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The issues and concepts presented in this video with respect to imagery are not affiliated with The Chemical Brothers or with Anwar SuperStar. Rather, they are my own interpretation of the lyrics. Although some may disagree, I believe the central message of this song is calling for the global unification of people (regardless of race, ethnicity or nationality) to stand up against the corruptions of various governments and political systems on both national and international levels. I am sure, that some will definitely be of the opinion that this video is a gross misinterpretation the artist's intent. Others may think that I have characterized this video as a dedication to 'conspiracy theories' related to the new world order. However, regardless of whether people agree or disagree, the idea of the new world order has definitely become a globally recognised concept- to an extent where it can no longer be regarded as simply a 'theory'. It may be of interest to know that the UN has previously hinted on what may appear to be ' the united states of the world'; "The turn of the century is a unique and symbolically compelling moment for the 189 Member States of the United Nations to articulate and affirm an animating vision for the Organization in the new era." There is a need for Americans and British citizens in particular, to realise that they have been forced into paying for wars- one of which has been argued to be illegal. The leaders of these countries went as far as saying that it was our 'duty' to support the war. The corporate media definitely supported this idea and they were very successful in painting a picture of how 'dangerous' countries like Iraq and Afghanistan are to our freedoms. Yet if this were true, how come it only took a matter of weeks to almost cleanse the country of any Iraqi political influence by over-throwing the government? The answer is because the war in Iraq was never about Saddam Husein. It was to do with oil, amongst other things which ben

angella on September 27th, 2011 at 1:08 pm # Online Protest Your Voice Will Be Heard Right to political protest The right to political protest is protected by the Constitution. Section 17 of the Bill of Rights provides for rights to conduct peaceful and unarmed activities such as assembly, demonstrations, pickets and petitions. Political protest also involves imparting related information, and this right is guaranteed by the section regarding freedom of expression (Section 16 of the Bill of Rights). Although the right to political protest is protected by the Constitution, this right may be limited by principle. Activists must remember that none of the fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are absolute. The Constitution gives government the power to limit these rights. Section 36 of the Bill, however, says the limitation of fundamental rights or freedoms must be reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom. The Following Abstracts from the Bill of Rights Might Apply To Any On-Line Protest Section 15: Freedom of religion, belief and opinion Everyone has the right to believe or think what they want, even if their opinion is different to the government. Everyone has the right to practise the religion they choose. Government institutions, like schools, can follow religious practices (like having prayers in the morning) but this must be done fairly and people cannot be forced to attend them. A person can also get married under the laws of their religion. But these cannot go against the Bill of Rights. For example, a woman who marries according to customary law does not lose her rights of equality when she gets married. Section 16: Freedom of speech and expression Everyone has the right to say what they want, including the press and other media. Limiting this right There are certain kinds of speech that are not protected. These are: propaganda for war inciting (encouraging) people to u

It's hard to think of another time when there has been such a gulf between intellectuals and activists; between theorists of revolution and its practitioners. Writers who for years have been publishing essays that sound like position papers for vast social movements that do not in fact exist seem seized with confusion or worse, dismissive contempt, now that real ones are everywhere emerging. It's particularly scandalous in the case of what's still, for no particularly good reason, referred to as the 'anti-globalization' movement, one that has in a mere two or three years managed to transform completely the sense of historical possibilities for millions across the planet. This may be the result of sheer ignorance, or of relying on what might be gleaned from such overtly hostile sources as the New York Times; then again, most of what's written even in progressive outlets seems largely to miss the point-or at least, rarely focuses on what participants in the movement really think is most important about it. As an anthropologist and active participant-particularly in the more radical, direct-action end of the movement-I may be able to clear up some common points of misunderstanding; but the news may not be gratefully received. Much of the hesitation, I suspect, lies in the reluctance of those who have long fancied themselves radicals of some sort to come to terms with the fact that they are really liberals: interested in expanding individual freedoms and pursuing social justice, but not in ways that would seriously challenge the existence of reigning institutions like capital or state. And even many of those who would like to see revolutionary change might not feel entirely happy about having to accept that most of the creative energy for radical politics is now coming from anarchism-a tradition that they have hitherto mostly dismissed-and that taking this movement seriously will necessarily also mean a respectful engagement with it. I am writing

