more for the burgeoning victim class in four weeks than you will have been able to do in four years, what is your answer?  With enthusiastic Republican support and the applause of chief executive officers everywhere, you push through Free Trade agreements with North Korea, Columbia and Panama.

We can almost see the smirk on your face as you confront your critics on the left:  First comes the accusation of ingratitude, then the litany of alleged accomplishments, then the excuses, the endless excuses, a broken government, Republican obstructionism, the Senate filibuster rule, and finally, the ultimate rebuttal:  What are you going to do about it?

We can rebut the former until the cow comes home but until we can answer the ultimate challenge emphatically and decisively, we will never get anywhere with the president, with the Democratic Party or with congress.

What are we going to do about it?

The White House can attack the California economy with absolute impunity.  Wall Street is on the other coast and that is where the real money is.

What are we going to do about it?

Ask the president as he travels the land, his campaign for re-election already fully engaged:  Where do you stand on Occupy Wall Street?

When he gives the standard, patronizing answer full of empathy and passion, ask him:  What are you going to do about it?  Will you refuse to accept contributions from Wall Street power brokers and the corporate elite?  Watch him stammer like Rick Perry on the issue of immigration.

He gave his answer just last week.  A president who could not be bothered to keep his promise to labor in actively supporting the fundamental right to organize the workplace by majority vote (the Employee Free Choice Act), a president who could not spare a moment to oppose Wisconsin’s prohibition of collective bargaining for public employees while it was happening, now signals a return to the Free Trade juggernaut.

We are not fools.  We know what that means.  Whatever the short term gains in certain sectors of the economy, the long-term effect is a continuation of job loss, union busting and lower wages.

What are we going to do about it?

The best immediate answer is Occupy Wall Street.  The best long-term answer is to elect public officials who refuse to accept corporate contributions.  Remove money from the equation and the stench of corruption will slowly abate.

Until we as a people are willing to reject money politics outright, we will have no power, no influence and no control over what happens next.

[Occupy Wall Street is] a diffuse and leaderless convocation of activists against greed, corporate influence, gross social inequality and other nasty byproducts of wayward capitalism not easily extinguishable by street theater….

— Ginia Bellafante, NY Times 9/23/11

In the summer of 1968 I had finished my freshman year in high school.  By chance, I journeyed to San Francisco with some older fellow students, checked the scene at Haight-Ashbury, partied with the cast of Hair and ended up on the beach in Big Sur talking philosophy.  I was offered a hit off a joint but declined.

Later that year a friend and I hitched to a New Year’s concert at the Fillmore West.  As Cold Blood, Boz Skaggs and the Voices of East Harlem marked the hours to midnight, joints passed freely among the audience.  This time I accepted though my friend declined.

I had come to understand that marijuana was far more than a recreational drug.  It was a sacrament to the Cultural Revolution.  It signaled openness to change and a willingness to finally throw off the constraints of our upbringing.

In the ensuing years, I spent many weekends hitching to the Bay Area, breathing it all in, learning and engaging from the Haight to Washington Square to Telegraph Avenue, Peoples Park and Sproul Plaza.  It was an awakening and an apprenticeship.

We were the children of the Rockwell fifties when life was easy, hair was uniformly cropped, and ideology was a well-manicured lawn.  We did not question authority and we were constantly assured that our lives would be secure and bountiful if only we went along.

Like so many generations before us, the people who ruled over our lives and controlled our perceptions lied to us.  In the mid-sixties, we began to tear at the mask.  They were sending us off to war against people we never knew existed and whose crimes were an impenetrable abstraction.  They rejected capitalism/colonialism and somehow this made them our enemies.

They were sending us off to war, to kill and be killed in ever-growing numbers, and we were sick of it.  We demanded change.  We wanted more than an end to war.  We wanted a transformation of the very fabric of society.

I was a revolutionary in training but by the time I came of age everything had changed.  Jimi, Janis and Morrison were dead.  The nation’s original terrorists had taken the lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy.  The National Guard had gunned down student protestors Allison Krause and Jeffery Miller and bystanders William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer at Kent State University.  Ten days later police shot and killed Phillip Gibbs and James Green at a protest at Jackson State in Mississippi.

We were effectively served notice that if we continued to engage our constitutional right to gather in protest we would be shot down in the streets.  We had moved from the hope and exhilaration of Woodstock to the disillusionment and despair of Altamont.

Berkeley and San Francisco were still happening places but the movement was undergoing a transition from the external to the internal.  The revolution was over.

My time came and went.  The revolution had started without me and by the time I was ready to take my place on the front lines it was over.

Four decades later, when I read about the Occupy Wall Street movement, I am reminded of the movement that was born in San Francisco circa 1967.  It too was belittled by the mainstream media.  It too was criticized for its lack of a cohesive message.  It too refused to be defined or guided by political voices or appointed leaders.  It too was brutally attacked by the very officers who are supposed to protect its citizens.

I do not know where this movement will lead but I applaud its creation.  Like it or not, for better and worse, the late sixties cultural revolution defined a generation either in sympathy or in opposition.  Those who were fortunate enough to be there when it formed and as it spread across the nation were an important part of history.

The difference between this movement and the antiwar protests of the Bush era is that the latter had a clearly designated beginning and an end.  They were highly organized weekend events, licensed by the authorities and proceeded along a prescribed route.  When they were over, the protestors went home.  There was no attempt to occupy, no camps and no real opportunity to build relationships on common interests.

In the late sixties, the counter culture occupied People’s Park and Telegraph Avenue.  People came to San Francisco and occupied the Haight.  Students occupied university buildings and campus grounds.  The people built a movement on the grounds where they lived and found a way to survive with underground economies.

The authorities will never be afraid of a movement they can license and control.  They will never be afraid of resistance that plays by their rules.  They will never be afraid of the Tea Party or an antiwar movement that stages events, that provides portable toilets, that sells tee shirts and hands out pamphlets only to go home at the appointed time.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has the potential to become a living, breathing cultural revolution because it is leaderless and inclusive, because it is creative and diverse, and because it attracts young people and university students who have been betrayed by the economic system they have inherited.

Young people were told they had to complete higher education to compete in the new global economy.  Now all but the elite are being priced out of their universities.  Now those who take on exorbitant loans are graduating only to find there are no jobs even for them.  The high-paying, high-skill jobs have also been sent overseas.  Now they have found common ground with the rest of their generation because they are all out of a job, out of luck and out of hope.

They will come to the movement because they have a personal interest.  They will come because they know the sting of betrayal.  They will come because the only way forward is to fundamentally change the system.

They are not socialists but they know what socialism is.  They are not capitalists but they know what capitalism is.  They include both socialists and capitalists because they know they must form an economy that incorporates elements of both if they are to serve both society at large and the individual.

They are open to ideas and will not be bound to one ideology.  This is their time and they are trying to create something new and suited to their technological world.

I salute them and appeal to all university students and young people everywhere.  Join the cause and see what you can make of it.  This could be the defining and formative movement of your generation.  If you do not take hold of it and engage, the time may come when you regret not taking your place in history.

Do not let the revolution come and go without you.

London calling to the faraway towns
Now that war is declared — and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, all you boys and girls

— The Clash

To all those British intelligencia who attributed the recent riots that rocked the streets of London, Birmingham, Bristol, Gillingham, Nottingham, Manchester and Liverpool to hooligans, you’re as wrong as the myriad free enterprise economists who swore we had nothing to fear from a deregulated marketplace.  You’re as wrong as the killing of an innocent man.  You’re as wrong as holding the poor accountable for the errors of the elite.  You’re as wrong as an economy that creates an ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nothings.

Prime Minister David Cameron finds fault with everyone but the policies of his ruling party or indeed the increasingly conservative policies of his predecessors in the opposition.

In the prevailing world of British politics, entrenched poverty does not fit into the equation of civil unrest.  It has nothing to do with thirteen million impoverished citizens but rather to do with discipline in the schools.  It has nothing to do with low wages and rising unemployment but rather to do with excessive tolerance for aberrant behavior.  It has nothing to do with the deprivation of ethnic minorities and everything to do with moral depredation.

As income inequality rises to levels unprecedented in the modern era, Mister Cameron promises a crackdown on the rising turpitude of the ungrateful poor in Britain’s booming slums and the polite society applauds as if to acknowledge a fine golf shot.

What the Prime Minister and his colleagues are desperately trying to deny is the relationship between the riots in England and the events in Cairo, Tripoli, Damascus and Athens.  The combination of inequity, inequality and poverty is a potent brew that leads inevitably to civil unrest.  The only difference is a matter of degree.

London is calling and Washington should be listening.  By every measure the circumstances are worse in America than in Britain.  The poor are poorer, the disparity between the rich and the rest is greater, the social safety net is less intact and the burden of poverty falls even greater on minorities.

Everywhere across the globe the tide of suffering rises and governments have decided that the only solution is to shift the burden downward.  The European Union has become an enforcement mechanism for an age of austerity.  Budgets for relief of the afflicted and assistance to the poor are slashed to protect the corporate profit margin.  In America a presidential candidate complains that the poor do not pay income taxes.  Convinced by their own propaganda machine that the poor are unworthy leaches on society, legislatures in Florida and elsewhere order drug testing of to qualify for unemployment insurance.  Increasingly draconian laws are passed to further stigmatize immigrants at the bottom of the economic spectrum.

Blame the victim has become the mantra of the financial elite, passed down to the working ignorant, spreading like a plague on the nation.

When we have punished the poor all that we can, when we have pushed the once thriving middle class into poverty, when we have evicted families from their homes, when we have forced the family business into bankruptcy, when we have stripped the undocumented of all rights and deported as many as we can, only then will we begin to realize we have been duped.

Civil unrest is the last recourse and the natural consequence of austerity.

Fear not.  The authorities are prepared for this contingency.  Stripped down security forces will be mobilized to protect gated communities.  Violence will be contained in the poor neighborhoods.  Slums will burn.  Crowd control will become increasingly brutal.  Blood will flow on the streets of poverty.  Violence will beget violence in a vicious circle of disorder and ruin.

As in Britain, whoever is president will decry the decay of moral fiber and pledge to fight gangs and criminal elements to restore law and order.

There will be no more discourse on economic policy.  There will be no more talk of universal healthcare.  There will be no more protests against job exportation, free trade agreements or deregulation of industry or financial markets.  We will dutifully elect leaders who promise to crack down on lawlessness.  Our elections will become contests on who can project ever-greater toughness.  We will look for someone to play hardball with the unruly masses.

The erosion of civil rights and civil liberties that began long before September 2001 will continue to accelerate.  The right to privacy is the first casualty.  City streets and public squares will be under fulltime surveillance.  Telephone conversations and communications media will be monitored.  The right to speak freely will come under attack.  The right to assemble in protest will be relegated to obscure and closely guarded locations far from public access where the eyes of the corporate media never travel.

