Amos's River of Justice

Our Season of Creation

  • Sorry Hillary Clinton, but the real artful smear in this presidential campaign had nothing to do with your paid speeches. The real artful smear was your establishment’s racist innuendos about Bernie Sanders’ whiteness.

    Blaming an entire race of people for a nation’s problems has always been politically useful. In this campaign it started as a tool for reining in Bernie Sanders’ candidacy. I remember how sick I felt when I first heard the corporate media inform the public that Bernie Sanders is a white man from a white state. They argued that for the sole reason of his whiteness, black people weren’t going to vote for him. In retrospect I think this was the beginning of the campaign-conversation’s downhill slide.

    From there it progressed to the [intlink id=”2148″ type=”post”]Black Lives Matter[/intlink] episodes at Sanders’ rallies. Unfortunately this movement’s scorn for the idea that all lives matter may have invited the answering snarl we’ve been hearing from white supremacists—a snarl that is now being skillfully marshaled by Donald Trump.

    Do I need to point out that Donald Trump has been a perfect foil to Bernie Sanders from the day he announced his candidacy? Although there is no resemblance between Sanders and Trump, the corporate media continues to insist they’re the same. Donald is Bernie, they say, only Republican. Of course this leaves Cruz and Rubio as the only bonafide Republicans in the race and frankly I think their youthful cluelessness is rather touching compared to the cleverness of Trump and Clinton. The Republicans think they’re in the game when they don’t even know what the game is.

    For me, Sanders’ candidacy has always been about what we are leaving to our [intlink id=”2062″ type=”post”]children and grandchildren[/intlink]. If you look at the future realistically it’s clear that these dishonest political games are a luxury we can’t afford. Ideally, the presidency of the United States is not a feather in someone’s cap. The person who fills this office must be able to lead us into a future that no one has ever seen before.  In spite of this fact the establishment of both parties clings to economic, social, and foreign policies that are inadequate to deal with it.

    We really only have two choices: we can continue in our self-centered, short-sighted, and greedy path, which will condemn most of the world’s population to a slow death by disease and starvation; or we can make a common-sense plan for world-wide peace and prosperity. If we go with the first choice, we’ll survive at the expense of our humanity, if we survive at all. If we go with the second choice I won’t deny that we’ll have to innovate to assure the survival of the planet, but what a challenge that will be. And what an adventure!

    So I say let’s not be the kind of people who throw the weak and the vulnerable under the bus. Instead, let’s to do our best to assure a humane future for all of the world’s people.

    This is the conversation. If we want it to continue we need Sanders in the White House.

  • I just saw a disturbing story on CBS News. They did a survey to find out which issues are most important to South Carolina’s voters. They listed four concerns, and they counted income inequality and the economy/jobs as two different issues. The economy and jobs was at the top of the list with 43%, and income inequality was at the bottom with 10%. (Healthcare was second with 23% and terrorism third with 20%.) According to this story, respondents defined a good economy as one where they can get good job for themselves and their neighbor, and they defined income inequality as a liberal issue having to do with whether one person earns the same salary as another. This is not at all what Sanders is talking about. Income inequality has everything to do with the economy and jobs.

    When most of the wealth is at the top the economy doesn’t work. The wealthy have so much money they couldn’t spend it even if they wanted to, so they invest it, meaning that it doesn’t circulate. When corporations are so large that they account for the majority of the productivity and sales, they leave no room for local business and job creation. And when they are so powerful that they can move overseas to save costs, they no longer offer anything of value to the community. Likewise, the Wall Street Journal has been saying that the stock market likes the idea of breaking up big banks. Big banks are not good for the banking business and they are not good for communities.

    The fact that the CBS survey separated economy/jobs from income inequality makes you wonder whether the voters made this mistake on their own, or they had help.  Hopefully it’s possible to clear this up before super Tuesday–and to find out if the other states have similar surveys in circulation.

  • The mystery of the Nevada Democratic Caucus has been cleared up. ((Arun Gupta, A Corporate Democratic Party is Hostile Ground for Bernie Sanders. Telesur, Feb. 25, 2016. Available: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/A-Corporate-Democratic-Party-Is-Hostile-Ground-for-Sanders-20160224-0029.html)) Caucus votes were delivered to Hillary Clinton by the casino owners, the Democratic Party, and the Culinary Workers Union, which was supposed to be neutral.

