Avery Voice - Liberty is a verb

As talk, it was pretty - but you don't build a BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE WITH "Pretty"

2012-01-25T04:56:00.000-08:00

Essay with 2 Rebuttals

As talk, it was pretty - but you don't build a BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE WITH "Pretty"

Equal under law, playing by the same rules? A new cop on the wall street beat?
Maybe we should stop incentivizing OUTSOURCING OF JOBS?

A real Mortgage solution for Mortgage Holders, not just bankers not just a few dozen?
Serious Commitment to Education? A New Fairness in Tax policy?

Since we've seen pretty words before...

I will be waiting for more than the waving of the bloody summary-execution flag.

We dont need to balance a clean environment with full energy development?
Didn't work out so well for the Gulf Coast BP's BFF or those town with FIRE-WATER!

Like ol Ronnie Reagan used to say "Glasnost and Perestroika"... Trust but Verify
(He's one of the President's Role Models)

THEN I RECEIVED THIS EMAIL:

Your negativity is not appreciated & your sarcasm is uncalled for!
Please remove my name & email from your list b/c I'm not impressed with your 'whine & cheesy talk' anout the eloquent challenge Preident Obama laid before the American people & the hope he engendered to a nation disrupted & bankrupted by GOP greed & glib talk like yours in this email!
Good Bye,
Dan X

SO I REPLIED:

DONE

It's not complaining, to ask if the speech was anything more than just rhetoric.

I don't believe that asking if his ACTIONS will follow his words, is too much. Maybe all you were looking for was an inspirational speech.

I appreciate a good speech, but I know also know about a Nobel Peace Prize winner, who continues rendition and prosecutes justice with Drone Missiles. Who's prosecuted more whistle-blowers than even the Bush/Cheney team. Who declared that Bradley Manning [BTW detained by the Commander-in-Chief naked in solitary for 10 months] is guilty, without benefit of a trial. (He did say Manning was being treated completely fairly)

A President who has worked to reduce Habeas Rights, and Expand Indefinite Detention. Whose rhetoric on the Economic Crisis has been completely refuted by his actions. (How many occupy protesters have been jailed vs how many criminal banksters)

But nevermind, he at least quoted Elizabeth Warren's comment that no one gets here alone. But he does give a helluva speech. And he's certainly not CRAZY like any of his potential REPULSICAN OPPONENTS.

Support him if you wish, and I will be remain skeptical of any rhetorician who uses his verbiage to collect supporters, and then ignores his own allies needs and his own promises.

solidarity & peace

Rick@AveryVoice.com

MIC CHECK as a tactic? It troubles my heart

2012-01-23T01:05:00.000-08:00

Brothers and sisters, let me say this as a concerned colleague. I get the idea of "SPEAKING UP" and being part of the dialogue. But in my heart of hearts, I am concerned that when we speak up to disrupt a speech. We invite the same karma. We damage, dialogue, we "SPIKE" the give and take and prevent speech.

I do not condemn, I was not there. I only raise the question. IF WE DISRUPT do we not give others license to disrupt our speech?

I speak not in condemnation, but only from my honest heart. I want the right to give my speech, free and continuous, I will give my opponent, the respect of hearing their "pitch" as I demand the respect to give mine. By withdrawing that respect, do we not invite the same?

I know full well, they do not respect us, our values or our ideas.

I just think we should set the example of giving the respect that they do not give us, then giving our ideas. Speaking our minds.

I share these thoughts, not in condemnation, and not seeking the validation, of agreement, only to raise a question of tactics.

solidarity & peace

Rick@AveryVoice.com

www.NewMercuryMedia.com

Long Live Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the American Ghandi

2012-01-17T14:08:00.000-08:00

How curious, how many "conservatives" (right-wing radicals) want to somehow reframe Dr. Kings' support of human dignity (which they opposed and undercut) every way they could, try now to corral the HUMANITARIAN Dr. King into their Mood Ring chant of the moment. Dr. King opposed exploitation.

Remembering Lincoln, as a republican while their standard bearers today, say, Black People need to "learn" about hard work, or ask for Paychecks not Welfare, [because they ignore that there are more unemployed white people on welfare than any other color] Or snort and complain that the todays' President is a Welfare president, when it has been their OUT SOURCING and TRICKLE DOWN VooDoo Economics that caused the loss of good American Jobs. Their corporate off-shoring via TAX POLICY and their gutting of regulations, so their Masters on WALL STREET and K Street who line their gucci loafers and gold trimmed pools with thousand dollar bills.

All that I can stand all that I can expect. The only thing that is over the top, is when some ignorant savage writes in to remember a mercenary assassin, like the refuse that was hired to martyr Dr. King.

Dr. King uplifter of humanity, cannot be slain, cannot be murdered. cannot be silenced. He will live longer for humanity than any tired mercenary.

Long Live Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the American Ghandi

On the Noble Dr. King

2012-01-15T07:22:00.000-08:00

A Commentary on an Essay on Dr. King by Vicki Impoco
[Original Essay]

Dr. King brought a new level of moral authority to the struggle for human dignity, especially in the American civic arena. That he succeeded so dramatically despite the forces that continued to be arrayed against him, speaks to the efficacy and strength of the human spirit, undiminished and undefeated even in death.

What American voice, what American figure has currently a fiftieth the gravitas of that towering figure of Human Rights. His labors, for human dignity, equity in the workplace and opposition of senseless wars must continue. Join with those of us, who count ourselves as enriched by this gentle genius and Humanitarian. Occupy Human Rights!

