Better than Nixon saying (as Vice President) "you won't have Dick Nixon around anymore" Of course he lied. Later he said "I am not a crook!" Again, he perjured. Trump was very succinct. To the point. "I'm fucked" ... actually, he's sodomized with a shovel, sideways so it would hurt more.
Tag: Weathermen
Just a little reminder to the Right Wing
If, as you claim in response to, for instance, the controversy over the The Weatherman Manifesto both the inactive-for-nearly-four DECADES Weather Underground and anybody who doesn't join you in condemning them as Violent Terrorists who are responsible for the Major League Spanking taken by the Empire in VietNam, are ineffective, faux revolutionary, pseudo-Intellectual, weaklings, etc... Then why the continued harassment against the Weathermen? By your own Right Wing Propaganda they didn't ever bust a grape. On the other hand, they, and not anything like the resistance fighters in VietNam, cost "America" the war. Which is it, TOO effective or NOT effective? If NOT effective, why spend so much of your time and the money of your corporate sponsors with your Shrill, Effete, Shrieking denunciations? Why have your Shrill, effete and shrieking turned against the "ineffective pseudo-intellectuals" who oppose your similar debacle in Afghanistan and Iraq? Why do your Corporate-organized and Corporate Financed "independent grass-roots" TeaBags gather, armed, in OUR parks and streets screaming their racist venom against an election in which Americans REJECTED their Racist Venom, if your Venomous Shrill Effete Shrieking Racists actually WERE the overwhelming majority in America? Even the ownership of the polling process by your Corporate Leaders and their similar ownership of the Police, Courts and every enforcement agency related to the election wasn't enough to keep SEVENTY MILLION AMERICANS FROM VOICING THEIR REJECTION OF THOSE VENOMOUS RACIST POLICIES. We didn't get very effective representation for our votes, but we sure as HELL riled you chickenshit bastards up, didn't we? Now you're talking about EXECUTING people, like Bradley Manning, who dared to stand up and tell the truth against your Warmongering Murderous Lies. Which set or sub-set of your LIES do you wish for us to believe?
Freedom & duress NOT the same thing
A gentleman wrote earlier that Ireland signed a paper partitioning the Nation, and likewise, Scotland and Ireland had signed papers joining their people to the United Kingdom. And that therefore Scots and Irish Separatists are breaking a treaty and how very dare they do so, it's dishonorable etc. He was too busy reviling me personally to revile them but that is the gist of his words. What wasn't mentioned was that in either treaty the People of Ireland and the People of Scotland weren't consulted. The "Lords" whose ancestors were in turn appointed and ennobled by the British Crown during prior invasions and occupations, signed the papers, and that at the point of gun and sword. Not by the people nor by their elected officials. This was in comparison, by the way, to the Conquest and Occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. It's like an armed robbery on a massive scale. I mean, IF I were ever to want to control people, I'd not last very long at the enterprise mostly because anybody I could get to assist me in doing so would be under coercion. I could, theoretically, walk into a 7-Eleven or a Liquor store with an Uzi, and demand that the proprietor surrender to my will, do as I say, and that he promise to cooperate with my Armed Might, my one-man "Army of One" submachine gun, and provide me with as much of the goods and money in his store as I could carry away. In an enterprise using an Army of MANY the logistics of the actions are more complex but the concept, the germ, the Basic Foundation of those actions would be Exactly The Same. To go back to the Store Owner v. Probably Deranged Person w/Submachine Gun parable, if the person with the gun leaves the store, would the Store Owner be breaking some sort of Treaty to immediately call for help? If the gunman were, in the middle of the "treaty" to turn his attention and the Shopkeeper took the opportunity to disarm the gunman and perhaps kill the gunman, would the Shopkeeper be a "terrorist" or an "insurgent" or "unlawful combatant"? If the gunman has a Gang of similar thugs with him, and the shopkeeper captures and disarms one or more of them, and holds a gun to their heads and demands the other Gunmen cease their robbery and threats of further violence, would that be a Terrorist Insurgent taking hostages, a Despicable act of Cowardice? But that's what the British and American Warmongers insist the "shopkeeper" of Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the Irish PEOPLE and Scots PEOPLE do or should have done. Negotiate only with the Representatives of the people who were appointed to that position by the Conquering Invaders? What kind of a Farce is that? The Conquerors of Iraq and Afghanistan have no more right to demand the abject surrender of the people of those nations than the British Crown did with Scotland and Ireland, indeed, the "Nobles" with whom the English Crown negotiated the treaties,
Following Right Wing political theology
