Go Screw Yourself

Go Screw Yourself   An essay from a friend of an Ohio teacher on the Republican Party's attempts to kill the labor movement. via dailykos

Glenn Greenwald Speaks On The Assange Extradition Ruling, the Jailing of Bradley Manning, And The Campaign To Target WikiLeaks Supporters

The question is why is the US Government continuing to harass Assange and his supporters Anonymous and actively using convert operations against them violating their right to free speech and association and threating them in General. Confiscating laptops and propagating smear campaigns against journalists who speak out in favor of Assange. As we can see the truth can be is a powerful weapon against corrupted power and something they fear..

Anonymous Targets Koch Brothers With #OpWisconsin

Oh boy this should be fun....... from the examiner.com

Anonymous, the notorious collective of unnamed Internet activists, is declaring war on the controversial Koch brothers. In a press release this weekend Anonymous accuses the brothers and their financial empire of attempting "to usurp American Democracy," and call for a "boycott all Koch Industries' paper products." Anonymous accuses the Koch brothers of taking "actions to undermine the legitimate political process in Wisconsin".  Here is a excerpt from the press release.

"The Koch brothers have made a science of fabricating 'grassroots' organizations and advertising campaigns to support them in an attempt to sway voters based on their falsehoods. Americans for Prosperity, Club for Growth and Citizens United are just a few of these organizations. In a world where corporate money has become the lifeblood of political influence, the labor unions are one of the few ways citizens have to fight against corporate greed. Anonymous cannot ignore the plight of the citizen-workers of Wisconsin, or the opportunity to fight for the people in America's broken political system. For these reasons, we feel that the Koch brothers threaten the United States democratic system and, by extension, all freedom-loving individuals everywhere. As such, we have no choice but to spread the word of the Koch brothers' political manipulation, their single-minded intent and the insidious truth of their actions in Wisconsin, for all to witness."

The Rebel

The Irish poet, educator, and revolutionary nationalist Patrick Henry Pearse (1879-1916) was a leader of the Easter Rising of 1916 against the British. Pierce was executed by the British May 3rd, 1916. Although Pierce died for his actions in 1916 eventually his death inspired a wider uprising that lead to the establishment of a modern independent Irish Republic. Pierce was a religious man of his time which explains why some of the prose are influenced by religious metaphors. In spite of that, I think Pierce captured the pent-up feeling of the common people when they suffer injustice over time at the hand of a corrupted power.

THE REBEL
By Padraig MacPiarais (Patrick Pearse)

I am come of the seed of the people, the people that sorrow,
That have no treasure but hope,
No riches laid up but a memory
Of an Ancient glory.
My mother bore me in bondage, in bondage my mother was born,
I am of the blood of serfs;
The children with whom I have played, the men and women with whom I have eaten,
Have had masters over them, have been under the lash of masters,
And, though gentle, have served churls;
The hands that have touched mine, the dear hands whose touch is so familiar to me,
Have worn shameful manacles, have been bitten at the wrist by manacles,
Have grown hard with the manacles and the task-work of strangers
I am flesh of the flesh of these lowly, I am bone of their bone,
I that have never submitted;
I that have a soul greater than the souls of my people's masters,
I that have vision and prophecy and the gift of fiery speech,
I that have spoken with God on the top of His holy hill.

And because I am of the people, I understand the people,
I am sorrowful with their sorrow, I am hungry with their desire:
My heart has been heavy with the grief of mothers,
My eyes have been wet with the tears of children.
I have yearned with old wistful men,
And laughed or cursed with young men;
Their shame is my shame, and I have reddened for it,
Reddened for that they have served, they who should be free,
Reddened for that they have gone in want, while others have been full,
Reddened for that they have walked in fear of lawyers and of their jailers
With their writs of summons and their handcuffs,
Men mean and cruel!
I could have borne stripes on my body rather than this shame of my people.

And now I speak, being full of vision;
I speak to my people, and I speak in my people's name to the masters of my people.
I say to my people that they are holy, that they are august, despite their chains,
That they are greater than those that hold them, and stronger and purer,
That they have but need of courage, and to call on the name of their God,
God the unforgetting, the dear God that loves the peoples
For whom He died naked, suffering shame.
And I say to my people's masters: Beware,
Beware of the thing that is coming, beware of the risen people,
Who shall take what ye would not give. Did ye think to conquer the people,
Or that Law is stronger than life and than men's desire to be free?
We will try it out with you, ye that have harried and held,
Ye that have bullied and bribed, tyrants, hypocrites, liars!

"If workers don't make a decent living America won't be a decent place to live"..

2500 protesters in Olympia today joined in solidarity with other workers in Wisconsin and across the nation to pledge that it will not happen here in Washington State. Hey, you rich pricks are you listening? Here's how it works. If we can make a decent living we can't by your fucking products, and you go out of business. Get it?