Thank you Dr. King we are in your debt still and thank you Vicki

solidarity & peace

Richard W. Spisak Jr.
www.NewMercuryMedia.com/pnn.html

Why do we protest - comments to FDL article

2011-12-29T10:30:00.000-08:00

Why do we protest - Why did Time Magazine honor the Protestor? Whither Occupy?

original article

All good points, and I’m in full agreement. I would like to add an important intangible that can also spring from the smallest protest. Despite the dangers of acting against the tide especially a BLOOD TIDE.

I was among the earliest protestors against both “Desert Storm ™”, and then the second even more disastrous “Shock and Awe ™” full invasion, or Act II of the MIC’s occupations in South Central Asia.

Standing with a few hearty souls along side the rush hour traffic, on US Highway 1 south of urban Miami, in a very conservative section of town we few stood nearly alone. The few furtive signs of solidarity signalled sometime from only one occupant sprinkled among the majority of Thumbs Down and Middle Finger up signal, or our favorite the “finger drawn across the throat” that we saw quite often.

These surreptitious signs of solidarity convinced us, that many of those who were morally with us, needed a public acknowledgement to comfortably express their opinion. They needed the comfort, the “space” for confirmation of their honest belief, that the war, no matter the Cheerleaders, was bloody murder at its technological peak of efficiency.

SHOCK and AWE … that we dared oppose the status quo.

See you on the Corner opposing the IRAN vendetta

solidarity & peace

Rick@AveryVoice.com
http://www.NewMercuryMedia.com/pnn.html

Jebby resurfaces... the stench remains the same.

2011-12-19T12:44:00.000-08:00

Like a burp of ill-smelling undigested fast food, Jebby places his "stink-foot" back in the public discourse. [Surprised? Not this writer]

I will quote excerpts from his WSJ OpEd:

Jebby: "Have we lost faith in the free-market system of entrepreneurial capitalism? Are we no longer willing to place our trust in the creative chaos unleashed by millions of people pursuing their own best economic interests?"

Translation: In defense against another attack by socialists, our profit-seeking free-market cannibals must learn to step over the staving poor, littering the streets.

JB - "The right to rise does not require a libertarian utopia to exist."

Translation: A robber baron great-grand-daddy will do.

JB - "Rather, it requires fewer, simpler and more outcome-oriented rules."

Translation: Outcome oriented rules - Rules that allow, river to be poisoned, air to flow freely with dangerous particulates.

JB - Rules for which an honest cost-benefit analysis is done before their imposition. Rules that sunset so they can be eliminated or adjusted as conditions change. Rules that have disputes resolved faster and less expensively through arbitration than litigation."

Translation: Rules that don't encumber THE JOB CREATORS, or if they do... not for very long.

JB - In Washington, D.C., rules are going in the opposite direction. They are exploding in reach and complexity. They are created under a cloud of uncertainty, and years after their passage nobody really knows how they will work. …

Translation: Some rules haven't yet been completely gutted. Not that consumers face any uncertainty.

JB - In short, we must choose between the straight line promised by the statists and the jagged line of economic freedom. The straight line of gradual and controlled growth is what the statists promise but can never deliver. The jagged line offers no guarantees but has a powerful record of delivering the most prosperity and the most opportunity to the most people. We cannot possibly know in advance what freedom promises for 312 million individuals. But unless we are willing to explore the jagged line of freedom, we will be stuck with the straight line. And the straight line, it turns out, is a flat line.

Translation: Statists a new pejorative. If we seek to tame the excesses of our Corporate Overlords... we are now STATISTS - newer than socialists and it reeks of Fully Market Tested Curses. Instead Jebby offers us, the JAGGED DANGEROUS RAZOR SHARP EDGE OF CORPORATE POWER Run-Amuck. Aww, the poor were just savaged by the JAGGED EDGE of the FREE MARKET. It's nobody's fault.... poor dears poisoned by Industrial Runoff - too bad... they were just destroyed by the Jagged Vicious Edge of FREEDOM.

OCCUPY your conscience.

2011-12-08T04:43:00.000-08:00

"The group's underlying motivation seems to be rooted in a fundamental concept that if you make a bad decision somebody else will pay for it. ... it's really OK; the taxpayer will simply foot the bill."

Odd that as you try to address the OCCUPY MOVEMENT you state the BANKSTERS position.

They (The Banksters) made bad choices, prioritized "LIAR LOANS" profited on both sides of the deal, which had nothing to do with the American Dream of home ownership, and everything to do with GREED, and gaming the system.

They paid themselves exorbitant salaries and then when the gush of money ebbed - Got the taxpayers to "bail them out!" And yet refused to help the very taxpayers that bailed them out. They just wave from their Billion Dollar Bonus Parks.

So who's "entitlements" are you defending. When Banksters and Wall Street Traitors (or is that TRADERS?) benefit when they bet against America's Interests? When the tax incentives favor the offshoring of good paying American Jobs - who benefits there? Why do you defend those business men and women who hide their schemes and business practice behind page after page of "fine print"?

When OCCUPY insist that the robbers of Millions and Billions, get the same justice that the villains who steal hundreds and you complain? I got to say, which side are you on?

When OCCUPIERS suggest that medical care, and education should be available to all Americans and you complain

- Is it your position that your grandmother should die, if she can't afford the thousands of dollars a month that private health insurance costs?

Which side are you on? {The Spirit of OCCUPY} asked this question before, and I think I know how you would answer.

OCCUPY your conscience.
ORIGINAL POST

WHY OCCUPY?

2011-11-13T06:47:00.000-08:00

If you are among the people, not quite sure, why the OCCUPY MOVEMENT has taken to the public square?

Here are a couple hints. They are trying to get the attention of their servants in government.
They refuse to die silently. They refuse to have their jobs, their lives, their homes, and the chance of an education stolen away.

