The President Supports Equal Freedoms & Rights — What If This Were About Jews? What If This Were About Gays?

I you lived in a Christian nation that by decree and law forbid recognition and constitutional rights to Jews,

…and one member of your family was an ostracized Jew,

…and one historical day your President/Chancellor/Prime Minister publicly pronounced that it was time to provide full rights of citizenship to Jews,

…Would you say something, anything, or nothing to your Jewish family member whom you loved? Would you tweet, text, call, or even Facebook them?

What if they were Gay, and this was about Equality of Rights for Gays?

I know the answer.

Obama Steps Out & Supports Fairness, Equality, Rights…Humanity!

We Must Support Him!

“What A Wonderful World”

This world is something that we need…Imagine!

Axwell, Bob Sinclar, and Featuring singer Ron Carroll

It was and still is a great goal!

Come on and let’s get together. What a wonderful world this would be!

I’m A Liberal…

An Australian Ad That’s Needed In America

Occupy Together Movement Expands Across the States — Economic Royalists Not Amused

Occupy Atlanta, the Atlanta branch of the Occupy Together movement, occupied downtown’s Woodruff Park Friday, October 07, 2011 following a protestors’ General Assembly — about seven hundred people attended.

A group of several hundred activists decided to stay in the park past the 11pm closing time and risked arrest.

Day two began Saturday morning as chilly and groggy members of the protest group Occupy Atlanta emerged from their tents in Woodruff Park and then set about planning the day’s activities.

Occupy Together is a new, young, and vital movement that is emerging in major US cities around the nation.  They call themselves the ninety-nine percent that has been left behind and left out, while the one percent control vast amounts of wealth and took even more during the great transfer of wealth in 2008.

Prior to the current economic crisis, Wall Street ran amuck, without regulations, and the banks gambled away their resources in a frenzy of blind greed never before seen. Everyone lost except the CEO’s and upper echelon of the corporate world… and the politicians beholden to these interests.

The “We Are The 99%” movement members are aware that most of our elected representatives primarily represent the interests of the rich and powerful and… not the people. During the General Assembly, a crowd of about seven hundred people encircled the facilitators.

WE ARE THE PEOPLE – AND WE HAVE FOUND OUR VOICE

The General Assembly passed out their draft of demands and read their preamble.

The drafted demands and preamble:

We hold this truth to be self-evident that the 99% deserve equal rights, equal protections, equal access and equal opportunity as the 1% who benefit disproportionately from the current system.  We therefore freely assemble to assert our rights and demands:

1. We demand greater democratic control in all spheres of life, from the home to the government, from the economy to the workplace.  It is a moral, logical and political imperative that people should be in control of their own lives to the greatest extent possible.

2.  We deserve an economic system that meets human needs, reduces economic inequality, shrinks the income gap, and doesn’t reward decisions that have a negative impact on society.

3.  We recognize that the market will not regulate itself.  What is good for profit is not always good for people or the environment.

4.  We assert the right of every human being to adequate shelter, food, clothing, hygiene and other basic necessities.

5. We assert the right of every individual to adequate protection from the economic uncertainties of old age, accident, unemployment and other hardship.

6.  We denounce all predatory lending and fraudulent banking practices and demand accountability.

7.  We recognize that no society should allocate more resources to warfare than to the public good.

8.  We demand a more democratic, publicly representative and accountable media.

9.  We insist that the internet is a basic human right and as such should remain absolutely free and neutral.

10. We assert our right to public spaces and our right to freely inhabit them because they are essential to democracy and our right to assemble.

11. We denounce a criminal justice and for-profit prison system that relies on mass incarceration, especially when it reinforces the marginalization and disenfranchisement of people.

Who could… who would… why would anyone deny these demands and assertions?

… I guess the republican likes of Herman Cain who stated that if these protestors were not successful, if these protestors were losing their homes, if these protestors lost and couldn’t find new jobs… that it is their own fault, and they are just jealous of those superior persons who have succeeded.

The Occupy groups’ liberal causes have drawn criticism from a variety of sources, particularly conservative politicians. U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., for example, called the gatherings “mobs.”

But liberal and well respected Democrat U.S. Rep. John Lewis, R-Ga., attended Friday night’s rally in a show of support and asked to speak to the group. The assembly voted against it, however, and Lewis left without addressing the group.

The movement protestors stated that they did not want politicians co-opting their grass-roots efforts. They announced: “We are not Republicans, Democrats or any other party.  We are the people, and we have found our voice.”

Economist Paul Krugman: Economic Justice

The United States Constitution’s Liberal Mandate

Given the U.S. Congress’ catatonic state and nearly catastrophic impact of the debt limit debacle, it’s time for Americans to realistically reflect on the fundamental vision and the specific language provided in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

We are handicapped in our understanding of the U.S. Constitution, though, by the same parochialism that prevents an accurate or, at least, helpful read of the bible.

