tagged w/ blowback
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I was at an event on the Upper East Side last Friday night when I got to talking with a salesman in the media business. The subject turned to Zucotti Park and Occupy Wall Street, and he was chuckling about something he'd heard on the news.
"I hear [Occupy Wall Street] has a CFO," he said. "I think that's funny."
"Okay, I'll bite," I said. "Why is that funny?"
"Well, I heard they're trying to decide what bank to put their money in," he said, munching on hors d'oeuvres. "It's just kind of ironic."
Oh, Christ, I thought. He’s saying the protesters are hypocrites because they’re using banks. I sighed.
"Listen," I said, "where else are you going to put three hundred thousand dollars? A shopping bag?"
"Well," he said, "it's just, they're protests are all about... You know..."
"Dude," I said. "These people aren't protesting money. They're not protesting banking. They're protesting corruption on Wall Street."
"Whatever," he said, shrugging.
These nutty criticisms of the protests are spreading like cancer. Earlier that same day, I'd taped a TV segment on CNN with Will Cain from the National Review, and we got into an argument on the air. Cain and I agreed about a lot of the problems on Wall Street, but when it came to the protesters, we disagreed on one big thing.
Cain said he believed that the protesters are driven by envy of the rich.
"I find the one thing [the protesters] have in common revolves around the human emotions of envy and entitlement," he said. "What you have is more than what I have, and I'm not happy with my situation."
Cain seems like a nice enough guy, but I nearly blew my stack when I heard this. When you take into consideration all the theft and fraud and market manipulation and other evil shit Wall Street bankers have been guilty of in the last ten-fifteen years, you have to have balls like church bells to trot out a propaganda line that says the protesters are just jealous of their hard-earned money.
Think about it: there have always been rich and poor people in America, so if this is about jealousy, why the protests now? The idea that masses of people suddenly discovered a deep-seated animus/envy toward the rich – after keeping it strategically hidden for decades – is crazy.
Where was all that class hatred in the Reagan years, when openly dumping on the poor became fashionable? Where was it in the last two decades, when unions disappeared and CEO pay relative to median incomes started to triple and quadruple?
The answer is, it was never there. If anything, just the opposite has been true. Americans for the most part love the rich, even the obnoxious rich. And in recent years, the harder things got, the more we've obsessed over the wealth dream. As unemployment skyrocketed, people tuned in in droves to gawk at Evrémonde-heiresses like Paris Hilton, or watch bullies like Donald Trump fire people on TV.
Moreover, the worse the economy got, the more being a millionaire or a billionaire somehow became a qualification for high office, as people flocked to voting booths to support politicians with names like Bloomberg and Rockefeller and Corzine, names that to voters symbolized success and expertise at a time when few people seemed to have answers. At last count, there were 245 millionaires in congress, including 66 in the Senate.
And we hate the rich? Come on. Success is the national religion, and almost everyone is a believer. Americans love winners. But that's just the problem. These guys on Wall Street are not winning – they're cheating. And as much as we love the self-made success story, we hate the cheater that much more.
In this country, we cheer for people who hit their own home runs – not shortcut-chasing juicers like Bonds and McGwire, Blankfein and Dimon.
That's why it's so obnoxious when people say the protesters are just sore losers who are jealous of these smart guys in suits who beat them at the game of life. This isn't disappointment at having lost. It's anger because those other guys didn't really win. And people now want the score overturned.
All weekend I was thinking about this “jealousy” question, and I just kept coming back to all the different ways the game is rigged. People aren't jealous and they don’t want privileges. They just want a level playing field, and they want Wall Street to give up its cheat codes, things like: (Cont'd below)I was at an event on the Upper East Side last Friday night when I got to talking with... more
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In the 2008 Republican Primaries, Dr Ron Paul educated the world on the term blowback, and it’s root causes.In the 2008 Republican Primaries, Dr Ron Paul educated the world on the term blowback,... more
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Ron Paul uses the example of the CIA's coup in Iran as an example of blowback which led to the eventual Iranian Revolution, the overthrow of the Shah and the American Hostage crisis. He also explains the real motivation of suicide terrorism.Ron Paul uses the example of the CIA's coup in Iran as an example of blowback... more
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KABUL, Afghanistan — Tensions between American forces and the Afghan government over civilian casualties from coalition airstrikes spiked again on Wednesday with a report by Afghan officials that a missile from a United States aircraft had killed 40 civilians and wounded 28 others at a wedding party in the southern province of Kandahar.
Afghan officials said casualties from the airstrike, on Monday, included women and children. The United States military command said it was conducting an urgent investigation with the Afghan Interior Ministry. Although the command’s statement made no mention of a missile strike or any death toll, it appeared to acknowledge the possibility that noncombatants had been killed.
“Though facts are unclear at this point, we take very seriously our responsibility to protect the people of Afghanistan and to avoid circumstances where noncombatant civilians are placed at risk,” the command said. “If innocent people were killed in this operation, we apologize and express our condolences to the families and people of Afghanistan.”
More at link.KABUL, Afghanistan — Tensions between American forces and the Afghan government... more
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Today marks a shameful anniversary: it is six years since the opening of the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Six years after the first 20 men arrived at the offshore prison camp, Guantánamo has held close to 800 men and become an international symbol of torture, abuse of executive power, and disregard for the rule of law. Guantánamo should be a central issue for the presidential candidates: please help us pin them down to concrete plans and solutions, not just vague statements. Write the candidates today and demand that they promise to close Guantánamo.
Hundreds of detainees remain imprisoned, and not one detainee has had a fair hearing before a real court despite the Supreme Court's 2004 decision in our landmark case Rasul v. Bush that the men at Guantánamo have the right to habeas corpus. In December, we represented detainees before the Supreme Court yet again and await the decision this spring.
CCR is leading the legal battle to close Guantánamo, but it will take a commitment from all branches of our government to shut down the detention center safely and permanently. Many of the 2008 presidential candidates have said they will close Guantánamo, but promises oftentimes aren't backed up by action. President Bush himself has repeatedly said he would like to close Guantánamo, but many empty promises later, it still remains open.
And it's not just about closing Guantánamo: it's about making sure that detainees who are released are safely resettled, without fear of further torture or indefinite detention; it's about closing U.S. detention sites - like Bagram in Afghanistan and the CIA black sites - that are scattered all around the world. It's about rescuing our Constitution.
Take action today! Write to all of the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates and demand that they promise to:
* Close Guantánamo and provide a detailed plan for how and when they would do so;
* End the use of torture, extraordinary rendition, and ghost detention;
* Rescind the legal memos that have been used by this administration to justify and redefine torture;
* Safely resettle all released detainees and work actively to find safe third countries for those who fear torture in their home countries;
* Abide by the Geneva Conventions, international law, and all of the treaties we have signed.
It's past time to move our country Beyond Guantánamo, beyond torture, and beyond the impunity of the Bush administration and the executive branch. Let the Democratic and Republican candidates know that whoever is elected our next President must respect the rule of law and restore the Constitution.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=mvZjpyynFn0StW9HhC%2FVanXkhJQktPJT
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=JF5UBJ1CJNk81Y4mKyiHGnXkhJQktPJT
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=g%2Bu2eAIB54jXpQcV5RW963XkhJQktPJT
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=eUZ3prnFJrpKHOtZFjrWM3XkhJQktPJT
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=h%2BKmR17deu2FLd46yyfpZ3XkhJQktPJT Today marks a shameful anniversary: it is six years since the opening of the... more
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