Faith based politics where you have to believe fervently the dogma handed down by the High Priests of Capital... But according to their gospels of greed, there has never actually been any revolution where wealth has been redistributed to the poor from the wealthy. In other words, the wealth has been transferred from one group of heavily armed rich thieves to another. Lateral instead of Vertical economic mobility. Thus, no real Socialist state or more importantly, Socialist Economy has ever existed, at least according to the Ayn Rand Theology. Yet somehow, it's the Communists and Socialists, the ones who never had their hands on the missing bread in the first place, who crashed the economy repeatedly over the past 500 years of straight-on Capitalism. For instance the Mortgage Crisis that immediately preceded the crash of the War-expense Bloated Debt Economy. Not the approximately ten trillion dollar difference in Budget surplus projected v the budget deficit Actual. Part of that went to Enron in a pyramid scheme. To end all pyramid schemes? Nay verily. Kenny Lay died, basically in jail, ready to make the trip to Club Fed where Rich Thieves spend a few months of "hard" time. Without the money and, importantly, without ever telling anybody who exactly was holding the cash. Bush and Cheney, Suspects Prime and Secondary, generously brushed aside any suspicion of their guilt in the matter and since they controlled the Justice department, so did the DoJ. But that's not the straw that broke the camels back. Nor was the massive War Budget, unfunded save for credit, issued against Future Taxes. By putting Future in front of the word Taxes GW and his merry band of thieves managed to say that they hadn't raised Taxes. The correct and true way to put it would be that they hadn't raised CURRENT taxes. Making War Profits basically untaxable granted the richest pigs in America virtually tax free existence. Massive tax cuts to the people who make all their money on the spending of Tax Generated money. A double gift of Corporate Welfare and Corporate Warfare. But it's the Socialists who never had their hands on the bread who are to blame. With the Mortgage Crisis, one of many investment scams that went wrong all at once, people who control less than a percent of the income in America are alleged to have brought the entire house of cards down. People, I'm capable of a LITTLE bit of math, m'kay? Which would you think, logically speaking, mathematically speaking, to be more likely, that people with full control of 95% of the wealth crashing the economy or the less than a percent "controllers"? According to the Right Wing Theology, it's obviously the < 1%. Up is black, east is sideways and Oceania has ALWAYS been at war with Eastasia. Oh, and the Weathermen who are alleged to have killed 4 people, including 3 weathermen.. Are the supremely violent ones, not the Big Pigs who kick open the gates of Hell and start scooping in
Communist with a small c
Today's antiwar movement wants for 60s marketing flair. This example comes by way of embittered sixties chronicler Todd Gitlin, the student for a Democratic Society eclipsed by the Radical Youth Movement and future Weather Underground leader Bernardine Dohrn, later the FBI's "most dangerous woman in America." Gitlin complains that Dorn titillated followers by proclaiming herself a "Communist with a small c."
Billy Ayers and the weathergirl
It may have suited the corporate media to paint 60s radical Bill Ayers as an aging, bespectacled hippie, but in his day, student movement leader turned anti-imperialist bomber Billy Ayers had the magnetism of James Dean. And the street cred of John Dillinger. A less off-base criminal analogy might be Bonny and Clyde, because Bill Ayers had partners in the Weather Underground, and more specifically one he married, and with whom he still lives. She's the unsung participant in the Barack Obama terrorist connection, and I think it's a telling omission. Bernardine Dohrn was the ringleader of the breakaway SDS. It was Dohrn who led the putsch at the divisive 1969 Chicago meeting, and it was she who delivered the press conferences. After the Bring the War Home cataclysm, it was Dorhn's name on the Weathermen manifestos and publications. And when they went underground, it was Dohrn's voice on the recorded communiques when a bomb was set to go off. After ten years underground Dohrn and Ayers gave themselves up. The early eighties movie Running On Empty gave a fictional account of their ordeal. It made an interesting assertion through Christine Lahti's role, at who might have been the moral center of the revolutionary duo. Today Ayers and Dohrn are respected professors and political activists. They live in Chicago, have raised two sons, and fostered another, whose parents, also of the Weather Underground, remained incarcerated. Father David Gilbert is still in prison. When Barack Obama kicked off his congressional campaign with the now infamous fund raiser at the Chicago home of Professor Ayers, it was also the home of Law Professor Dohrn. That's a bit like saying you were at Guy Richie's house, without mentioning Madonna. Not to take any credit away from Bill Ayers, but perhaps Bernardine Dohrn made too attractive a "domestic terrorist." No doubt an intelligent, decisive woman does not fit the evildoer stereotype. I think a spotlight on Bernardine Dohrn's idealogical leadership of the Weathermen might have given the American public pause to consider the arguments behind stopping the Vietnam war "by any means necessary." What do you do when the electoral process does not offer a moral recourse? What do you do when your elected representatives refuse to respond the outcry of the people? How do you stop the ongoing indiscriminate murder of millions of southeast Asians, when your government demonstrates an interminable patience for deliberating "staying the course?" Whether the path they chose was wise or unwise, the students of the 60s were up against a monstrous military industrial complex which looms even larger today. Bernardine Dohrn's war against our homicidal empire might have humanized the struggle and brought it home.