There will be no more mass protests against wars of choice and wars for oil as more and more of our sons and daughters line up to fight – not out of patriotism but as the only means of escaping destitution at home.

For all the unrest, for all the violence and destruction, there will be no revolution.  The government of the United States will not be threatened.  Unlike Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, there are no overlords of justice that will come to our aid.  We the people will stand helpless before the most powerful government in the history of the world.

We will rise up and we will be beaten down.  We will rise again and the government’s response will go beyond what any democratic state can bear.  What then?

What is happening before our eyes is that the governments of the world in concert with their sponsors in the corporate empire have devised a plan to revise the social order.

It has taken me longer than it should have to imagine what the end game of the new world order looks like.  The corporate mind is unscrupulous and greedy but it is not ignorant or foolish.  I have speculated that corporations were so fixated on short-term profit that they refused to see the long-term consequences of their actions.  By destroying the working middle class they were eliminating the very consumers on which they depend.

But it seems to me they have discovered a new consumer class.  Because of the sheer numbers in China and India, they can prosper for decades without a working consumer force.  They intend to replace the working middle class in Europe and America with a management middle class in Asia.

It is the only way it makes sense.  It is a plan laden with risk and it demonstrates an incredible disdain for working people.  It is risky enough depending on the stability of a corrupt democracy in India and an authoritarian state in China.  It is even more risky to create a permanent class of the working poor in the democracies of Europe and America.  There will be pushback.

In the end, their plan for a corporate world will fail because the spirit of self-determination, the desire for freedom and the yearning for democracy will prevail.  We will ultimately press our cause at the ballot box.  Despite all the technology and resources mobilize to control our minds, we will overcome.  Whether it takes a decade or a hundred years, we will prevail because we are on the right side of history.

Rupert Murdoch is no saint; he is to propriety what the Marquis de Sade was to chastity.  When it comes to money and power he’s carnivorous: all appetite and no taste.  Politicians become little clay pigeons to be picked off with flattering headlines, generous air time, a book contract or the old-fashioned black jack that never misses: campaign cash.

— Bill Moyers Journal, June 29, 2007

Which of the following does not belong:  Benedict Arnold, Boss Tweed, Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, Karl Rove, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy and Rupert Murdoch?

Answer:  None of the above.

All are notorious for their groundbreaking betrayal of American democracy from its inception to the present day.

Benedict Arnold was a commander in the Continental Army who secretly plotted to hand West Point over to the British.  Boss Tweed was the strongman of New York’s Tammany Hall in the mid 1800’s who was ultimately convicted for bribery and extortion, dying in the Ludlow Street Jail.

Richard Nixon was a crook whose scorn for American democracy went so deep that he never questioned the necessity of committing crimes of espionage against a presidential opponent so weak he failed to carry his own state.  Nixon got his due.

J. Edgar Hoover famously wiretapped and eavesdropped on anything that moved, from politicians and journalists to movie stars and musicians.  During his five-decade reign of terror, if you didn’t have a dossier on file at the FBI you were nobody.  Hoover survived Democrats and Republicans alike because he had the goods to destroy anyone who stood in his way.  Blackmail and extortion were his calling card yet he has his name on the building that houses the nation’s highest law enforcement agency.  American justice will never be vindicated until that inscription is taken down.

Karl Rove was the architect of the largest disenfranchisement scheme since the days of Jim Crow.  He is the man who made George W. Bush President of the United States by effectively stealing two consecutive elections.

Supreme Court Justices Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy are the only three members of the high court to vote for both Bush v. Gore 2000 and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission 2010.  Bush v. Gore anointed George W. Bush president without benefit of a majority vote and Citizens United opened the doors to unlimited corporate financing of political campaigns.

Now, with the revelations of media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s unscrupulous operations in the phone-hacking scandal, Murdoch can take his rightful place alongside the most infamous betrayers of our democracy.

The founders in their wisdom acknowledged the critical nature of a free press, enshrining the principle in the first amendment to the constitution.  Not all lived up to that wisdom (as the Alien and Sedition Acts under President John Adams attest) but, as a whole, the founders recognized that a vibrant and independent press was an essential fourth pillar of a functioning republic.

The founders did not envision a time when the press is supplanted by the media, when information and misinformation is disseminated by radio, television and the worldwide web, and when a handful of international corporations would own and control the flow of information throughout the world.

The founders never envisioned a media mogul as powerful as Rupert Murdoch.  He is the CEO of News Corporation, which in turn owns Fox Broadcasting, the Wall Street Journal (Dow Jones), the Times of London, the Daily Mirror, Sky Television, the Sun, the Star and the New York Post.  His tentacles extend from Australia and New Zealand to North and South America, from the British Isles across Europe to the Middle East.  He is the closest thing to a media czar the world has ever known.

While his political philosophy is notoriously rightwing, he has courted alliances on both sides of the aisle, befriending conservative Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher, John Major and David Cameron as well as the Labour Party’s Tony Blair.  While his Fox News has consistently bent to the far right, providing a litmus test for Republican presidential candidates, Murdoch has offered counsel and support to Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Barack Obama as well as George W. Bush and John McCain.

Considering his relationship with both the Clintons and Tony Blair, it is plausible that Murdoch played some direct or indirect role in turning the left toward center and the center to the right.  In what Bill Clinton and Blair referred to as the third way, the Democrats and Labour abandoned progressive economics while still clinging to progressive social issues.  Since Murdoch considers himself libertarian, the new left (which is not left at all) is very much consistent with his own views.  Most importantly, it gave him free reign to extend his media empire.

In 1995, with Bill Clinton in the White House, the Federal Communications Commission ruled that Murdoch’s ownership of Fox Broadcasting was in the best interests of the public.

It pays to cultivate friends in high places.

Pimping a war for oil, consuming and transforming legitimate journalistic enterprises into broadsheets, and shamelessly operating a propaganda empire to advance his own interests were not sufficient to discredit Murdoch but hacking the phones of innocent victims and their relatives for sensationalist stories finally tipped the scale.

The tar from Murdoch’s hands has stained everyone he touched, from the current resident at Number 10 Downing Street to the once-venerated Scotland Yards.  Former employees and allies are falling like ducks at a carnival shooting gallery.

Anyone who believes Murdoch’s “I’m too old to know anything” act before the Media Committee of the House of Commons is as gullible as a grassroots member of the corporate Tea Party.  In the bumbling fashion of an old man in the early stages of dementia, Murdoch stated he knew nothing of the operations and techniques of the offending news corps.  He claimed this despite his company paying the equivalent of $3.2 million in settlements to hacking victims on condition of non-disclosure.

What’s a few million here and there?

It remains to be seen whether this scandal has the legs to bring the mogul down.  He still has friends in high places and on both sides of the Atlantic.  Republicans in congress are afraid to whisper his name in anything but a positive light.  Democrats are Democrats and Obama is Obama.  The investigation in America will not be in earnest unless public outcry demands it and even then, Murdoch has the media to fight back.

The excuse will be that we have far more important matters with which to concern ourselves like a debt crisis that Murdoch and his ilk trumped up for media consumption.  (The only real crisis lies in our refusal to remove the debt ceiling in a timely manner.)

Regardless of Murdoch’s ultimate fate, the odds of real media reform are something less than the odds of real financial reform after the near collapse of the global economy.  That would require breaking up the media conglomerates and requiring news organizations to divest themselves of other corporate interests.

The chances of that are nil.  So in a sense Rupert Murdoch has already won the war.  He has shaped the media of the future.  That it is ruthless, amoral and devoid of public interest should not surprise any of us.

It is a corporate media for a corporate world.

If you care about putting people back to work when nearly 14 million are unemployed, maybe Texas has something to teach us.

— Rick Wartzman, LA Times 7/3/11

The same economic geniuses that gave us the Great Recession and nearly crashed the global economy are back with a vengeance and a new message:  We ought to be following the Texas model of job creation.

Those of us who have memories longer than an Alzheimer patient will recall that these are the same chefs who cooked up the deadly brew of Free Trade, deregulation, evisceration of anti-trust laws and unlimited corporate power.  To everyone on the working end of the economic strata it was an unmitigated catastrophe and one that may haunt us for decades.  But to those whose idea of labor is handing down dictums from the executive suite it all worked out fine.  We paid the bill and they got multi-million dollar bonuses.

Those of us with memories longer than a crack addict on pot will also recall the last time the nation adopted the Texas model:  Based on a fictional success derived from skewed data, the country was saddled with No Child Left Behind.

To everyone engaged in public education NCLB is a disaster on par with Free Trade economic policies but to those who created and promoted it as reasonable reform it is working as designed:  As it destroys public education it opens the door to privatization.

As it is with education so it is with Texas economics.

The crux of the current argument is that in these difficult times Texas is the national leader in job creation.  The argument is as flawed as a high school engineering project.  On the global scale, China and India are the leaders in job creation.  Should we adopt the Chinese model?

The reasons jobs are migrating to Texas, Mississippi and North Dakota are the same reasons American jobs are moving to India:  Low wages, minimal health and retirement benefits, an unregulated working environment and a virtual prohibition of unions.

Texas is among twenty-two Right to Work states and according to the US Bureau of Labor a disproportionate fifteen of those states are among the top twenty-five in job creation over the last decade.  The exceptions to the rule are the rust belt states that continue to hemorrhage jobs regardless of Right to Work status.

For the uninitiated Right to Work is the most effective legislative means of union busting ever invented.  In a Right to Work state no worker can be required to join a union, pay union dues or pay an equivalent amount to charity.  Because unions depend on worker unity in negotiations with management, Right to Work laws have a crippling effect.  Since it would be discriminatory and therefore illegal to pay some workers a different wage than others, under the mandates of Right to Work, a non-union worker is allowed to freeload on the backs of union workers.  When a union engages in collective bargaining, all workers benefit.  If a union goes out on strike, non-union workers can break the strike and scabs can be hired without consequence beyond the individual conscience.  The union is rendered powerless and therefore less able to attract new members.

Just as non-union workers benefit at a cost to union workers, Right to Work states are empowered to steal jobs from states that honor the Rights of Labor (including the Right to Organize in the workplace) by offering lower costs to corporate employers.

Ultimately, Right to Work as public policy is a zero sum gain.  If all states followed the Texas model, job creation would be spread evenly but there would be no net increase in jobs.  It would, however, unleash a race to the bottom as organized labor ceased to exist and jobs would offer ever lower wages and benefits.