Woody Guthrie Fought For Working People And The Servant's Dream

Here's Willis Allen Ramsey's tribute song Boy from Oklahoma about Woody Guthrie and his travels with and for the working people of this country, many of them right here in the Pacific Northwest. 

"Throughout the Depression Era of the 1930s, Guthrie scrabbled to make a living, rambling back and forth across the country playing migrant work camps, railroad yards, lumber camps, hobo jungles, union halls, and street corners -- it remains accepted lore among Seattle’s 'buskers' that Guthrie’s favorite performance spot in town was at 3rd Avenue and Pike Street."

Woody with the famous graffiti scrawled on his guitar

"Way back in… ’41, I made a fast walking trip up and down the basin of the Columbia River and its tributaries, the Snake, the Hood, Willamette, Yakima and the Klickitat, making up little songs about what I’d seen. I made up 26 songs about the Bonneville Dam, Grand Coulee Dam and the thunderous foamy waters of the rapids and cascades, the wild and windward watersprays from the high Sheliloh falls, and the folks living in the little shack house just about a mile from the end of the line" (Murlin).  Woody Guthrie

Both quotes via: historylink.org

Wisconsin Cops Join Protests

 This could be a significant development.

We're Watching The Drowning Of The Middle Class In The Bathtub

Roslyn, WA Labor Day Parade early 1900's

Yet most Americans have no clue.

Your grandparents fought and in many cases actually died for the right to collectively bargain for their wages and working conditions. Today all over the country in places like Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Oklahoma,  and even here in what was once a virtual bastion of the American labor movement Washington State the far right is seizing the opportunity to defile your grandparent's legacy.

The corportate oligarchy and moral criminals like the Koch brothers and the lackey politicians they control can't wait to perform the final coup de grace on the rights of working people, who only want a say in what their working conditions should be. These blow hards relish turning back the clock to the late 1800's when workers suffered widespread exploitation and mistreatment while weak and divided.

Paul Krugman has an enlightening piece on the Wisconsin situation and how it is not just about collective bargaining. The legislation that Governor Walker wants passed, without compromise, also calls for the stripping of many other government guarantees and processes. This all hidden behind the well developed employer tactic of divide and conquer  and turning one worker against another and budget cutting. The philosophy that workers have no real right to a decent piece of the economic pie. While these corporate pigs gorge themselves. Those who feel you may be immune from exploitation, sitting there in a false state of rugged individualism, get ready because you'll be the ones they come for next.

"A injury to one is a injury to all....."

Seattle Times Paper Boxes Get Punked

Somebody took the Seattle Times out of the Seattle newspaper's boxes, and replaced the display copies with these copies. In case you haven't noticed Seattle has a police brutality problem caused by a recent spate of fatal police shootings.

via: Boycott Me

Which Republican Senator Is Blocking The Whistleblower Protection Act?

The question is who killed the Whistleblower Protection Act?  Apparently one of 5 possible Republican US Senators has put an anonymous hold on the legislation. Since my family comes from a long line of rabble-rousers what could be more appropriate and  natural than having my daughter start a facebook page that's trying to get to the bottom of the mystery. By the way where the hell is the MSM on this story? Cue the crickets here.

The story behind the story is supposedly that this legislation was sailing along till the WikiLeaks shit hit the fan and suddenly some conservative Senator decided that knowing what our government may be doing or increasing the chance for some accountability wasn't important anymore. The Obama Justice Department is also up to it's elbows it appears with their hysteria about suppressing would be leakers and the people who protect the leakers since WikiLeaks opened a can of whoop ass on them. Come on Obama, we knew this shit was going on. Who are you trying to fool?  Colbert did a classic piece on the subject last night on his show.

As late as December of last year the Whistleblower Protection Act was receiving near unanimous support in both houses of Congress when a mysterious and anonymous Senator put a hold on the bill.  We just want to know who the freaking Senator really is..... we want you to think of ways to help us do that. Like the facebook page for starters and then go out form a union and organize a general strike in you neighborhood. I'm not kidding. 

America On The Ropes Plan Parenthood NPR Cut But Not NASCAR

Holy shit, this is such hypocrisy ...... How can this make any sense?

"Something GOP doesn't want to cut: Funding for NASCAR"

The Middle Class Disconnect: While Fat Cats Rob The Tax Payers Blind And Pay Little In Taxes Unions Attacked For Fighting For What Amounts To Table Crumbs

Why do middle class working people turn on members of the community who belong to unions when these people are brave enough to organize together collectively and bargain for fair treatment from their employers, it doesn't matter if the employer is public sector or not. Why are non-union workers trying to drag union members and their families down. Is it jealousy of working conditions that are better due to collective bargaining. Does misery love company?


