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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Unbalanced Fascist indeed.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Much better that we have the Balanced sort of
Fascism that the ruling class is offering.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>*</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>"too mentally unstable" to be in the
Army!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Hey he could have probably gotten a job with the
Champaign Police Squad and joined</FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>those "disturbed and dangerous people" with "deadly
weapons".</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>They even seem to agree on the weapon of
choice.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>---- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=mkbrussel@comcast.net href="mailto:mkbrussel@comcast.net">Brussel
Morton K.</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net
href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">Peace-discuss List</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, January 19, 2011 8:14
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Peace-discuss] King Day
Reflections, Paul Street</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<H1 id=view_title class=title><FONT class=Apple-style-span size=4><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14px" class=Apple-style-span>The Real Issue to be Faced:
King Day Reflections on the State of the Union and the
World</SPAN></FONT></H1>
<HR>
<DIV class=content_authors>By <A
href="http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/paulstreet">Paul
Street</A></DIV><BR>
<DIV class=content_date>Monday, January 17, 2011</DIV><BR>
<DIV id=view_body class=body>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">Radical
reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">-
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “A Testament of Hope,” 1969</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">Together
We Thrive</SPAN></B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">In
his speech commemorating the victims of the mass murderer Jared Loughner in
Tucson, Arizona, Barack Obama turned to the Bible. At a memorial service
titled “Together We Thrive: Tucson and America,” the president told mourners
how “Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible
things happen for reasons that defy human understanding.” Quoting from the
Book of Job, the president informed his fellow Americans that “Bad things
happen, and we have to guard against simple explanations afterward. None of us
can know what triggered the attack or what could have been done to prevent
it.” He repudiated progressives who point to the role of right-wing ideology
in inspiring the Tucson massacre. <SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>He called for “a good dose of
humility, rather than pointing fingers and assigning blame.” He counseled
Americans to “sharpen our instincts for empathy,” to show greater “kindness
and compassion,” and to ask “whether our priorities are in
order.” </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">It
doesn’t get much more vapid than that. <SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>There’s nothing mysterious or
particularly surprising about Loughner’s attack on a Democratic congressperson
and a federal judge. Loughner is an unbalanced fascist who lives in a savagely
unequal, amoral, and insecure society that disseminates hateful and paranoid
messages across its right wing media empire. <SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>That society lacks a decent mental
health policy and makes deadly weapons available to disturbed and dangerous
people. <SPAN class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>Loughner was
deemed too mentally unstable to attend community college or join the U.S.
Army, but he had no difficulty purchasing a Glock handgun and a 33-round
magazine. <SPAN class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>He lives in a
country that is controlled by an amoral business elite that has been ruining
American lives and driving untold numbers of working and middle class people
out of their minds for decades. <SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>The investor class has no use for
masses of American citizens, 15 million of whom are now officially unemployed
(the real number of involuntarily jobless is much higher) – the biggest number
since the Great Depression.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">“Together
we thrive.” <SPAN class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>Hello? Arizona
has the second highest official poverty rate among the nation’s 50 states, a
stunning 21.2 percent (the state’s real or functional poverty rate is
certainly over 30 percent) and Tucson has the highest poverty mark of any city
in the state. <SPAN class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>Less than
half (45 percent) of Arizona’s residents possess private health insurance, and
a fifth of the state’s population, more than 1.3 million, lack health coverage
of any kind. More than 70,000 homes were foreclosed in Arizona in 2010, up
from just 1,000 in 2005. If there’s one thing Tucson and Arizona have not been
doing recently it is “thriving.” According to recent reports, Loughner had not
received a paycheck in six months. <SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>He’d been fired from at least five
jobs and filled out employment applications at more than 60 low-wage retail
outlets.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">When
Everyone is Carrying a Firearm</SPAN></B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">Amidst
this crisis, hard right media and political personalities likes Glenn Beck
instruct shattered people with fragile psyches and damaged minds to “act now”
(before its too late) against “socialist tyranny” – the right’s ludicrous take
on Obama’s state-capitalist neoliberalism. Deadly, state-of-the-art
human-exterminating weapons run remarkably free, like the madness and hatred
on the airwaves and the Internet, where the preposterous notion that centrist,
corporate-friendly Democrats are radical Marxist enemies of freedom and
prosperity is standard fare. America is something of an “Armed Madhouse,” to
steal a book title from Greg Palast, as is suggested in a chilling
post-slaughter comment from Tea Party state representative Jack Harper
(R-Arizona). “When everyone is carrying a firearm,” Harper proclaimed, “nobody
is going to be a victim.” Yes, let us all – women, men, boys, and girls (one
of Loughner’s murdered victims was a third grader named Christina Taylor
Green) strap on weapons and ammo before every trip to the supermarket or
coffee shop. Last year Harper submitted a bill to the Arizona state
legislature that would allow faculty members to carry guns on university
campuses. Welcome to the wild west. “Rally ‘round yo family with a pocketful
of shells” (Rage Against the Machine).</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">Obama’s
