I’m about to go add some more rewards to future donors, so if you’ve been holding out, here are some chances to land some serious goodies. It’s going well, but I’m beginning to get nervous about the pace. Every bit counts, so don’t hold back if you think donating $5 or $10 is lame. It’s not.
Only in the New York Times
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…would Brzezinski be called a leftie.
Here’s my letter to the editor of the New York Times Book Review:
To the Editor:
Jonathan Freedland’s comparative review of books by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert Kagan is a perfect illustration of the relentless drive by corporate media outlets to push the ideological 50-yard line of politics to the right.
“As you’d expect,” Freedland writes, “there are big differences between the two.” (Setting the tone of this supposed smackdown is this sub-headline: “Brzezinski from the left and Kagan from the right agree that America should remain dominant.)
As you’d expect? Not if “you” is anyone who knows who these men are.
No doubt, Kagan represents the right.
But Brzezinski a leftist? It depends on what the meaning of “left” is, but by any objective contemporary or current standard, the policies he has promoted for four decades place him squarely in the mainstream, of the Republican Party.
Though once a proponent of détente with the former USSR, by the time he came to power as Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor Brzezinski had become a hawk. He initiated the huge defense build-up that continued under Reagan, planned the failed 1980 attempt to rescue the U.S. embassy hostages in Iran, and advocated U.S. arming and financing of radical Islamists in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan—the so-called “Afghan Trap” that would draw the Russians into their own Vietnam-like quagmire. Today we are living with the consequences of Brzezinski’s reckless policies—which liberals protested at the time.
Brzezinski went on to work for Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He officially endorsed Bush. In 1990 Time magazine described him as “a hardliner.” More recently, he backed the U.S. intervention in Libya, which American leftists opposed.
Freedland writes: “And yet the great surprise is how much they [Brzezinski and Kagan] agree with each other, especially on what matters.”
Considering that both men are and have long been men of the right in the standard neoconservative mold, the only surprise is that the editors of the Book Review thought their readers were unaware of recent history. On the other hand, no real leftist writer has appeared in your pages in ages. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that they exist?
Own a Piece of History
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You can own the most controversial editorial cartoon of the Bush Administration. Check out the Malcolm X level.
Kickstarter Update
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It’s a nice start: $2,508 raised so far. However, it’s not that long before the end of this campaign. Unless more contributions, especially some big ones, start rolling in, it’s not going to make it.
Therefore I’m adding additional incentive levels, including some really tasty ones. For example, I am seriously considering making the original artwork for my controversial “terror widows” and Pat Tillman cartoons among the rewards at the upper levels.
If you’re considering supporting the campaign, bear in mind that you don’t get charged at all unless I make the total $40,000 goal, and that the collapse of traditional print media enterprises means that the only way unusual and risky projects like this book about what a revolution would look like here can get done is with support of individual readers.
Thanks to all those who have donated.
And if you can’t donate, please tweet/Facebook/LinkedIn/Pinterest, etc.
Cartoon Auction Redux
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After a hiatus I brought my cartoon auctions back last week. The winner paid $126, and will get to choose the topic of a cartoon. Not only that, he keeps the original artwork and has the right to reprint it online or in print in the publication of his choice.
Bidding was pretty active, so I thought I’d give everyone another chance.
This Is What Co-option Looks Like
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This video was shot at Occupy the East End’s General Assembly in Sag Harbor, New York eight days ago. I have been active in many causes since I was a kid, but never have I witnessed such a brazen example of co-option.
PRESS RELEASE: Occupy the East End Rejects MoveOn.org Takeover Attempt
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Please disseminate to everyone in and interested in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Thank you.
APRIL 8, 2012—FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCCUPY THE EAST END TO MOVEON.ORG:
WE WILL NOT BE HIJACKED!
We had been silent. We had hoped that the organizations that are attempting to co-opt and dilute the Occupy Wall Street movement would stop. The Occupy movements across the country are fighting for better lives of the 99% of Americans who work for a living. We had hoped that these interlopers would recognize that what they are doing is wrong.
But they have not done the right thing. Now it’s time to speak out and fight back.
