"Free Trade" or Fair Trade...

http://www.theportlandalliance.org

We need fair trade, not so-called "free trade."
What these bad deals mean is that large transnational economic cartels
are "free" to exploit, abuse, and cripple small farmers, small business, and everyday people in third world nations to lower incomes and make the rich richer.

After destroying economies and stifling job-creating small businesses in surrounding nations, hungry and desperate people migrate to America,
where they are again exploited, abused, and misused to effectively lower wages here. These deals are lose-lose propositions for everyday people at home and abroad.  Do not be fooled. Obama and Romney BOTH support these corporate attacks on everyday people.

We need fair trade and straight talk. Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson, and other progressives support unions, fair trade, and everyday people.

No fear. Have courage. We will not be moved. Viva la revolution!

about an hour ago    

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General Strike!
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MAYDAY 2012: The Light of Hope March & Rally
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What does the occupation movement want?

"No Fear. No Compromise,
and No Surrender!"
Tim Flanagan@
The NW Alliance

“You cannot buy the revolution.
You cannotmake the revolution.
You can only be the revolution.
It is in your spirit or it is nowhere.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin,

The people who protest today
want peace, freedom, liberty,
health care, jobs with justice,
and education.  This growing
global movement is about
economic crisis.

"A revolution is coming –
a revolution which will be
peacefulif we are wise enough;
compassionateif we care enough;
successful if we are fortunate enough
– but a revolution which is coming
whether we will it or not.
We can affect its character;
we cannot alter its inevitability.”
                                         ― John F. Kennedy

"Bailing out" billionaire bankers while everyday
people lose their homes does not make any sense. 

Today's economic problems stem from the largest transfer
of funds in the history of the planet. This was facilitated by
transnational economic cartels during the Cheney/Bush years... 
The military industrial complex won the war and we have been
taken to the cleaners by right wing criminals, thugs, and profiteers. 

“People have only as much liberty as they have the
intelligence to want and the courage to take.”
― Emma Goldman 

Occupation movement organizers have asked that
we invest in roads, bridges, libraries, schools,
hospitals, and ports instead of providing corporate welfare:
war-profiteering, tax breaks for billionaires, and the misuse
and abuse of of our troops to enforce corporate ambitions.

Globally and locally we must throw the bums out and install
real leaders to end the wars, prosecute war profiteers, and
spend the savings and reparations on parks, seaports,
airports, railroads, ships, space exploration, scientific
research, and other programs which provide for the good
of everyday people across the globe.  

“Our strategy should be not only to confront
empire,but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen.
To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music,
our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our
brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our
             ability to tell our own stories."
              Arundhati Roy

   

“Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life.”
― Bob Marley

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Has the Republican Party Become a Religion?

If the GOP is a religion
(I do not argue the premise),
then Obama is a convert.

The only rationale for voting for Obama
is the "lesser of evils" theory. But we
have evidence to contradict this notion.
The Obama presidency has been more
dangerous than the George W. Bush's legacy.
No hope or change. More war,
job losses, foreclosures, unemployment,
skyrocketing health care costs, etc.

Obama is a dyed in the wool, right wing Republican of the most
dangerous sort.  He talks the Democratic talk so he can walk the
Republican walk. And he walks on: crushing peace, health care,
effective schools, intact infrastructure, environmental
responsibility, and progress beneath his feet. And along with these...
we lose hopes, dreams, and aspirations he does not share.

Obama embraces wars of choice, executions of prisoners,
rendering Americans, wiretapping citizens, suspending habeas
corpus, taking nonprofit health care off the table, and virtually
every other item on the right wing agenda.

The choice between Eisenhower and Stephenson... did represent
two prudent, principled, and moderate traditions. But comparing
Obama to either is a false choice. Obama most closely resembles
George W. Bush. He believes in unrestrained executive power,
misusing our military to enforce corporate ambitions abroad, and
suspension or dismissal of constitutional protections,
habeas corpus, & basic civil rights.

He is an absolutely dangerous man. Even George W. Bush did
not refer to calculated assassinations in contradiction of US civil,
constitutional, and international law as "justice." But Cheney
would be on board.

We must find a more prudent and progressive vehicle in our
attempt to take back this nation. A second term for Obama
will guarantee four more years of increasing militancy, dilutions
of personal freedom, and corporate control of our government,
military resources, and economic future. We cannot afford
another four years of Bush family rule. We are already bankrupt.
We have zero credibility. Our infrastructure is crumbling, health
care costs continue to skyrocket, home foreclosures are increasing,
our schools are failing, and wars of choice sap our economic and
military strength while contradicting our most basic values.

