It appears that the Furies have finally caught up with Muamar Qaddafi, and that he joins Mussolini, Ceausescu, and other tyrants who died at the hands of their own people. He now suffers their scorn in death. The images posted online and televised almost immediately after his death are the internet age's version of stringing up his body by the heels before angry crowds.
I will not waste tears over him. He was a monster supported by Western oil and military interests when they found him useful, and discarded when his shelf-life expired. He came to power in a coup in 1969 overthrowing Libya's King Idris. He discarded the country's 1951 constitution and became the longest reigning ruler anywhere since 1900, and the longest in the Arab World. He substituted charisma, ideology, and dynastic rule for the rule of law. He had exiled dissidents abroad assassinated. He made war upon the Berbers and their culture. He personally presided over executions. He waged 2 now largely forgotten wars with neighboring Chad and Egypt. He had over 1000 political prisoners in Abu Salim Prison in Tripoli massacred in 1996. He almost certainly ordered the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. It was Western oil and military interests eager to cut a deal with the newly cooperative dictator as well as Qaddafi's own stonewalling that prevented a full accounting for that crime.
While I shed no tears for Qaddafi, Justice was not served by his death today. He should have faced a trial, a full accounting for a long list of crimes going back 40 years. Others that we do not know about or have forgotten might have come to light. Most importantly, some small measure of the rule of law could have been planted in a land that has known only intimidation and revenge for 4 decades. Instead, he died in a crude brutal act of revenge, worthy of himself. And yet, after his brutal rule and after his very stubborn and violent resistance to the revolution that toppled him (with lots of NATO help), I don't think any end other than the one seen today was really possible.
In the end, a terrified old man hiding in a drain pipe found himself pulled out and shot by furious young men eager to visit generations of accumulated rage upon him.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Nous les 99%!
On the steps of St. Paul's LondonOccupy the World!
The Atlantic has pictures of Occupy protests from New York to Paris to Sydney to Seoul to Tokyo to Amman to Chicago to Pittsburgh to Mexico City to San Juan to Vancouver to Rome to London to Little Rock to Taipei, and even in Dallas. These all took place on Sunday.
Down with the Vampire Squid!
Monday, October 17, 2011
Semper Fi
Sgt. Thomas of the US Marines vs. the NYPD in Times Square.
From JoeMyGod. Where does he find these things?
From JoeMyGod. Where does he find these things?
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Prayer in Liberty Plaza
Attended an interfaith prayer service down at Liberty Plaza today. Buddhist monks, rabbis, Catholic priests, and Protestant ministers participated. We had a surprisingly large crowd. I expected the campers down there not to be into the whole religion thing, but a lot of them joined in.
We opened the service with this radical anthem written by a lesbian to protest the takeover of the American landscape by banking and railroad interests.
Here it is sung by the Moron Fishingtackle Choir:
A CLARIFICATION (sorta):
To be honest, I read about the radical origins of America the Beautiful many years ago I remember not where. Perhaps someone with a little more time and scholarship can tell me what that source might have been, or if I just dreamed it sometime long ago.
Katherine Lee Bates did have a 25 year long relationship with Katherine Conan, a so-called "Boston Marriage." As to what if any sexuality was involved, the historical records remain discreet.
We opened the service with this radical anthem written by a lesbian to protest the takeover of the American landscape by banking and railroad interests.
Here it is sung by the Moron Fishingtackle Choir:
A CLARIFICATION (sorta):
To be honest, I read about the radical origins of America the Beautiful many years ago I remember not where. Perhaps someone with a little more time and scholarship can tell me what that source might have been, or if I just dreamed it sometime long ago.
Katherine Lee Bates did have a 25 year long relationship with Katherine Conan, a so-called "Boston Marriage." As to what if any sexuality was involved, the historical records remain discreet.
What I'd Like to See
Occupy Wall Street keeps its "demands" vague for a reason, to guard against being appropriated, and to give all kinds of people a forum for venting their frustrations without having to take some ideological blood test. Also, true to their anarchist and egalitarian principles, the organization remains leaderless, though not structureless. Meetings can be spontaneous, but remain orderly.
Speaking for myself, I have some specific demands.
*Bring back the Glass Steagall Act separating banking from speculation. It worked for 60 years to prevent the very economic collapse that we are living through now. Make the financial industry do what it is supposed to do, capitalizing the productive part of the economy. End the whole shareholder casino it has become. End that casino's dominance over the rest of the economy and over our political system.