    Unionized Black and Hispanic workers at six major Las Vegas casinos backed Clinton with the help and encouragement of their union leaders, their bosses, and Harry Reid. The colluding casinos were Caesars Palace, Harrah’s, MGM, Rio, the Winn and New York-New York.

    Harry Reid not only pushed CWU local 226 into helping with the effort, he also pressured casino owners to give their workers paid time off so they could caucus. And to make it really easy to vote for Clinton, the Democratic Party set up caucuses at the casinos and extended the noon starting deadline by an hour or more to assure a large casino turnout.

    And it gets weirder. Members of the SEIU have been working for four years for a $15 an hour wage but during the caucuses many of them ended up telling lies for the $12-an-hour lady. The pro-Clinton Service Employees International Union passed out fliers portraying Clinton as a supporter of a $15-an-hour wage.

    The media would like us to believe Nevada changed everything for the Democratic contenders, but as usual it’s just playing a part in the magic show. Hillary’s Nevada Victory was all smoke and mirrors.

  • Please read this article showing how close the race really is.  Your vote will make a difference.

    http://inthesetimes.com/article/18913/bernie-sanders-delegate-path-to-victory-super-tuesday

  • Playing at 10 am ET: Democrats debate Bernie Sanders’ proposals.

    http://www.wbur.org/listen/live

  • When David Brock criticizes Bernie for being too hard on Hillary it almost sounds like he wants to give her a handicap. He might be right—if not for Donald Trump Hillary Clinton would be out of the running by now—however Brock’s criticism of Sanders is nonsense and I think everyone knows it. About his claim that criticism will weaken Hillary in the general election, maybe we should just do away with the primary elections and carry her around on a pillow.

  • The reality is that the contest between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton is no contest at all. Unfortunately, a sufficient number of people are still voting based on the unreality presented by the media. One solution is to try to reach those people, but how? The Internet is a great tool, but not everyone has the time or inclination to do extensive research. Consider the many Youtube videos by South Carolinian bloggers.  And the polls say Clinton is still leading in that state.

    Don’t worry too much though. People aren’t giving up on Sanders after the Nevada Caucus. In spite of what the media tells you the delegate counts are just about even. It’s the superdelegates that have to be dealt with. ((Sam Frizell, Super PAC begins populist push to support Bernie Sanders, Time, February 21, 2016. Available: http://time.com/4231656/bernie-sanders-super-pac-superdelegate-progressive-kick/)) If you want to know their names you can find them at http://superdelegatedemocracy.com/#  In Arizona, Raúl Grijalva is alone in supporting Sanders.  Those supporting Clinton are: Ruben Gallego; Luis Heredia; Ann Kirkpatrick; Kyrsten Sinema; and Carolyn Warner.  You can sign the petition here demanding that the superdelegates do what’s right: ((<link href=‘https://actionnetwork.org/css/style-embed.css’)) And if you haven’t done so already, you could volunteer in the Sanders campaign’s state of the art organization. Volunteering has never been so easy. If you’re interested, please go to berniesanders.com.

    But in spite of everything people are doing the political process will be an uphill battle. For that reason, we also need to make sure that President Obama cooperates with the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s emails and the more recent investigation of the Clinton Foundation. At the beginning of the campaign, Senator Sanders took the approach of waiting for the FBI to complete its investigation into her email account. Unfortunately the FBI can’t convene a grand jury without Obama’s cooperation. ((Charles Lipson, Hillary Clinton’s Coming Legal Crisis. Real Clear Politics, January 13, 2015. Available: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/01/13/hillary_clintons_coming_legal_crisis_129293.html)) ((Boston Herald staff, Editorial: the Clinton Family Values, The Boston Herald, Feb. 15, 2016. Available: http://www.bostonherald.com/opinion/editorials/2016/02/editorial_the_clinton_family_values)) ((Report: US State Department subpoenaed documents from Clinton Foundation, Jerusalem Post, Feb. 12, 2016. Available: http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Report-US-State-Department-subpoenaed-documents-from-Clinton-Foundation-444684))

