Group items tagged

Without online technologies, Barack Obama would never have gotten past the primaries. Had Facebook, YouTube, texting, a 13-million name email list and a website developed by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes been absent from his campaign, he would never have raised enough money, been seen and heard by enough people, or enlisted enough volunteers. Yet progressive hopes are faltering, not only because of Obama's compromises and mistakes and Republican intransigence, but also because far too many of his supporters have come to believe they can act exclusively through these online technologies, to the exclusion of face-to-face politics.

OBAMAS ANTI GUN AGENDA: WAS JAMES HOLMES UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THIS DRUG COURTESY OF THE CIA?

WASHINGTON - The pro-legalization group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition fretted that President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon were embarking on a counterproductive mission after the two pledged "renewed cooperation" on the drug war Thursday. "Legalization is the only way to end the cartel violence, just like ending alcohol prohibition was the only way to make gangsters stop shooting each other over beer and liquor distribution," Tom Angell, a spokesman for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, told Raw Story in an e-mail. "How many more police officers and innocent civilians will these leaders allow to die before they finally tackle the one true solution to this violence?" "Both presidents have said recently that legalizing and regulating drugs is a legitimate topic for discussion, so it would truly be a shame if they didn't take the time to talk about this issue when they met behind closed doors," he said.

What lies behind this trans-Atlantic policy paralysis? I'm increasingly convinced that it's a response to interest-group pressure. Consciously or not, policy makers are catering almost exclusively to the interests of rentiers - those who derive lots of income from assets, who lent large sums of money in the past, often unwisely, but are now being protected from loss at everyone else's expense.

Exclusive: One of the strange mysteries from the Reagan-Bush era is where did George H.W. Bush go on one Sunday in October 1980 when some witnesses placed him meeting with Iranians in Paris. More than three decades later, Bush's supposed alibi remains a state secret, Robert Parry reports.

AS Election Day approaches, serious discussion about economic policies is hamstrung by the devotion of both parties to reducing taxes. The big reason, of course, is that President Bush emphasizes tax cuts, including elimination of the estate tax, to the exclusion of almost everything else. The Democrats, in turn, hesitate to propose an economic plan that does not include long-term reductions for middle-income workers, and most refuse to talk about rescinding the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. But the degree of misleading information emanating from both Washington and the media about how taxes affect the economy is disturbing. As I listen to the radio, watch TV news and read a variety of newspapers, it seems that quite a few Americans, including economics writers and media hosts, think that low-tax countries unquestionably grow faster than high-tax economies. Right and left, they seem to attribute more rapid growth in America to lower taxes. What may surprise them is that there is no evidence for that. ''You can make a theoretical case that high taxes impede economic growth, but it is just not supported by the evidence in the U.S. or across countries,'' said William Easterly, a former World Bank economist soon to join the faculty of New York University.

If, as Lessig conclusively demonstrates, Congress is indifferent to the will of the people and to democratic debate - because it has been captured by monied interests to whose interests it exclusively attends - then the people lose the ability to affect what government does in any realm. It doesn't make much difference which problem you believe is most pressing: this is the dynamic that lies at the heart of it. Inaction on climate issues is due to the power of polluters and energy companies; the power of the private health insurance industry blocks fundamental health-care reform; endless war and civil liberties abuses are sustained by the power of the surveillance and National Security State industries; and a failure to achieve real Wall Street reform is due to the fact that, as Sen. Dick Durbin amazingly acknowledged about the institution in which he serves, "the banks frankly own the place." Without finding an effective way to address that overarching problem, the only recourse for citizens becomes either passive acceptance of their powerlessness (i.e., apathy and withdrawal) or disruption and unrest fomented outside of the electoral system (the driving ethos of OccupyWallStreet).

OBAMA ARMING AL QAEDA

Apparently, the US government has been spying on its citizens. Who knew!!! This is a fascinating and damning inside account of US eavesdropping on Americans from former NSA officials. Read it!