*Medicare for everybody, end that huge drain on the economy and on everyone's future that is the healthcare and health insurance industries, an industry of middlemen and skimmers who don't really produce anything. Restore Medicare's negotiating power with Big Pharma. End the terrible insecurity that most people now live in, fear of financial ruin on top of a major medical catastrophe.
*I never thought I'd say this, but I think it's time for Congressional term limits. Public office is not a sinecure. New York City now has term limits (despite the Mayor). Everyone complained and panicked when the city charter was amended to limit terms of public office, but the result has been far from the catastrophe so widely predicted. If anything, it has brought a lot fresh new faces into city government, opened up public participation, and given broader representation to communities long under-represented such as the city's growing Asian population.
*There are petitions going around for Constitutional amendments to reverse the Citizens United ruling, for publicly financed campaigns, and to limit all campaign donations to $100. For a long time, I was deeply reluctant to mess with the Constitution, mostly because the people most eager to amend it for so long had less than benevolent intentions for the rest of us. But Congress is so broken that something has to be done, and there is a provision in the Constitution for the amendment process to be initiated by the states (this Congress will never fix itself).
*There are other petitions going around to end Congress' ability to vote itself pay raises, that pay increases would be pegged to the rate of inflation. Also their special medical and retirement insurance privileges would end. Congress would live under the same benefits available to all the rest of us. I support that.
*Expand Congressional representation. About 600 people now represent 300 million plus people. The whole English House of Commons is now about 600 people representing a smaller population. We could easily expand the House to a thousand or more. In addition, I'd take redistricting out of the hands of state legislatures and make some kind of independent commission responsible for that task.
*Repeal the Reagan era laws that drastically limit the rights of labor to organize and to act. Collective bargaining is a human right recognized by no less a capitalist than Adam Smith himself.
*End the Electoral College. No more 2000 elections. No more clouds of doubt hanging over the legitimacy of Presidential elections.
*End taxpayer subsidies to corporations. No more travesties like government handouts to the petroleum industry while it reports the largest profits of any industry in all of history.
*Restore progressive taxation rates. Warren Buffet should pay a higher tax rate than his secretary.
*End corporate tax breaks. General Electric and the banks should pay taxes like all the rest of us.
We are sovereign citizens of this country, and we should remain such regardless of our incomes. We are citizens at work as well as at home. We are not the hired help and we are not tenants. We are citizens.
The press wants demands, well these are some of mine.
Speaking for myself, I have some specific demands.
*Bring back the Glass Steagall Act separating banking from speculation. It worked for 60 years to prevent the very economic collapse that we are living through now. Make the financial industry do what it is supposed to do, capitalizing the productive part of the economy. End the whole shareholder casino it has become. End that casino's dominance over the rest of the economy and over our political system.
*Medicare for everybody, end that huge drain on the economy and on everyone's future that is the healthcare and health insurance industries, an industry of middlemen and skimmers who don't really produce anything. Restore Medicare's negotiating power with Big Pharma. End the terrible insecurity that most people now live in, fear of financial ruin on top of a major medical catastrophe.
*I never thought I'd say this, but I think it's time for Congressional term limits. Public office is not a sinecure. New York City now has term limits (despite the Mayor). Everyone complained and panicked when the city charter was amended to limit terms of public office, but the result has been far from the catastrophe so widely predicted. If anything, it has brought a lot fresh new faces into city government, opened up public participation, and given broader representation to communities long under-represented such as the city's growing Asian population.
*There are petitions going around for Constitutional amendments to reverse the Citizens United ruling, for publicly financed campaigns, and to limit all campaign donations to $100. For a long time, I was deeply reluctant to mess with the Constitution, mostly because the people most eager to amend it for so long had less than benevolent intentions for the rest of us. But Congress is so broken that something has to be done, and there is a provision in the Constitution for the amendment process to be initiated by the states (this Congress will never fix itself).
*There are other petitions going around to end Congress' ability to vote itself pay raises, that pay increases would be pegged to the rate of inflation. Also their special medical and retirement insurance privileges would end. Congress would live under the same benefits available to all the rest of us. I support that.
*Expand Congressional representation. About 600 people now represent 300 million plus people. The whole English House of Commons is now about 600 people representing a smaller population. We could easily expand the House to a thousand or more. In addition, I'd take redistricting out of the hands of state legislatures and make some kind of independent commission responsible for that task.
*Repeal the Reagan era laws that drastically limit the rights of labor to organize and to act. Collective bargaining is a human right recognized by no less a capitalist than Adam Smith himself.