speech was an attempt to cloak deepening social tensions and present a
sugar-coated picture of the United States’ toxic, paranoid, and hate- and
gun-addicted political culture. He made no reference to the real and deep
problems confronting the American people—mass structural unemployment,
extremes of great wealth and mass poverty in the industrialized world’s most
unequal nation ( a country where the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the
bottom 90 percent), worsening ecological catastrophe, corporate control of
media and politics, the ongoing deterioration of social infrastructure, and a
vastly expensive military empire that continues to conduct criminal wars both
overt and covert, and more. The president naturally made no reference to
recent federal tax cuts for the wealthy, passed while the administration and
congress have refused urgently needed action to provide jobs for the
unemployed, alleviate poverty, and bail out state and local
governments.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">I
am personally surprised there haven’t been more incidents like the Tucson
tragedy in the Armed Madhouse in the last couple of years. As Patrick Martin
noted on the World Socialist Web Site a few days ago: “Under conditions of a
capitalist social order that deals with the unemployed—and the mentally ill—in
cold and inhuman fashion, and a ruling class that glorifies violence and
practices it more widely and brutally than any other on the planet, events
such as those which took place January 8 in Tucson are inevitable.”(See
Patrick Martin, “Obama in Tucson: Providing an Amnesty for the Right Wing,”
World Socialist Web Site [January 13, 2011]at<SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><A
href="http://wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/obam-j13.shtml"
target=_blank><SPAN
style="COLOR: purple; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">http://wsws.org/articles/2011/<WBR>jan2011/obam-j13.shtml</SPAN></A></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">).</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV><WBR>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">Golden
Rules</SPAN></B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">Martin’s
line about violence reminds me of a line from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr,
whose birthday we celebrate tomorrow (I am writing on Sunday, January 16,
2011). <SPAN class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>On April 4, 1967,
exactly one year before his assassination or execution, King earned the
contempt of the American establishment by having the decency to observe – at
the height of the United States’ <SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>“crucifixion of South East Asia”
(Noam Chomsky’s excellent term for the one sided American-imperial assault
that killed more than 3 million in that region between 1962 and 1975) – that
Uncle Sam was the “leading purveyor of violence in the world.” <SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>The description still fits 44 years
later in a time when the U.S. spends more than a trillion dollars a year on
“defense,” accounts for nearly half the species’ military spending and
maintains more than 1000 military bases spread across more than 120 nations.
Meanwhile, reflecting what in the late 1960s King called “the nation’s
perverted priorities,” a vast and rising mass of basic social needs go unmet
in the imperial “homeland” – the supposed global headquarters of freedom and
democracy, the “beacon to the world of the way life should be” (U.S. Senator
Kay Bailey Hutchinson,R-TX).</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">The
president and a fair bit of the media and political elite are calling for a
“New Age of Civility.” They are using the Loughner atrocity to quell citizen
anger – to marginalize real and legitimate popular discontent. I have nothing
but uncivil contempt for those who posit moral equivalence of “incivility”
between an armed rightist who attacks a federal official or structure and an
unarmed antiwar marcher who reasonably chants “Hey Obama, what do you say, how
many kids did you kill today?”</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">And
is it not a bit nauseating to get Gandhian lectures on nonviolence and
civility from a president who rains bombs and drone-launched missiles on
wedding parties, children, and villages in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and
Somalia? I am reminded of another Scripture-quoting president who the standard
hypocritical Superpower spin on the Golden Rule (“do unto others as you would
have them do unto you”). Bill Clinton waxed eloquent and teary-eyed on the
need for loving kindness and healing in the wake of the Columbine school
shootings (April 20, 1999). Meanwhile he was criminally bombing Serbia
(between March 24 and June 11, 1999) and continuing the “economic sanctions”
that killed more than a million Iraqis during the 1990s.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">There’s
another golden rule: “those who have the gold rule.” During the Iowa
presidential Caucus campaign, the Democratic candidate John Edwards used to
say that big progressive change could never be accomplished without “an epic
fight with concentrated wealth and power” (it seems doubtful that Edwards
actually wished to undertake that fight). <SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>He openly and impolitely attacked
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as “corporate Democrats” and mocked Obama’s
“Kumbaya” notion that good results could come from “sitting down at a big
negotiating table with corporations and Republicans.” Obama scored points with
corporate campaign financiers and the corporate media by rejecting Edwards’
common-sense populist rhetoric as uncivil, arguing in a Des Moines debate that
“we don’t need more heat, we need more light.” We have seen who his bringers
of “light” are – the very same Wall Street and Pentagon overlords who ran the
country into the ground under George W. Bush. Lecturing the multitude on the
need for civility while making policy on behalf of the rich and powerful at
“Government [Goldman] Sachs” is an ugly elitist game. </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">Perverted
Priorities</SPAN></B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">Obama’s
line about getting “our priorities in order” raises unpleasant questions about
the direction of policy under his administration. A recent report from the
National Priorities Project (which takes its name partly from Dr. King’s
phrase) contains the following information</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">*</SPAN></B><SPAN
class=apple-converted-space><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">New
York state has 128,128 Head Start (federally subsidized pre-school)-eligible
children, yet only 48,013 Head Start places. For New York's share of this
year's Afghan War spending, the state could fund Head Start places for all
eligible children for 21 years.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">*</SPAN></B><SPAN
class=apple-converted-space><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">Wisconsin
has 527,000 uninsured residents. For Wisconsin's cumulative Afghan War
spending, the state could provide insurance for all uninsured for 3
years.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">*</SPAN></B><SPAN
class=apple-converted-space><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">The
state of Washington consumes 1,168,531 Billion British thermal units (BBtu) of
non-renewable energy and only 881,676 (BBtu) renewable energy. For
Washington's share of cumulative Afghan and Iraq war spending, it could pay
23% of the cost to convert all non-renewable energy to solar energy or 79% to
convert to wind energy.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">*</SPAN></B><SPAN
class=apple-converted-space><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">At
the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the North Carolina share of
total war spending ($34 billion) would fund all in-state expenses of a
four-year education for each incoming freshman class for the next 135
years.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">*</SPAN></B><SPAN
class=apple-converted-space><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">To
date, $815 billion dollars has been allocated for the war in Iraq since 2003
and $445.1 billion dollars has been allocated for the war in Afghanistan since
2001. With this latest update, total cost of war funding is $1.26
trillion.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">I
am reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King’s warning from New York City’s Riverside
Church on April 4, 1967. “A nation that spends more money on military defense
than on programs of social uplift,” King warned, “is approaching<SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN><EM><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">spiritual
death</SPAN></EM>.” </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN></B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">Such
a Thing as Being Too Late</SPAN></B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">The
National Priorities Project’s inclusion of a bullet point on the trade-off
between military spending and spending on renewable energy reminds me of
something else Dr. King said on April 4, 1967. “We are now faced with the fact
that tomorrow is today,” King said. “We are confronted with the fierce urgency
of now. <SPAN class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>In this unfolding
conundrum of life there is such a thing as being too late…Over the bleached
bones and jumbled reside of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic
words: ‘Too late.’”</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">Anyone
who doubts the relevance of that comment today ought to have a look at the
most important book published last year: Bill McKibben’s<SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN><EM><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">Earth:
Making a Life on a Tough New Planet</SPAN></EM><SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>(New York, 2010). The anthropogenic
(human-generated) climate change produced by modern petro-capitalism and the
related growth ideology of the wealthy Few does not merely pose grave
difficulties for “our grandchildren.” <SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>Massive deleterious transformation in
core planetary processes and phenomenon – extreme weather, flooding, burning,
deforestation, desertification, drought, erosion, water and food availability,
species survival, bacteriology, and more – are no longer merely
unavoidable. <SPAN class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>They are
already under way. The eco-apocalypse created by the profits system is
happening now. The need for human intervention was already urgent when
President Jimmy Carter (who hosted a White House gathering for the anti-growth
eco-economist E.F. Schumacher) tried in his own weak way to warn Americans off
the “spiritual emptiness” and peril of “self-indulgence and consumption” – of
“owning things” and “piling up material goods” in pursuit of an endless more.
Now, McKibben shows, we’ve waited too long. “Our old familiar globe is
suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no
human has ever seen. <SPAN class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>We’ve
created, in short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally
different.<SPAN class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN> We may as well
call it Eaarth...This,” McKibben muses, “is the biggest thing that has ever
happened in human history.” <SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>The recent and ongoing flooding in
Australia and Brazil is only the latest indication of the massive changes
underway. It is long past time for a dramatic shift to a post-carbon
economy</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">Forty
three years ago, in a posthumously published essay titled “A Testament of
Hope,” Dr. King reflected that America and the world were plagued by “systemic
rather than [merely] superficial flaws” showing that “radical reconstruction
of society itself is the real issue to be faced." Thanks to global
warming, we are already in historical overtime.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"></SPAN></B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><O:P></O:P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">Paul
Street (</SPAN></B><B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><A
href="http://www.paulstreet.org/" target=_blank><SPAN
style="COLOR: purple; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">www.paulstreet.org</SPAN></A></SPAN></B><B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'">)is
the author of many articles, chapters, speeches, and books,
including <I>Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since
9/11 (</I>Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2008;<SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN><I>Racial Oppression in the Global
Metropolis </I>(New York:Rowman & Littlefield,
2007; <I>Segregated Schools: Educational Apartheid in the Post-Civil
Rights Era</I> (New York: Routledge, 2005); <I>Barack Obama and the
Future of American Politics</I> (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2008);
and <I>The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of
Power</I> (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2010). His next book<SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN><I>Crashing the Tea Party: Mass Media
and the Campaign to Remake American Politics</I><SPAN
class=apple-converted-space> </SPAN>(co-authored with Anthony Dimaggio)
will be published next May. He can be reached at </SPAN></B><B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'verdana', 'sans-serif'; COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><A
href="mailto:paulstreet99@yahoo.com" target=_blank><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: 'courier new'"><FONT
color=#0000ff>paulstreet99@yahoo.com</FONT></SPAN></A></SPAN></B></DIV></DIV>
<P>
<HR>
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