Electronic Pen

TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

His passing leaves a space like
Seeing doors with no knobs:
Even more than ever, we're now
Living in the era of no Jobs.

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

If there is a populist change afoot making the pragmatic case to rebalance economic income in America, Elizabeth Warren is its political voice.

In a nascent campaign for the Massachusetts Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy and now occupied by Republican Scott Brown, Warren has broken through the DC Democratic tacit oath to "see no evil" where it exists in the financial and corporate world.

In a debate this week among Democratic hopefuls vying in the primary for the right to take on Brown, Warren put it bluntly:

The people on Wall Street broke this country, and they did it one lousy mortgage at a time. This happened more than three years ago, and there still has been no basic accountability, and there has been no real effort to fix it.

"Everyone has to follow the law," Warren flatly declared during the debate.

But right now on Wall Street, the only people that the politicians and police are applying the law to are the protesters.

For years, those who corrupted our banking system have gotten away with the biggest financial heist in history - and gotten bonuses and a government bailout for bringing America to its knees.

Shortly after announcing her candidacy this fall, Warren embarked on a "talking tour" in which she violated the Capitol Hill (and White House) commitment to put corporations on some sort of deified pedestal. With her ability to speak in frank, simple terms, she told one gathering: "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his [or her] own. Nobody!" She then went on to list all the ways in which government services, education and research support the private sector and enhance corporate success. (The Internet, it should be noted, grew out of a series of government research projects - and corporations are making billions upon billions of dollars now from this "public commons" research.)

You can't strengthen a financial system by rewarding those who grotesquely undermine the nation through manipulation for personal enrichment - and, to boot, expect the government to provide them with services and educated workers for free.

Warren knows that, and she is offering a welcome dose of common sense. What's more, she's opening up the floodgate for like-minded politicians to, as George Lakoff would say, "reframe" the national debate.

This isn't about class warfare, Warren argues, this is about the reality of how we prosper as a nation.

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ROBERT KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

It's a Sunday afternoon, around 5pm, and the sun is sinking and there's a chill is in the air. Ah, Chicago: Vibrant with culture, crime and capital, yet quiet at this hour of the ebbing weekend.

I'm downtown and I'm not sure if the future is calling, but my heart is pounding as I walk west on Jackson to LaSalle in the shadow of the great edifices of capitalism.

At 230 South LaSalle, in front of the Federal Reserve Bank, about a hundred people are gathered in informal clusters. Signs abound, some in people's hands, others propped against the curb or a wall: "Trillions are missing from the Department of Defense." "Wall Street needs adult supervision." "I am Troy Davis." "Sick and tired and denied all benefits. I am the 99%." On the sidewalk, written in orange chalk: "If Iceland can let banks fail, so can we."

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We must stop pretending we are serious people engaged in serious debate about the future of our country. We are in fact an over-hyped conglomerate operating on a media-inspired premise that reasonable choices abound in the midst of the rubble-strewn morass that frames our heavy-handed, largely meaningless political dialogue.

Who could have imagined a few short years ago, or even a few months ago, that we the people would willingly embrace the foolish few who claim to represent our grassroots economic interests. We even accepted this situation, as we watched our bridges and schools turn to dust. How quickly we forget the impact failed structures have on our daily lives at all levels of society. For it isn't only the obvious failures that leave us struggling to regain a sense of balance, it is also the tripwires of a thousand false starts and phony explanations that keep us from confronting the real issues that threaten our fundamental values and future well-being.

Some years back arguments raged over the rights of states to determine what was in their best interest in terms of safety and stability. Connecticut tried to keep its standards of weight-bearing tolerance on roads and bridges in line with agreed-upon standards of safety. In that instance Connecticut refused permission for tandem truck assemblages to travel its highways and bridges because the transportation department felt its roads would be unable to withstand the additional stress that would result.

But, in a column George Will chastised Connecticut for attempting to restrain the use of the federal highway system as it wound its way through Connecticut. He used an earlier reference to federal dominance by suggesting that perhaps Connecticut needed a "shot across the bow" to show just who was the boss in such matters. Not long after, as two double-length trucks sought to pass each other on the Mianus River Bridge, the bridge collapsed. Drivers had been noting for some time that they had heard strange rattlings as they traveled that part of the turnpike, but George Will and other enthusiasts who supported commercial interests carried the day before the roar of crushed beams and vehicles silenced further discussion.