They are not being heard. There were more people opposed to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars than even opposed the Viet Nam war debacle. The response of our representatives in government the public servants? They were rolled, by the deceitful Bu$h Administration. And despite evidence to the contrary sent our military and thousands of mercenaries and billion$ of dollar$ to WAR.

They presented a deaf ear when the public demanded PEACE. When the Bush Administration hijacked the US Treasury to bail out their pals on Wall Street and over a weekend demanded a blank check to PROTECT THE AMERICAN ECONOMY? Did our public servants act to protect the public, or did they think only of the people who pay the lobbyists decorating the halls of Congress with sheets of thousand dollar bills. They protected only the revolving door boys, they protected Wall Street.

Did our public servants in Congress demand that there be no PROFIT$ TAKEN from our generous gift of TAX DOLLAR$ to Wall $treet? No, the cash flowed and flowed and flowed and the BONUSES GREW and GREW and GREW!

When Professor Elizabeth Warren said, we must protect the public, we must have transparency. When she dared to suggest these bankers must pay. Congress and the president served the bankers first, and locked her out! - They locked us out too.

BIG MEDIA ignores the real issues, Our public servants in Congress ignore the real issues. The people guaranteed by our Constitution the right PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, to DEMAND redress of Grievances are doing just that. They have gathered across the country, and across the world to say,"IT ENDS HERE!

These patriots gather because they refuse to be ignored. Unionists, Environmental Activists, Human Rights Activists, Economic Justice Activists, Small Business men and women, students and just plan folks, have gathered in the public square to DEMAND the government protect them. Not just protect the BANKS, the BIG CORPORATIONS, the BIG Insurance Companies.

The American people's government exists to protect the interests of the people, not just the CORPORATE POWERS and the 1%ers.

Is it fair, that small businesses and families are paying their fair share of taxes, but GE pays nothing and gets a rebate? Is it fair, that companies enjoy tax incentives to steal American jobs and send them overseas. And unlike the "weak-tea" party, they left their guns at home. OCCUPY is about economic justice and FAIR PLAY for the American People.

Oppose workers rights at your peril

2011-11-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

Letter to the editor response to an article entitled

(Its the unions destroying the country not the corporations)

(Original Letter)

You have to wonder is the kind of myopia a product of poor education or willful ignorance.

Unions exist because of corporate leadership's inability to understand, that workers must be paid a living wage. Unions and the guild before them gave some bargaining power to workers and craftsman who were at the mercy of the rich and powerful.

Those who would abolish unions and other organizations which protect workers and craftsman's rights would march us into the SLAVE LABOR FACTORIES so "popular" among the oligarchs who rule big business, today.

Factories that demand 18 hour, seven day weeks dorm living (for which they are billed) [remember "I owe my soul to the company store" - Seniors may remember Ernie Ford's rendition]

Union activists achieved the 5 day work week. (You can thank the Unions for the WEEKEND) Unless you consider that an industry destroying Un-American achievement. Companies earned more and more profits. The unions said to management, those workers who make such profits and the high wages of the corporate leadership possible should share in those profits.

Retirement investment and healthcare benefits both spring from the union bargaining for fair wages and fair participation in the profits. Take home checks 270 times greater than the workers salaries is a modern development springing from Reagan's decision to betray unionized federal workers. REMEMBER Reagan the guy that traded missiles with the Iranians just after they held American Embassy workers hostage for a year. That's the guy that opened WARFARE on the American Workers Rights. And while you're thanking Ronnie and Nancy's astrologer for that particular victory for the Corporate Oligarch, don't forget to thank Ollie North, the guy that stuffed secret papers, in his secretaries drawers so they could be smuggled out of the White House. What a hero.

Think twice before you betray workers families because they want to participate in the benefits that stem from their labors. When you defend a corporations rights to profit from slave labor while polluting the planet, you will definitely reap what you sow.

You don't spin video - ASK google - you just let uncle Sam censor it!

2011-10-27T14:53:00.001-07:00

You don't spin video. You don't spin heavily armed riot police, firing tear gas, using sound cannons and billy clubs. Ask the marine in the hospital about NON-LETHAL FORCE.

They didn't attack the angry armed T-partiers. They attacked the peaceful protestors who opposed the banksters. They opposed the deregulation that wiped out their savings. The peaceful protestors were opposed, were attacked by policemen and women, whose pensions are under attack, by the same forces of greed that the OCCUPY Activists denounce.

I don't blame the police, I don't even blame the fearful captains and sergeants. I blame those ignorant of CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEES. I quote the First Amendment:

AMENDMENT I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

...

May the officers, who fired at the heads of those peaceful citizens, live to rethink their cavalier abuse of the first amendment. And orders to break the law, are unlawful orders. Even Donald Rumsfeld knows that thats why those criminals, sought to soothe their consciences with bendable lawyers.

solidarity & peace

Rick Spisak - We are the 99%

www.NewMercuryMedia.com

Another Complainer who loves DEREGUALTION (Stuart News Rebuttal)

2011-10-19T06:37:00.000-07:00

Constantino
(Original Article)

Do you know why we have regulation because unregulated business have poisoned their employees and killed their customers. If people weren't greedy, we wouldn't need laws. If people drove like they want everyone else to drive we wouldn't need traffic laws.

When American corporations move overseas so they can ignore regulations that keep from poisoning us they poison other communities. Check out the pollution problems in Mexico, and China. Where the UNREGULATED ROAM FREE.

Whether or not, MABELL built her machine is irrelevant to the issue. Yes corporation do wonderful amazing things, but unregulated businesses also do horrific things.