Like a serpent that discovers its tail and consumes itself, the Texas model on a national scale would end catastrophically because the already dying middle class would be dead and buried and consumption of unnecessary goods would shrivel like a raisin in the sun.  Our consumer-based economy would inevitably collapse.

Do we really want to become a nation where corporate treasures are built on the backs of cheap labor?

This is a classic case of pound-foolish and penny-wise.  It is the age-old strategy of dividing workers against themselves.  It is Starve the Beast in its most cynical form.

The difficulty with economic issues is that the language required to explain them is so convoluted it becomes incomprehensible.  It is like the variable rate home mortgage loan with a bubble payment that no one would sign if it were properly explained.

It should be sufficient to say that these Texas model pimps are the same folks who screwed us out of our homes.  These are the same brain trusts that shipped our well-paid jobs overseas and replaced them with minimum wage labor.  These are the same folks who gave us mass foreclosures and rendered our properties less than worthless for their own gain.  These are the same people that crushed the American Dream and replaced it with a nightmare of debt, default and depression.

Now they want to finish the job and Texas will show us the way.

The Texas model is a Trojan Horse.  It is paraded before us in all its sequined glory.  We are expected to bow down and pay tribute.  On the surface it appears to offer great rewards but once we let it in the gates, the enemy inside will emerge to destroy us.

Texas is a place where government is controlled from the corporate boardrooms and the only function of government is to do corporate bidding.  Instead of following Texas on the road to ruin, the twenty-eight states that still believe in the rights of labor should take counter measures.

In so many ways we have been following Texas for far too long.  Texas gave us deregulation of oil and gas and the $50 billion west coast energy fraud.  Texas gave us Enron and Anderson Accounting.  Texas gave us Karl Rove and George W. Bush.  Texas gave us war for oil in the Middle East.  Texas gave us chemical-hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas deposits deep in the earth, poisoning drinking water throughout the west.  Texas gave us No Child Left Behind.

It seems to me Texas has been waging a cold war against the rest of us for a very long time.  Maybe it’s time we started fighting back.

Governor Rick Perry made some cavalier comments in April 2009 about Texas withdrawing from the union to which I reply:  Go ahead.  Make my day.

Welcome to Lake Wobegone where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average.

– Garrison Keillor

National media recently reported two major stories regarding education under the weight of No Child Left Behind without drawing the obvious connection between them.

First came the revelation that an estimated 200 administrators and teachers in the Atlanta school district were engaged in cheating to achieve higher scores on standardized testing. Second came a projection by the Department of Education that an astonishing 82% of public schools could fail to meet proficiency targets for the coming year.

The standards of NCLB are constantly moving. To avoid failure a school must record improved test results in reading and math for all its students and in eight subgroups until all students (100%) are considered proficient by 2014. Failure to meet standards by the slightest margin in one subgroup in one academic area is failure overall.

Imagine you’re a carpet seller. You make a decent living by selling 3-5 carpets a week. One day your employer decides he needs to clear out his inventory. He implements a No Carpet Left Behind program that requires you to boost your sales by one carpet a week. You work extra hard and boost your sales to seven carpets but no matter what you do you cannot get beyond that number. You’ve tapped the market. By the fifth week you’re a three-time loser and your job is in jeopardy. You realize your boss wants you to fail and there’s no way out.

Failure to honor the dictates of NCLB threatens federal funding. First year failure to meet test results labels your school “in need of improvement”. Second year failure allows parents to transfer their children to other schools. Continued failure, regardless of circumstances, could result in school closure and staff replacement. Teachers and principles could find themselves unemployed and tarred by the scandal of failure.

After five years of NCLB failure schools can offer control to a state that wants nothing to do with them or (here is the key!) can be handed over to private contractors.

When the overwhelming majority of struggling schools are in poor districts, why would any teacher or administrator want to work there? Those who are able to find other positions get out as soon as they can. Those left behind face mounting pressure under impossible conditions. Funding cuts and growing class sizes are not considered in the NCLB formula for success. Educators work hard and long to fight back prescribed failure.

Is it any wonder that a school district in hard economic times fought back against the sanctions of failure in the only way they could?

You cannot pass a law that two equals one. Neither can you mandate that every child will be above average but that is exactly what NCLB pretends to do. The designers and supporters of NCLB were never in fact interested in improving the public schools. They could have seen to it that all students have a chance to succeed by being graded according to their ability. They could have funded special needs and trade schools to develop employable skills. They could have expanded preschool programs and guaranteed reasonable class sizes.

They did none of these because their real goal was to crush public education and open the door to privatization of the schools.

The NCLB crowd invaded our schools like preachers among the heathens. Every child can learn, they preached, to which every teacher replied: Of course but every student cannot test above the thirty-third percentile. It is a statistical impossibility. Why? The normal population curve (shaped like a bell) does not bend to rhetoric or political will. It does not care how impassioned the preacher’s sermon. No matter what the measurement, there will always be students at the bottom, students at the top and 68% in the middle. Like gravity or pi it is not negotiable. It does not vary.

The NCLB promoters were fundamentally dishonest. Knowing that the law was a prescription for failure, their intent from inception was mass closure of public schools. It would provide NCLB politicians a convenient scapegoat: blame the teachers. Better yet, blame the teachers union. Their design from day one was for a profit-based, corporate sponsored private school system that they could control.

Why else would they not subject private schools to the same testing requirements and standards as public schools in order to qualify for public funds? How did they figure that punishing schools would improve them when punishment as a means of educating was discredited decades ago? They knew from the start that the schools would fail.

Private schools, while receiving services for special needs from public school employees, can boost the bottom line by refusing to accept lower performing students. Indeed, that is exactly how Texas achieved its vaunted educational success while George W. Bush was governor: by eliminating the bottom of the sample. They forced low-achieving students to drop out and failed to report the drop out rate. Like the Atlanta school district, Texas cheated to claim success and as a result their governor became president and Texas education became a model for the nation. How is it that our discerning press never figured that out until after Bush the younger was in the White House?

Have you ever wondered what a corporate textbook would look like? Would there be any mention of Exxon-Valdez or the Deep Water Horizon oil spill? How would they treat the rise of the labor movement? How would they regard global climate change?

I guess we all know the answers to these questions.

Education is far too important to be trusted to profit-motivated corporations yet here we are on the edge of a bold new world: Private schools, private armies, privatization of Medicare and Social Security.

Who would have imagined that the worst president in modern history could have accomplished so much in so little time? Of course, he could not have done it alone. Nothing on the right-wing corporate wish list, including NCLB, could have been accomplished without Democratic cooperation.

Who are we kidding? Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is a slick, fast talking man of knowledge but they all serve the same master.

It must have felt like the end of the world.

I can imagine what is must have been like for thousands across Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana and Georgia as dozens of killer tornados blazed a path of destruction like General Sherman’s march to the sea.

I can imagine what it must be like for hundreds of thousands still living in the nuclear dead zone of Japan, where the soil is infertile, where the land, the air and the water are contaminated forever.

It must feel like the end of the world.

The religious are inclined to say it is the wrath of God.  The secular may say it is nature’s revenge.  The scientific community says it is a confirmation of global climate change.  But to that child in Joplin Missouri, Tuscaloosa Alabama or Fukushima Japan it does not matter.  The age of catastrophe is upon us.

We are closer to the end of the world than we have ever been before and tomorrow we will be closer than we are today.

Japan is, in a sense, a microcosm of America.  Without the natural resources required to support its ever-growing economy, it chose nuclear as an alternative to fossil fuels.  Given that nation’s history it is an ironic choice.  Now it seems they are stuck with it.

Japan’s nuclear crisis is a profound tragedy and one that will shadow its people for as long as they shall live.  They chose nuclear energy in an age of natural disasters and they must pay the price.  They have become a virtual dead zone, an enigma to the rest of the world.  Their days are dark and their future is imperiled.

The story of Japan is a tragedy that might have been avoided.  They had a choice.  They took the nuclear option with the assurances of a scientific consensus that it was the safer option.  It has become clear that that consensus was dead wrong and the harm is compounded because it has damaged the credibility of science at a time when that credibility is needed to prevent further catastrophes on an infinitely grander scale.

The tragedy of Japan’s nuclear experiment should be a lesson to America and the rest of the world as we confront a similar choice:  In an age of catastrophe, when a single tornado can demolish half a city, when dozens of twisters can mark a path of annihilation through the south, when tsunamis and hurricanes can destroy national economies and wipe out hundreds of thousands from the earth, is the nuclear risk worth the gamble?

Until now most scientists have answered in the affirmative but the Japanese disaster has forced them to recalibrate.  Science made a bad promise, Japan committed, France doubled down and Germany followed suit.  Like Japan, France is now trapped in nuclear dependency as they await their own inevitable disaster.

Germany wants out.  In the wake of recent election losses the administration of Angela Merkel has announced it will close all nuclear plants within eleven years.  As news spreads through the back channels about how bad the Japanese crisis really is and how vulnerable we all are we can expect the people of Europe to demand that nuclear energy should be phased out throughout the continent.  That is the virtue of democracy.  When the people express a clear and decisive discontent, the government must respond or release the reins of power.

In America, the government and their corporate sponsors have been far more effective in deceiving the people.  We are among the last holdouts on the science of climate change.  Despite the mounting evidence and a string of environment disasters that support the theory, we cling to our monster vehicles and refuse to acknowledge a connection between the poisons we spew into the atmosphere and the planet’s revenge.  We continue to elect representatives who are making plans for more coal, dirtier and more oil, chemical fracturing to mine liquid gas and, of course,0 more nuclear energy.

What do we know that the world fails to grasp?  We have learned nothing from Joplin, from Katrina and New Orleans, from the bulging Mississippi River, from a catastrophic Gulf oil spill, from tornado strikes in California and Massachusetts, from the latest series of mining disasters, from flammable water and radioactive wastelands.

Will we learn nothing from Japan?

Nuclear energy, like coal and oil and oil sands and oil shale, is a last resort energy source for very good reason:  It is there and we can exploit it but its cost is high and in the end it will destroy us.

We are at a critical point in history.  Those nations that turn now to cleaner sources of energy, to solar and wind and efficient mass transit, will be the nations that dominate the future.

If at this critical juncture we hide our heads in the sand and wait for the next chain of catastrophes to render us a third rate power, we will have only ourselves to blame.

Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do you? Go ahead, make my day.

– Harry Callahan, Sudden Impact (1983)

Late Friday night the word came down that congress made a deal with the White House to avert a government shutdown. Too bad. If history teaches us anything it is that the American electorate does not believe in close calls.

In the last hour of the Bush administration, when congress was compelled to hand over billions to Wall Street in order to avoid a global economic meltdown, you would have thought we learned a lesson. We did not. We watched as the government reinstated the same catastrophic policies that placed us at the brink of catastrophic implosion.