For me, I simply look at the quotes that are supposed to have been uttered by the man himself, Jesus (everything else is simply written by humans with a control agenda and, hence, rendered insignificant or harmful)… and while others read about evil… I see and read no words of condemnation or judgement, no demands toward retribution… no admonition to restrict the rights of those with whom we have lifestyle or life-direction disagreements…

Nope, when I read the bible, I read about judging not lest ye be judged. I read about helping the leper. I read about forgiving and not stoning the whore.

And, when it comes to earthly governance, Jesus made clear that this was not the realm for interference by a higher power or a field for religion to assert itself… Nope. What was said was to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s… pay your taxes, accept your earthly responsibilities…

Similarly, we Americans fail to get that our founding documents call for a “big L” Liberal approach to governance.

Over the last thirty years, conservatives have largely set the terms of this debate — demanding that “strict constructionists” (by conservatives’ own interpretation) be appointed to our justice system. Conservatives call into question the constitutionality of U.S. programs, policies, and laws affecting everything – health care, equality, education, security of food and shelter, and more.

Read the Constitution again in regard to government and community and see that our founding documents clearly set forth an indispensable social contract that binds us as a people and as a nation, establishing justice and promoting the general welfare.

Contrary to conservative and libertarian myth, none of us are entirely — or even remotely — “self made.” The hyper-individualism championed by the right ignores the profound influence that our social and policy constructs have on our ability to succeed and to pursue “Life, Liberty, and Happiness.”

The word “individual” doesn’t even appear in the Preamble to the Constitution… NOT ONCE! It says “We the People… in Order to form a more perfect Union…”

The Founding Fathers understood that the Union was not perfect, and so they called upon future generations to constantly strive toward that unattainable goal. Their moral vision was one of community, not of a loose association of coldly rational self-interested economic actors, with special privileges forever reserved to favored individuals or groups.

It is time in this period of right-wing darkness for Liberals to retake the moral high ground in the debate about the meaning and intent of our founding documents.

It is Liberals’ responsibility to reframe the debate and lead us to a more just, more equal, freer, and more communal America.

Celebrating America’s July 4th 2011… The Strauss-Kahn Scenario Provides Lessons For All

Strauss-Kahn — powerful head of the International Monetary Fund and potential French Presidential Candidate — arrested and removed from a Paris-bound Air France flight at John F. Kennedy International Airport was accused of sexually assaulting a maid at the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan six weeks ago. The accuser said the assault took place earlier that day in Strauss-Kahn’s $3,000-a-night suite.

The Clear Case Of A Besmirched Accuser

After confinement in jail and then house arrest for weeks, Strauss-Kahn regained some freedom as over-zealous prosecutors reported to the case judge that they had serious concerns about the accuser and validity of her account. The case continued to unravel this past Saturday amid deepening questions, as prosecutors revealed:

• The woman admitted she lied to a grand jury about what she did immediately after the alleged attack. She actually went on cleaning rooms instead of reporting the episode right away, prosecutors told the defense in a letter.
• After the alleged attack, the woman spoke by phone with her boyfriend/”husband” — a criminal defendant in a drug case in Arizona — and a law enforcement official revealed, “She says words to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing.’ ”
• She admitted to prosecutors that on her asylum application she lied extensively, including a claim of having been gang-raped in her native Guinea.
• She claimed someone else’s child as her own dependent and lied about her income on tax forms, prosecutors said.

Rights Behind The Presumption Of Innocence?

Photos after Strauss-Kahn’s arrest — published in every major US newspaper and televised on every major news show — of a disheveled Strauss-Kahn being led in handcuffs by uniformed NYPD from a Manhattan police station led to howls of protest in France about a rush to judgment.

The arrest shocked Strauss-Kahn’s native France, where he was seen as the leading candidate to challenge French President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012.

Strauss-Kahn subsequently stepped down as head of the IMF. He was replaced last week by Christine Lagarde, previously the minister of finance in France.

European Union member countries, including France, are bound by their more advanced version of our Constitution’s Bill of Rights: “The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.” Article 48 provides:

1. Everyone who has been charged shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.
2. Respect for the rights of the defense of anyone who has been charged shall be guaranteed.

EU laws under this provision prohibit photos of any accused in shackles or restraint from being published until proven guilty. It is no wonder people in France were shocked by photos of uniformed NYPD officers leading handcuffed Strauss-Kahn out of the precinct in front of paparazzi.

Whether or not NY DA Cyrus Vance has encouraged his deputies and NYPD to understand current internationally recognized standards, police tactics of publicly parading an accused also disregard Anglo-Saxon traditions of fairness and justice. For many decades before the EU mandate, in the UK and many other English speaking countries, police “perp walks” and prosecutors selectively leaking evidence would both have led to court sanctions for the police, prosecutors, and media who engaged in it.

NYPD officers and their supervising DA have revealed to the world that the USA’s legal system demonstrates the tendencies of a regressive, third-world-standard that has moved us downward as a civilized nation. These recent actions not only cost Strauss-Kahn his candidacy for French President, they will cause second thoughts in the minds of US-admiring nationals and thousands of prospective top students coming to the USA.

July 4th & Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Now, to be certain, investigators found traces of Strauss-Kahn’s semen on the maid’s uniform, and that is powerful evidence there was a sexual encounter of some kind — some kind — and the defense has said anything that happened was not forced. While moralizers may stake a claim against the unbridled sex drive of a powerful man, consensual sex is not illegal.

I am guilty of a rush to judgment here, as well, for my own experience interacting with or observing powerful executives and people of extreme wealth is that the greatest extension of their insatiable power lust is through sexual dominance. And, if you’ve never told the President or Executive Vice-President of a Fortune 500 firm that they have crossed the bounds, you should know that the whiplash reaction to obtain one’s submission is stunning.

Strauss-Kahn was provided no latitude within my own mind. Nor was he provided it by our legal system.

We have forgotten the merits of the proposition that one is “innocent until proven guilty.” Where once we were proud of our national choice to release a guilty party rather than imprison one innocent person, we now seem more comfortable with Russia’s theme, imprisoning all guilty suspects unless (not until, but unless) proven innocent. Perhaps that is why we now imprison a greater percentage of the US population than was ever behind bars in the former Communist Soviet Union.

This July 4th, 2011… perhaps the Strauss-Kahn scenario should cause American citizens to rethink our freedoms, as well, and institute real respect for…

“Liberty and Justice For All.”

Midnight in America: Renewing the Pantheon

Essay by MICHAEL ROTH President, Wesleyan University

Huffington Post – HuffPost College

Posted: 06/16/11 02:22 PM ET

“It happens when students are able ‘turn themselves’ in such a way as to grasp what a work (or its author, if you prefer) is trying to achieve. Depending on what area the work is in, this takes empathy, language or math skills, and the informed imagination that comes from contextual thinking (as in history and anthropology).”

Reading David Denby’s New Yorker review of Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, I was struck by the phrase he uses to describe the director: “The ultimate fan of great musicians and writers, the culture-mad student forever renewing the pantheon.”

What does it mean to renew the pantheon? In the case of Midnight in Paris it means envisioning a city and conjuring up artists who spent time there in the finest fantasy versions of themselves. Owen Wilson plays a writer who is looking for renewal, for creative inspiration that will change his life and work. When he hears the clock strike midnight, he travels back in time to the Paris of the 1920s, the city of his dreams, where he runs into Gertrude Stein, Picasso, Dali. This is often played for laughs, as when Hemingway speaks with the predictable clipped phrases and frequent references to fighting and courage. Paris likewise is presented as a series of visual clichés, but the shots are filled with so much affection that they exude more charisma than familiarity.

What does it mean to renew the pantheon? I’ve been thinking about the resistance of some of my own students to this renewal — a resistance accrued over years of being encouraged in school to become better “critical thinkers.” It is, alas, so much easier to find reasons to turn oneself off to a work of art (music, literature, film) than to discover how to open oneself up to it. And you often look smarter when you criticize something than you would if you embraced something. Condemnation seems to elevate the critic (especially when the critic is ironic), and so it’s often safer than finding what the powerful core of a work might be.

Like all my faculty colleagues, I want my students to develop their capacities for analysis, critique, evaluation and discernment. And like many, I want them to deepen their receptivity and expand their ability to take pleasure in a wide range of cultural expressions. I want them to experience wonder in the face of elegant experimental design, intricate musical or sculptural patterning, insightful literary or philosophical expression. Often the efforts to teach critical evaluation and expansive receptivity are in tension with one another.

When do “culture-mad students” more generally display the urge to renew the pantheon rather than to deconstruct it? Better yet, when can that deconstruction be a form of renewal? It happens when students are able “turn themselves” in such a way as to grasp what a work (or its author, if you prefer) is trying to achieve. Depending on what area the work is in, this takes empathy, language or math skills, and the informed imagination that comes from contextual thinking (as in history and anthropology). Turning oneself toward greater receptivity takes work, but the rewards are powerful — sometimes even transformative.

Increasing students’ ability to feel wonder in the face of important cultural achievements has been one of the great goals of a liberal education. Expanding our notions of what counts as cultural achievement is part of the educational process. You don’t always have to settle for the fast food culture that surrounds us, although sometimes one can find achievements there, too.

I can already hear the complaints that this view is elitist and impractical. On the contrary, what I am describing can be democratic and pragmatic (though I admit that it doesn’t have to be either). Finding beauty or thoughtfulness in surprising places can expand one’s appreciation for the possibilities of greatness, of lasting accomplishments. No genre of person or activity is excluded in advance, and this basic openness is intensely democratic.

Why is this expansion of cultural horizons pragmatic? The process of discovering power in poems or pictures you at first didn’t understand, or in lines of inquiry that had seemed pointless, can strengthen capacities to discover opportunities generally. And just as we recognize that problem-solving is practical, we must acknowledge that discovering opportunity is pragmatic. Indeed, it is vital to our ability to shape the future.

I am hopeful that those who will shape the future will also have cultivated the ability to renew the pantheon of great work from the past.

The pantheon will change over time as what we need from the past and recognize in it change. But unless we want to be stuck with the status quo, we must strive