"You don't like safe food. Don't care about safe water. Don't care if there is sewage on the Beaches. No wildlife fine with you? And you obviously don't need safe medicine or appliances. All those nasty regulations that ruin the economy for those who woud poison you? That would be a shame. - RW Spisak"

As for me, I'd like there to still be wildlife. I'd like to know that airlines are safe, and that the medicine my grand children and wife eat is safe.

Good luck with that lifestyle."

Do some reading, look up why the food industry is regulated?

Read Sinclair Lewis who exposed meat packing. Read Rachel Carson "The Silent Spring" if you and your children and grand children weren't protected from the abuses of the Agribusiness excesses - you might be eating corn that has pesticide genetically engineered right into the corn - OOPS you probably are - But don't you worry about it - Eating that pesticide will be easier if you and those who would GUT PROTECTIVE REGULATION get your way.

Look out below! - We are the 99%

TAXED TOO MUCH - don't make me laugh!

2011-10-14T05:11:00.000-07:00

If you're part of the 99% yes, you are taxed too much. If you work or worked for a salary yes, you have paid too much. But if your a banker, or an insurance exec, or a trader making money with no tax liability, and you paid less in taxes than the janitor who took out your trash, you my friend have been getting a free ride. Time to pay the fare.

I am a small business man, I pay taxes each month. When I hear of companies who are receiving tax benefits from sending jobs over seas, or companies like GE or BP or GOLDMAN SACHS who take advantage of the benefits of doing business in a country, whose roads are paved, who is serviced by police and fireman, and whose staff is educated by tax payers. And yet paid no tax, or worse got a REFUND?

Don't talk to me about "T.E.A." partiers? Those "economically concerned" who never appeared while the Shrub and Turd-blossom put two wars on the credit card - You've got to be kidding me!

If your among the 1% who pays no taxes and yet benefits from a country built by tax payers you'll get no sympathy from me. Your trickle down doesn't trickle down on me!

The people in the streets right now, the (Occupy Wall Street, OCCUPY TAMPA, OCCUPY BOSTON, OCCUPY LA, OCCUPY MIAMI, OCCUPY PALM BEACH) who are demanding that mortgage payers get the same kind of loving care that BANKERS GOT.

I'm with them I'm a 99% oh, did I mention I'm an Educator. And thus, viewed by my "governor" as expendable.

The results of being a Liberal - a response

2011-10-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

Clearly you are confused about the "idea" of liberal. The point of being a liberal, or progressive, is that you are prepared with an open mind to listen to a variety of opinions, and assess the available facts and then come to a reasoned conclusion.

The very idea on a "cult" is an anathema to the philosophy or world view of the truly liberal. [liberals were accused of cult-like behavior.]

I offer this in contrast with those who let FAUX NEWS [the propaganda organ of the PLUTOCRACY] do their thinking for them. I draw you attention to the followers who speak of themselves as the "DITTO-HEADS" who let Mr. Limbaugh do their thinking for them.

You earlier about what alternative did America have to an invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq. You neglected to really "think" about what ostensibly necessitated the invasion. Maybe you would point to the attack on the Building in New York. [Including no doubt the building the fell "in sympathy] with the near by destruction.

Assuming you accept the "approved" version sanctified by the Bush Administration. Wasn't it Saudi's and Saudi money - and of course with the addition money funneled by our "allies" in Pakistan's ISI.

Was it necessary to invade, and occupy Iraq, Afghanistan, to fend off a couple thousand tribesman? I and many others think not.

I recommend you read the essay by Marine General Smedley who fought in both the Mexican American War and World War I. You remember that one, it was the one, to end all Wars. Or at least that was the slogan.

I'm sure your open-minded enough to do a little historic reading. As the saying goes, those that don't know history, are bound to repeat it.

A Progressive in favor of Human Rights and Opposed to War!

O... is for OCCUPATION!

2011-10-05T15:54:00.000-07:00

The day, Obama joined; OCCUPY WALL STREET

He told the Secret Service to get the chopper ready, he was headed to a meeting at Goldman Sachs. So they warmed up Marine One and a few minutes later with his usual retinue of handlers advisors and a few staffers, he crossed the lawn and climbed into the copter seconds later and headed off east nor east.

They landed about an hour later on the roof top helo pad atop the GLASSINE TOWER that obscures the corruption at Goldman Sachs. The president was all grins, as he tucked his briefcase under his arm and walked briskly across the roof to the elevator that would take him to his place beside the seat of power.

Far below in the streets thousands had joined the Occupiers that had now, begun the 30th day of the encirclement of the Goldman Sachs building. The occupiers had taken up positions circling the buildings non-stop while the police who have not allowed any sitting or standing on or around the building permitted them to parade around the building provided they didn't blockade the entrances. The police union had promised the occupiers, they would defend their constitutional rights to assemble and protest. Provided they agreed not to blockade any entrances. This truce had stood for two weeks. The circling crowd, never counted less than several thousand.

Not long after Marine One had disgorged its passengers, the crowd surged around the entrance. A galvanic impulse seemed to energize the crowd. A clot of secret service had appeared at the main entrance to the building. The crowd surged forward and then lurched back as the corporate security team pressed outward against the shifting and slowly circling occupiers.

"Stand Down", the secret service, waved the security guards off, they were rumored to be a wet team from Xe, each one an example of beefy steroid excess reeking of mercenary bloodlust. The had stood silent guard at every entrance heavily armed bristling with automatic weapons and more.

Seconds later the lanky figure of a black man exited the building surrounded by the secret service contingent that quickly formed the flying wedge that would provide the normal phalanx of protection for a head of state in a public arena. Those closest to the entrance turned to see what would happen next. Instant consensus was that the president would shake a few hands, maybe exchange a few comments and move on, the press hadn't even arrive yet. After all, hadn't Nixon chatted with Anti-War protestors?