Weak, marginalized, underpaid, without health insurance, a living pension, defeated, overworked and alienated. Sitting their watching Fox News lie about unions and directing their misguide rage at other workers instead of their real enemy. The out of control corporations and selfish conservatives who would have us all working for minimum wage and not much else if they could get away with it. 

Bitching about government workers who "make to much" is their favorite pastime. Meanwhile they are happy to kiss their employer's ass while they take it in the backside when it comes to their wages and working conditions. To ignorant, afraid or jealous to see the benefit of joining in solidarity with other workers to exercise power collectively. They would rather believe the anti-worker and anti-union bullshit they get fed unrelentingly by the corporate media.

Yes is no and no is yes, war is peace. Thank you George Orwell. Please think for your fucking self for once in your life. This isn't rocket science.

Since when was it not American for someone to fight for a decent amount of money to support their family or provide for their own and their family's medical needs? Don't these middle class shills see that they are being robbed blind, poisoned, abused, and manipulated by corporations that employ them, while at the same time these same corporations refuse to pay their fair share in taxes, or play by the same set of rules that they expect the working people to play by.

Wake up you fools! Smell the fucking coffee. Are you going to be tools of the corporations and the selfish political entities who exploit you on a daily basis all your life?

War And Peace A Speech By Obama In Cairo Vs Shock And Awe In Baghdad By Bush

Did Obams's speech in Cairo in June 2009 become a harbinger of change?



Obama Speech today in response to the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Koch Brothers Party Gets Crashed By Greenpeace

Oh my what a bummer, and it was suppose to be a secret.

What you looking at honey?

Damn tree-huggers!

Thanks DB

The Rightwing's Koch (Coke) Habit Is Killing America

"they are long time very hard line libertarians, so their private agenda is really the eradication of the federal government in almost all of its forms ..... their trying to get rid of federal regulations particularly on energy companies like their own, they particularly have been at war with environmental regulations and they have a history of serious and even criminal pollution problems, and their very anti-tax in almost every form." Jan Mayer

The Koch brothers, Charles and David, are assholes and a case study of American corporate power run amok. Selfish billionaire robber barons who's actions show they only care about their own selfish agenda even if it could mean the destruction of the environment and eventually working people's quality of life.

The brothers effectively now control the US House Energy and Commerce Committee with 9 of the 12 Republicans signing a pledge put forth by the Koch funded Americans for Prosperity political action group. The brothers are also the single biggest contributor, in the amount given by a energy company, to individual committee members.

With 100 Billion in annual revenue Koch Industries funds the Tea Party and other extreme right wing front organizations and uses them as shills to push the Koch's corporate agenda. They own Dixie Cup Products, Northern bathroom tissue, Vanity Fair napkins, Stain-master and Lycra carpets, Georgia Pacific, Brawny paper towels and refineries in several states. So you should take those products off your shopping lists. Ironically,  Koch Industries have received 100 million in US government contracts, which doesn't seem to bother their libertarian conscience.

NPR's Fresh Air has a great interview with Jan Mayer who has written extensively for the New Yorker Magazine on these weasels.

Ronald Reagan Fail

There have been a number of retrospective looks at the presidency of Ronald Reagan on the occasion of what would of been his 100 birthday. Most conservatives think he belongs on Mount Rushmore.

Really Reagan deserves to be called the phony prick and corporate shill he turned out to be. He presided over the beginnings of the systematic dismantling of the quality of life for most folks in this country through the destruction on his watch of laws that were set up to protect the middle class. A pattern that has continued pretty much unabated since he left office, but the point is he got the ball rolling. The right-wingers get near orgasmic when waxing on about the Gipper and the bullshit machine continues to spew out the mythological crap about this puppet of the corporate oligarchy non stop.

I beleive that the wide disparity we find between the super rich and the middle class in the distribution of wealth in this country began to widen because of policies that Reagan embraced. Trick down economics being the main bowl of warm shit served up. He opened the government to corporate influence and power while restricting the power of organizations and labor unions that advocated for the middle class. Think progress has a fine article on the 10 things conservatives don't want you to know about Ronald Reagan.

The Only Thing Catalans Hate More Than Real Madrid Is Time Magazine

Proponents of the long suffering Catalan independence movement are mad as hell at Time Magazine. Time unfortunately left out Catalonia when it listed the top ten countries in the world who aspire to be independent. Because of this oversight the Catalan independence blog Whispers From The US - Internationalization of Catalan Cause has started a letter writing campaign aimed at Time's editors. The hope is to educate people on an international level about the desires of millions of Catalans to form an independent and sovereign state.