A Democratic Party-affiliated organization, MoveOn.org, is actively attempting to hijack the Occupy Wall Street movement. This brazen co-option attempt began by mimicking the Occupy movement’s terminology and rhetoric, not to embrace it, but to channel our movement’s energies toward backing Democratic candidates and policies. MoveOn says: “MoveOn stands in solidarity with the brave protesters at Occupy Wall Street, but we’re not Occupy Wall Street and we’re not trying to become Occupy Wall Street.” If that’s true, why are they posting articles with titles like “Which Corporations Occupy Congress?” and sponsoring events with titles like “We Are The 99%?” This is “Astroturfing”* at its worst. MoveOn is creating confusion on purpose.
Ground Zero in MoveOn’s takeover attempt of Occupy is focused on the eastern end of Long Island in New York. Occupy the East End represents the OWS movement in the Hamptons and Shelter Island, which happen to be the most popular summer playground for the 1%.
Its most recent attempt to co-opt our movement is by scheduling a “99% Spring Training” by a MoveOn front group called “99% Spring” on April 15, 2012 at the same location and time where Occupy the East End has been holding its General Assemblies since the group formed in October of 2011. Occupy the East End delivered an unprecedented unanimous block—every OEE member at the GA issued a personal block—to a MoveOn representative who “asked” OEE to participate—after MoveOn had scheduled the event. The MoveOn rep refused to change the date or time and informed OEE that “you will be taken over [by MoveOn] whether you like it or not.”
We cannot be bought! We will not be co-opted!
Moveon.org is a political lobbying organization that routinely backs Democratic candidates and was originally funded by the billionaire George Soros. MoveOn.org is considered the “lead lobbying group” for Obama’s reelection campaign, and has overt ties to various Wall Street entities.
Occupy the East End is in no way affiliated with MoveOn.org, nor does it wish to become so. The attempt to take over OEE is a hostile takeover attempt to capitalize on the Occupy movement as a whole. Occupy Wall Street and Occupy the East End as a movement rejects the political system as a broken structure that needs to be overhauled from the bottom up.
Call To ACTION
Occupy the East End urgently requests the support of all Occupations and occupiers to rebuff this attempt to CO-OPT OUR movement. All Occupiers are asked to join us at the Windmill on Long Wharf in Sag Harbor, NY on April 15, 2012 at 12:30 pm to make your voice heard at the General Assembly of the REAL Occupy movement!
*Astroturfing: The creation of lobbying groups that appear to be separate from corporate interests, but that are actually funded by them. As opposed to “grassroots” political activism.
Here’s a Bill to Kill:
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With SOPA and its evil twin PIPA dead in the water (or so it would seem) Congress is again using its powers of necromancy to unleash yet another internet killing bill. If you thought government overreach at the behest of the corporations it serves had surpassed China and Iran in terms of surveillance, censorship and a downright contempt for freedom of speech and privacy, think again. Just don’t put those thoughts in an e-mail, blog post or comment, Facebook update or Tweet because:
Why go to all the expense and bother of wiretapping your own citizens when you can enlist Google, Twitter or even You Tube to inform Stasi-like on users and account holders? And what better way than enlist the expertise of private sector cyber sleuths to monitor your ‘like’ of Cats on Roombas videos (gateway viewing for al-Qaeda beheading videos) and/or intercept your ‘sexts’ and “modify those communications” (to stop terrorists from breeding?). All the steps necessary, in other words, to pre-emptively thwart an adulterous, self-harming, Jihadist school shooter with outstanding parking tickets and Hezbollah connections, who “hates rainy days” (code phrase for “America”) from flying a hijacked airliner into the executive bathrooms of Goldman Sachs and/or downloading unauthorized episodes of Dexter from pirate sites originating in Estonia. Or to be more specific, they want to take down Wikileaks and ‘Anonymous’ with the cooperation of companies who already profile your pathetic existence for advertisers hawking dubious boner boosters.