The police had to see everything, know, understand and have power over everything. The strength and perfection of their machinery appears all the more terrible because of the unsuspected resources they dragged up from the depth of the human soul. But nonetheless they were powerless to prevent what happened. For half a century they vainly defended the autocracy against the revolution, which grew stronger every year. It would in fact be wrong to let oneself be taken in by the apparently perfect mechanism of Tsarist security. It is true that at the top there were some intelligent men, technicians of high professional standing; but the whole machine rested on the work of a mass of ignorant civil servants. In the best prepared reports some quite amusing discrepancies appear. Money oiled the wheels of this enormous machine; and gain is a strong but inadequate stimulus. Nothing great is achieved without disinterestedness. And the autocracy had no disinterested supporters. Should it still, after the overthrow of March 26, 1917, be necessary to demonstrate, with facts taken from the history of the Russian Revolution, that the efforts of the Head of the Police Department were in vain, we could quote a whole number of arguments like that put forward by the ex-policeman M.E. Bakai. In 1906, after the suppression of the first revolution, when the Chief of Police, Trusevich, reorganised the Okhrana, the revolutionary organisations of Warsaw, and in particular the Polish Socialist Party [14], in the course of the year liquidated 20 military, 7 constables and 56 policemen and wounded 92; in all, they put 179 officers out of action. They also destroyed 149 consignments of excise alcohol. In the preparation of these actions hundreds of men took part, most of them remaining unknown to the police. M.E. Bakai observes that, in periods of revolutionary upsurge, agents provocateurs often lay low; but they reappeared as reaction gained the upper hand. Like carrion crows over the battle-fie

Two months have passed since the police execution of Mark Duggan tipped the already-fragile balance of power in the UK, unlocking an orgy of defiance across this island. A well of frustrations finally boiled over and the system was left reeling by a determined insurrection from a wide range of people. Following these days and nights of brazen attacks in Bristol (as in other places) a house is raided in a police and media orchestrated scene as part of their revenge operation for the blows they have both received in the uprising - they leave without the hostage they sought there, but I am made aware by their blunder that I am on their wanted list. Two months have now passed of successful evasion, and meanwhile the winds of insurgency still blow in many towns and moments - indeed, for many they started long before this summer. There have also been at least two more deaths at the hands of the Law in August alone… My decision is not to comply with my judicial persecution, and I greet D.C.I Will White and their kind reading this by the names they are known here and everywhere in different words and tongues: COPS - PIGS - MURDERERS. I am one of those who simply cannot and will not stomach the social, economic, moral, psychological, physical conditions not of our making that we are born into at this point of history. I have never sought to decorate the walls of my cell with exam certificates, job promotions, sports prizes, status-symbols borrowed from the wealthy by our labour. I curse those who sell themselves so cheaply to buy such unimaginative dreams at the expense of a possibility of a freedom truly of their own making. Since an early age this unwillingness and refusal has put me in conflict, like countless others, with that reality. And our understanding is growing along with our fury. We are the "lost kids" angry and disappointed by false promises, the "uncontrollable youth" unsatisfied with the paltry futures offered to us, the "useless componen

I'm sorry but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business - I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible: Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful. But we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say "Do not despair". The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die liberty will never perish. Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural

Martin Luther King - A Time to Break SilenceStarting in 1965, King began to express doubts about the United States' role in the Vietnam War. In an April 4, 1967, appearance at the New York City Riverside Church - exactly one year before his death - King delivered Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. In the speech he spoke strongly against the U.S.'s role in the war, insisting that the U.S. was in Vietnam "to occupy it as an American colony" and calling the U.S. government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.""Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.""At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called "enemy," I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor." Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 -- April 4, 1968), was one of the main leaders of the American civil rights movement. A Baptist minister b

The Occupy Wall Street movement is well into its second week of operation, and is now getting more attention from media as well as from people planning similar actions across the country. This is a promising populist mobilization with a clear message against domination by political and economic elites. Against visions of a bleak and stagnant future, the occupiers assert the optimism that a better world can be made in the streets. They have not resigned themselves to an order where the young are presented with a foreseeable future of some combination of debt, economic dependency, and being paid little to endure constant disrespect, an order that tells the old to accept broken promises and be glad to just keep putting in hours until they can't work anymore. The occupiers have not accepted that living in modern society means shutting up about how it functions. In general, the occupiers see themselves as having more to gain than to lose in creating a new political situation - something that few who run the current system will help deliver. They are not eager for violence, and have shown admirable restraint in the face of attack by police. There may be no single clear agenda, but there is a clear message: that people will have a say in their political and economic lives, regardless of what those in charge want. Occupy Wall Street is a kind of protest that Americans are not accustomed to seeing. There was no permit to protest, and it has been able to keep going on through unofficial understandings between protestors and police. It is not run by professional politicians, astroturfers, or front groups with barely-hidden agendas. Though some organizations and political figures have promoted it, Occupy Wall Street is not driven by any political party or protest organization. It is a kind of protest that shows people have power when they are determined to use it. Occupy Wall Street could be characterized as an example of a new type of mass politics, which has been seen in