Weathermen for a Democratic Society
In 1969, the Radical Youth Movement (RYM) within Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) expelled the passive participants to reconfigure the SDS to Bring the War Home. At left, Bernardine Dohrn uninvites the Progressive Labor Party (PL) and the Worker Student Alliance (WSA) from the Chicago conference. Below is the founding document after which the RYM was renamed. You Don't Need A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Wind Blows June 18, 1969 Submitted by Karin Asbley, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, John Jacobs, Jeff Jones, Gerry Long, Home Machtinger, Jim Mellen, Terry Robbins, Mark Rudd and Steve Tappis. I. International Revolution The contradiction between the revolutionary peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America and the imperialists headed by the United States is the principal contradiction in the contemporary world. The development of this contradiction is promoting the struggle of the people of the whole world against US imperialism and its lackeys. Lin Piao, Long Live the Victory of People's War! People ask, what is the nature of the revolution that we talk about- Who will it be made by, and for, and what are its goals and strategy- The overriding consideration in answering these questions is that the main struggle going on in the world today is between US imperialism and the national liberation struggles against it. This is essential in defining political matters in the whole world: because it is by far the most powerful, every other empire and petty dictator is in the long run dependent on US imperialism, which has unified, allied with, and defended all of the reactionary forces of the whole world. Thus, in considering every other force or phenomenon, from Soviet imperialism or Israeli imperialism to "workers struggle" in France or Czechoslovakia, we determine who are our friends and who are our enemies according to whether they help US imperialism or fight to defeat it. So the very first question people in this country must ask in considering the question of revolution is where they stand in relation to the United States as an oppressor nation, and where they stand in relation to the masses of people throughout the world whom US imperialism is oppressing. The primary task of revolutionary struggle is to solve this principal contradiction on the side of the people of the world. It is the oppressed peoples of the world who have created the wealth of this empire and it is to them that it belongs; the goal of the revolutionary struggle must be the control and use of this wealth in the interests of the oppressed peoples of the world. It is in this context that we must examine the revolutionary struggles in the United States. We are within the heartland of a worldwide monster, a country so rich from its worldwide plunder that even the crumbs doled out to the enslaved masses within its borders provide for material existence very much above the conditions of the masses of people of the world. The US empire, as a worldwide system, channels wealth, based upon the labor and resources of the
WUO terrorized government property
To clarify, the terrorist acts for which Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground are being demonized targeted only property damage and resulted in no casualties. Here is a list of 25 bombings attributed to the WUO, with notes from the FBI files, and the original communiques. BOMBINGS BY WEATHERMEN / WEATHER UNDERGROUND October 7, 1969 Haymarket Police Statue in Chicago. The Weathermen later claim credit for the bombing in their book, Prairie Fire. December 6, 1969 Chicago Police cars parked in a precinct parking lot at 3600 North Halsted Street, Chicago. The WUO claims responsibility in Prairie Fire, stating it is a protest of the fatal police shooting of Illinois Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark on December 4, 1969. May 10, 1970 National Guard Association building in Washington, D.C. is bombed. June 6, 1970 San Francisco Hall of Justice. (WUO claims credit for bombing although no explosion occurred. Months later, workmen locate an unexploded bomb). June 9, 1970 New York City Police headquarters. The Weathermen state this is in response to "police repression." July 27, 1970 United States Army base at The Presidio in San Francisco, on the 11th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. September 12, 1970 California Men's Colony prison break for Timothy Leary. October 8, 1970 Marin County courthouse. WUO states this is in retaliation for the killings of Jonathan Jackson, William Christmas, and James McClain. October 10, 1970 Queens traffic-court building. WUO claims this is to express support for the New York prison riots. October 14, 1970 Harvard Center for International