Bomb Plot?, The Election Is Just A Day Away, Comments on Sanity Rally

October 31st, 2010 - by: danny

POLITICS AS A BUSINESS. In case you missed my commentary on AlJaeera.net I will also be contributing to special coverage at Progressive Radio Network.com after 9 PM.

I will be speaking at Union DOCS, 322 Union Avenue, Brooklyn Tuesday night on the nature and impact of campign advertising on a panel.

This Election Day, UnionDocs teams with Cinebeasts to present a special two-part event that celebrates the special affinity shared between candidates and cameras.

The first half is a smattering of classic campaign commercials, ranging from the Eisenhower days to the wealth of populist YouTube-targeted spots from this year’s midterms. Featured spots include a feelgood ’70s Coke commercial (with Richard Nixon as the punchline!), Reagan’s morning-workout worthy “Morning in America” anthem, and Wesley Clark’s 5 seconds of Outkast commentary. The Red Phone, the Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing, Jesse Helms’ “Hands” — they’re all here.

The second half is dedicated to Brian Springer’s 1995 documentary Spin.
Spin by Brian Springer

WSWS: U.S. election campaign ends amid deepening economic crisis

The campaign for the midterm US election Tuesday is coming to an end under the shadow of an intractable and deepening economic crisis and the evident inability of the Obama administration to develop any policies to overcome it.

NY TImes: Conservative Donors Lay a Base for 2012 Elections

Buoyed by the impact that their anti-Democratic campaigns have had, two large, new conservative groups are planning to keep pushing their agenda.

Holly Sklar, Common Dreams: Wall Street Has Already Voted

Before Wall Street drove our economy off a cliff,
bullish Citigroup strategists dubbed the United States a
“plutonomy.” They said, “There are rich consumers, few
in number, but disproportionate in the gigantic slice of
income and consumption they take. There are the rest,
the ‘non-rich,’ the multitudinous many, but only
accounting for surprisingly small bites of the national
pie.”

Campaign For America’s Future: LAT speculates that non-voters will outnumber voters: “According to an analysis by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, there likely will be more non-voters this year than voters. Indeed, turnout in midterm elections typically is less than 40% of the voting-age population. The survey shows that those who choose not to exercise their franchise likely will be younger, less educated and more financially stressed than those who call themselves likely voters … those who choose not to vote could be considered more liberal than those who do .

FT: Rousseff wins Brazilian presidency

Dilma Rousseff of the ruling leftwing PT won a comfortable victory in Brazil’s presidential run-off election on Sunday, beating her rival JosÃƒÂ© Serra of the centrist opposition PSDB

The America’s Program says the media was her biggest opponent:

Victory was not easy. The second-round campaign debate centered on abortion, religion, scandals, and a mainstream media deliberately set on defeating the left-wing front-runner.

Experts warn that a media oligarchy continues to wield tremendous influence in Brazil’s politics, largely unchecked. But a growing media democracy movement and especially the use of Internet communication–blogs, websites and Twitter–played a huge role in this election to offset the traditional influence of the mainstream media.

THE Bomb Plot???

Yemen releases female suspect. Her identity Had Been Stolen.

CLG: Suspicious package to U.S. not from Yemen: Yemenia Air Cargo Director

Mohammed al-Shaibah, Air Cargo Director for Yemenia Airways said to Yemen Post, “No UPS cargo plane left Yemeni lands over the land 48 hours. These accusations are false and baseless.” He added, “No UPS or DHL cargo packages heading to Chicago through Yemen took place in the last 48 hours as well.” “All packages are checked very carefully in Yemen, and there is no evidence to prove that this package came through Yemen.”

UAE rejects US claims on Flight 201 30 Oct 2010 The United Arab Emirates’ Civil Aviation Authority has rejected claims that a US-bound Emirates’ flight from Dubai contained “suspicious” parcels from Yemen. Fighter jets were scrambled on Friday to accompany an Emirates plane into New York’s JFK airport after a security alert, US media reported. Emirati authorities, however, said flight 201 carried no ‘suspicious’ cargo from Yemen as claimed by US-Canadian military agency NORAD. UAE officials rejected the claim and said the plane was not a source of threat.

Gitmo News/Al Jazeera: A former child soldier in Guantanamo Bay has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for killing an American solider on an Afghan battlefield.

But Omar Khadr will only serve eight years as a result of a plea bargain struck with the US military tribunal trying him.

If Khadr is granted repatriation to Canada, as his legal team say they will be requesting, he will only serve one more year in the US prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Al Jazeera’s Imtiaz Tyab reported from Toronto.

“His lawyers have promised that they will be applying for this repatriation, and if he is brought back to Canada, he will very likely serve the remaining seven years here,” Tyab said.

“There is a chance that if Mr Khadr is indeed brought back to Canada in around 12 months from now, he may only serve a third of this seven-year sentence and be released.”