The Wisconsin recall election was the first major test of the new era in American politics. That new era began in January of 2010 when the US Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. FEC that the political voice of We The People was no longer as important as the voices of billionaires and transnational corporations. Now we know the result, and it bodes ill for both 2012 and for the tattered future of small-d democracy in our republic. A few of America's most notorious oligarchs - including the Koch and the DeVos (Amway fortune) billionaires - as well as untraceable millions from donors who could as easily be Chinese government-run corporations as giant "American" companies who do most of their business and keep most of their profits outside the US - apparently played big in this election. I say "apparently" because the Supreme Court has ruled that we no longer have the right to know who is really funding our election commercials, or even our candidates themselves. Thanks to an irrational and likely illegal Supreme Court ruling, we have moved into an era of oligarch-run politics. As much as $40 million of our oligarch's money was spent in Wisconsin in a handful of local races - a testing laboratory for strategies that will now be used against Democrats nationwide in 2012. And so now we enter the battle of the oligarchs over the next fifteen or so months. As the old saying goes, when the elephants fight, the mice get trampled. In this case, the mice aren't just the voters. It's democracy itself. America is now - demonstrably, as proven by Wisconsin - just a few years away from the possibility of a totally corrupted, totally billionaire- and corporate-controlled political system. Political scientists call it oligarchy. The Citizens United election experiment is over, and the oligarchs won. Long live the oligarchy.

In May 2008, Josh Fox received a letter from a natural gas company offering to lease his family's land in Milanville, Pennsylvania for $100,000 to drill for gas.[1]Following the lease offer, he looked for information about natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale under large parts of Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and West Virginia. He visited Dimock, Pennsylvania where natural gas drilling was already taking place. In Dimock, he met families able to light their tap water on fire as well as suffering from numerous health issues and fearing their well water had been contaminated.Fox then set out to see how communities are being affected in the west where a natural gas drilling boom has been underway for the last decade. He spent time with citizens in their homes and on their land as they relayed their stories of natural gas drilling in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Texas, among others. He spoke with residents who have experienced a variety of chronic health problems as well as contamination of their air, water wells or surface water. In some instances, the residents are reporting that they obtained a court injunction or settlement monies from gas companies to replace the affected water supplies with potable water or water purification kits.[2]Throughout the documentary, Fox reached out to scientists, politicians and gas industry executives and ultimately found himself in the halls of Congress as a subcommittee was discussing the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act, "a bill to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to repeal a certain exemption for hydraulic fracturing."[3] Hydraulic fracturing was exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.[4]Making appearances in the film are Dr. Theo Colborn, founder of the Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX); John Hanger, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP); Dr. Al Armendariz, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator for Region 6; W

Well, it turned. The police bureau is starting to crack after six weeks of Occupy Portland. And one picture, right here, crystallizes the precise moment when it happened. During a choreographed effort to pull a few dozen protesters out of the Chase bank branch outside Pioneer Square, part of today's hundreds-strong N17 day of action, Portland police officers resorted to a decidedly more muscular show of force in a clash watched by TV cameras and rush-hour commuters earlier this evening. Suddenly all the fun-the dance parties, the union songs, the peaceful arrests earlier on the Steel Bridge and at Wells Fargo-was for naught. Tromping in with mounted officers, they pushed marchers who had gathered on the sidewalks along SW Yamhill into the street-forcing them to block MAX trains, something no one was doing until the heavily armored riot squad showed up-and then poked and, for the first time, pepper-sprayed the marchers. Significantly, some of the spraying came after protesters had clearly retreated to the opposite sidewalk. (In another odd shift, there also was no federal-court-required verbal PA warning that chemical munitions would be deployed-a hallmark of every other mass police action to date.) Meanwhile, at almost the very same moment, Police Chief Mike Reese was on TV blaming Occupy Portland for his officers' inability to respond to a rape victim for three hours today. Consider that tantamount to a declaration of war. Reese's point? Officers are tired and have been too distracted to do their main jobs: responding to actual crimes. It was an attempt to spin sentiment against the movement, which seems to be attracting adherents. Even the O today said the movement is "building momentum" and said the average age of some 34 arrestees earlier today was 50-not a bunch of young, anarchists/punks/hoodlums/hippies/road warriors etc. But that might come back to haunt him, judging by a wave of outrage on Twitter and elsewhere among those who noted that it