We learned nothing. We continue to vent our rage at anyone but the criminal party. We continue to vote for pandering politicians who claim that government is the problem. We continue to support policies that favor the corporate elite.

I am reminded of the man who shot himself in the foot to cure a bunion. Seeing the damage the doctor said: Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t have a headache.

At some point we have to come to terms with the fact that we are a republic, a representative democracy, and therefore we are ultimately responsible for the actions of our elected officials. We enable them. We instruct them to get right back on that runaway train and point it straight over the cliff.

Feeling lucky, punk? Go ahead, make my day!

We all lived through the Bush years yet we are still listening to the same foreign policy geniuses that blundered their way into two losing wars in the Middle East. (If you thought we won in Iraq, check back in five years: Iran won the war and we were the biggest losers outside of the Iraqis.)

We all watched the free trade, free enterprise, free market economic purists drive us to the precipice of a great depression yet here we are doubling down on the same policies that created the crisis.

Like a compulsive gambler who’s been days too long at the tables, we’ve decided gambling is not the problem. It’s all a matter of timing. This time it will all work out. We’ll draw the lucky ace of spades and break the bank running.

Why shouldn’t it work out? Last time around it worked just fine for the CEO’s and the wealthy shareholders. They got to keep our money while we got our homes foreclosed, our jobs shipped out, our unions busted, our rights nullified and our wages cut to the bone.

Voices on the left who are not afraid of summoning phrases like social good and income inequality must be growing tired to death reminding people who work for a living that the parties in power do not represent our interests, the Tea Party least of all. They must grow tired defending the ineffectual Democrats over the offensive Republicans on the ever-diminishing grounds of least harm.

It’s like turning to the Don’s accountant to resolve the problems of the Don.

I know I’ve grown tired, damned tired, and I feel I’m down to two choices: Vent or walk away.

So go ahead, fellow voters, make my day: Shut it down! Let’s get a good look at life without the government. Let’s go back to square one. Let’s get back to the days of America’s greatness! Let’s have an industrial age without industry! Let’s work for lower pay! Let there be no safety standards, no inspectors, no regulation or oversight. If people die, so be it. It’s the cost of doing business. We have too many people anyway. Let a few thousand or million perish at the hands of the industrial machine. There will be more for the rest of us!

Why half measures? Let’s give all the money and all the resources to the elite. They’re better educated and nicer looking. They know how to behave themselves at dinner parties. Let them have it all and let the rest of us live in accordance with their wishes. What’s good for Wall Street is good for Pennsylvania Avenue!

Let them dig for oil in the national parks. Let them burn coal until the skies block the sun! Let them mark the way to the next mass extinction. Let them fight wars for oil and water and uranium with the blood of our working sons and daughters!

Go ahead, decimate social security, scrap Medicare and bring back a time where child labor is not only possible but necessary! Bring back squalor and recklessness in the workplace! Bring back segregated schools and reserve higher learning for the wealthiest elite.

Go ahead, let them have it all but don’t you dare say you did it for your children. You sold the children out along with the rest of us so at least have the courage to say so: You did it because you didn’t want to pay your fair share.

At least have the foresight to know your children and grandchildren will curse you for your selfish folly.

Go ahead, shut it down, let it crash and burn! But then, when it’s all done and the destruction has moved across the land like waves of a tsunami, have the decency to stand aside and let those who saw it coming and sounded a warning in vain, build a new world from the ashes of a fallen empire.

Let that be your final legacy.

It is not about Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Michele Bachmann, Ann Coulter or Sarah Palin.  They are not the cause of this disease; they are only symptoms.

It is about that part of ourselves we do not wish to see.  It is that part of our souls that we keep hidden in the shadows and refuse to acknowledge.  It has been with us and within us for thousands of years and it will be within us until the end of time.

It is the killing spirit, the spirit of vengeance, intolerance, greed and hatred.  Its antithesis is understanding, empathy, kindness and civility.  The one poisons the soul of humanity and the other heals.

So you still think it is a good idea to allow guns at political rallies?

So you still think possession of automatic assault weapons is a god-given right and not a privilege born of responsibility?

If the latest psycho killer to claim more than his share in the fifteen-minutes-of-fame game had been a member of a well-regulated militia, he would surely have lost his membership card long ago and with it his right to bear arms.

To those who have sold their souls to the National Rifle Association it does not matter.  No amount of bloodshed is sufficient to justify any infringement on the right to purchase deadly weapons and ammunition.

I do not wish in any way to diminish the tragedy in Tucson, Arizona.  It has touched the heart of the nation in a way that few events can.  We reach out to the fallen and the wounded.  We know their faces and stories and we share their grief.

But I cannot ignore the greater picture.  The same weekend as that horrific slaughter in the border town of Tucson, fifty-one people lost their lives to drug related violence south of the border, including fifteen decapitated bodies in Acapulco.  The death toll stands at 30,000 since Felipe Calderon became president four years ago.  The city of Juarez and its surrounding area resemble Fallujah at the height of the Iraq War:  an estimated 200,000 exiles and over 3,000 murders this year alone.

Where do they get their weapons?  Welcome to the USA where anyone from drug lords and criminals to terrorists and madmen can purchase weapons of mass destruction as long as you’ve got the cash.  We have so armed the drug lords that they typically outgun the police and the Mexican army.

I would not wish to diminish the tragedy in Mexico but even the killing fields of Ciudad Juarez demure when compared to the mass graves of modern Africa, whose often genocidal wars in Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, Liberia and Nigeria were all supplied with deadly weapons made in the USA.

We may have yielded manufacturing and industry to foreign markets where labor is cheaper than dirt but we remain the chief supplier of weaponry to the world at war where blood is cheaper than water.  What else can we do with yesterday’s killing machines?

How can we expect to close down Guns and Ammo shows when our nation supplies missiles to every dictator who comes looking?  How can we expect to ban cop-killer bullets when we sell Apache gunships to genocidal maniacs?

I make no bones:  I don’t believe in the individual right to carry arms and I don’t care what our founders said about it.

I believe that societies like species undergo a process of evolution.  At an advanced stage of civil society, government disavows the state’s right to kill.  At an advance stage, government delivers universal health care, ensures a minimum standard of living, provides security for the aged and infirm, and limits handguns and assault weapons to officers of the law.  At an advanced stage, nations will come together to ban the international weapons trade.

The world is perhaps half a century away from disarming its most dangerous members and the nation is likewise half a century away from civilized gun control.

The killing spirit will not be defeated in a day.  It will, from time to time, emerge from the shadows with acts that shock and appall us, like the murder of an innocent child or the attempted assassination of a promising leader.

The killing spirit can never be destroyed, not completely, for we cannot as a species survive without it, but those who believe in the better part of human nature must believe that it can and will be subdued.  It is the process of civilization that will ultimately defeat the killing spirit by nurturing the better part of our nature: the healing spirit.

There are many who would scorn or sneer at such a notion and I have walked among them long enough to learn that that collective cynicism, a cynicism often born of fear, may be as great a barrier to civil evolution as the intolerance and vitriol of politicians and talking heads.

We Americans like to consider ourselves the most advanced of nations but we are in this fundamental sense severely behind.  It is not a problem that religion or education can resolve; it is a problem of collective consciousness.  When we can envision a world in which violence is as rare as a lunar eclipse on winter solstice, we will have taken the first step toward fulfilling that vision.

Meantime, let us all share a moment of silent contemplation, remembrance and mourning.

There is not a syllable in the constitution that empowers a minority in the least democratic branch of government with an absolute veto over all legislative action.  That usurpation of power was accomplished by senatorial rules of conduct, which are subject to change by a majority vote at the beginning of each congressional session.

Had the Obama administration been able to lower the filibuster threshold to 55 votes or required senators to hold the floor as they once did or limited its duration to 27 calendar days, the incoming president would have been empowered to usher in an era of progressive change, the very change for which the electorate thought it was voting.  He surely could have passed Medicare-for-all with a ten or twenty-year phase in.  He could have restructured the tax code and fully financed an emerging green economy.  He could have rebuilt the nation’s infrastructure and established an interstate mass transit system, achieving something very close to full employment.

There is no end to what Obama might have accomplished had he been willing to take that first bold step.  With the economy moving again, he might well have reversed his party’s fortune in the mid-term elections.  But that bold president, the one that would have summoned the spirits of Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, was nowhere to be found.

It was never what Barack Obama had in mind.  It seems he was playing from the Bill Clinton handbook all along.  Even now, as we approach a new session of congress, there is little talk of reforming the filibuster.  With the Republicans taking control of the lower house perhaps we no longer think it important.  But the lower house is closer to the people and closer to the next election.  Any representative who refuses to extend unemployment benefits with the unemployment rate near ten percent will almost certainly guarantee the wrath of his or her constituency and an abbreviated tenure in Washington.  No, the Senate will remain the leading source of obstructionism and the problem should be addressed.  But that is not in the Clinton handbook.

Never was I so reminded of Slick Willy as when Obama with a passion rarely summoned in his presidency challenged his progressive critics to name a single instance where he has failed to keep his word:  “Look at what I promised during the campaign. There’s not a single thing that I haven’t done or tried to do.”

While managing to project himself as an antiwar candidate, he never promised to withdraw all troops from Iraq.  He promised to escalate in Afghanistan and that he has done.

Winning the support of organized labor, Obama promised to sign the Employee Free Choice Act but it never reached his desk.  He never promised to support Fair Trade but he appeared to support labor provisions in Free Trade agreements.  He advocated exacting a price on those who export jobs but it has never made the Obama short list.

He advocated health care as a right rather than a responsibility but he never promised a public option.  He never promised universal healthcare or that health insurance rates would be mediated.  He did oppose an insurance mandate but few have held him accountable on that ground.

From Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to immigration reform and the repeal of the Bush tax cuts, Obama has always chosen his words carefully.  Considered in context, his words are consistent with his actions.  He never claimed to be progressive so he cannot be held accountable for failing to live up to what that label entails.

Obama ran as a pragmatist and he has governed in that fashion.  What he does not seem to understand is that we don’t care how carefully he parsed his words.  We don’t care if we were fooled by our own Audacity of Hope.  We frankly don’t care if he is a man of his word or not.

We are living in hard times and we’d like to know he is out to help us.  If the president truly believes his compromise on tax policy is in the public interest, fine.  Let him state his case.  We respectfully disagree and we’ll state ours.

Obama has made it clear he is not beholden to the left for having rallied to make him president.  Neither are we beholden to him for having done so.  While few of us would argue that he is worse than George W. Bush or John McCain, that’s a little like saying a plunge in freezing water is better than a dip in raw sewage.

