WilliamPitt
WilliamPitt's JournalPlanned Parenthood in Boston, and the man with a gun, seventeen years ago today.
Posted on Planned parenthood's facebook page:
Seventeen years ago today, a gunman opened fire at two different women's health centers in Massachusetts, killing receptionists Shannon Lowney and Leanne Nichols. In a time when anti-choice legislation is piling up and anti-choice violence still occurs, let's take a moment to remember these two women and all the other brave men and women working to ensure access to basic health care.
Planned parenthood in Boston saved the lives of two of my best friends by providing that care. They are heroes.
The Rain and the Reckoning
Workers clean Zuccotti Park after almost two months of encampment by Occupy Wall Street protesters, in New York, November 15, 2011. (Photo: Robert Stolarik / The New York Times)
The Rain and the Reckoning
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
Friday 30 December 2011
"...and soon now we shall go out of the house and go into the convulsion of the world, out of history into history and the awful responsibility of Time."
- Robert Penn Warren
Dewey Square, the patch of earth in the shadow of the Federal Reserve Building and One Financial Center that Occupy Boston protesters called home from September to December, is empty now. The same can be said for the original Occupy space at UC Davis, where a dozen kneeling and defenseless protesters were hosed down with pepper spray, and for Oakland, where the police rioted and very nearly killed a two-tour Marine Corps veteran of Iraq. Occupy encampments sprang up in hundreds of cities in all fifty states of the union over these last four months. Many, if not most, are gone now, done in by police invasion or uncooperative weather, or both.
You may have noticed the sudden lack of attention paid to the Occupy movement, now that the gendarmes of the status quo have wielded their truncheons and rolled up the encampments like so many windowshades. Nightly reports by the "mainstream" news media about Occupy actions all across the country have dwindled to almost nil, and for those so disposed, this is a good thing. The roused rabble have been crushed and scattered, and all this talk of inequality and justice can finally be replaced with what has for so long now been the real American anthem: everything is fine, nothing to see here, your betters are in control, go back to work. The uprising has been quelled, it would seem, and it is time to consign the Occupy movement to the dustbin of history.
Nothing, but nothing, but nothing, could be further from the truth.
This is not over. Not by a long, long chalk.
It is not over because the American conversation has been irrevocably altered in ways both subtle and sublime. For those predisposed to rocking the boat, the Occupy movement has provided an opportunity to give voice to the overarching sense that matters in America have gone horribly wrong: uncounted thousands dead in a war of choice that provided a wonderful opportunity for the transfer of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into the bloated coffers of "defense" contractors with friends in high places; billions more stolen in broad daylight by Wall Street gangsters; billions more given back by way of "bailouts" - read: socialism - to these same gangsters thanks to the aforementioned high-placed friends; no jobs, and no jobs, and no jobs, because it is more important to score political points than it is to ease the suffering of millions.
For those not immediately predisposed to boat-rocking - the fathers who lay awake at night worrying about mortgage payments, the mothers with sick children who live in terror of the mailman bringing more medical bills, the retail workers making a shamefully substandard minimum wage who are holding on by their fingernails - such highblown talk has always been drowned out by the necessities and requirements of the immediate present. Who has time to camp out in Zuccotti Park when there are bills to pay, mouths to feed and time-cards to punch?
And yet...and yet...
And yet those same hard-working over-burdened Americans who have been thus far unable to take up the Occupy banner - who, in many instances, dismiss the whole thing with a contemptuous "Get a job, hippie" - are the same Americans who have had a bug put in their ear, and the buzzing of that bug will not go away. Four months of national dialogue about fair taxation, burden-sharing and the overwhelming power of the corporate state have done their work, and done it well. The conversation in America about wealth and power has been redirected: instead of blindly worshipping the power and prestige of these Sheriffs of Nottingham, who drink the sweat and blood of the toilers for their sustenance and entertainment, a great many people have been made to remember Robin Hood, and what the genuine definition of fairness, equality and patriotism really is.
The story of America on the eve of this new year can be summed up by the old tale of the two donkeys who meet on the road. The first donkey is fresh as a daisy, unencumbered, brushed and bright-eyed. The second donkey is tired and broken, sad-eyed and swaybacked from the monstrous burden he carries. The first donkey looks at the second donkey and says, "Boy, that's quite a load you're carrying." The second donkey looks at the first donkey in exhausted confusion and replies, "What load?"
Get it? The second donkey had been carrying his burden for so long that he no longer even realizes it is there, though his back breaks from the strain. For generations now, that has been the sorry lot of the 99%, but it will not be so in 2012; after carrying the load for so long that they didn't even see it anymore - a fact that suits the 1% right down to the ground, mind you - a vast majority of Americans have finally looked up from their fruitless toiling, seen the unfair and over-burdensome load they carry, and recognized the fundamental injustice that has left them as beaten and swaybacked as that donkey on the road.
Occupy is not over. We come now to another winter of our discontent, and though the tents and signs and shouts of the movement have been momentarily subdued, they will return. Spring is coming, the rocks are already rolling down the mountainside, and while there is still time for the pebbles to catch up, gravity is an absolute. Sooner or later, those rocks will reach the reckoning that has been so long in coming, and when that happens, nothing in this country will be the same again.
With Spring comes the rain, and the rain is coming to this dry and thirsty land.
The rain is coming.
By God and sonny Jesus, the rain is coming.
http://www.truth-out.org/rain-and-reckoning/1325105757
I wanted to be Hunter S. Thompson when I grew up.