Glenn Greenwald: Why Is Assange Still Alive? He also reports that a young man waterboarded his girlfriend to see if she was cheating on him.

WAR ON IRAN PROPOSED AS WAY TO SAVE US ECONOMY

Washington’s blog via Naked Capitalism.com

As many writers have documented, the corporate media is usually pro-war. See this.
And so Washington Post hack David Broder’s op-ed arguing that war with Iran will save America’s economy is not all that surprising.

Of course, China and Russia might not sit idly by and let their ally, Iran, be attacked. So there’s the wee complication that bombing Iran could start WWIII.

And, of course, attacking Iran would increase the level of terrorism.

But forget politics and national security.

Broder is also plain wrong on the economics.

In a blog entry entitled “Has David Broder Lost His Mind?,” Foreign Policy managing editor Blake Hounshell writes that Broder’s proposal is “crazy for a number of reasons.”

One is that markets don’t like tensions, and certainly not the kind that jack up oil prices. Second, World War II brought the United States out of the Great Depression because it was a massive economic stimulus program that mobilized entire sectors of society. Today’s American military has all the tools it needs to fight Iran, and there isn’t going to be any sort of buildup. Hasn’t Broder been reading his own newspaper? The Pentagon is looking to find billions in cuts as it confronts the coming world of budget austerity.

And as I have repeatedly pointed out, “military Keynesianism” — that is, launching wars to stimulate the economy, doesn’t work.

Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has said that war can be very bad for the economy.,,,”

David Broder is revered as the DEAN of American political writers, not as a military expert.

Jimmy Carter on Fox News and Barack Obama

Real News Network: Obama’s Economic Policies Failed, GOP will be worse

FRAUDCLOSURE

Mandelman: Foreclosure Fraud. We Are All At Risk
e/

Ml-impode.com “Just in case you’re one of those not yet at risk of foreclosure, and therefore don’t think that what you’re hearing about today impacts you, I can assure you that you’ll change your mind about that soon enough, because as it stands the fraud perpetrated here is going to impact everyone in this country forÃ¢â‚¬Â¦ oh, I don’t knowÃ¢â‚¬Â¦ let’s be optimists about this and call it the next 50 years. I assure you that no one is getting out of this one unscathed.”

Ellen Brown: HOW CHINA BUYS OUR DEBT WHILE BURYING ITS OWN

China may be as heavily in debt as we are. It just has a different way of keeping its books — which makes a high-profile political ad sponsored by Citizens Against Government Waste, a fiscally conservative think tank, particularly ironic. . . .

Israeli police shoot “hated” Arab legislator in back

Protest met with rubber bullets
By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth

Jonathan Cook reports on the shooting in the back of Israeli Arab MP Haneen Zoubi by Israel police who used special paramilitary forces against an Arab demonstration provoked by ultra-right-wing Jewish extremists staging a march through an Arab town in northern Israel.

Israeli police on 27 October injured two Arab legislators in violent clashes provoked by Jewish right-wing extremists staging a march through the northern Arab town of Umm al-Fahm.

Haneen Zoubi, a parliament member who has become a national hate figure in Israel and received hundreds of death threats since her participation in an aid flotilla to Gaza in the summer, was among those hurt.

On The Sanity Rally: Reports and Your Comments

Press Release: Washington, D.C. — With thousands of young voters attending Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert’s “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear”, a social media straw poll shows that fans of the Comedy Central sponsored event overwhelmingly prefer Sanity in their politics to the politics of Fear.

After over 10,000 votes had been cast and counted, Sanity garnered 62.3% of the vote in a landslide victory over Fear, which received a paltry 37.7%. Votes were tabulated using SMS text messages captured by a Google voice number as well as through an iPhone application created by 3Advance, LLC . Early voting was encouraged over the internet for those who could not be in attendance on the day of the rally.

Daily Beast: Sanity Won Out in D.C. (Tina: A Day Earlier, your lead article called the rally “ridiculous.”)

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s dueling rallies in Washington on Saturday produced clear-headed dialogue and huge crowds estimated north of 200,000. The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz reports that the spectacle may not have had the biting edge of its hosts’ late-night comedy shows, but the crowd was mostly young, mostly well-behaved, and mostly intent on having a good time rather than, say, stomping on a protester’s head. The Daily Beast’s Benjamin Sarlin notes that the rally was far from a strictly college-age affair.

The Daily Bell, “Free Market” online newsletter:

The crowd at the mall for Stewart’s speech was of course peaceful and even good-natured. But the elite in our view very much fears the growing tide of frustration in America and is counting on Jon Stewart and others to make the case for civil restraint and tolerance. In this sense, there is no doubt that Stewart’s speech was a kind of promotion, the presentation of a dominant social theme. His speech, the rally itself, is testament to the kind of optimism that America has been famous for. The basic thrust was that people should simply calm down, take a deep breath and work together to solve problems without demonizing each other….