Today in the face of growing deficits, financial struggles at every level of our society and joblessness we watch, more or less helplessly, as self-serving politicians keep us from finding anything resembling solutions. Instead, their best efforts are being reserved for bringing the president down. And, if commuters hear the distant rattle of a failing bridge it doesn't seem to factor into their thinking about what should be done about mending our dangerously fragile infrastructure. We are simultaneously lulled and terrified by descriptions of our imminent demise at the hands of terrorists, or our own ineptitude. In a global economy we focus on narrow horizons that limit our ability to set our sights on broader goals. What good does it do after all to just keep saying we need to cut spending and limit the size of government without first analyzing how the loss of specific jobs and programs would affect the nuts-and-bolts operation of the country as a whole?

And so we put up with idiots and ne'er-do-wells because we continue to conduct our lives and our government on the most superficial level. We spend our time watching as people who shouldn't be in the game in the first place struggle to stay in the game. Perhaps it has always been thus, but the hope remains that some great leaders are still waiting in the wings, people who have ideas and the willingness to stray from narrow partisan goals. At the moment we see the promise of a great country being squandered at the hands of small men of little consequence. A political environment filled with acrimonious, meaningless chatter that targets people rather than ideas, that has right-wing state legislatures threatening our basic freedoms by trying to limit access to our voting apparatus. Standing guard over our basic values is worth every ounce of energy we are capable of producing.

The death of Steve Jobs calls the rest of us to attention in the name of great ideas, the desire to create something of value and to find a sense of fulfillment. In a recent speech Jobs spoke to his listeners about the need to find something to do that they loved. That isn't always easy, but loving what you do and who you spend your time with is as worthy a goal as any to which we currently strive. Too often we seem to forget what loving our country really means buffeted as we are by waves of rhetorical distortions that keep us from identifying and dealing with our most pressing issues.

A BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT NEWS ALERT

The following is a statement from the US Congressional Progressive Caucus in support of the Occupy Wall Street Movement:

Washington DC - Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Co-Chairs Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva and Keith Ellison today released the following statement in solidarity with the demonstrators on Wall Street and around the country:

"We have been inspired by the growing grassroots movements on Wall Street and across the country. We share the anger and frustration of so many Americans who have seen the enormous toll that an unchecked Wall Street has taken on the overwhelming majority of Americans while benefitting the super wealthy. We join the calls for corporate accountability and expanded middle-class opportunity.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) took to the Senate floor this week to denounce how Bank of America is gouging Americans through excessive charges on debit card "swipe fees."

Debit card swipes, according to the Federal Reserve Bank, cost at most 12 cents (as low as 4 cents) to process, but the banks have historically charged, according to Durbin, on average 44 cents to the retailer. On October 1, a new law went into effect that put a ceiling on the swipe fees at about 24 cents. So, the Bank of America and other banks "too big to fail" are still getting at least a 100 percent profit for every debit card transaction, which is crippling some small businesses.

Moreover, the Bank of America represents the greed that is at the heart of Wall Street by not being content with a 100 percent profit. To circumvent the cap on grossly excessive swipe fees, the Bank of America is now going to charge customers $5 a month as a debit card "use fee."

"Bank of America customers, vote with your feet," Durbin urged in outraged reaction to the new "service charge."

"Get the heck out of that bank," Durbin exhorted. "They are overcharging their customers even for this new debit card reform. It is hard to believe that a bank would impose [such a fee] on customers who simply are trying to access their own money on deposit at the Bank of America."

"After helping to drive our economy off the cliff's edge in 2008, Bank of America was happy to accept a $45 billion dollar federal bailout for their stupidity, their greed and their mistakes," the senior senator from Illinois said with disdain. "And it was just as happy to take that money and hand out $3.3 billion dollars in employee bonuses in the same year 2008."

Remember that if you have a savings account - unless you have a ton of money - in many cases you are earning no interest or just pennies, even though the bank is lending out your cash and getting double-digit returns in loan interest.

Furthermore instead of investing in America, the Bank of America is gouging the nation. On top of that, according to the Los Angeles Times, "Bank of America said it would cut 30,000 workers over several years."

This is legalized criminal behavior. The New York Police Department is arresting the wrong people down in southern Manhattan. What's going on in the Bank of America and many other New York City financial institutions is the looting of the United States.

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Some years back an article in The New Yorker posited that there was one tired old man at the CIA making policy for the entire country. Their reasoning was that, although times changed and leaders came and went, there was something so consistent about our country's conduct of foreign policy the only sensible explanation was that a worn out old man in the bowels of the Pentagon was pulling the country's foreign-policy strings.

In the current overheated political environment strenuous efforts are made by the various pretenders to the White House throne that, according to campaign rhetoric, only they have the ability to change the way we do business in foreign lands even if upon closer examination it is clear we continue to engage in the same imprecise meanderings to which we have grown accustomed. Amazingly enough foreign policy is rarely on debate agendas nor is it addressed in substantive fashion in those snipey little intramural attacks that have taken the place of meaningful debate.

In fact all things considered, we rarely get very deeply into some of the most important issues of the day, informed for the most part by a random sampling of 'experts' who leave us grasping at the straws of truth, never fully satisfied and only modestly well informed. For all the books, articles and lectures delivered for our consumption we are left in the main with partisan rants and superficial conclusions. Given the state of our information highway we are a nation foundering in the shallow waters of factual shortcomings that ten to overwhelm our better nature as a people.

Republicans have been working hard to develop a group of lackluster backbenchers who may or may not have enough of the 'right stuff' to be serious candidates. They in fact rely on personal attacks and vitriol to make their case to the American electorate. When these folks stand before an audience of prospective primary voters they don't have a lot  of important facts to share; rather they drum up fear and anger on a grand scale and promote so-called conservative 'values' that keep the base happy but fail to broaden national perspectives. As Rachel Maddow pointed out recently Republicans used unemployment as a wedge issue that fizzled once their candidates were elected, choosing to focus instead on abortion and other narrow social issues to bring in their voting base.

It may or may not be that same creaky old guy in the Pentagon making policy for the country and keeping us locked in an unhealthy embrace, but we are nonetheless held captive in a death grip that keeps us from developing more productive foreign policy. Now when we have an opportunity to change how we operate we seem stuck in that awkward place where new ideas fail to gain traction and narrow social perspectives occupy far too much of the popular perception.

SHAMUS COOKE FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

At a time when the country is demanding that Wall Street pay up, Democrats and Republicans are insisting that China be punished instead. In a rare case of bi-partisan unity, the Senate voted 79 to 19 in favor of opening discussion on a punitive trade bill that would shut out Chinese products coming into the U.S. Another highly provocative incident showcased U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Admiral Mike Mullen, accusing the Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, of giving official support to the Haqqni terrorist network. This would make Pakistan an official state sponsor of terrorism, opening it up to a possible military invasion. After reading all the patriotic chest thumping in the mainstream media, it would be possible to forget that there are large anti-Wall Street protests emerging all over the nation. This is precisely the point.

Of course most Americans are completely bored with terrorist talk. They simply do not care who is currently leading Al-Queda, and are especially uninterested who their number 2 and number 3 are; many people doubt the very existence of these groups, or at least think that their power is incredibly exaggerated. Nevertheless, the U.S. government will continue to obsess about terrorists while assassinating anyone who earns the label, minus any evidence or trial. Why? Terrorism is the new communism, i.e., a reason to justify the U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya; a reason for U.S. military power to expand further yet; a reason to give this nation - both working people and the incredibly rich - a banner to unite under instead of fighting each other.

As the economy enters a double dip recession, be certain that the U.S. government will try to use the military as a way to compensate for an  economy in decline. The military is excellent at opening new economic opportunities for U.S. corporations; to exploit additional new oil resources and the new foreign consumers that will be compelled to buy U.S. corporate goods. Also, U.S. military hardware remains one of the strongest U.S. industries, thanks to the enormous sums of taxpayers money that the U.S. government funnels to the major defense contractors.

When it comes to threatening China with economic sanctions the motives are the same. The poor U.S. economy is forcing corporations to their knees, and the U.S. government is eagerly responding. Increasing exports is an excellent way to boost corporate profits, but the options are limited. Mass unemployment is forcing down wages, making U.S. products cheaper on the world market, but demanding that China lower the value of its currency is another tactic. Keeping Chinese products out of the U.S. market is viewed by China as an act of economic warfare, and it is. China will likely retaliate, leading to the possibility of a trade war.

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

"It's been a good year for faith-based films,' writes film critic Roger Moore: Given the pre-opening weekend outreach to churches across the country, the Kendrick brothers' new movie, Courageous, had an extraordinary opening weekend.

It was a fabulous opening weekend for Courageous, the Kendrick brothers' new "action-dramedy" movie. While Dolphin Tale, Brad Pitts' Moneyball, and Lion King 3D battled it out for the top three spots nationally, Courageous and 50/50 were basically tied for fourth and fifth place. The opening of Courageous, which was shown in half the theaters as the cancer dramedy 50/50, and brought in $8.8 million, and "ranks fifth all-time for a Christian movie, and only trails [Mel Gibson's]The Passion of the Christ and the three Narnia movies," according to Box Office Mojo.

In fact, the Orlando Sentinel's Roger Moore pointed out, the pre-premiere outreach "aimed at churches" paid off. As fandango.com reported, Courageous led in the "pre-sales race" for this past "weekend's new openings," selling more than $2 million in tickets.

And, in Kinston, North Carolina, where the Kendrick brothers' marketing strategy worked like a charm, the Bethel Free Will Baptist Church bought over 1,000 tickets, guaranteeing 5 sell-outs for the film.

Prior to its Friday, September 30, premiere, the Associated Press reported that producer and co-writer Stephen Kendrick "says God has done more with the films [that he's produced] than they could ask or imagine."

Stephen Kendrick, whose brother Alex co-wrote, directed and plays a lead role in the film, told AP that "we've come to him and said, 'God, what is your storyline? Would you help us? Would you guide the production? Would you help us in the editing? Would you connect the movie to the audience?'"

With Courageous (http://www.courageousthemovie.com/), Stephen Kendrick said that he hopes to "rock the nations" and convince men to "become the providers, the protectors that their kids need."

Kendrick told AP that "We're going after the issue of fatherhood. [In] this movie you follow four sheriff's deputies in Albany, Georgia, and then an Hispanic man who is a construction worker, and they are tackling the issue of trying to figure out what it means to be a great dad."?

The Kendricks' also have a new companion book, called "The Resolution for Men," which provides "a vision of fatherhood from birth to death," Stephen Kendrick told The Funhog Family blog.  "We talk about breaking the chains of the past ... .and then we talk about manhood, what does God's word say about what it means to be a man.... In Chapter 4 ... we break out in scripture; between puberty and twenty you have a seven year window ... [to claim] the attributes of man." The book also talks about fathers "winning the hearts of your kids, blessing them and discipling them."

Courageous, rated PG-13 for violence and drug content, was made for $1 million, largely used volunteers, and is the fourth film from Sherwood Pictures, a ministry of Albany, Georgia's Sherwood Baptist Church, where the Kendrick brothers are Assistant Pastors.

"With volunteers no one is watching the clock and we're all in it together," Alex Kendrick told Time magazine.

According to OneNewsNow, a news service of Donald Wildmon's American Family Association, "Sherwood has shared sneak peeks of Courageous with churches and community leaders across America."

"What we're hearing from people who've seen some of the early screenings is that this is a strong challenge that's very much needed in our culture," Executive Producer Jim McBride said. "That's what we've been praying for -- not just a movie that people would walk out and say, 'Boy, that was a great movie,' but a movie that would impact the culture, that would challenge men to step up and make a bold and courageous step toward being the godly leaders that they should be."

There's a "Take Action" link on the film's webpage, which asks several  burning questions: Who in your community will work to get Courageous distributed? Who will "step up and buy out a show time, providing 200-250 tickets for your congregation and the people they influence?" Which churches or businesses will "purchase 50-150 tickets to hand to people you reach out to every day?" And "will you personally purchase 25 tickets for the people in your neighborhood, Sunday school class, or couples small group?"

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

With the price of milk rising so high that many low-income New Yorkers can't afford it anymore, it's hardly comforting to know that - as BuzzFlash at Truthout detailed yesterday - the priority of the multibillionaire mayor of New York is "helping the banks."

In a rambling radio interview last week that reeked of royal aristocracy, Bloomberg asked workers to ask not what they can do for themselves, but what they can do for their companies. BuzzFlash is not making this up:

And people in this day and age need support for their employers. If the banks don't go out and make loans we will not come out of our economic problems, we will not have jobs so anything we can do that's responsible to help the banks do that is what we need.

Except the banks aren't making a lot of loans, and there is little demand anyway because there are fewer dollars around for Americans to spend. The banks are still gambling with our money; giving no interest for savings accounts; investing overseas; and handing out big, fat bonuses for their financiers who bet against the US economy.

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It is a disturbing feature of our society that truth has devolved into a rare commodity, most especially when election time rolls around. Somehow it has become the practice to allow lies and innuendoes to permeate political debate as if they had the same legitimacy as actual facts.

In the aftermath of debates and conferences there may be some retro-fitting of statements but at the time of their utterance they pass muster among pundits and partisans who maintain an air of polite deference to fellow participants. Thus, truth is often sacrificed in the heat of the moment to keep things moving and to allow the ridiculous to cavort among the more learned and deserving thought merchants. But it isn't only the innocent idiots who find their way to media stardom and who, despite the ridicule they encounter at times from their betters, maintain a certain presence. It is the menace inherent in their writings and speeches that defines them as something other than free-speech practitioners. Theirs is a special brand of hate and partisanship that seeks only to expand their fifteen minutes of fame and roil the waters of honest debate.

On the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks we were reminded of bravery about which our country can only stand in awe for what was accomplished in our name. There are many stories that touch us but none more than the leadership of Todd Beamer on United

Airlines Flight 93 whose words "Let's roll" led the assault on the high-jackers in the cockpit and brought the plane down short of its mission to attack Washington DC. In light of his singular leadership and communications from others who lost their lives on that day there is something particularly repellent about Ann Coulter's observations as she wrote about them in her column.

The natural inclination of those who experience great loss is to pursue the causes to their logical conclusions. But Ann concluded that the grief-stricken widowed pilots' wives were 'enjoying' their widowhood tremendously, an observation prompted no doubt by Coulter's own publicity-seeking persona and a culture that says you can say anything about anyone and chalk it up to the constitutional guarantee of free speech. At the time I assumed we wouldn't be hearing from Coulter any more because the American people would reject her poisonous prose, but she's still around appearing at conservative causes, writing books and spreading her noxious reflections across the land - - a sad commentary on the depths to which we have sunk as a nation.

And this is a condition that permeates all phases of our body politic and infects the minds of the public. One has only to consider the speeches of Sarah Palin, among others, who consistently misstate and deliberately muddy the waters of honest debate. Health care restructuring becomes socialized medicine and financial reform threatens to bring down the entire free-market infrastructure, no matter what damage has been done to our well- being in the name of these twisted versions of events. Somewhere along the line truth is lost and we fall prey to someone's personal vision of power.

Discussions of everything from national security to health care are so steeped in political rhetoric there is little room for rational discussion. In perfect Orwellian cadence, for instance, Buck McKeon, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, advanced the notion that in order to establish peace the US must undertake "a proliferation of power." His description of what we need to bring our armed forces up to snuff includes a wide-ranging assortment of weapons systems that may or may not be relevant to the kinds of conflicts in which we are currently engaged. Once again truth falls victim to the perceptions of a "dug-in" partisan who may have called the shots a touch too long.

It may be a tall order to keep after the truth, but it is a necessary exercise whenever the opportunity presents itself. We should be getting after media 'analysts' who allow guests to torment facts into unrecognizable shapes. This is not the time to be so damn polite. Truth is at times rude and intrusive

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is threatening to shut down democracy on Wall Street.

You might expect that from a man who is worth $19.5 dollars., and comes in 2nd place as wealthiest man in New York City, after one of the Koch brothers. Moreover, Bloomberg made a lot of money as a Wall Street financier, but he catapulted into the multibillionaire category by revolutionizing financial market information and selling a specialized terminal and access services to the financial industry (followed by Bloomberg media services).

In short, his fortune is directly integrated into the Wall Street status quo.

That may be why he told a New York City radio show host last week that "New Yorkers need 'to help the banks.'" The Village Voice headlined its story on the plutocratic pronouncements of Bloomberg, "Mayor Bloomberg: 'We'll See' If The City Will Let Occupy Wall Street Continue."

Bloomberg seemed in a baronial haze, claiming, "The protesters are protesting against people who make $40-50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet. That's the bottom line." Is the mayor mainlining Fox "news" as his source of information? He royally added, "so anything we can do that's responsible to help the banks ... that is what we need."

Yesterday, BuzzFlash at Truthout wrote that there is little doubt that law enforcement officials - at the behest of corporate-backed politicians - are infiltrating and planning ways to discredit the Wall Street autumn of democracy.

In his plutocratic cloud of personal financial interest and self-serving disdain for the right of assembly, Bloomberg resembles a monarchist, not a mayor.

If the Occupy Wall Street movement spreads and grows, you can count on Mayor Bloomberg to pull the curtains down on this exercise in America's basic right of redress.

As Thom Hartmann noted in a book excerpted on Truthout, Thomas Jefferson warned that "the artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy."

Bloomberg is just waiting to snap the mouse trap shut on democracy.

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DANNY SCHECHTER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

There had been rumor on Friday that the band Radiohead would be dropping by the #Occupy Wall Street encampment.

They had just been on the Colbert Report, and their fan base is huge among the very demographic of younger people drawn to the protests now beginning their third week.

And so more people came than organizers expected. Loads of people!  Except, alas, for Radio Head. The band had reportedly called to express support that led some to conclude that they were on the way.

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

This is a Christian university in Tennessee
So this is an honor & impressive title:
Distinguished alumni include Minnie Pearl
And four finalists for "American Idol."

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Of this you can be sure: the New York Police Department (NYPD), Mayor Bloomberg (who made his fortune on Wall Street), the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the White House are doing everything possible to keep the occupation of Wall Street from reaching an "Arab Spring" tipping point.

Populist uprisings are lauded overseas, but they are perceived as a threat to elite corporate governance in the US.

You can be sure that the governmental and law enforcement forces at the highest levels in the US are consulting with Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD on how to keep the Wall Street protest from bursting into a national movement.

If history is any guide, contingencies include infiltrators into the protest movement who will try to entrap supporters of Occupy Wall Street. This is such a common police and FBI tactic that it would take too long to list examples, but you might start with the compelling documentary, "Better This World." It details how an FBI "informant" entrapped two young idealists from Texas into becoming prosecution targets, thus helping to portray all protesters at the 2008 Republican Convention in Minneapolis as being "radicals."

The corporate mass media that has virtually ignored the protests in lower Manhattan - although the same media will give endless coverage to a couple of Tea Party advocates with misspelled signs blathering on a street corner - will blare sensational headlines if the protesters are perceived as committing even one act of violence, such as throwing a brick through a window.

But imagine if an NYPD or FBI informant, acting as an infiltrator, bombs a Bank of America branch office at night. The entire movement to expose corporate America as legal thieves would be discredited.

Right now, the NYPD - and the FBI - are engaged in low intensity corralling of the protesters. They are playing a waiting game, hoping that the protest will exhaust itself.

But if the participants grow - as appears to be the case with the increasing support of unions and the enhanced credibility of the movement - watch for a law enforcement "false flag" operation.

You'll know about it instantly, because it will probably be the first time you'll see any serious interest in the Wall Street protests on TV. The revolution won't be televised; but the government takedown of democracy and peaceful assembly will be.

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PAUL MUTTER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

That's right: a Republican is giving Obama more credit than even his own party will for influencing the "Arab Spring." MSNBC broke the story, capturing footage of Michele Bachmann, GOP presidential hopeful saying that:

"Just like Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s [who] didn't have the back of the Shah of Iran, we saw the Shah fall and the rise of the Ayatollah. And we saw the rise and the beginnings of radical jihad which have changed this world and changed this nation."

"So too, under Barack Obama, we saw him put a lot of daylight between our relationship with our ally Israel. And when he called on Israel to retreat to its indefensible 1967 borders, don't think that message wasn't lost on Israel's 26 hostile neighbors."

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DANNY SCHECHTER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

There had been rumor on Friday that the band Radiohead would be dropping by the #Occupy Wall Street encampment.

They had just been on the Colbert Report, and their fan base is huge among the very demographic of younger people drawn to the protests now beginning their third week.

And so more people came than organizers expected. Loads of people! Except, alas, for Radio Head. The band had reportedly called to express support that led some to conclude that they were on the way.

This demonstrates again the power of celebrity to draw a crowd. What did impress the activists in Zuccotti Park in the financial district is that the Radiohead fans actually stuck around and took part in the activities and a march that went North to Police Headquarters protesting the pepper spraying of activists.

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

"As the nation gears up for the 2012 presidential election," Ari Berman recently wrote in Rolling Stone magazine, "Republican officials have launched an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008." Amongst the methods being put forward in Republican-controlled state houses across the country are initiatives making registering to vote a much more difficult and laborious process.

In a piece titled "The GOP War on Voting," Berman reported that "Kansas and Alabama now require would-be voters to provide proof of citizenship before registering [while] Florida and Texas made it harder for groups like the League of Women Voters to register new voters [and] Maine repealed Election day voter registration."

According to Berman, "legislation to impose new restrictions on voter registration guides run by groups like Rock the Vote and the League of Women Voters," has been introduced in six states. The most egregious piece of legislation was passed in Florida where, "anyone who signs up new voters [must] hand in registration forms to the state board of elections within 48 hours of collecting them, and to comply with a barrage of onerous, bureaucratic requirements." The submission of late forms would be subject to a $1,000 fine and "possible felony prosecution."

None of these barriers, however, appear to be of particular concern to the folks running United in Purpose, a newly-minted conservative organization that claims to be non-partisan, and which aims to register tens of millions of conservative Christian voters in time for the 2012 elections.

Team United in Purpose

United in Purpose is a non-profit group founded by Silicon Valley venture capitalists, and run by CEO Bill Dallas and COO Reid Rutherford. Its major project is called Champion The Vote.

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ROBERT C. KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Is there such a thing as a relaxed nation - one that isn't, you know, obsessed with its borders and sense of identity?

We can easily see how absurd it all is when we read about the hikers recently released from prison in Iran, where they were held in cruelly restricted confinement for more than two years because they had inadvertently strayed across the border, out of U.S.-occupied Iraq. The inhuman nature of Iran's response - the trumped up charges of espionage against the two young men, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, and their companion, Sarah Shourd, who was imprisoned for over a year - were gleefully obvious to the American media . . . because they were Americans, and Iran is part of the Axis of Evil.

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WALTER BRASCH FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Parents demanded it be banned.

School superintendents placed it in restricted sections of their libraries.

It is the most challenged book in four of the past five years, according to the American Library Association (ALA).

"It" is a 32-page illustrated children's book, "And Tango Makes Three," by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, with illustrations by Henry Cole. The book is based upon the real story of Roy and Silo, two male penguins, who had formed a six-year bond at New York City's Central Park Zoo, and who "adopted" a fertilized egg and raised the chick until she could be on her own.

Gays saw the story as a positive reinforcement of their lifestyle. Riding to rescue America from homosexuality were the biddies against perversion. Gay love is against the Bible, they wailed; the book isn't suitable for the delicate minds of children, they cried as they pushed libraries and schools to remove it from their shelves or at the very least make it restricted.

The penguins may have been gay - or maybe they weren't. It's not unusual for animals to form close bonds with others of their same sex. But the issue is far greater than whether or not the penguins were gay or if the book promoted homosexuality as a valid lifestyle. People have an inherent need to defend their own values, lifestyles, and worldviews by attacking others who have a different set of beliefs. Banning or destroying free speech and the freedom to publish is one of the ways people believe they can protect their own lifestyles.

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