*End the Electoral College. No more 2000 elections. No more clouds of doubt hanging over the legitimacy of Presidential elections.
*End taxpayer subsidies to corporations. No more travesties like government handouts to the petroleum industry while it reports the largest profits of any industry in all of history.
*Restore progressive taxation rates. Warren Buffet should pay a higher tax rate than his secretary.
*End corporate tax breaks. General Electric and the banks should pay taxes like all the rest of us.
We are sovereign citizens of this country, and we should remain such regardless of our incomes. We are citizens at work as well as at home. We are not the hired help and we are not tenants. We are citizens.
The press wants demands, well these are some of mine.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Pictures From Times Square October 15, 2011
David Kaplan, Paul Lane, and I met at the Public Library on 5th and 42nd to go to the big Occupy Wall Street rally in Times Square this evening. We saw row after row of police vans and mounted cops, and we decided to go someplace where we would not be penned in and could make a quick dash for the subway just in case the cops charged. We joined the rally up on Broadway and 49th street far away from the police phalanxes and near several subway stops.
The weather was perfect, a cool breezy autumn evening. The crowd was immense, much larger than we expected. From our vantage point, it looked like Broadway was packed all the way to 34th street. Far from pot smoking hippies, the crowd struck me as very middle class, and very diverse in terms of age and ethnicity. The mood was determined and very happy and festive. I'm a great believer in the political power of a good time had by all. We left just as the police helicopters appeared, usually a bad sign. I'm not sure, but I think that there was no parade permit. I don't know if the cops are going to forcibly clear the square and Broadway or not. We decided not to stay and find out.
Here are some of my pictures from the rally.
The Conde Nast building and part of the crowd in Times Square
A picture looking down Broadway at the crowd as far as the eye can see
Yours Truly with my very wordy sign quoting Dr. King
Dangerous radical attorney David Kaplan (aka DKNY) reads The Occupied Wall Street Journal
There were lots of small children there, a presence that we hope will keep the cops at bay.
People and signs
The Vampire Squid
A gladiator; I must admit that I don't quite know what this is about. I saw lots of zombies in the crowd too.
Where indeed.
Waving sparklers and singing "This Little Light of Mine"
A last view of the huge crowd there
One last note: tomorrow is the formal dedication of the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington DC. Of all the famous people from the last 70 years, Dr. King is probably the only one who really deserves a memorial on the Mall. And yet, as I stood there amidst the crowd in Times Square, I thought of Dr. King, and I remembered the epitaph on the tomb of Christopher Wren in St. Paul's London, "If you require a monument, look around."
The weather was perfect, a cool breezy autumn evening. The crowd was immense, much larger than we expected. From our vantage point, it looked like Broadway was packed all the way to 34th street. Far from pot smoking hippies, the crowd struck me as very middle class, and very diverse in terms of age and ethnicity. The mood was determined and very happy and festive. I'm a great believer in the political power of a good time had by all. We left just as the police helicopters appeared, usually a bad sign. I'm not sure, but I think that there was no parade permit. I don't know if the cops are going to forcibly clear the square and Broadway or not. We decided not to stay and find out.
Here are some of my pictures from the rally.
The Conde Nast building and part of the crowd in Times Square
A picture looking down Broadway at the crowd as far as the eye can see
Yours Truly with my very wordy sign quoting Dr. King
Dangerous radical attorney David Kaplan (aka DKNY) reads The Occupied Wall Street Journal
There were lots of small children there, a presence that we hope will keep the cops at bay.
People and signs
The Vampire Squid
A gladiator; I must admit that I don't quite know what this is about. I saw lots of zombies in the crowd too.
Where indeed.
Waving sparklers and singing "This Little Light of Mine"
A last view of the huge crowd thereOne last note: tomorrow is the formal dedication of the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington DC. Of all the famous people from the last 70 years, Dr. King is probably the only one who really deserves a memorial on the Mall. And yet, as I stood there amidst the crowd in Times Square, I thought of Dr. King, and I remembered the epitaph on the tomb of Christopher Wren in St. Paul's London, "If you require a monument, look around."
Now Is The Time
"Now is the time." Get the word across to everybody in power in this town that now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to make an adequate income a reality for all of God's children, now is the time to make the real promises of democracy. Now is the time to make an adequate income a reality for all of God's children, now is the time for city hall to take a position for that which is just and honest. Now is the time for justice to roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Now is the time.”
-- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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