The president walked right into the crowd which parted, both in deference to the wedge of secret services and partially out of civic respect. It was only a few of the curious with cameras perched high overhead and a few souls in close proximity who actually gathered what in fact, was happening. The president strode right into the crowd, with secret service in tow and headed right down the street toward the park that had become the epicenter of the occupation.

The president stopped briefly at the park edge and spoke to a pair of colorfully coiffed teenage girls. He then turned to some of the media activists and after a few brief exchanges was seen nodding and smiling. He continued wading further into the park. He walked among the seated people pausing here and there, the secret service team twitchingly alert. But eventually one of the occupiers, offered the president some salad and a cushion to rest on, and the crowd shifted to accommodate the newcomers. Some moved closer to catch the exchanges between those near enough to toss a question and retrieve an answer from this adventurous politician.

Some of the secret service hunkered down, after a bit and settled in for what seemed to be an extended stay. A camera crew and producer from Democracy Now, made their way through the crowd, and with battery powered lights opposed the dimming sunset, and the president conducted a brief press conference, from the heart of occupied Liberty Square.

One by one, the commercial media crews found their way most for the first time to Liberty Square. They set up their cameras, and equipment and took up positions ringing the president. He sat, holding court while a couple toddlers, alternative dove in his lap, or raced their toy fire engines over his head. Ringed by cameras he held forth on the importance of the Liberty Park occupation sitting on a cushion next to a young family who had offered him a bowl of their family salad dinner. Their child had grown comfortable with the president and had begun, occasionally to climb on him, as children will on a person who is the center of attention. While the young mother had twice, tried to pull back when he ran his firetruck over the presidents head, Barack had smiled and gave the toddler a thorough tickling while an uncomfortable Dan Rather balanced uncertainly against a tree.

The press eventually tired of the president's "TIME FOR JOBS" theme and as the lights were shut off Barack began talking with the occupiers. Every few minutes for the first couple of hours, the secret service would lean in and ask, was he about ready to go? Clearly the president had no, interest in leaving anytime soon.

It began to drizzle and across the crowded square tarps and plastic sheeting appeared to envelope the activist village. Somebody passed the president a poncho and the secret service team scrambled to locate umbrellas, but the president waved them off. Down the street, bright lights appeared and began slowly to work their way toward the park. The secret service lead man, leaned down several times and exchanged information with the president. A large smile played across the president's face.

Eventually the bobbing lights approached the edge of the park nearest the president. The crowd parted and the lights approached more rapidly. Soon, it was clear who was joining the occupiers at Liberty Square. The president's daughters appeared in a gap in the crowd, trailed by the stately Michelle. Daddy, DADDY - we've come to spend the night. Michelle was carrying sleeping bags, and an aide held a child's colorful tent rolled up.

Daddy Daddy, we've come to be with you and THE PEOPLE!

We will not go gently back to the feudal servitude

2011-10-04T13:03:00.000-07:00

Vicki''s Essay

My support and endorsement as always

No thought is given to the farmer in need of irrigation in Iraq, the US was busy paying to have novels translated into Iraqi. We also built fake factories. Oh how we helped bring civilization to the "Fertile Crescent". (Look it Up)

The chorus of WAR-MERCHANTS drones on about security, security, terror, terror. I guess they mean, take your shoes off we'll be scanning you naked.

We will pay the WAR-MERCHANTS for their GOLD-PLATED high explosive diplomacy, their fragmentary bombs of diplomacy, their cluster bombs of International Relations, their UNSPENT NUCLEAR WARHEADS of nation building. What a gift, so much more... DRAMATIC than the PEACE CORPS.

Then we'll pay them (The War Merchants) to hire a subcontractor who is little more than a "cut-out" commercial slave-owners to pretend to refill the craters and rewire the broken buildings and then throw up a Potemkin Village of a "chinese" plasterboard to replace the real city of concrete and masonry. No money for that bridge in Florida, Kentucky, New York, Ohio...

Americans must stand idle, divided into ever smaller and smaller interest groups, each co-opted by hidden paymasters. Coerced into opposing their own interests they ride the manufactured buses of dissent and hold the NON-UNION printed signs waving their weapons at their fellow inmates. The schools, and the libraries, are not for the poor alone. Clean air, and clean water are in fact affordable, the planet is not disposable, in fact POLLUTION IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE SAUCE of all.

We must lead the reactionaries forces toward a more humane governance. Something more akin to what the founders bequeathed us. A nation of the people (NOT-CORPORATIONS) and not conducted in secret by a tyrannical government obscured by lies from those who must control and guide it.

Openness not secrecy is the cure.

The national security state can only exist only for it's own perpetuation.

OPPOSE THE WAR on Afghanistan, on Iraq, on Yemen, Somalia, and the most important war of all the WAR on Working Americans. We will not go gently back to the feudal servitude. LAWS are equally for all the people - the corporations, the ruling elite of Wall Street, and the international outlaws of Crawford Texas, are not too big to JAIL!

solidarity & peace

Rick@AveryVoice.com

Pssst NPR over here Occupy Wall Street is news - even if Ashston Kuche' isn't involved

2011-09-29T05:03:00.000-07:00

In the long lurch rightward that has reduced NPR to republican framing and talking points has long saddened this reporter. I watched our old NPR, once a stalwart of old time journalism trimming and trimming it's sails until we get 5 interviews from the Heritage and Hoover economic school, and no alternative analysis.