The Mayor is announcing that he will evict the occupation using force this Saturday. Let the Mayor know that he doesn't get to decide what happens here - the 99% do!Sam Adams has announced that he will be sending in the police to forcefully evict Occupy Portland. The violence being threatened against the occupation is the same violence used to evict people from their homes, the same violence used to drive out the poor and working class through the process of gentrification, the same violence that is used daily by the city and police to protect the interests of the 1% at the expense of the 99%. Despite his feigned concern for the safety of the occupiers, he is in reality responding to pressure brought by Standard Insurance, the Portland Business Alliance, and other members of the 1% who oppose the occupation in principle. The Mayor has repeatedly worked to undermine the occupation and distract it from growing into a powerful social movement - this is just another in a long line of manufactured crisis created by the mayor to disrupt the occupation and discredit it. The fear mongering that has been occurring over the past week has been intentional, to alienate the occupation from it's supporters.  This Saturday, we need everyone who supports the right of the occupiers to exist, who opposes police violence, everyone who thinks that this moment in time is too important to give up on - we need all of you at the occupation on Saturday night. They hope to control us through fear - through fear of violence, fear of arrest. We must say that we will not be afraid anymore. That we will not be bullied into submission. For everyone who supports freedom and self-determination, this is your moment to act in defense of those values. All out to the occupation this Saturday! These moments don't happen often, this may be our last opportunity to come together as a people and challenge the powers that be - we can't let it go without a fight. 

"Those who make peaceful evolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable."- John F. KennedyThere's one thing for sure: 2008 isn't anything like politics as usual.The corporate media (with their unerring eye for the obvious point) is fixated on the narrative that, for the first time ever, Americans will likely end this year with either a woman or a black man headed for the White House. Bloggers are telling stories from the front lines of primaries and caucuses that look like something from the early 60s - people lining up before dawn to vote in Manoa, Hawaii yesterday; a thousand black college students in Prairie View, Texas marching 10 miles to cast their early votes in the face of a county that tried to disenfranchise them. In recent months, we've also been gobstopped by the sheer passion of the insurgent campaigns of both Barack Obama and Ron Paul, both of whom brought millions of new voters into the conversation - and with them, a sharp critique of the status quo and a new energy that's agitating toward deep structural change.There's something implacable, earnest, and righteously angry in the air. And it raises all kinds of questions for burned-out Boomers and jaded Gen Xers who've been ground down to the stump by the mostly losing battles of the past 30 years. Can it be - at long last - that Americans have, simply, had enough? Are we, finally, stepping out to take back our government - and with it, control of our own future? Is this simply a shifting political season - the kind we get every 20 to 30 years - or is there something deeper going on here? Do we dare to raise our hopes that this time, we're going to finally win a few? Just how ready is this country for big, serious, forward-looking change?Recently, I came across a pocket of sociological research that suggested a tantalizing answer to these questions - and also that America may be far more ready for far more change than anyone really believes is possible at this moment. In fac

The Money Party is a small group of enterprises and individuals who have most of the money in this country. They use that money to make more money. Controlling who gets elected to public office is the key to more money for them and less for us. As 2008 approaches, The Money Party is working hard to maintain its perfect record. It is not about Republicans versus Democrats. Right now, the Republicans do a better job taking money than the Democrats. But The Money Party is an equal opportunity employer. They have no permanent friends or enemies, just permanent interests. Democrats are as welcome as Republicans to this party. It's all good when you're on the take and the take is legal. This is not a conspiracy theory. There are no secret societies or sinister operators. This party is up front and in your face. Just follow the money. One percent of Americans hold 33% of the nation's wealth. The top 10% hold 72% of the total wealth. The bottom 40% of Americans control only 0.3% (three tenths of one percent). And that was before "pay day loans."

A collage of Youtube clips to the original recording from Gil Scott Heron's classic first album. Please rate & share - and Check out other stuff on my channel. Words from the later, and more well-known recording are: You will not be able to stay home, brother.You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,Skip out for beer during commercials,Because the revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be televised.The revolution will not be brought to you by XeroxIn 4 parts without commercial interruptions.The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixonblowing a bugle and leading a charge by JohnMitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eathog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star NatalieWoods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.The revolution will not make you look five poundsthinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother. There will be no pictures of you and Willie Maypushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32or report from 29 districts.The revolution will not be televised. There will be no pictures of pigs shooting downbrothers in the instant replay.There will be no pictures of pigs shooting downbrothers in the instant replay.There will be no pictures of Whitney Young beingrun out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.There will be no slow motion or still life of RoyWilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black andGreen liberation jumpsuit that he had been savingFor just the proper occasion. Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and HootervilleJunction will no longer be so damned relevant, andwomen will not car