    The fact that the seriousness of these investigations hasn’t been made public is exactly what makes them so dangerous. By all measures Bernie Sanders has a better chance of beating the Republican candidates in the general election, while Clinton’s reckless past and brazen calculation that she can get away with it represents a potential general election disaster for the Democratic Party.  Now that’s scary.  It seems Donald Trump has re-tweeted support from supremacist groups: ((http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/21/politics/donald-trump-predicts-hillary-clinton-highest-turnout/index.html))

  • Religion and politics in the age of Trump have become more intertwined than usual. When someone asked Pope Francis if a good Catholic could vote for a man who wants to build a wall between Mexico and the United States, he answered that a person who wants to build walls rather than bridges is not a Christian.

    Trump was outraged at this statement. However he claims he wasn’t mad at the Pope. He was mad at the Mexicans for telling the Pope lies about him.

    Questions US Politicians Must Answer Before Rejecting the Pope’s Comments

    Some might doubt my impartiality on this issue for the reason that I’m not only a supporter of Bernie Sanders, I’ve argued for the importance of dialogue with the pope. However this touches on an issue that I was having problems with before the presidential race began. I’ll list the main points in no particular order.

    1. There is nothing more confusing to an observer than a secular system in which politicians are expected to prove themselves to religious voters.

    2. Politicians insist the pope has no right to comment on their behavior in office, even Catholic politicians.

    3. Religion has had an enormous influence in America’s secular system.

    4. Politicians who claim to be religious also claim autonomy from religious authority.

    5. It seems that politicians violate the principle of the separation of church and state when they use their religion to win votes.

    6. The behavior that was said to be un-Christian was the plan to build a wall to keep out migrants. Trump defended this plan on grounds that the Pope was unaware of its importance. However its importance hinges on the unproven assumption that migrants are dangerous and therefore not deserving of our help.

    7. Even if we accept the claim that the pope has no authority in politics and that his role is limited to spiritual matters, wouldn’t the definition of Christian behavior fall within his purview over spiritual matters?

  • Remember after New Hampshire when the Clinton campaign was talking about its firewall in South Carolina? I assumed it was a reference to black voters. I was wrong. The Clinton ‘firewall’ in the South is part of the general Clinton milieu—a milieu that is becoming so all-pervasive that it deserves its own name. I propose to call it, the ‘too-clever-for-its-own-good-milieu’.

    First characteristic of the Clinton milieu: a willingness to be loose with the truth.

    The flap over that picture of Bernie Sanders doing civil rights work in the 60s is a good example. Last fall the question was raised about whether that really was Bernie Sanders in the picture. The Clinton campaign grabbed ahold of that doubt and held on to it like a life-preserver until the evidence ripped it to shreds. In the meantime they brought Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga) forward to say how he’d never met Bernie Sanders in the 60s, and also how he did meet the Clintons. This in spite of the fact that no one has disputed Bernie Sanders’ involvement in civil rights during this time and no one has ever claimed that the Clintons were involved in civil rights work in the 60s. This ploy met its demise when the photographer who took that picture, Danny Lyon, came forward with additional pictures from the University of Chicago archives and was able to prove that it really was Sanders in the picture, ((Veterans For Bernie, 1016, New Pictures Emerge of Bernie Sanders’ Civil Rights Activism. Available: http://vetsforbernie.org/2016/02/yes-bernie-sanders-protested-for-civil-rights/)) after which John Lewis was forced to ‘clarify’ his previous comments.

    Second characteristic of the Clinton milieu: strategic connections that if known would not be quite so useful, and therefore are kept hidden.