“This is the backdrop you have to acknowledge when listening to Jon Stewart’s speech. He urges people to work together and use the legislative process to make things better. But it is ‘working together’ within legislative parameters that have made things worse to begin with. The Anglo-American power elite thoroughly controls the emotional process at this point. The only thing they fear its logical de-legitimization. That is why such a reasonable speech is actually a clever reinforcement of the status quo — a status quo the elite, which seeks world government of some sort, badly wants to maintain.

“Anyone who thinks this speech is something other than a kind of delaying tactic, a plea for people to give the current system more time is not seeing it for what it is.”

“WANKATHON?”

Mark Ames writes on Alternet:

“Jon Stewart Rally: Just an Exercise in Gen X Self-Indulgence?

In the depths of America’s decline, Liberals couldn’t muster up a get-together for anything better than a mock-in meant to prove we’re less stupid than the other side.

Maybe what’s happening in America today will seem funny to some other culture in some future time — how it happened that in the depths of America’s decline, Liberals, the great opposition to everything mean and ruthless in this culture, couldn’t muster up a get-together for anything better than a mock-in. Led by a clown.

I confess, I couldn’t hack it. I came to the rally — saw those two pastry chefs from the Mythbusters show get all the Liberal Elites to hold a post-modern human wave, an ironic human wave allowing all the self-conscious Liberal Elites to play like Real America, while salvaging their vanity because it was all ironic and post-modernÃ¢â‚¬Â¦ And to make sure that everyone knew they were not really human-waving but rather meta-human-waving, the Mythbusters duo deconstructed the human wave. And all the Liberal Elites smiled and laughed knowingly, because all 150,000 were in on the biggest inside-joke wankathon in American history. And that was it for me — I was outta there….

Your Letters:

emcye wrote:

“In a turbulent socio-political climate, the role of ‘gas-letters’ is essential and protected. Before the balloon of unrest gets too hot and inflated, fills and bursts, let out enough air to quell any momentum for revolution. Stewart and Colbert do manage to fit that role so tidily. I can’t say for certain that they’ve deliberately staged themselves as modern court jesters, but they are fitting the bill. And appearing as the voice of reason fills a cavity, but isn’t liberal media toothless, as it is?”

Abby Smith writes:

“I just returned from Washington tonight….don’t ask me why I felt compelled to show up to this rally….I was actually signed up to help with phone banking tonight to pull out the vote in various different states, but instead I gave my time and body to this Colbert/Stuart Media event…..very disappointing (for ME).

First off….very badly organized…I was there in a motorized scooter and there was supposed to be a special section set up for people with disabilities…..but it was soooo crowded, I couldn’t FIND it and at some points, it felt very scary…like I could have been trampled…..And in general there just were Not enough volunteers (at Our rallies, they would have been called “marshals”, but I realize, that in the context of THIS event, that would be considered too militaristic).

The CONTENT of the event: there WAS NONE!

How sad is the state of the left (as in what in the blazes is Left of the LEFT?) that if you wanted to go down to Washington to TAKE A STAND AGAINST THE TEA BAGGERS your only option was to be a PROP for John Stuarts A-Political fest…..SCREW HIM and COLBERT (whom I usually love) – THEY SQUANDERED an opportunity and wasted our time. So do you think ANY teabaggers were put in their place by today’s DC rally? I think not.

I asked other people there: What woulda happened if Jon had asked his adoring fans to all join phone banks thoughout this last week — and literally contribute to “pulling out the vote!”? What IMPACT would THAT have had? Or any number of Alternative things — even, Having the event in Washington, but instead of pulling off typical Daily Show nonsense, make some of your satire BITING. (Like when he used that Brit guy commenting…..I forgot his name right now).

I loved the fact that he invited Cat Stevens (now YUSEF) to sing “PEACE TRAIN” but when Yusef barely got through 2 verses they had OZZIE OSBOURNE interrupting him to Create a comedy sketch. Bad judgment call, I believe, and VERY DISRESPECTFUL of Yusef!!!! I wonder if he Knew about this in advance, and if Not, I wonder how He felt about this…..

The rest of the music SUCKED, in my humble opinion. That musical Duo between Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock was musically pleasant enough, but lyrically offensive. There was NOT ONE SONG that contained any sharp satire or sincere meaningful lyric.

Jon Stuart kept his promise; THERE WERE NO POLITICS…..so why have a fuckin’ rallly? To sell more……(popcorn, coke, and T-shirts commemorating this event????)

When on line for the bus returning to the city, I verbally interviewed several other NYC returnees…..we had a few mild disagreements as to whether today’s rally was worth it.