There are more than 7.5 million Catalans today who speak the native and beloved Catalan language. Catalonia takes up most all of the Northeastern part of what is now considered Spain by ignorant American tourists and unwashed student backpackers. I often found it amusing when Americans planning a trip to Barcelona would study Spanish for months only to arrive in what they thought was Spain and find that the locals generally don't like to speak a foreign language like Spanish in Catalonia. Catalonia is generally considered to be the areas where the Catalan language is spoken in Northeastern part of the Iberian peninsula . Andorra and parts of southern France were once part of a Catalan empire also. These areas are generally referred to by Catalans as Països Catalans, or the Catalan countries.

When you talk of Dali, Picasso, Miro, Pau Casals, Antoni Gaudí, or even LA laker star Pau Gasol your talking about Catalans. If you called them Spanish I'm sure they'd not be happy about it. But it's a common mistake that Americans and others make. 

I am lucky to have made many Catalan friends over the years during several trips to Catalonia and a short period of living there. So I know they'd be please if you'd click here to use the form email and let Time magazine know they screwed up big time on this! Or you can also send  personal email to letters@time.com and tell the editor to check his facts when it comes to their uninformed and incomplete listings of who who among the  world's independence movements.

Here's some facts about Catalonia:

"Autonomous community (pop. 7,500,000) and historic region, northeastern Spain. It encompasses the provinces of Girona, Barcelona, Tarragona, and Lleida and covers an area of 12,399 sq mi (32,113 sq km). Its capital is Barcelona. The Pyrenees separate Catalonia from France; the Mediterranean Sea lies to the east. Its principal rivers, the Ter, Llobrégat, and Ebro, all run into the Mediterranean. Catalonia was one of Rome's first Spanish possessions. Occupied in the 5th century AD by the Goths, it was taken by the Moors in 712 and by Charlemagne in 795. After the unification of Spain (1469), Catalonia lost its centrality in Spanish affairs, and by the 17th century its conflict of interest with Castile-León led to the first of a series of separatist movements. Catalan nationalism became a serious force after 1876. In 1932 a compromise with the central government granted Catalonia autonomy; this was revoked with the 1939 Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War, and Francisco Franco's government adopted a repressive policy toward Catalan nationalism. The reestablishment of democratic rule after Franco's death again led to autonomy in 1979. Today it is the richest and most industrialized part of Spain." - Answers.com

There's Something Happening Here What It Is Isn't Exactly Clear Are Tunisia Egypt Lebanon And European Mostly Youth Driven Riots Just The Beginning?

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" - John F Kennedy



The recent uprisings in the Europe and the Middle East are youth based. Does this indicate that the youth of the world are finally fed up with the corruption, violation of their rights and dogma of the generations of leaders that they have grown up under.
 
In the internet generation revolutions can spread quickly. Evidence of this is  governments in Egypt, Iran, Tunisia and elsewhere moving to block twitter, facebook and youtube channels as one of their first actions to quell decent and communication between the protesters and the outside world.



Revolutions nowadays take place on facebook and twitter not via printed handbills from the revolutionary cell working in the basement. The bigger questions with the recent uprisings in Europe and more so in Tunisia and Egypt, is it the begining of something that will grow and spread perhaps worldwide. I think we are witnessing the beginnings of something that is going to be quite amazing. Whether it means good or ill for the United State depends on how compromised and guilty we are in the minds of the revolutionaries.



I fear that the United States will deservingly be framed as the cause rather then the solution to the problem. It's not hard to imagine, given the many years of absolutely stupid foreign policy blunders and war making by our government in our name. It's generally called "blow back". Our meddling, criminal behavior, war mongering, and violation of human rights in and outside our country will come home to roost. Our unfair treatment of the Palestinians visa vi Israel will not set well with the new leaders who sprout from the revolts in predominantly Muslim countries where the uprisings are now are taking place. A terrible beauty is born...

The Brain Crushing Republican Bullshit Filled Blood Sucking Corporate Sellout Attempt To Repeal HeathCare

Right wingers tell nation's middle class to go fuck themselves when it comes to health care. When lying becomes a way of life.... your officially a Republican or you've entered the land of delusion to the point where you think up is down and yes is no and Sara Palin makes sense. But your probably okay if when you hear Palin or John Boehner talk you have an uncontrollable feeling of wanting to go to the bathroom and vomit you guts out, take a aspirin and go to bed.

Happy Birthday Muhammad Ali

Happy Birthday Muhammad. Thank you for the courage you demonstrated by refusing to be drafted and protesting the Viet Nam War, and never being bitter about it. Thank you for standing up for your convictions, and thank you for knocking out Sonny Liston, because I won $20 bucks on that fight in 1964.

"float like a butterfly sting like a bee".