    Lewis’s casting of doubt on Sanders occurred during the press conference where the Congressional Black Caucus PAC announced its endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president. What the press failed to explain was that the Congressional Black Caucus PAC (CBC PAC) is not the same thing as the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). This is why it was necessary for Rep. Ellison, a member of the CBC who supports Senator Sanders, to release a statement saying that the CBC had not endorsed Hillary Clinton. So what is the PAC exactly? Concerning this confusion, Amy Goodman quotes Lee Fang: in a Democracy Now video, ((Democracy Now, Who Endorsed Hillary Clinton, the Congressional Black Caucus or its PAC Filled With Lobbyists? Feb. 12, 2016. Available: http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/12/who_endorsed_hillary_clinton_the_congressional))

    “Members of the CBC PAC board include Daron Watts, a lobbyist for Purdue Pharma, the maker of the highly addictive opioid OxyContin; Mike Mckay and Chaka Burgess, both lobbyists for Navient, the student loan giant that was spun off of Sallie Mae; former [Rep. Albert] Wynn, D-Md., a lobbyist who represents a range of clients, including work last year on behalf of Lorillard Tobacco, the maker of Newport cigarettes; and William A. Kirk, who lobbies for a cigar industry trade group on a range of tobacco regulations.

    “And a significant percentage of the $7,000 raised this cycle by the CBC PAC […] was donated by white lobbyists, including Vic Fazio, who represents Philip Morris and served for years as a lobbyist to Corrections Corporation of America, and David Adams, a former Clinton aide who now lobbies for Wal-Mart, the largest gun distributor in America.”

    Of course the CBC PAC’s chair, Rep. Gregory Meeks insists that this money does not affect any of the votes cast by the CBC members who are on the board of the PAC. Who doesn’t say that? Apparently we have a veritable miracle going on here—a whole political system in which large amounts of money have no corrupting influence at all.

    But that’s not all. There is also the question of the South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman’s ties to the Clinton camp. Jaimie Harrison is a principle at the Podesta Group, a lobbying firm founded by Tony and John Podesta—the same John Podesta who is chairman of Hillary Cllnton’s presidential campaign. Furthermore, he was already a principle at the Podesta Group when he became chairman of the South Caroline Democratic Party. It’s not surprising that his analysis of the presidential race favors Clinton.((Kelly Ridell, S.C. Democratic Chairman’s Ties to Hillary Clinton’s Camp Raise Fairness Questions, Washington Times, Feb. 11, 2016. Available: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/11/jamie-harrison-south-carolina-democratic-party-cha/))

    If the Washington Post is correct that Hillary still has a lead in South Carolina, and unless South Carolina’s voters are all part of the elite, I think the majority of them are going to have a bad case of buyer’s remorse come next year.

  • Today the Washington Post is counseling us about how we should speak of the dead. 1 In my opinion, it’s time to think about the living. We are in search of the citizen. But apparently, columnist Steven Petrow objects to the criticism of Justice Antonin Scalia that came out so soon after his death. His reason is revealing. He ends his plea by saying,

    “Indeed, none of us are custodians of our legacies; in the end, it’s our own words and actions that will speak for us or against us. In the case of Scalia, his words and actions proved to be one and the same. History will be the judge of all that —and so will many individuals, once we’ve laid him to rest.”

    That he can chock this up to a question of Scalia’s legacy tells me everything I need to know about him. In this light, it’s not surprising that he focused on the justice’s red-flag issues like same-sex marriage, LGBT equality, affirmative action and abortion. In other words the issue is partisan politics. But he fails to mention Scalia’s biggest accomplishment—the whitewashing of corruption and the services he performed at the birth of global oligarchy. Either Petrow doesn’t know the difference between partisan politics and treason or he fancies himself one of the elite and expects to benefit accordingly.

    Citizens United

    The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision was a slap in the face of every citizen of the United States.  I personally see this presidential election as very possibly our last chance to escape the fate that the Court had in mind for us. I am never free of the anxiety that the oligarchs might win this election and complete the coup that it has begun.

    Back when Citizen’s United was first decided it was an outrage. Now it’s unfortunately just one outrage of many. Month after month I get emails from people who are supposed to be rolling back this decision. They continue to ask me for more money even as I watch our leaders kowtow to the twits in robes who did this to us. Apparently no one has considered the fact that the remaining justices will remain free to work their magic. What is your solution to this problem? To puff them up by stroking their dead partner in crime?

    It’s Time to Worry About the Living

    This is not about the dead! This is about the here and now. Here and now we are patiently pursuing the only course open to us—the election of a candidate who can make a difference. If we are not allowed to identify the problem we’re trying to address, we may as well not bother. So don’t presume to counsel me about respect. The proper focus of respect in a democratic society is the citizen. That’s true even for a justice of the Supreme Court.

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