(after all it was very effortful for me to pull off a round-trip to DC in one day…..and it also cost me $80 !). These folks insisted that Jon delivered What He Promised: NO POLITICS. They also went on to illuminate and echo Jon’s point about Not the Right and Not the Left. These fellow bus wait-ees went on to say that the importance is to STOP THE YELLING…..that Keith Olberman is As Annoying as Glenn Beck. Oh my god…..NOT TO ME!!!

So thank you, mother nature (I’m an athiest), that I was able to get in around 3 solid hours of sleep on the bus ride home. I so needed it…..and it cut down a good percentage of the depression I would have been steeped in today had I been awake ruminating on all of the above…and the guilt I felt at having made the wrong decision as to how to spend my TIME yesterday….I would have felt my time was better spent making those “get out the vote” phone calls with Move-On…..

My paranoid alter ego has been toying with the idea that Jon and Stephen have been secretly captured by the Tea Baggers and got 2-3 hundred thousand potential activists and diverted their energies….at this Critical time….Right beFore the election, to do….basically…..NOTHING.
Thanks a LOT guys……

To ME this “RESTORE THE SANITY and/or Bring Back Fear” event marked a Pathetic moment for the American Left — it seemed to mark the Official Indicator of there being No Left Left and that Now this NON-Revolution– This Mindless Cooptation of our righteous anger WILL be Televised.”

Christine Casner commented on your post.

“I watched the rally from mostly a perspective of enjoyment & givin’ tea heads the raspberry (just a little bit). Mostly it a welcome respite from the craziness & the crazies! I enjoyed myself and tried not to read much into it; I am simply too exhausted from endless days, weeks, months, years and decades of you-know-what. Thanks for asking, Danny.”

” Danny…..what you do is essential & very necessary! Peace, Chris”

El Fra writes:

“I agree with Abby Smith completely – and I watched it on C-span (yes, the whole thing). Did not the producers of the show, realize that people mostly came to the event because they were looking for a cohesive moment to speak to the frustration about the country being hammered day and night with absolute nonsense (political and otherwise)? The whole show was disappointing and I kept waiting for Jon to break out of what was a very bleah rhetoric and get to the point.

On My Piece on Politics As A Business”

Phil Rockstrohwrites: So you’re telling us, Danny, that our current representatives are more suited to sitting in a telephone “broiler room” hawking aluminum siding than serving the greater good? It appears what we have, at present, is a Glengarry Glen Ross Congress.

William Shanley writes:

I disagree with your statement that there’s nothing the president can do to fix the economy and it’s the second time I’ve heard you say it. All Obama has to do is do what FDR did through emergency powers. Massive public works projects, arresting banksters and holding them accountable, instituting a Tobin tax on an emergency basis on all fictitious capital transactions… do what China’s doing, for God sakes. Instead, he’s doing precisely the opposite. He’s letting the oligarchs continue to strip mine and loot country and the treasury. A moratorium on home foreclosures. Instead of the banksters getting it for their overseas investments, 0% interest for small businesses and city bonds. The list is endless. A freeze on DOD spending, which now account for 54% of Federal budget when including wars and cost of vets, until review.

MORE TO WORRY ABOUT

John DiNardo writes:

If you choose to prepare for calamities soon to devastate your
town, your neighborhood, your dwelling, your family, yourself,
you might wish to subscribe to Nancy Lieder’s newsletter.
Through her newsletter, I learned of the ominous warning from
the Inuit people: *Earth is Wobbling. The Sun is rising at the
wrong position on the horizon.*

Despite our mutual disagreement on some points, Nancy Lieder
has been presenting some excellent reports about the intensifying
traumatization of Planet Earth by the massive brown dwarf star
which the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had
actually announced that it had sighted (see the landmark Washington
Post front page report of December 30, 1983). Since this official
U.S. Government announcement (having realized that this gigantic
brown dwarf star is being gravitationally drawn inexorably toward
our Sun) the ruling elite’s National Security Agency has placed a
shroud of silence over any further news reportage on the subject.
Yes, this celestial cannonball was accelerating toward us 27 years
ago, and though the shallow-minded would scoff at such “old news,”
the thoughtful would sit up in alarm to realize that this massive
brown dwarf star’s incoming velocity, and its resultant molesting
forces upon Planet Earth, must be much greater now than they were
27 years ago, since the universal law of gravitation states that the
attracting force and acceleration between two masses increases
exponentially as the two masses draw closer to one another.
Here is the video clip from the Inuit people of the Arctic region.

Steven G Erickson writes:

The mainstream media and campaign attack ads are corporate
propaganda. Politicians are bought and paid for by the banks and corporations.
Politicians servicing constituents do so at their own peril. The biggest sign
of the times is the obvious rigging of the courts.

In Memorium: Former John F. Kennedy speechwriter Ted Sorensen dies at 82

In Memorium: Basil Davidson, British writer on African Liberation, at 95

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