Now is no time for compromise. Wishful thinking will not
transform the failed Obama presidency. Obama is a zealot, and his
recklessness and pure religious ideology of hellfire, brimstone,
and vengeance... will never allow pragmatism, civility or reason.
This is why he talks the talk and walks in the opposite direction.
His temperment and tone allow him a pretense of civility, while
he engineers a devastating corporate takeover which continues to
destroy this nation. If he defeats the Republicons next year, the
war is over. Everyday people will have lost and corporate cons
will be securely in control for generations to come.

We need real change and true courage to counter the corporate
con game. There is too much on the line to compromise with
corruption, carnage, and corporatism, We must choose peace,
freedom, and jobs with justice. These are not on Obama's agenda.
He has made this abundantly clear. We have extended our war-
based economy, lost more freedom, our jobs continue to move
overseas, and while we lose our homes and our children lose
their future, our wages continue to decline.

If you want to guarantee this sordid decline, campaign for
Obama. He will deliver war, corporate hegemony, foreclosures,
unemployment, and a perverse form of indentured servitude...
while China, India, the European block, and transnational
economic cartels make us the largest third-world nation
on the planet.

We must locate and support a viable presidential candidate.
Register as a Democrat for the primaries, and afterwards
re-register as Working Families Party or some other alternative
to the corporate con game. At least this tactic keeps real issue
on the table and in the debates... Democrats Rep. Alan Grayson
(D-FL), Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), and Bernie Sanders (D-Vt)
(who refuses to run) are potential candidates who "would be far
and away a better choice than than President Obama." And other
candidates may emerge:

Keith Olbermannk, Al Franken, Sheryl Sandberg, Elizabeth
Warren, Thom Hartmann, Barbara Lee, Raul Grijalva, Lynn
Woolsey, Joe Sestak, Dennis Kucinich, Rachel Maddow,
Robert F.Kennedy Jr., Bill Moyers...  Any other ideas?

Identify the Enemy

We are now in six wars of choice to support corporate
ambitions abroad while Americans lose jobs, homes,
income, and hope.  The corporate parties are not responding
to demands for peace, jobs with justice, and rebuilding
infrastructure for a better tomorrow.  Since these clueless
legislators don't get it, 2012 will be a watershed election. 
Republicons and Demagogues have overplayed their hands. 

Corporatists in congress and the White house will be shown
the door. Everyday people intend to take back this nation. 
The delusions of the mean right wing spin machine will no
longer carry the day or deliver the votes.  And Democrats who
are willing to compromise ideas and ideals... are going to find
themselves without a shred of support.

Unrestricted Corporatism is our enemy.  We fought the good
fight against the military industrial complex after Eisenhower
warned us about the danger.  But they won.  We have to face
what has happened to America.  We are a divided nation.  All
of us know people who were foolish enough to vote for extremists
on the right. And these people are not, for the most part, bad,
or hateful people. What they are is afraid. They are afraid of
terrorists, gays, liberals, poverty, losing their jobs, change, and
a laundry list of bogeymen, ghouls, ghosts, and goblins. Progressives
and liberals are afraid for some of the same reasons, and also afraid
of big government, wiretapping, wards of choice, deteriorating
infrastructure, unending wars, bombs, corruption, and body bags.

Most everyday people just want to live their lives, according to
their own choices, and be left alone.  But more often than not, we
are forced to listen to someone else's standard being forced upon us.

Corporate media sells us Viagra, tells us Social Security is in danger,
pontificates about Muslim threats, and tells us to be very afraid. 
Transnational economic cartels move decent jobs overseas while
simultaneously accepting corporate welfare supplied by middle
class Americans. Large insurance cartels threaten to take our homes
when we cannot pay our medical bills.  And the Fortune 500
companies that deliver our "news," produce papers and magazines
which more closely resemble gossip rags than actual journalism.

And regardless of who we vote for, our government is run according
to the whims of corporate cartels.  People have lost control of our
government and of their own lives, fortunes, and future.  While we
lose our homes and send our kids to failing schools, too many of us
have turned on one another instead of facing the real enemy.

The people have lost control and they are afraid. There is a need
to blame someone. We as a people have turned on each other and
instead need to realize who the enemy really is.

The enemy is not capitalism, socialism, fascism, or communism....
The enemy is unrestrained and unregulated corporatism.
This trumps everything:  family, nation, religious beliefs,
and truth.

It's time we put hate aside, stop calling each other names
(left and right), and focus on the real enemy.
We can stand together, in courage,
and make a difference. 

Are broke or broken, or can be fight back!

The reason we are in debt is because speculators, unimpeded by meaningful 
regulation, destroyed our economic system... because they could.  And started
crippling wars of choice, because they chose to.    