From a pragmatic point of view, we could have chosen to rally around Hillary Clinton in the primaries.  Why didn’t we?  Because we knew what to expect from another round of the Clinton administration.  We witnessed Bill Clinton’s pivot to the right after his party lost the mid-term elections.  We witnessed welfare reform and bipartisan agreement on free trade (job exportation) and deregulation, all major Republican initiatives.  Even after winning reelection, Clinton held to the right in a bold attempt to dominate electoral politics by eliminating the left from the equation.  (In the end, he didn’t even have the guts to pardon Leonard Peltier.  Yes, some of us still remember.)

We could not rally around Hillary because she showed no inclination to govern differently than her husband.  We could not support a third-party candidate because the stakes were high and no candidate rose above the level of symbolism.  We rallied to the Obama camp because he was perceived as antiwar and relatively progressive.  It was better to gamble on the unknown than to stake our hopes on the highly improbable.

We did not want another Bill Clinton but it seems that is exactly what we got.  We gambled and lost, but that does not mean we must sacrifice our voices and convictions by continuing to support a president that has not earned it.

The strangest thing about this sudden rightward pivot on tax policy is the urgency with which it was presented, as if the opportunity would be lost once a new congress was seated.  As all must recognize by now this is an overwhelming Republican victory.  (The president’s supporters can produce all the graphs and charts they want.  The Republicans favor all the tax cuts.  The president sold the farm for an extension of unemployment benefits.)  Rushing the proposal through a lame duck congress before the Bush tax cuts expired was not only unnecessary but it also worked against the president’s interest.

Had the tax cuts been allowed to elapse the power would have shifted to the White House and a still Democratic Senate.  A Republican lower house of congress could do absolutely nothing without Democratic consent.  With unemployment near ten percent, there is not a working family in the nation that is not affected.  With every vote against extending benefits, the Democrats could have rolled out ads in every district:  Joe Worker lost his job when his plant was shipped to China.  He took a job as a janitor and was laid off in the Great Recession.  Now he’s lost his unemployment benefits.  Congressman Right says he’s lazy.  What do you say?

As for tax cuts for the middle class, how many times could the anti-tax party say no without losing all credibility?

The Republicans were playing a bluff and either the president was fooled or he did what he intended to do all along:  the Clinton pivot.

The American two-party system functions to the extent that it does by managing a delicate balance between corporate interests and the public good.  When the right goes too far by gutting that part of government that serves the public good, the left assumes power to restore the balance.  When both parties represent essentially the same policies, balance is never restored.  The result is a reversal of centuries of progress, an unraveling of the New Deal and the Great Society, a process that predictably ends with the decimation of Social Security, Medicare, public education, environmental protection, civil rights, labor rights and all regulatory agencies.

It is a prescription for disaster because it favors the rich to the detriment of the middle class.  When the working people can no longer afford to purchase goods and the middle class is impoverished, the system no longer functions.

Barack Obama is no Franklin Roosevelt.  He never intended to be.  He is a pragmatist, a man everyone can love once they get to know him.  He is Bill Clinton without the personal charm.

It’s not all bad.  There is something to be said for intelligence and good management.  There is a reason the crash did not happen on his watch.  Had Clinton been president instead of George W. Bush, I’m certain he would have acted long before the global economy was on the threshold of total collapse.

Nevertheless, the elements creating the conditions that inevitably led to systemic failure were put in place by Bill Clinton.  Unfortunately, Barack Obama shows no inclination to make the necessary corrections.

As the plot thickens in the strange case of Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks and the man behind the latest uncovering of duplicity, hypocrisy and deception in American diplomacy, what is easily the most fascinating story of the year is also becoming the most important.

Say it ain’t so: The hero of our story cannot be a sex offender wanted in Sweden for something resembling rape. Even sexual misconduct, however it is characterized, is not permissible for our man of the hour. A good protagonist may be tortured, twisted, suffering extreme bouts of anxiety and depression but he cannot in any way be a sexual offender. Such a distinction would place our story in the waste bin of literature never to be consumed by the general public. We desire this story to be widely read.

This is not how our story goes. Rather, Julian Assange is under attack by the most powerful forces on the planet. Having outfoxed and outmaneuvered the intelligentsia, the wrath of the United States government is being brought to bear. When we learn that the Swedish government was not much interested in the case until an angry White House condemned the latest WikiLeaks release in terms normally reserved for terrorists and enemies of state, we begin to suspect that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is twisting some Swedish diplomatic arms. When we learn that Sweden is heavily invested in the international arms trade and may have something to hide, we wonder what bodies might be buried in the Swedish wine cellar. When we learn that the prosecutor refused even to talk the case over before posting Assange’s name on the Interpol most wanted list, our suspicions grow. When we learn that the Swedish Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal on the warrant, we suspect our doubts concerning the Swedish judicial process are well grounded.

Moreover, when the Ambassador of Ecuador (perhaps inspired by the revelation of America’s betrayal of democracy in Honduras) came to the rescue, offering virtual asylum to our beleaguered hero, it was subsequently withdrawn for unstated reasons. The unseen hand of oppression no doubt belongs to the American diplomatic corps and an incensed Hillary Clinton. (How will this affect her still breathing presidential aspirations?)

Amazon announces that it will no longer allow WikiLeaks to use their servers and Pay Pal, a subsidiary of eBay, severs ties in attempt to cut off financing. The squeeze is on and we begin to wonder if it is even possible to reveal the truth in a corporate world.

In this case the cat is out of the bag. Elvis has left the building. But Assange and friends promise even more fun and games, the next episode exposing the highly questionable and perhaps illegal conduct of a certain powerful American bank.

So what have we learned from the latest WikiLeaks revelations?

Respectfully and with due deference to Julian Assange and his hacker friends, we have learned very little of substance. In fact, we have learned more from the reaction than from the documents themselves.

If anyone was surprised that the Saudis and their Sunni allies in the Middle East are more threatened by an empowered Iran than they are by Israel and, in fact, were cheerleaders for a preemptive strike on Tehran, then they had little interest in foreign policy and likely remain ignorant today.

If anyone is surprised by the extent to which this American administration has gone to protect officials of the Bush administration from charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, they have not been following along.

The sum total of the WikiLeaks revelations thus far is to confirm an already dark and cynical view of the American government. It adds to our disillusionment and the realization that a change in presidents and a change in ruling parties did not translate to a change in policy.

For me the most damning revelation (if it can be called that) was our government’s response to the military coup in Honduras overthrowing the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, in June 2009.

At the time I correctly read the coup as an unjustified reaction to Zelaya’s proposals to help his nation’s abundant poor. That he wanted to raise the minimum wage was just too much for that nation’s elite to bear. I incorrectly interpreted the Obama administration’s neutral response as a step in the right direction. Thanks to WikiLeaks we now know that our own diplomats got it right from day one: The coup was unlawful, ungrounded and therefore deserving of an immediate and forceful denunciation. Our official response neither condemning nor approving the coup was calculated to legitimize the coup with a subsequent election while Zelaya was exiled to the Dominican Republic.

The message to Latin America was, and is, clear: This administration like its predecessors is no friend to democracy for whenever the elite come calling we will answer. Tragically, the Obama administration continues to pursue a policy of exploitation under the guise of free trade though it has alienated the entire hemisphere.

This was the administration that was supposed to champion transparency yet the venom it has shown toward the man who forced some small measure of it upon them is palpable. There is nothing in these documents that poses a threat to any lives and the only policies they challenge are policies that deserve to be challenged.

What follows is an assault on the free flow of information through the worldwide web. Members of congress and the executive are scrambling to find ways to shut WikiLeaks down. Because the web is international and the WikiLeaks people are highly competent their efforts are likely to fail. For individuals and organizations with lesser resources the effort to suppress might well succeed. That is the greatest danger the WikiLeaks phenomenon entails: that freedom of the web might be compromised.

It is critical to bear in mind that WikiLeaks is not the source of its information; it is the conduit. It receives information from people within the halls of power who believe the public has right to know and that that right supercedes all other considerations.

We need a WikiLeaks. We can no longer count on our corporate-owned media to do the right thing when it may undermine their own interests. We need a neutral conduit. In fact, we need a thousand conduits so that none can be singled out for retribution.

Imagine what might have happened had someone leaked the Downing Street memos or something like them, exposing the lies of war before the first bombs fell on Baghdad. If an unjustified war could be averted and hundreds of thousands of lives saved, how sacred then is the right of government secrecy?

I do not know what happened with two women in Sweden but I have a suspicion that the case would never have come to light if not for the other activities of Julian Assange. If guilty, without question he should be held accountable.

In his role as a provider of information that enlightens or empowers the public, Julian Assange deserves all the protection that freedom of the press can provide. Toward that end we should extract a price on Amazon and eBay with a Christmas boycott for doing the government’s dirty work.

I sincerely hope that all efforts at suppression and revenge fall short and that our government finally learns that transparency is not only the best defense against security leaks, it is also the best policy.

This is how our story must end: Not with our hero in jail but exonerated and our government shamed into more open, honest and responsible policies. It must leave us yearning for the next installment.

It is as predictable as the sun setting in the west and as simple as a three-chord song. The 2010 election results, a convincing takeover of the House of Representatives, a narrowing of Democratic control of the Senate and a net loss of nine governorships, was neither surprising nor representative of any philosophic change. The effect of the Tea Party movement was negligible and the effect of unrestricted corporate funding of electoral campaigns was stunningly muted.

Against a backdrop of a prolonged recession and a real unemployment rate far exceeding ten percent of the working force, the only surprise was that the Republicans failed to take control of the Senate. Had they done so, it would have set up a war between Congress and the White House for the next two years. It would have challenged the president to wield the power of the veto. As it is we will have gridlock, paralysis, two years of posturing and politicking without substance. There will be no major legislative initiative. There will be no repeal of healthcare reform. Nothing will change.

It would have been interesting to see if a president irrationally dedicated to negotiation and compromise with an irrationally entrenched opposition would have had the stomach to push back with the veto. Now we will never know.

Among the lessons of this election is that those candidates affiliated with the Tea Party are often not ready for primetime on the national stage. The more you see of them the less appealing they become. On the local stage you can get away with a barrage of attack ads with a sprinkling of the “I’m just like you” ads. But when you run for statewide office you need to be prepared for scrutiny.

Of the major Tea Party candidates seeking statewide office, those who succeeded were knowledgeable conservatives or libertarians. Their philosophies were neither created nor defined by the Tea Party movement. They won in states where virtually any mainstream Republican would have won in this election cycle. To a large extent, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah were candidates who latched onto the Tea Party movement to secure funding and notoriety. Their philosophies were already in lockstep with the corporate mandate so there was no transformation.