So you can imagine how bad local and regional news is, that I and many other still depend on the gelded NPR for our national and international news. [as well as BBC, France 24, RTV, New India Times,Al Ghezira and others]
Why did it take more than a week to even notice the Wall Street occupation? There is no excuse despite this "explanation" from Dick Meyer of NPR:

RSN reports We asked the (NPR) newsroom to explain their editorial decision. Executive editor for news Dick Meyer came back: "The recent protests on Wall Street did not involve large numbers of people, prominent people, a great disruption or an especially clear objective."

Hundred protesting peacefully for over a week, protesting WALL STREET ABUSES, MORTGAGE GOUGING, FAILURE OF THE REGULATORS TO PROSECUTE WALL STREET CRIMINALS?
Nobody on the cute list? No Billionaires? NO NEWS HERE? Really NPR? PEPPER SPRAYING PEACEFUL PROTESTORS? No Clear Objective?

"Where else are you going to go?" No not me!

2011-09-25T19:06:00.000-07:00

I will not support GOP-lite. I will not support a candidate or a party that will use "progressive" talking points as a means to insure that a corporatist wolf, can be elected with a real mandate to establish universal single payer, restore the rule of law, and put an end to lawless oligarchy and plutocracy in the land of Jefferson, Adams and Franklin.

A constitutional scholar who only looks forward when it comes to bankers and oil men but remembers to persecute (not prosecute) whistleblowers is not a democrat to my taste. Who stands not on the UNION PICKET LINE as he promised but on the green with CAPTAINS OF GOLD-PLATED SACHS on the lawns of the RULING CAST.

Mistake me not for some inattentive would be LIBERTARIAN, interested only in Ron Pauls words about War and failing to studies his incomplete understanding of the purpose that was so poetically described by "a more perfect union". Lulled into somnambulism, with independence rhetoric in a world where we are connected to the abandoned baby and the tossed away factory worker.

I neither count myself among the jaded who suggest that the hysterical bloodlust of another BUSHITE MEGLOMANIACAL THEOCRAT would serve the country right [having long ago shed it's moral compass in a headlong rush to a new imperium ] or scare it straight back to "little" d democracy. And I all to well appreciate that the possible damage to the nation and its infrastructure both humane and natural might well see the light of both liberty and science extinguished in a new dark ages by any of the several faux theocrats proffered by the GRAND OLD PARTY at present.

I answer to a higher authority than fear, I serve posterity and the light and life of my true brothers and sisters the life artists some refer to as hippies or free spirits or bohemians. Progressives have been assaulted and betrayed enough by the corporatists currently hiding under the rubric of the Democratic Party. I would sooner spit in my grandchild's eye than offer my sacred ballot to such sinister life denying toadies as habit the White House at present. Wink at torturers, smile at mercenaries and prosecute wars on the innocent with mercenaries uncounted. I fear not their insults and their armies the tools of spying, police and security apparatus concern me not. When these tools of fools meet honesty they shrink apologetically and TRUTH STAYS UNSULLIED.

Don't tell me the damage to the house of Democracy was damaged by those who opposed the poisoning of the Gulf. Who stood stalwart against the lies of PIPELINES, the victimization of returned and damaged soldiers. My vote does not belong to the purveyors of Corporatist Lies.

Progressives did not destroy Obama's good name, the GHOULS OF GOLDMAN SACHS and their enablers at CITIBANK and Haliburton, at BP and EXXON merely tore the lambskin off the wolf.

LOOK OBAMA's Got No CLOTHES On! - The Truth is HANGIN OUT!

FRAGGING, DEFRAGGING and Moore

2011-09-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

Memo to OBAMA KoolAid Crewe

So guess who's a "warrior for the middle class" now, that it's campaign time?

The friend of Wall Street, the protector of the Cheney gang, that Credit Company enabler the O-man himself! - How do we know - He told us so, standing at the foot of one of this great nation's crumbling infrastructure. Grandstanding at the base of a bridge from one ANTI-Worker Republican "McConnel" district to another RULING CLASS WARRIOR Republican Boehner's district. Ask the UNION BUSTER Govenor's how much grief they took, from when President Community Organizer stood in the snow in February with all those Union Activists. [OOPS - He wasn't there]

Responding to another ANTI-PROGRESSIVE ATTACK by another Obamanaut

I think you over simplify tremendously when you right the left, the vocal left, the "professional" and amateur left, the honorable and religious left, hate OBAMA. We dislike capitulation in the face of opposition. We disagree with policies that promise healthcare for all, and then before the negotiations begin a strategy that gives up first principles, that grovels before big pharma. That refuses to prosecute WALL STREET and Bankers but indicts more whistle blowers than any other administration. We disapprove of policies that put a Bradley Manning in solitary for a year before even beginning the hearings, but gives International War Criminals and torturers like BUSH, CHENEY, RUMSFELD, YOO and others a big friendly smile and wave.

You suggest what all of us that worked to elect the Chameleon President who ran as a progressive and only later revealed his presidential model "Ronnie Rayguns" hate the president. Hate him? that most of us, worked hard for, and voted for and cried in celebration of his election! You are mistaken, my friend mistaken. We don't hate him, we just disagree with his administrations policies.

When the REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS in lockstep tore up contracts with Unions... where was the Community Activist President... like his predecessor... He was AWOL! - That's not HATE, that's disappointment, maybe the moderates... will pound the pavement for him, or maybe all those lobbyists whose calls he takes... Maybe they'll walk the precincts.

RESPONDING TO ONE MORE.... don't pick on Obama

2011-09-04T20:20:00.000-07:00

While I remain "excited" by the republican (oops) T-Party Operatives, who lead the charge against the middle class. I must explain.

I think you over simplify tremendously when you suggest that the left, the vocal left, the "professional" and amateur left, or even the well meaning but honorable or even the religious left, hate OBAMA. It's not about hate, or like or love or even disappointment.

We or I if you will dislike capitulation at the first hint of opposition. Or surrender as an opening gambit. We disagree with the kind of politics that promises healthcare for all, and then before the negotiations begin a strategy that gives up first principles, and then follows out with a groveling give away to big pharma. Where an administration refuses to prosecute WALL STREET or Bankers but indicts more whistle blowers than any other administration. We disapprove of policies that put a Bradley Manning in solitary for a year before even beginning the hearings, but gives International War Criminals and torturers like BUSH, CHENEY, RUMSFELD, YOO and others a big friendly smile and wave.

Hate of a president that most of us, worked hard for, and voted for and cried in celebration of his election you are mistaken. We disagree with his and his administrations policies. When the REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS in lockstep tore up contracts with Unions... where was the Community Activist President... like his predecessor... He was AWOL! - That's not HATE, that's disappointment, maybe the moderates... will pound the pavement for him, or maybe all those lobbyists whose calls he takes... Maybe they'll walk the precincts.

They serve at our pleasure

2011-08-27T04:21:00.000-07:00

Activism and Courage

Every time I have joined fellow activists, on a corner, a rally, or when I stood to ask a question of some, "public servant" every time, I have been told, by some passing fellow citizen, THANK YOU, you are also standing for me. They look earnestly at my face and say, you are asking for me too, you make me braver, because you stood and asked the question I dare not ask.

I have stood against this war, and that war. I have opposed the brutalization of that group and those rights. And each time some fellow citizen, shook my hand and thanked me, for my courage. I see these acts as civic responsibility

I remember in my civics class, my history class, I was taught that this is my country, government employees are my employees, whether the county commissioner, or the Congresswoman, or the General, they work for you and me. These are "public servants" and they take orders from voters, and at a public hearing they seek our help, our input. If we dare to absent the public square, then we leave them to do the bidding, of those who do show up.

And if they only hear from corporate interests, how could we be surprised, if that's whose interests they serve.

GET UP STAND UP - Stand up for your rights!

solidarity & peace

Rick@AveryVoice.com

MORE PROGRESSIVE BASHING from Obamanauts!

2011-08-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

Carl

Just a few quick thoughts. I know of no-progressive, NO former Obama enthusiast

who views the White House leadership, with it's Geitners, It's Summers, its Rahm Emanuels, it's Eric Holders or the new chief of staff - GE's Job-Out Sourcer extrodinaire. Or anyone of the other WALL STREET OLIGARCHs who've been placed in key spots in the Administration as the sole problem facing this country.

To pretend even for a moment, that ANYONE on the left blames OBAMA more than either the standard corporatists of the Grand Ol Party, or the Religio-Fascists of the Republican Party or the latest phenom the KOCH-funded ASTRO-turfers of the KNOW-NOTHING Branch of the Idiocracy (t-party) is just foolishness and the same sort of BLAME the progressive first-ers that we expect from anyone carrying water for the SELL-OUT Obama Administration.

What I have heard was while there is nothing wrong with consensus building, and there is nothing wrong with bridge building its just that this administration has dragged it's agenda backwards to it's own two yard line and then... then began accommodating from there!

NO Bully-pulpit from the guy who said, let's close Guantanamo, no Bully-pulpit from the guy who pledged an end to BUSH ERA spying and grilling whistle-blowers, no agenda for even middle of the road democratic principles. The use of the word ENTITLEMENTS by corporatists and war-industry oligarchs in limousines would be laughable except, "OUR" team leader seems not only to agree but to see galloping-concessions as leadership.

Don't pretend that an alert agenda oriented voter is betraying "our" side. Yes he promised more war in Afghanistan, and anyone expecting less was fooling themselves. Don't kid yourself, and don't bully the progressives with the NONSENSE, that by reminding President Obama about the agenda he said he was bringing and it's ABSOLUTE ABSENCE we betray him.

It's his actions, his appointments, his ACTUAL AGENDA... as the betrayal. YES the Tea Party and the Republicans are the enemy of working people everywhere. That's not news. And if your surprised, that's your problem. But let me say this once more.

THE ABSENCE of the AGENDA that he and his team, told us was the PLAN - yes, we notice and WE WILL CONTINUE TO SAY SO.

To pretend that President Obama's betrayal of women, the poor, the elderly, the environment has made CONSERVATIVE OLIGARCHS UPSET. Is simply wrong. Equating our criticism with betrayal of democrats, is just blind defeatism itself.

SEE YOU ON THE PROTEST LINE CARL, unlike the guy who said, he'd march with UNIONS when they were threatened. You figure he didn't heard about Wisconsin?

solidarity & peace

Rick@AveryVoice.com

www.NewMercuryMedia.com

RE WHO-WHAT-WHY Story on the Fable of the Bin Ladin Raid

2011-08-18T04:29:00.000-07:00

Russell and team, thanks for picking apart some of the loose threads of this EPIC myth making exercise. Surely an exemplary exercise is PSYOPS. Containing nothing whatsoever of truth, and wrapping the tale up neatly with the "typical Muslim at Sea Burial and the timely and convenience coincidence of the elimination of so many who might have been in a position to tell-tales out of school, is just so, how's the saying go, just one more interesting "coincidence".

Are we to take seriously the report that the operation was UNPLUGGED, in an age where "intelligent" live-fire combat technology is the norm, that a mission of this sort, would have gone "OLD-SCHOOL" and low tech (except for laser sites) Why would such "real-time" technology be abandoned, especially when we are treated to "eye-candy" administration photos of all the leading lights, perched around a monitor, tracking the realtime action. Or were the poor dears, left hanging for twenty-five minutes, gee theres a version for everyone. A regular "limited hangout" enterprise.