Documentary about how propaganda is being used to manipulate your mind. Sources for this film: -Beder, Sharon -- Consumerism: an Historical Perspective -Chomsky, Noam -- What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream -Darwinia -- WWI Propaganda -Ewen, Stuart -- Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture -Lazere, Donald -- American media and mass culture -Lutins, Allen -- An Eclectic list of Events in US Labor History  -Millies, Stephen -- The Ludlow Massacre and the Birth of Company Unions -Parenti, Michael -- Super-Patriotism -Simpson, Christopher -- The Science of Coercion -Smith, Sharon -- Subterranean Fire: A History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States -Snow, Nancy -- Propagnda, Inc., Selling America's Culture to the World -Stauber, John and Rampton, Sheldon -- Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq ; Toxic Sludge is Good For You -Tye, Larry -- The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays & The Birth of PR Film created by: http://www.metanoia-films.org/index.php

By now, you probably think your opinion of Goldman Sachs and its swarm of Wall Street allies has rock-bottomed at raw loathing. You're wrong. There's more. It turns out that the most destructive of all their recent acts has barely been discussed at all. Here's the rest. This is the story of how some of the richest people in the world - Goldman, Deutsche Bank, the traders at Merrill Lynch, and more - have caused the starvation of some of the poorest people in the world. It starts with an apparent mystery. At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly and stratospherically. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent. In a global jolt of hunger, 200 million people - mostly children - couldn't afford to get food any more, and sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in more than 30 countries, and at least one government was violently overthrown. Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, calls it "a silent mass murder", entirely due to "man-made actions."

I don't know the intentions of each of the people taking part in the riots today. I don't know for sure what the intentions of any of them are. But I do know this: every act is a political act. Whether it is intended to make a point about the government's macro-economic policy or intended to allow a pair of trainers to be stolen, the smashing of a window is a clear demonstration of a refusal to buy into society as it stands. However an arsonist explains their flames, whether they burn a building for fun, or with the intention of bringing about revolution, they are saying this: "The world I find myself in is not one in which I have a stake. It is not one I was allowed to help build. It is one which I am happy to burn".

The NAACP has just passed a historic resolution demanding an end to the War on Drugs.  The resolution comes as young Black male unemployment hovers near 50 percent and the wealth gap's become a veritable gulf. So why is the forty-year-old "War on Drugs" public enemy number one for the nation's oldest civil rights organization? Well here's why:  it's not extraneous - it's central: the war on drugs is the engine of 21st century discrimination - an engine that has brought Jim Crow into the age of Barack Obama.     Author Michelle Alexander lays out the statistics -- and the stories --  of 21st Century Jim Crow in her ought-to-blow-your-socks off book: "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness." I had a chance to sit down with Alexander earlier this summer. We'll be posting the full interview in two parts.     "We have managed decades after the civil rights movement to create something like a caste system in the United States," says Alexander in part one here  "In major urban areas, the majority of African American men are either behind bars, under correctional control or saddled with criminal record and once branded as criminal or a felon, they're trapped for life in 2nd class status."     It's not just about people having a hard time getting ahead and climbing the ladder of success. It's about a rigged system. Sound familiar?  Like the Pew Research Center report on household wealth and the Great Recession -- the NAACP resolution story was a one-day news-blip - despite the fact that it pierces the by-your-bootstraps myth that is at the heart of - you pick it - the deficit, the stimulus, the tax code - every contemporary US economic debate.     White America just maybe ought to pay attention. With more and more Americans falling out of jobs and into debt, criminal records are a whole lot easier to come by than life-sustaining employment.  Contrary to the conventional media version, the "Drug War" story is not a people with problems

President-elect Barack Obama offered Americans a unique opportunity to directly relay their concerns to the incoming administration when his change.gov website unveiled its "Open for Questions" tool late last week. The result of that tool's first round of voting may have surprised Obama and his staff: two of the top ten questions -including the highest ranking question - concerned marijuana policy and questions that challenged the drug war in general took 16 of the top 50 spots. Many were disappointed, though unsurprised, by the administration's response to the question that landed in the top slot. When asked whether or not he would "consider legalizing marijuana so that the government [could] tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs [and] a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.," Obama's team responded with a resounding "no," stating simply that the President-elect "is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana."