Edward Snowden –a hero

“If I am traitor, who did I betray?” he asked. “I gave all my information to the American public, to American journalists who are reporting on American issues. If they see that as treason, I think people really need to consider who they think they’re working for. The public is supposed to be their boss, not their enemy. Beyond that as far as my personal safety, I’ll never be fully safe until these systems have changed.” Edward Snowden

Bill to shut down government shutdowns

“The time has come to stop holding hostage the programs that benefit Americans, and keep us safe. The time has come to avoid walking up to, dancing at the edge of, and then dropping off of, fiscal cliffs…
Passing the “Shut Down the Shutdowns Act” would allow every Member of Congress to return to our Constitutional tasks of legislating and governing – not mere political maneuvering” ~ Alan Grayson; More

The War on the Poor and Working Families

Barbara Boxer Kicks Ass in the Senate

The speech is glorious. Boxer is speaking not only for Democrats, she is speaking out for Americans. Her words are rousing and affirming much like those in the speeches of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts). Republican extremists are getting away with the closet thing to treason many of us have seen in our lifetimes. And it’s not only betrayal against the President, it’s betrayal against the U.S. Constitution and the tax-payers/citizens. ~ Leslie Salzillo, Daily Kos

9:45 min

Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour wins Oscar

From now, know that every border you cross, every purchase you make, every call you dial, every cell phone tower you pass, friend you keep, article you write, site you visit, subject line you type, and packet you route, is in the hands of a system whose reach is unlimited but whose safeguards are not. Your victimization by the NSA system means that you are well aware of the threat that unrestricted, secret abilities pose for democracies. ~ Edward Snowden to Laura Poitras

1:42

These Are
the Emails Snowden Sent to First Introduce His Epic NSA Leaks

Which Side Are You On?

Take the money out of politics–Overturn Citizens United
6:37 min; lyrics below

 

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

You might be a young man, with the mountain in his step,

In search of El Dorado, but you haven’t found it yet.

Or you might be an old man, with his whole life at his back,

And you can hear eternity whispering down the track.

Or maybe you’re a woman, or just about to be.

And you can feel the generations, swimming in your sea.

But you know that it’s coming, as surely as the dawn:

The battle for the future, baby. Which side are you on?

Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.

Come on, come on, come on.

Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.
Which side are you on?

Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.

The battle lines are drawn.

Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.

Which side? Which side are you on?
Which side?


The corporations attacking

The natural world: drilling and fracking.

All done with the backing
Of the craven and corrupt.

Or the ones who fight

For the Earth, with all their might,

And in the name of all that’s right,

Confront and disrupt.
There’s a restlessness out in the street.
There’s a question in the air:


How long, if this theft goes on, will our country still be here?

People know the game is rigged, even as they play.

They see their expectations slowly slip away.

They’ve got subsidies for billionaires, there’s a bailout for the banks,

A monopoly on medicine, and a sale on armored tanks.

The whole damned country’s being sold, out that revolving door


 Between Washington and Wall Street, like it’s one big Dollar Store.

Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.

Come on, come on, come on.

Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.

Which side are you on?

Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.

The battle lines are drawn.

Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.

Which side? Which side are you on?
Which side?

The bankers and their special friends,

Who rob you time and again,

Who like to pretend they’re the only game in town?

Or The People, who

Hope, with everything they do,

They can build something new,

And turn this world around?

Who owns the elections? Who profits either way?

Who ends up with all that money [the] politicians pay?

To be the fearless leader, to put themselves across,

To be the one entrusted with the profit and the loss.

You try hard to believe that when you cast your vote it counts.

But elections are won with money, in ever larger amounts.

Take the money out of politics, and maybe we might see

This country turn back into something more like democracy.

Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.

Come on, come on, come on.

Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.

Which side are you on?

Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.

The battle lines are drawn.

Come on, come on, come on — if you’re coming.

Which side? Which side are you on?

– Jackson Browne, “Which Side Are You On” (2011).

How the People Can Outwit the Global Domination Plans of Agribusiness

So, if one were to devise a strategy for the food movement, it would be this. The public already knows (mostly) that pesticides are dangerous. They also know that organic food is higher quality, and is far more environmentally friendly. It knows that GMOs should be labeled, are largely untested, and may be harmful. That is why the leaders of most major countries, including China, dine on organic food. The immense scale of the problems created by industrial agriculture should, of course, be understood better, but the main facts are hardly in dispute.

But what industry understands, and the food movement does not, is that what prevents total rejection of bland, industrialised, pesticide-laden, GMO food is the standard acceptance, especially in Western countries, of the overarching agribusiness argument that such food is necessary. It is necessary to feed the world.

So, if the food movement could show that famine is an empty threat then it would also have shown, by clear implication, that the chemical health risks and the ecological devastation that these technologies represent are what is unnecessary. The movement would have shown that pesticides and GMOs exist solely to extract profit from the food chain. They have no other purpose. Therefore, every project of the food movement should aim to spread the truth of oversupply, until mention of the Golden Fact invites ridicule and embarrassment in the population, rather than fear.
by Jonathan Latham; source

The real cost of corporate tax dodgers

This is how the wealth of America is taken from us by the elite. They do understand that they are killing the middle class and they don’t care. How? The middle class carries the burden of paying for everything while struggling to survive on lower wages.

Alan Grayson speaks in defense of the Occupy Movement

The 99th Problem

4:37 video

 

Grayson: They’re complaining about the fact that Wall Street wrecked the economy three years ago, and nobody has been held responsible for that. Not a single person has been indicted or convicted for destroying twenty percent — twenty percent! — of our national net worth, accumulated over the course of two centuries. They’re upset about the fact that Wall Street has iron control over the economic policies of this country, and that one party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wall Street and the other party caters to them as well. That’s the real truth of the matter, as you’ve said before, [Bill].

P.J. O’Rourke, conservative propagandist: Get the man a bongo drum. They’ve found their spokesman. Take your shoes off, get a bongo drum, forget to go to the bathroom, and it’s yours.

Grayson: Listen, if I am a spokesman for all of the people who think that we shouldn’t have 24 million people in this country who can’t find a full-time job, that we should not have 50 million people who can’t see a doctor when they are sick, that we shouldn’t have 47 million people in this country who need the Government’s help to feed themselves, and that we shouldn’t have 15 million families who owe more on their mortgages than the value of their homes – OK, I’ll be that spokesman. Rep. Alan Grayson, as guest on Bill Maher Show