By contrast, Sharron Angle of Nevada, Christine O’Donnell of Delaware, and Joe Miller of Alaska were creations of the Tea Party movement. They defined themselves by the Tea Party and in the end they exposed its vulnerability. If you are going to champion the Constitution then you should be familiar with its contents. If you are going to defend the founders then you should be well versed in what they believed. If you’re going to decry deficits and taxes then you should be prepared to say how you would balance the budget.

It is not surprising that these candidates failed where traditional Republican obstructionists might have succeeded.

Given that Joe Liebermann, the junior Senator from Connecticut, would surely have turned coat at the first opportunity to shove it in President Obama’s face, the loss of senate seats in Nevada and Delaware was the failure of the Tea Party movement.

Looking backward, the lesson the White House strategists should take from this setback is that nobody cares how hard they worked on healthcare reform to pass legislation that even the president billed as virtually identical to what Republican Bob Dole proposed back in the day. We don’t know what all it entails but we know it is not what we wanted. We don’t see or feel the benefits. We don’t want mandatory insurance when our rates keep going up even as our wages keep going down.

Looking back, it would have been better to propose an extension of Medicare. Plain and simple.

How this White House could consider itself politically astute and yet neglect the one and only initiative that could have altered the political landscape for this election is beyond redemption. Where are the jobs?

There was a golden opportunity presented by the disaster the Obama administration inherited but it was squandered. No matter what your beliefs, no matter your philosophy or party identification, we can all agree that the best way to create jobs is to create jobs. Instead of trusting the middleman (Wall Street) to deliver the goods, the government could have hired people directly to build and repair infrastructure. The government could have jumpstarted the Green Revolution. The government could have put the people to work.

That accomplished, anything would have been possible. New legislation could have made more profitable to keep jobs in America rather than shipping them overseas. Real change could have happened. But the president and his circle of advisors were petrified by the charge of socialism. They were intimidated by Wall Street and the minority opposition in congress.

Maybe it was just a dream. Maybe the majorities in both houses of congress were just an illusion. Republicans replaced the conservation Democrats. Who cares?

Maybe we never really had a chance at change. Now any chance we had under the current system of government is gone. Maybe this is what the powers behind electoral politics wanted all along: A government full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

It’s all for show from here on out. Kabuki theatre. Obama will wear the mask of reconciliation. Speaker of the House John Boehner will play a flirtation game until the Tea Party erupts. A battle royal for the heart and soul of the media (or an apportionment of fleeting fame) will follow and drag on to the next election. Obama will focus on foreign policy and both sides will play the waiting game.

The Republicans have no interest in a recovering economy except that part of the economy that registers profits on Wall Street. They have no reason to compromise. They have no motive to create jobs. Why should they? As long as they can keep Wall Street safe and main street discontent, they will win the White House in two years.

Obama will hope that the normal business cycle provides an adequate reprieve, allowing him to win re-election against a Tea Party opponent.

Both sides will play Russian roulette with the economic system. In the absence of meaningful regulation and Wall Street reform (that party has left the building) there is no assurance that what happened at the end of the Bush administration will not happen again. In fact, it is only a question of when.

Maybe we should start calling it American roulette.

It’s a dangerous game and a terrible waste of government.

Modern democracy emerged in the eighteenth century as an alternative to monarchy, aristocracy, dictatorship and other forms of tyranny. The founding of the American nation, with all its flaws and inequities, was civilization’s first marriage of the nation state to the democratic ideal.

Right-wing cynics will point out that America is not and has never been a true democracy; it is rather a republic. They are of course literally correct yet fundamentally misguided. Democracy is an ideal that has never been attempted on the scale of nations and until the advent of advanced technology has never in fact been possible. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries no nation could afford to wait for a poll of the franchise before making a critical decision.

A modern democracy is therefore representative yet it embraces the ideal and works constantly toward achieving it. Throughout history it has been a constant struggle. The primary battleground of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was the franchise, which expanded to include the landless, ethnic minorities and women.

For over two hundred years America has marched toward realization of the democratic ideal and every step of the way we have overcome the bitter and violent opposition of those who consider themselves the ruling class. Change has never been easy but Americans have always intuitively fought for their democratic rights as citizens of this nation.

Now all that is at risk. The new millennium was christened with a presidential election in which we would learn that our Supreme Court does not recognize an individual right to vote. The most massive disenfranchisement of black Americans since the Jim Crow era was therefore allowed to stand and a corporate media characterized what happened in Florida as the shenanigans of politicians rather than treason. Two political parties without any standing in our constitution were allowed to negotiate away the people’s right to choose their own president. Five members of the Court decided the election based on their own political biases and democracy was in retreat.

Eight years later, as Americans elected their first black president, the most blatantly pro-corporate Supreme Court in history put the last nail in the coffin of campaign finance reform, ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that the government can place no restrictions on corporate financing of political campaigns. A Democratic controlled congress could not even muster the votes or the courage to require transparency.

Thus the CEO’s of corporations like British Petroleum or J.P. Morgan can contribute as much as they wish to whatever candidates they choose under deceptive titles like the People’s Committee to Elect Patriots. In the media immersed environment of today can anyone even imagine that the corporate elite will choose voluntary restraint? They will engage. They are engaging. And the candidates they choose will represent their interests above and beyond any concern for the people or their individual rights.

Our democracy is under siege and the only people who appear outraged are those who attach themselves to the Tea Party movement. The irony of course is that the Tea Party movement is the creation of right-wing front organizations dedicated to the corporate cause.

What is the corporate cause? De-regulation. Corporate tax reduction. Austerity. Privatization of public service. Anti-labor laws. Unrestricted free trade. Evisceration of environmental protection. Strict limits on corporate liability.

If it sounds familiar it should. Until now the corporate cause has been indistinguishable from the Republican Party platform. Meg Whitman is the corporate cause. Sarah Palin is the corporate cause. John Boehner is the corporate cause.

All that is about to change. Until now the Democratic Party has been the soft side of corporate politics but when the floodgates swing open and corporate funding comes rushing in, Democrats will scramble to grab their share. The Bush tax cuts will be renewed. Deregulation will come back on line. Free trade will once again be a bipartisan mandate.

The two parties will become one, separate but indistinguishable, under the banner of corporate good. Get used to it.

Welcome to corporate democracy, American style, where every candidate must sign a loyalty oath to the corporate mandate, where the dominant parties serve the same corporate gods, where the corporate aristocracy gains the power of government, the power to close whole industries and ship jobs overseas where labor is as cheap as dirt. Welcome to the world of corporate think where we learn to recognize the virtues of poverty and unemployment and what’s good for Wall Street is good for all.

What choice do we have? How can you fight back when the other side has all the resources? It’s the Bad News Bears against the Yankees but it’s not a movie. The Yanks will win and the other side will go home with their heads hanging, grateful that they’re still attached.

There may be a way out of this mess but it takes a leap of audacity. Not the kind of audacity that Obama promised in the last election, the kind that turned into the audacity of compromise and the stubborn refusal to deliver jobs at the cost of corporate profits.

No, the kind of audacity we need today is the kind that stands up for real democracy at all costs, the kind that refuses to go along with the corporate mandate, the kind that rejects both parties as surrogates of the same corporate interests and the kind that says quite simply:

Let the people decide.

It is a simple concept like democracy itself. I propose a political organization as a counterpoint to the Tea Party. Its candidates will hold to two sacred promises: First, they will accept no corporate contributions. Second, they will vote the people’s will.

It should be called the Direct Democracy movement for that is the ground upon which it stands. If elected the Direct Democracy office holder will register voters from his or her constituency, inform them in advance of important votes, present the case for or against, invite them to make their decisions on line and cast his or her vote with the majority.

Let the people decide.

Many will argue that the people are ill-equipped to make important decisions. They lack information, education and knowledge. If that is the case, it becomes imperative to make the people more informed, educated and knowledgeable. If we made it more important perhaps we would think twice before under-funding and privatizing education. If indeed we are still the wealthiest nation on the planet, it follows that our people should be the best educated. That we are not is an indictment of our values, not our educators.

While we’re pondering de Tocqueville’s “tyranny of the majority” and the potential harm that true democracy could bring, add these questions to the equation:

If the people decided, would we still be in Iraq? Would we still be hanging on to a failed occupation with 50,000 troops and an unofficial army of contractors hunkering down in a series of impenetrable fortresses designed to last the long haul?

If the people decided, would we have escalated the war in Afghanistan eight years in with no end in sight and no glimpse of anything resembling success on the horizon? Yes, the president says we are on our way out but after Iraq we don’t know what that means. How long, how much and how many more must die before we admit that this too was a mistaken war?

If the people decided, would we have handed the financial industry a trillion dollars with virtually no strings attached? Would we have insisted that an accounting be made, that CEO’s not be awarded outrageous bonus checks, that loans be made to small businesses and that some significant share of that fortune be delivered to creating jobs and saving homes?

If the people decided, would we be moving forward on mass transit and alternative energy rather than wallowing in the muck of legislative paralysis as we are today?

We can argue these points and we should but I believe the time has come to place our faith in the people and let the chips fall.

We have a choice. We can either seize control of our own government or yield it to those who do not have our interests at heart.

As I write these words a Los Angeles Times report indicates that corporate funds are rolling into Republican coffers at a record pace. Over $300 million has been targeted to the coming election by fifteen right-wing tax-exempt organizations, undoubtedly fronts for corporate spenders. That kind of money does not grow on trees and does not come without expectations yet it is a pittance in the corporate political war chest.

If we do nothing we will lose our democracy. Winning it back will require radical thinking and dedicated action. What could be more radical or more worthy than democracy itself?

Cost of deep-sea drilling: Billions

Destruction of an ecosystem: Priceless

On April 20th an attempt to cap the Deepwater Horizon, a British Petroleum rig in the Gulf of Mexico, resulted in an explosion. Eleven workers were lost and the subsequent failure to shut off the oil flow and contain the rapidly spreading slick has resulted in an ecological catastrophe of epic proportions.

As the oil continues to flow and a slick of over 2,000 square miles collides into the Gulf Coast, comparisons to the Exxon-Valdez destruction of Prince William Sound in Alaska begin to fall short. Right wing media, unable to fathom the breadth and depth of this catastrophe, unwilling to accept that we have brought this on ourselves, no longer able to justify the usual “so what” response to environmental crises, have decided to focus on conspiracy theories. On the level of pure speculation, the Limbaugh crowd has raised the specter of a terrorist attack.