If, like most Americans, you think that a bill with disturbing, far reaching consequences for anyone with an internet connection isn’t going to effect your online activities, (“The government is welcome to peruse my Pinterest album of motivational throw pillows – it’s not like they are going to find anything incriminating there”) you might want to consider a recent SCOTUS ruling allowing invasive strip searches for “felonies” ranging from a broken muffler to multiple child murder. Even if your private parts don’t perform double duty as handy conveyances for Molotov cocktails or portable meth labs, humiliation, as applied by the web masters of slut shaming sites like ‘The Dirty’ is now government policy. Think about that the next time you want to say, board an aircraft, or more criminally, ‘occupy’ a patch of Wall Street pavement. Unless you are willing, of course, to conduct your life along the lines of a lobotomized, chemically castrated member of a purity cult under house arrest. In other words, like a real American.
Explaining the Obama Supporter Mindset
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A significant problem I’ve been having is understanding the mindset of the people who still stand behind Obama. From no metric I can conceive of has his presidency been exceptional. On the core progressive issues, his has been a remarkably unimpressive (at best) outing. The defenses I have run into for his term boil down to a single major premise: He’s the best we’ve got, and unless you pick him, even though he’s the lesser of two evils, you will ruin this country because of your selfishness.
I was going to write that such an argument is false. But I had a brain wave last night.
The argument isn’t false. It’s wrong, but it isn’t wrong because of an intention to deceive or because the person advancing the argument is stupid. The issue simply isn’t being framed correctly. So here goes.
Everyone who has ever known a drug addict — if you ever knew someone who couldn’t put down the vicodin, the scotch bottle, the needle, or the scratch tickets — put your hand up. (No one can see you, so put your hand back down.)
Most people who have been pulled into an addict’s life know what happens. Things start to disappear. Even if you own very little, you can have a lot of things disappear before you come to the moment where you start doing an inventory and discover a whole lot of stuff has evaporated. If you’re lucky, you catch the addict in the act. You tail them to the race track, you walk in on them in the bathroom having a drink from the bottle in the toilet tank, etc. And, if you’re able to, you hand the addict an ultimatum: It stops today, right now. If you ever see them doing it again, no matter what excuse they present, you will leave, you will kick them out, you will drive to the police station and fill out a report. And then, you do it.
By all the accounts I’ve read, this is a profoundly difficult thing to do. That’s why there are so many instances of addicts conning their friends, loved ones, neighbors, etc., over and over. It is hard to amputate a significant portion of your life, just like that.
The politicians who have been getting elected are, for the most part, just like addicts. They get elected, and re-elected, by the voters having a lesser of two evils moment of weakness. Having an addict in the house or kicking him out and watching his whole life go to hell on him? Well, maybe he will change this time, and I wasn’t all that attached to grandma’s silver, anyway. I mean, sure, she handed it to me on her deathbed, but, well, my addict really means to change this time. And if I kick him out, then I’m being a bad person, I’m being unreasonable (wait for it), I’m not being bipartisan about all this. I should reach across the aisle, you know. Because it would be the height of folly to pull the rug out from under him now, when he’s so close to cleaning up and flying right.
The politicians are not, if we keep picking the lesser of two evils, going to eventually one day produce a miracle of statesmanship for us, just like most addicts don’t suddenly stop drinking, gambling, whatevering, just because someone told them they had to. After the uncontrolled binge of secret prisons, unlawful detentions, murders-by-drone, stop and frisks, etc., if some politician came forward and tried to argue that the past 20 years had all been a mistake, he’d be dismissed as a dreamer or a lunatic. Pedantic lectures would commence about how the candidate simply doesn’t understand about politics. He’s naive. And so forth.
One thing I run into in the narratives from reformed addicts is a simple enough statement: They almost always say something about how they wish they’d gotten sorted out sooner. How they wish they hadn’t had to spent three years or 30 years slowly losing everything before they finally were able to put themselves together. And that’s the point I’ve reached, because that’s the point the country has reached. Why drag out the remaining descent any longer? Because we’re super-duper hoping someone will leap in, putting right what once went wrong (and hoping each time that the next leap will be the leap home)?
We all know that each “settled for the lesser” only brings us closer to the bottom, and along the way, there has been decades of misery and hardship. Let’s finally take the handbrake off and let the maniacs ruin everything once and for all. At least we can limit the amount of time we all spend suffering.