Affairs. WUO claims this is to protest the war in Vietnam. March 1, 1971 United States Capitol. WUO states this is to protest the invasion of Laos. August 29, 1971 Office of California Prisons, allegedly in retaliation for the killing of George Jackson. September 17, 1971 New York Department of Corrections in Albany, New York. In protest of the killing of 29 inmates at Attica State Penitentiary. October 15, 1971 MIT research center, William Bundy's office. May 19, 1972 Pentagon. "in retaliation for the U.S. bombing raid in Hanoi." May 18, 1973 103rd Police Precinct in New York. WUO states this is in response to the killing of 10-year-old black youth Clifford Glover by police. September 28, 1973 ITT headquarters in New York and Rome, Italy. WUO states this is in response to ITT's alleged role in the Chilean coup earlier that month. March 6, 1974 Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare offices in San Francisco. WUO states this is to protest alleged sterilization of poor women. In the accompanying communiqué, the Women’s Brigade argues for "the need for women to take control of daycare, healthcare, birth control and other aspects of women's daily lives." May 31, 1974 California Attorney General office. WUO states this is in response to the killing of six members of the Symbionese Liberation Army. June 17, 1974 Gulf Oil Pittsburgh headquarters. WUO states this is to protest the company's actions in Angola, Vietnam, and elsewhere. September 11, 1974 Anaconda Corporation. WUO states this is in retribution for Anaconda/Rockefeller’s alleged involvement in the Chilean coup the previous year. January 29, 1975 State Department. WUO states this is in response to escalation in Vietnam. June 16, 1975 Banco de Ponce, NYC.
Defining ourselves by what others fear
It could be confused for being contrarian or reactionary, but how else do you build upon what you learn? Instead of letting life buffet you while you strap yourself to a mast to drift to a predestined shore, why not sail a bit? You've got a rudder and centerboard to limit your drift. Let those who live back in the age of the square sail think that weather can only lead downwind. In public protest, as in arguments, I can tell I'm on the right tack when authorities object to what I'm saying. I've learned this much, if they don't like where you're standing, you're closing in on the sweet spot. The 2008 presidential campaign offered some great insight on political positioning. I'd like to consider the attempts to slander Barack Obama as a point of reference. A good place to start for what most scares authority. Middle name Hussein? Sounds like a fine middle name to me. Adopted by any of us, "Hussein" commemorates cultural tolerance, specifically, irreverence for ethnocentric bigotry and false fear-mongering. Paling around with Bill Ayers? We should all be so lucky to know a real 60s Weatherman. Where were you on the Vietnam War? Any less radical ideology would probably be indefensible now. Maybe "Bill Ayers" makes an even better middle name to adopt, if you want to pay tribute to youthful idealism and audacity. (BTW- The Weather Underground Organization (WUO), was a militant antiwar group known originally as The Weathermen, named from a Dylan lyric referencing Kerouac. Splintered from the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM), a subgroup of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Weatherman formed a "white fighting force" in solidarity with the Black Liberation Movement after the murder of Blank Panther leader Fred Hampton. BTW2- Neither Bill Ayers nor the WUO were terrorists. The bombs they planted were not to terrorize people but to symbolize the need to destroy the mechanisms of US imperialism. Warnings were always issued beforehand to prevent casualties.) Agree with Reverend Jeremiah Wright? Wow. Who could but hope to have the moral courage of Reverend Wright? Especially his temerity, eloquence and perseverance. "God Damn America?" If any Nationalist Hypocracy ever deserved a wrathful kick in the ass, we do. God Damn America most certainly. Americans joke about Hell in a Handbasket, but where are those who dare leap out and try to lead their companions to deserving a more honorable fate? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The Stars and Stripes fly over monumental crimes for which Americans have never atoned. We worship false Gods if they do not damn our immoral economic enslavement of everyone in our grasp. As a politician, Barack Obama would not have had the latitude to express agreement with Reverend Wright. Or admiration for Bill Ayers. It's nothing to do with conviction and everything to do with the compromises of an elected office in the face of a slanderous press. But while Obama makes his pragmatic choices to get neared the seat of power, we