While I am not one to automatically dismiss conspiracy theories, the purpose of these speculations is as clear as the once pristine waters of Prince William Sound. It is a distraction and one that we, as caretakers of the environment that nourishes us, can ill afford. What has happened in the Gulf of Mexico is the destruction of an ecosystem, damage that will require decades if not centuries to repair, as the result of shortsighted greed. Even the chemicals now being used to disperse the oil slick have long ranging destructive potential. Even if you think it was a terrorist attack, in the age of terrorism shouldn’t that be a part of the equation? Shouldn’t we consider that possibility before we erect new targets off our shores?

When President Obama declares that British Petroleum is responsible for this disaster and will be held accountable for its costs, he is not telling the whole truth in either case. The government is responsible for approving the Deepwater Horizon and ensuring that all measures were taken to preclude the possibility of disaster. That clearly was not done. It turns out the drilling operation went deeper than authorized but where were the inspectors? It turns out a safety valve to turn off the oil in the event of disaster was not installed though it is required off the shores of other nations. It apparently was considered too expensive.

As for the costs of this catastrophe, British Petroleum with $292 billion in revenues as of 2007 (ranking it the fourth richest company in the world) will pay only a fraction of the long-term damage. For every dollar they provide in relief to the fishing industry and the myriad businesses that depend on them they will spend two dollars fighting it in court. For every dollar they spend in cleanup they will spend another paying a team of publicists and pseudo-scientists to prove that the damage after all is not so bad.

Twenty-one years after the Exxon-Valdez disaster there is still plenty of Exxon oil polluting the shores and waters of Prince William Sound. Some say the initial cleanup effort was designed to hide the oil rather than to extract it. From day one Exxon treated the spill as an image and media problem with economic consequences rather than an ecological disaster. There are still species that have never recovered. The human victims of the spill have had to fight the constant misinformation and delays of the Exxon media and legal teams. No one really knows the long-term consequences of the spill but we do know it was far more extensive than we were led to believe at the time.

We can expect the same with British Petroleum in the aftermath of this new catastrophe. From the beginning BP followed the same script as Exxon after the Valdez spill. Understate the extent of the disaster, capture the media, assure the public with misleading information, put a friendly face on a heartless corporate machine, always have an answer or three answers to dazzle the reporters, and always radiate confidence.

BP has friends in Washington. It allocated sixteen million dollars to lobbying congress in 2009 and another three and a half million in the first quarter of 2010. While generally favoring Republicans on a ratio of three to two, the leading single recipient in 2008 was Barack Obama. When you compare these figures to the billions in profits you would have to consider money well spent.

The record when it is finally revealed will show that BP lied about the risks of deepwater drilling. BP lied about the oil leaking in the initial stages of the disaster. BP lied about the extent of the leakage. BP lied about their contingency plans for a worst-case scenario. BP lied about accepting full responsibility for the costs of this catastrophe. And BP will continue to lie and mislead and pump misinformation through the media to an unknowing and disbelieving public.

The potential destruction of this catastrophe goes well beyond commercial fisheries, the loss of wildlife and the damage to the tourist industry. It goes beyond the restaurants and packing plants that depend on the shrimp and fishing operations. It goes beyond the damage to the reef and the coastline. It goes beyond the harm to the already depleted wetlands and the migrating birds that seek refuge there. It goes beyond anything we can imagine. That is the nature of ecosystems. Everything is interconnected. It will be decades or longer before we can even begin to assess the full extent of harm.

If we had the authority to liquidate British Petroleum and use all its assets and resources to mitigate the harm, it would still be inadequate.

And the oil continues to flow.

Beyond the ecological disaster, consider the sheer audacity of believing you could drill through 13,000 feet of rock beneath 5,000 feet of water without unreasonable risk. Was it, in fact, a controllable risk or an inevitable disaster? Was BP gambling permanent environmental damage against short-term profits? How is it that an international corporation based thousands of miles from the scene of the crime was empowered to take that kind of risk with the Gulf ecosystem?

Now BP is trying to deflect the blame to Transocean Ltd., the world’s largest operator of deepwater wells. Certainly some measure of blame can be shared not only with Transocean but possibly Halliburton who had a hand in the operation as well, but as long as BP was taking the lion’s share of profits then BP must accept the lion’s share of blame.

In a functioning democracy at least some of that blame must fall to the people. To some indefinable extent we are also responsible for allowing greed and the Drill Baby Drill crowd to have its way with our government.

Someone should have stopped them but it was not in their interest.

The latest legislative effort to deal with the Gulf crisis is a proposal to raise the liability cap from $75 million to ten billion. Dollars to a dime it does not happen and even if it does it is an insult for anyone to think that the damage from this catastrophe should be capped at ten billion (a fraction of the cost of our wars).

Have we learned nothing at all? It is clear that after Exxon-Valdez we learned very little indeed.

This time the least we can learn is that Beyond Petroleum is just a slogan.

If this nation does not move toward renewable energies with the urgency and vigor that time and circumstance demand, then we must forfeit our claim as a great nation – no less the greatest nation on earth.

Embodied in the state constitution that appropriately numbered ballot proposition not only set a limit on property taxes at one percent of value but it also made it virtually impossible for the state to raise sales or income taxes by requiring a two-thirds vote in both legislative houses.  Since property taxes were the primary source of funding for education, Prop 13 was the poison pill that sickened and eventually killed the future of education in the state once known as golden. 

By crippling the state’s revenue raising mechanism it was only a matter of time before economic events would bring California to its knees.  Those events would come at the turn of the millennium when the west coast energy fraud followed in the wake of the great technology bust.  The latter was largely the product of Wall Street brokers who oversold high tech stocks on the theory that the rules regarding assets and earnings no longer applied.  Fortunes were made by clever investment managers who bet against the very stocks they sold to the public.  Investors, including California’s public pension funds, lost and the balance sheet began to turn red. 

The west coast energy crisis represented the first returns from bipartisan deregulation in the energy industry.  It was that deregulation that enabled companies like Enron to fabricate shortages where none existed and run up prices to absurd levels that state and local authorities paid to prevent blackouts from crippling the economy.  An estimated fifty billion dollars was transferred from California to a handful of Texas based oil and energy companies.  Enron would eventually pay a price but the rest got away with the cash.  It was – and is – a foolproof business model:  Steal billions in profits and pay millions in fines. 

Politically, Governor Gray Davis paid the price (though he was no more responsible than any other witless politician) and California was treated to the spectacle of a recall election to elevate Hollywood action-hero Arnold Schwarzenegger, to the governor’s palace.  As Californians would soon learn, Davis was not the problem and Arnold was not the solution. 

Despite its fall from grace and utter collapse, Enron was, in fact, the business model that Wall Street would adopt as the bipartisan march of deregulation moved on unabated.  The collapse of the real estate market (an unprecedented economic phenomenon) was not only predictable but inevitable.  Opportunity and greed is a deadly combination.  Because it could and because no one was home at the sheriff’s office, the world’s largest and most ruthless arbiters of wealth decided to transform the economy into a Ponzi scheme.  Economics ceased to be a science and a plaything of the corporate elite.  Like the alchemists of old, spinning gold from common nickel, corporate mystics spun value where none existed. 

They were playing with our lives.  They were tempting fate.  They were inviting an epic catastrophe.  But all along they knew the game was rigged.  In his last act as president, George W. Bush initiated the bailout that would eventually transfer a minimum of a trillion dollars to the very criminals who caused the collapse.  They gambled with other people’s money and won.  We paid the price. 

No one paid a greater price than California.  The state is ranked third in home foreclosures with an even more dramatic decline in the value of real estate.  In the fourth quarter of 2009 nearly two million California homes were valued less than the outstanding mortgage (Bloomberg.com).  A decline in property means a decline in property tax revenues.  A twenty billion dollar budget deficit combined with over eighty billion in long-term bond debt means that California is effectively bankrupt without any visible means of recovery. 

So now the Republicans step forward with a promise to save California by running it more like a business.  They never mention that it was Republican policies (even when embraced by Democrats) that destroyed the economy.  They simply promise to run it more like a business.  Someone should ask former CEO’s Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner what they would actually do with a business whose revenue-raising potential was frozen at 1978 levels.  Ask them what they would do with a company whose income was insufficient to finance its debt.  The answer is they would liquidate and that is precisely what they intend. 

In the 1970’s and 80’s there was a breed of Wall Street bottom feeders who dealt primarily in junk bonds and made vast fortunes buying up companies whose value was less than the sum of its parts.  It was not good policy.  The victimized companies were often sound and profitable businesses.  Bought and sold on the scrap heap, workers lost good jobs and industries folded or moved out of the country but the brokers and bankers made money. 

It was the age of greed and nobody seemed to care who got hurt.  Now we have an entire nation in the process of liquidation and California leads the way.  They won’t give up until they’ve sold off our parks, our redwoods, our waterways and public buildings. 

Unfortunately neither the people nor anyone in a position of power seems to have a clue.  Berkley professor George Lakoff  wrote a simple proposal at the heart of the matter.  It said, “All legislative action on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote.”  It would have effectively repealed Proposition 13 and rendered Proposition 16 void.  It would not have resolved our deepening crisis but it would have been a start. 

The Democratic Party killed it with an assist from Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown on the grounds that it would have been electoral poison. 

Respecting Brown’s political moxie there must be some truth in it but the greater truth is that Orwell’s nightmarish vision has come fully into focus.  Our perceptions are so dominated by corporate dictates that we can no longer distinguish our interests from corporate interests.  If the Democratic Party fears to take a stand in favor of majority rule, then democracy, itself, is imperiled. 

So the California Democracy Act will not be on the ballot but Proposition 16 will, and if it passes, it will effectively prohibit localities from starting or expanding their own local electrical services to avoid falling victim to the kind of corporate manipulations that hit them during the west coast energy fraud of 2000-2001. 

Whenever we are asked to vote on a proposition we should be skeptical.  If the proponents pretend it is about one thing when, in fact, it is about another, we should automatically vote no.  When its sponsors include the Chamber of Commerce we should recognize that the Chamber is nothing but a fence for corporate funding.  When it requires a two-thirds vote instead of prohibiting what it intends to prohibit we should revolt. 

California is in trouble and there is no easy solution in sight.  Like the nation as a whole we must somehow rebuild our industrial base.  We must invest in quality jobs.  We must invest in education, rebuild our infrastructure and lead the world in green technology. 

How we get there from here is a mind-numbing proposition.  The one thing we should all agree on, however, is that we should not reward the persons and policies that put us in this untenable position.

Indeed, just a little research revealed that Central Falls is one of the poorest cities in the state and after the exodus of some 18,000 students to charter schools and more affluent suburban districts, the remaining 17,400 students in the schools scheduled for demolition in Kansas City are “mostly black and impoverished.”¹

If we take a hard look at what the government under the dictates of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) considers failing or failed schools they are invariably schools impacted by a community in poverty. Moreover, if we consider the effects of the recent economic implosion (high unemployment, home foreclosures and declining home values) and the disproportionate impact on impoverished communities, it is easy to see why schools are struggling.