I wound up being me instead. Selah.
Matt Taibbi has been an excellent steward of the National Affairs desk at Rolling Stone.
Anyone who thinks otherwise might have an agenda.
Note: I said "might."
"The Great Derangement" is one of the most important books on the first decade of the 20th centuty.
to Matt Taibbi.
Ron Paul: for the record, and just my humble o.
Anyone who deserts Obama for the likes of Ron Paul should come see me about a big red bridge I'm trying to sell in San Francisco. It'll collapse into the harbor in a few years due to the total lack of funding necessary for its upkeep, but in the meantime you can scrawl as many KKK slogans on it as will fit.
No, I will not support a man whose avowed purpose is the dismantling of the social safety net. I will not support a man who cloaks himself in bullshit Libertarianism while trying to pass laws that make women who choose abortion into first-degree murderers on the Federal level. I will not support a man who fears a UN one-world government. I will not support a man who thinks racism and homophobia are fine and dandy. I will work to stop these wars as I always have, but I am not going to burn down the fucking country in the process. Is that clear enough?
Paul supporters on my FB page have been making the argument that the country needs another "fruitcake" at the helm to "inspire the completion of the revolution." Nader preached that filthy gospel back in 2000. The only people who spout that nonsense are the ones who won't get hurt by it. I'm glad whoever believes that is so comfortable, but that arrogance is consigning millions into horror. "Maybe we need things to get worse," right? Fuck you. Sincerely, the millions who will get fucked over by such arrogance.
Ron Paul is a fake Libertarian bullshit artist who believes a one-world religious takeover of America will only be outpaced by a UN takeover. His economic theories are bullshit of the purest ray serene. He hates women, and in fact hates anyone who is not of his sexual orientation or skin tone. He can take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut in a gravel driveway; the only thing he is good for is playing merry havoc with the hopeless dipshits of the GOP base in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Oh, P.S., advocating for a Republican doesn't fly on DU. Never has, never will. Go peddle your papers somewhere else.
Jesus Baldheaded Christ
Anyone who deserts Obama for the likes of Ron Paul should come see me about a big red bridge I'm trying to sell in San Francisco. It'll collapse into the harbor in a few years due to the total lack of funding necessary for its upkeep, but in the meantime you can scrawl as many KKK slogans on it as will fit.
No, I will not support a man whose avowed purpose is the dismantling of the social safety net. I will not support a man who cloaks himself in bullshit Libertarianism while trying to pass laws that make women who choose abortion into first-degree murderers on the Federal level. I will not support a man who fears a UN one-world government. I will not support a man who thinks racism and homophobia are fine and dandy. I will work to stop these wars as I always have, but I am not going to burn down the fucking country in the process. Is that clear enough?
Paul supporters on my FB page have been making the argument that the country needs another "fruitcake" at the helm to "inspire the completion of the revolution." Nader preached that filthy gospel back in 2000. The only people who spout that nonsense are the ones who won't get hurt by it. I'm glad whoever believes that is so comfortable, but that arrogance is consigning millions into horror. "Maybe we need things to get worse," right? Fuck you. Sincerely, the millions whom such arrogance will be fucking over.
Ron Paul is a fake Libertarian bullshit artist who believes a one-world religious takeover of America will only be outpaced by a UN takeover. His economic theories are bullshit of the purest ray serene. He hates women, and in fact hates anyone who is not of his sexual orientation or skin tone. He can take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut in a gravel driveway; the only thing he is good for is playing merry havoc with the hopeless dipshits of the GOP base in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Oh, P.S., advocating for a Republican doesn't fly on DU. Never has, never will. Go peddle your papers somewhere else.
Random strategy thought on the payroll-tax thing
The Dems should make the GOP candidates take a stand on the issue. Two outcomes:
1. The GOP candidates back the House GOP and look like monsters.
2. The GOP candidates criticize the House GOP, and create open warfare within the party on the doorstep of the primary season.
The Dems are not smart enough to paint the GOP into this corner, but it's what should happen.
Thoughts?
The Patriots are going to lose to the first good team they encounter in the playoffs.
For the third year in a row. Write it down.
Fact.
But.
Today was pretty sweet.
DoD Training Manual: Protests are "Low-Level Terrorism"
...yeah, but I'm not worried about the NDAA...DoD Training Manual: Protests are "Low-Level Terrorism"
The Department of Defense is training all of its personnel in its current Antiterrorism and Force Protection Annual Refresher Training Course that political protest is "low-level terrorism."
The Training introduction reads as follows:
"Anti-terrorism (AT) and Force Protection (FP) are two facets of the Department of Defense (DoD) Mission Assurance Program. It is DoD policy, as found in DoDI 2000.16, that the DoD Components and the DoD elements and personnel shall be protected from terrorist acts through a high pirority, comprehensive, AT program. The DoD's AT program shall be all encompassing using an integrated systems approach."
The first question of the Terrorism Threat Factors, "Knowledge Check 1" section reads as follows:
Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism activity?
Select the correct answer and then click Check Your Answer.
O Attacking the Pentagon
O IEDs
O Hate crimes against racial groups
O Protests
***
The "correct" answer is Protests.
The rest: http://open.salon.com/blog/dennis_loo/2009/06/14/dod_training_manual_protests_are_low-level_terrorism
Profile Information
Name: William Rivers PittGender: Male
Hometown: Boston
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 58,179