Has Hollywood, really got it so far off the mark, from West Wing to pick one... they went dark? Since they undoubtedly had man tracking technology and they haven't shown us anything of the raid events. [While it's no doubt being coded for some future XBOX Christmas Software and needless to say, the full Star-Spangled Hollywood treatment]. Maybe not Matt Damon though.

It is repugnant to the imagination that there was no presidential involvement in the decision as to whether this was a TAKE or KILL mission. Since "modern" justice has been thoroughly gutted [Just say 9/11] its not that far-fetched that it was a simple execution warrant, "nation of laws" notwithstanding. But can we really stomach no discussion at all nationally, about whether we try enemies like Nuremberg or just summarily cancel them like a listless sitcom, where ARE we headed.

One last thread was left loose though, WWW-Team what about this latest wrinkle so oft neglected - the story just a few days old, that Pakistan let the Chinese examine the downed chopper ? No discussion of the lost machines, and the evacuated guests or can we still say "detained compound occupants all left to the friendly hands of Pakistani security?

This warrants at least one more follow up

Thank you Russell, and Who, What Why!

Richard Spisak

www.NewMercuryMedia.com/pnn.html

TO PARTY... or toward a better CONTRACT

2011-08-15T03:46:00.000-07:00

We find ourselves in the paradox, that while there "ARE" two franchised "parties -
neither serve any interests beyond their lobbyist paymasters. We must find a path to
enable our voices and our agenda. It is my profoundest hope. That those of us, who understand something of the energy paradigm of this universe.

Can we with our sustained and focused energy enable these unmet needs and find a place, a voice and a path, toward that expression? PDA/MoveON/Greens / Socialists all with a glorious variety of stripes were created in a time for a need, these were fractured.

Todays needs, todays dangers mus summon a more serious response. I say this, with full understanding that some brothers and sisters are honorably committed to trying to reorient the glacial path of the DEMOCRATIC PARTY. I honor them and respect their efforts One and All - I can only speak from my own true heart - Which knows this is not and cannot be the compass of where I must work. I see these terrible crimes against the Constitution and the terrible attacks on simple human rights as so extensive, so ingrained. The enabler of much of this who pretends that COMPROMISE is the HOW and the WHY of torture, of spying, of mercenaries, beyond poisoned rivers and seas, of MEGADEATH, of the destruction of cities, of schools, of millions of lives sacrificed so WAL STREET can live in an opulence that would have made an EMPEROR BLUSH. -

I must work with all my energies to help us, break these walls, to end this murderous path. with it's casual massacre of millions.

Using ideas and energy and the truth of millions as the garden where I must join those who seek a renewal of the Social Contract with tomorrow's children. Our steps stain the sand so briefly.

PSSST.. we're going to do a Down Grade.. don't pass it along!

2011-08-07T06:58:00.000-07:00

WOW
A corrupt "rating" agency that rode the bandwagon... without noticing that rating ALL THOSE "special instruments" were listed as AAA. They and all their pals rode that little pony all the way to BIG-BONUS VILLE .

Now we're supposed to take their partisan "concern" seriously? On top of that bad judgement, this same group of "NUMBER CRUNCHERS" got their math wrong. (JUST A COUPLE TRILLION $$ WRONG)

Let's see.. Does that make sense to you? If your company releases an assessment, sure to be poured over by an accountant or two, and you skip on checking the math. What, you left the numbers checking to the senior guy's summer intern?

Not realizing that they were going to be DUMPING on the leader of the free world? And not because of the state of America's actual finances... but because - REPROs and DEMOs can't play nice - we all get penalized.

And even that is just ICING ON THE CORRUPT CAKE... We learn that they leaked the info to insiders? What the incompetence and bad judgement isnot enough? Let's stir in some corruption too?

If the justice department walks passed this this without a sidelong glance. My friends let me whisper something in your ear, the game is rigged and WE THE PEOPLE are ill served, by an economic system, where your public servants and the watchdogs, are on a short leash held by the criminal conspiracy on Wall Street

Where is the political Will to enforce any law ON WALL STREET? Were Elliott Spitzer and Elizabeth Warren the only ones who noticed the criminality on Wall Street. Until these BIGGEST CRIMINALS are indicted all small timers who stole hundreds of thousands and hundreds should claim they are working for Wall Street.

We The People - Don't forget US!
www.AveryVoice.com

SUPER COMMITTEE, or CONFERENCE COMMITTEE - we'll let the SPINNERS SUGGEST!

2011-08-04T06:55:00.000-07:00

Stephen Malagodi the ever passionate Olbermann does ask a good question that I've wondered about from the start: How can this 'super congress' be constitutional? It is a separate body comprised of a few members of each chamber whose product must be approved without amendment. It is the reconciliation process working backwards...

about an hour ago ·

Richard Spisak Other than Hyperbole - its nothing more than a conference committee and like Sen. Kyle (that great patriot opined) a thankless job, requiring a glutton for punishment - who will probably have to attend long meetings..... aw, poor dear, you'd of thought he was elected to serve the people. But then again, you may not have seen, his discounted price tag.

a few seconds ago ·

DOES THIS Sound Familiar?
A privatized education, with a voucher for each child [instead of a teacher, a classroom and a public school. [it may work for grandma too? ...and Healthcare too!]

This way, different parents can choose where to spend, their VOUCHER - and buy merely paying "a supplemental fee"
GET THEIR PRECIOUS, a school of CHOICE!!!

Obviously, different payments will allow certain children to attend different quality schools. [of their choice!!!]
Producing vast and monumental inequalities between rich & poor children. Cause isn't that what GAWD INTENDED???

solidarity & peace

RIck Spisak
News Director
Progressive News Networkwww.NewMercuryMedia.com