Whenever data is generated by any credible source, the correlation between poverty and educational achievement is so strong it is impossible for any unbiased individual to ignore. When schools are ranked according to quality, those on the top of the list are invariably wealthy and predominantly white while those at the bottom are invariably poor with high proportions of minorities.

As anyone who took Statistics 101 can tell you, correlation does not translate to causality but as anyone who advanced to Statistics 102 can tell you: When you are searching for answers to guide public policy, correlation is where you begin. Ignoring the effects of poverty on education is like ignoring the effect of criminals on crime.

It was therefore disheartening when President Obama seemed to sanction the mass firing in Rhode Island for it signaled a continuation of the Republican philosophy of education embodied in NCLB and cleared the way for Democrats and Republicans alike to join in one of oldest political tricks on the books. I call it: Blame the Teacher Syndrome.

In California we have recently witnessed the now familiar solution to budgetary crises: Fire the teachers and break the back of public education. We also learned that the Golden State has attained the singular honor of being last in the nation in per capita funding for public education. For years the state held steady at number 47 but now it has sunk below the Katrina ravaged states of Mississippi and Louisiana.

Having reached that lofty status you would think it would be impossible for any politician to stand before the electorate and proclaim that we can no longer expect to solve the problem of education by throwing money it. Yet that it precisely what they are doing and have done with a great deal of political success. With a straight face they proclaim that we cannot sacrifice our children’s future by running up deficits, but that is precisely what they have done by supervising the decimation of our public school system.

No Child Left Behind (the lasting legacy of George W. Bush) was nothing more nor less than a prescription for blaming teachers and opening the door to the privatization of public education. One of the primary means by which they intended to achieve that objective is the charter school alternative. Charter schools are self-governing and exempt from the testing mandates and accountability measures that regular public schools confront. They are increasingly administered by private for-profit corporations.

The latest available data obtained by the National Assessment of Educational Progress found in 2003 that students in charter schools performed poorer than comparable students in regular public schools. The government’s solution to the problem was to stop collecting data.

So much for accountability.

Another means of achieving the goal of undermining public education is commonly known as school vouchers. Under this increasingly popular program public funds are siphoned from public education to finance private schools. Once again, the private alternative is not subject to the same mandates and accountability measures as public schools and, again, there is no data to support any advantage in educational achievement.

So the solution to under-funded public schools is to steal already limited financing and award it to private schools with their own faith-based agenda.

So much for the future of our children.

It is encouraging that President Obama recently announced a strategy for reforming No Child Left Behind. He wants to lessen the importance of standardized testing by expanding success criteria to include such factors as attendance and “learning climate.” He wants to replace the overriding goal that all students should achieve proficiency in reading and math with the goal that all students should graduate prepared for college and career (begging the question: How are students not proficient in reading and math prepared for college and career?) He wants to emphasize the achievement gap between rich and poor students and he wants to expand criteria for teacher evaluations.

It is perhaps a beginning, a modest improvement, but like so many of his administration’s initiatives it is dramatically inadequate. It does not lessen the testing burden that has done so much to transform our schools into testing factories. It does not address the underlying privatization motive of NCLB. It does not put a halt to public funding of private schools.

Most importantly, at a time when schools across the nation are being pounded with budget cuts, the Obama education policy does not address the systemic problem of chronic under-funding of the public schools.

The Obama policy does not even ask the essential question: Why do impoverished schools produce impoverished results? Why indeed would any quality teacher want to work in an impoverished district that will almost inevitably blame him or her for the failures of public education?

I would have liked to announce with the Obama administration proposals that the age of blaming teachers was at a close but I am afraid it is only entering a new chapter.

1. NY Times, March 11, 2010.

I will do my best.

As a proud people accustomed to confronting challenges and overcoming whatever barriers are placed in our path, we are not prepared to receive or accept any message that acknowledges the hardships we are likely to face in the years and generations ahead. We are not prepared to accept the hard reality that our government is currently designed to thwart the essential reforms that our challenges require.

Is it better to deliver a message of optimism that has no foundation in reality or to deliver a message of hardship founded in reality to inspire the groundswell of outrage that might inspire change?

When I took office one year ago I inherited two wars and a legacy of foreign policy blunders and betrayals that left our nation more hated and despised than at any other time in history. I inherited a financial crisis that had the potential to bring down the global economy and usher in a worldwide depression. I inherited an economy ever more dependent on foreign oil even as the shadow of global climate change darkens our vision of the future. I inherited a society where the gap between rich and poor grows ever wider and where the middle class as we know it is vanishing before our eyes. I inherited a health care system that fails to meet the needs of our citizens and places a burden on enterprise that cripples our ability to compete in a global economy. I inherited a political system that reduces all reforms no matter how critical to the nation’s well being to the lowest common denominator. It is a system that nullifies both the interests of the nation and the will of the people by placing undue influence in the hands of a few senators or members of congress.

I would not deliver a message of reality if I did not believe it is possible to change. If I believed there was nothing we could do to confront these challenges head on, I would herald the small changes we are able to achieve as major victories. But I do not believe that is the case. I do not believe that small measures are adequate to the challenges we face or that there is nothing we can do to confront them.

I am not the first president to be confronted with historic challenges. Some presidents have risen to the occasion while others have failed. While President John Adams failed to recognize the dangers of a weak federal government, incapable of meeting the needs of the people, Thomas Jefferson rose to the challenge. Where Presidents Fillmore and Pierce failed to heed the warnings of civil war, President Lincoln rose to the challenge and (like hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians) paid with his life. Where Presidents Cleveland and McKinley failed to address the rising power of industrial monopolies, Theodore Roosevelt answered the call. Where President Hoover failed to accept government’s responsibility to the people in the grips of a Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt embraced the challenge with the New Deal.

Like those presidents before me, I can defer to partisan politics, continuing to blame my predecessor and the party of opposition for all the problems that plague us, or I can take responsibility and fight for what needs to be done.

My fellow Americans, I stand before you today to testify that the state of the union in January of the year 2010 is precarious. I rise to give warning that if we do not find a way to respond effectively we will pay a price that future generations will continue to pay for as long as these eyes can see.

The challenges we face are every bit as historic as those of Jefferson, Lincoln or Roosevelt and yet our government as it presently operates is incapable of responding in kind. From the day of my inauguration the minority party has determined to oppose every measure, every reform and every initiative that I propose. No matter how detrimental to the welfare of the nation, no matter what compromises I proposed or concessions I granted, they are determined to block every effort and they have found the means to do so not in the constitution, not in the laws of government, but in the archaic rules of the United States Senate.

Because of their efforts, marching in unison to the same beat of Just Say No, they have blocked passage of a health care reform package that included more Republican ideas than Democratic. Because of their efforts, the chances of meaningful financial reforms, jobs and green technology initiatives, middle class tax relief, trade policy reform and other critical initiatives are in jeopardy.

The instrument of this obstructionism is the senatorial filibuster rule. Not a law. Not even a regulation. A rule of conduct, decorum, and a common courtesy intended to protect the dignity of the Senate. The difficulty is they overreached.

As a professor of constitutional law I am in a unique position to determine with absolute certainty that the Senatorial Filibuster rule, as it presently operates, is a violation of the United States Constitution in that it grants the minority of the Senate powers not provided under the provisions of that hallowed document.

The filibuster is such a flagrant violation of the balance of power not even this Supreme Court could uphold it.

I am therefore authorizing the president of the senate, Vice President Joe Biden, to issue a finding of unconstitutionality. I expect the majority party to uphold the finding.

We will then move immediately to abolish or significantly curtail the power of the filibuster so that the government of the world’s greatest democracy will no longer be held hostage by a handful of senators. No longer will a minority of forty-two senators be granted the authority to nullify the will of the majority and the needs of the people. No longer will a minority stand in the path of progress in the nation’s hour of need. No longer will the government of the United States of America be paralyzed.

Once the filibuster is out of the way we can pass health care reform that is clear, simple and easy to understand. We can pass financial reforms to insure that brokers and bankers can no longer game the system until it breaks and pass the buck to the taxpayers. We can pass a jobs bill that puts people back to work.

Now I understand that there are other barriers that senators can use to block the workings of government. I am here to serve warning that any senator who stands for the decorum of the senate over the will of the people and the needs of the nation will do so at their own peril. That is a battle we will fight and we will win.

There is of course another barrier to a functioning democracy that has arisen only recently. It is not some scheme hatched by terrorists in a foreign land but the threat is no less menacing and no less repugnant to the republic. Sadly, it is the workings of our own Supreme Court.

In its recent decision to grant unlimited corporate funding in political campaigns, reversing a century of precedent, the court’s ruling takes its place alongside Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson and Bush v. Gore among the worst decisions in the history of the nation’s highest court. The implications of this decision cannot be overstated. If Citizens United v. the Federal Elections Commission is allowed to stand then American democracy is itself in danger.

Just imagine what would happen if congress passed legislation allowing the safe importation of prescription drugs from Canada and other nations. The pharmaceutical industry could target two dozen members of congress and selected senators with literally millions of dollars dedicated to their defeat. Imagine the chilling effect. It would run from every statehouse in the land through both houses of congress and down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Oval Office. How many votes would change the next time that bill came to the floor?

We would no longer be a government for the people, by the people and of the people. We would be a government for the corporations, by the corporations and of the corporations. And yes, there is a word for that and it is not democracy.

That is not an America I wish to see. Not on my watch!

As loyal Americans who believe in the principles of democracy we cannot avoid this fight. No matter what the odds, no matter how many obstacles are place in our path, we must do everything in our power to reverse this decision and stop this assault on our fundamental freedoms before it does irreparable harm.

We will do what we can within the workings of government but a decision of this magnitude by the nation’s highest court can only truly be nullified by a constitutional amendment. I have therefore instructed the Attorney General to draft such an amendment and begin the arduous task of pushing it through congress to be ratified by the states.

I implore you as Americans, as we go through this long but essential process, to watch and take note. Those who oppose it stand with the corporations and those who support it stand with the people. Remember that when millions of dollars are sent to defeat your congressperson or your senator for simply doing the people’s business.

One does not know when one is elected president the challenges he or she may face. John Kennedy could not have known that the Soviet Union would attempt to place nuclear missiles off America’s shore. Roosevelt could not have known that Europe’s war would inevitably become America’s war.

We cannot always choose the challenges we will face but history will judge us by how we respond. Because we are on the right side of history, because we stand with justice and democracy, because we know the stakes and because the people stand beside us, we will fight and we will prevail.