And now, instead of ending corporate adventurism abroad, we talk about cutting
basic human services at home.  Absolute nonsense.  Not a statement of policy
but a retreat to delusion.  A bald-faced lie.

The debt or its ceiling is beside the point.  We must end regressive corporate welfare, 
reinvest in America, and remove lifetime congressional welfare workers.  

When we end the war and restore congressional retirement benefits to 
the Social Security Trust Fund from whence they came, we will be on 
the way to becoming solvent. There is no good reason for public servants 
to give themselves raises and untenable benefits extending beyond their 
time in service. Simple extortion.  They need pay cuts and chill pills.  

As we rebuild the trust fund we can invest in job creation at home, 
rebuilding our infrastructure instead of paying corporate contractors
to exploit taxpayers at home and those they misuse our forces to 
occupy and expliot abroad. 

The Chickens have come home to roost.  And it has little to do 
with debt-ceiling rhetoric and everything to do with the bottom line.

We deserve justice, integrity, and competence. 
It is time we demanded accountability and reparations.
We are not broke or broken.  We are being robbed.  
It is time to restore the rule of law. 

tmf

On Flogging, Beating, Torture, Rape, Murder & other crimes and perversions.

Dear Mr. Moskos,
History has lessons for us. Violence begets violence. Murdering people
has never stopped people from murdering people. Beating people will 
not stop people from beating people. Abrahamic traditions agree the 
greatest commandment is love. Loving your neighbor as you would 
be loved, is the sum of wisdom. There is no defense for rape, torture,
brutality, or murder. Courage is the cure for fear, and faith is the bridge 
to freedom. A sad and cowardly surrender to violence, war, hatred 
and cruelty... is foolish, imprudent, criminal behavior which must 
not be condoned, ignored, or embraced. We can do better. 

Torture and brutality are slippery slopes toward rape, murder, 
perversity, and chaos. Fortunately, most people understand the 
difference between crude violence and creative reconciliation. 
We can all get along without wallowing in the gutter with criminals. 
Judicial homicide and torture are illegal, immoral, and ineffective. 
This is why all civilized nations have rejected capital 
punishment and torture. Perhaps if we join them we can 
all get along and build bridges to a better tomorrow. 


Those who encourage violence are part of the problem. 
If we want creative social change and a better future for 
our children, we will work together for peace, justice, 
and freedom.  


Values, principles, and truth matter. Those who embrace 
violence are wrestling with their own personal demons 
in a match they  are destined to lose. With love, we can 
make a difference. And our future may hang in the balance. 
When we choose to ignore history, we are doomed to repeat it. 

love always, Tim

Timothy Martin Flangan, editor of The Portland Alliance, 
"Speaking Truth to Power for 30 Years."
http://www.theportlandalliance... / 
Contact: editor@theportlandalliance.org
Box 14162, Portland, Oregon 97293-0162
Phone: (503)-327-8377 Fax: (503)-327-8949 
http://theissueslist.blogspot.... 
https://sites.google.com/site/...

What "The Left" Thinks About Oil Prices...

1. The oil companies set the prices to make as much as they can,
     regardless of what that may cost this nation.
2. Congress gets paid off and does not regulate the oil company
     behavior. (Like forcing them to pay taxes.)
3. The president can either use the bully pulpit to influence pricing
      or not.  Mostly not.
4. It is all about greed. The war in Iraq was all about oil. Libya is
     being bombed because they have lots of oil and are a weak
     nation we can easily attack, invade, occupy, and exploit. Since
     domestic oil companies are extracting a US taxpayer asset,
     FOR NOTHING, they are robbing us blind. They should be
     paying their share of our tax burden. (aka they should pay for
     the oil they steal and share the profits they make.)  If they did,
     we would not be closing schools, laying off police, and
     watching our infrastructure deteriorate beyond repair...

                  ...Oil is a pretty slippery subject.

Right Wing Claims To Care About US Troops

But progressive Americans and US Peace Movement members
want to secure the peace rather than waste American lives in
ill-advised corporate invasions and occupations overseas.

Anyone who thinks sending our military to die for Fortune 500
adventurism abroad has anything to do with caring about
military personnel...  has a problem with basic logic. Dick and
George lied us into a war which has cost millions of lives.  

This has been a disaster for everyone.  Obama, the closet
Republican, perpetuates this error.

But history speaks:  "In 1944, Democratic President
Franklin Roosevelt enacted the historic G.I. Bill,
initiating the Democrats’ longstanding commitment
to providing America’s veterans access to higher
education and the promise of success as a civilian
—a commitment that remains strong today."

The left wing cares about people first.
For the right wing mean extreme...

profits trump people.

We can do better.