John Lennon

Power to the People

By Geordie Pleathur
(SugarBuzz Nutopia)

SugarBuzz Magazine

"POWER TO THE PEOPLE!"

"I understand -- and absolutely believe -- that many people who support the intervention in Libya are doing so for good and noble reasons: disgust at standing by and watching Gadaffi murder hundreds or thousands of rebels. I also believe that some people who supported the attack on Iraq did so out of disgust for Saddam Hussein and a desire to see him removed from power. It's commendable to oppose that type of despotism, and I understand -- and share -- the impulse.

But what I cannot understand at all is how people are willing to believe that the U.S. Government is deploying its military and fighting this war because, out of abundant humanitarianism, it simply cannot abide internal repression, tyranny and violence against one's own citizens. This is the same government that enthusiastically supports and props up regimes around the world that do exactly that, and that have done exactly that for decades.

By all accounts, one of the prime administration advocates for this war was Hillary Clinton; she's the same person who, just two years ago, said this about the torture-loving Egyptian dictator: 'I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family.' They're the same people overseeing multiple wars that routinely result in all sorts of atrocities. They are winking and nodding to their Yemeni, Bahrani and Saudi friends who are doing very similar things to what Gadaffi is doing, albeit (for now) on a smaller scale. They just all suddenly woke up one day and decided to wage war in an oil-rich Muslim nation because they just can't stand idly by and tolerate internal repression and violence against civilians? Please." (-Glenn Greenwald)

"When will the American people demand accountability from their government? When will Americans realize that there is no 'clear and present danger' that could conceivably be used to invoke the war powers act? Where is it written that America is the conscience of the planet and has the right to bomb and kill those that the United States regards as evil?

This is no joke. The bombing and the cruise missile attacks are killing people that are non-combatants. Women, children, the elderly as well as those that are non-political are dying, killed by American weapons systems. The leadership in America is committing war crimes. The hypocrisy of the United States is glaringly evident when Obama called for charges to be brought against Gadhafi by the International Criminal Court, an organization that America no longer recognizes, due to the possibility of charges being brought against members of the Bush administration, and now, the possibility that Obama, and his administration, may be culpable for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Meanwhile the American public does nothing, while the media ignores the behavior of the government and it’s military." (-Timothy V. Gatto)

"In 2007, Obama was adamant that the president did not have the power to authorize an attack if there was no imminent threat to the U.S. But now he has authorized just such an action. Full Flop." (– Politifact)

"I also asked Dennis (Kucinich) if he was going to change his mind, and give Obama a primary challenge over this, and his answer to me was: 'I think someone should, but it’s not going to be me.' I gave up on Robber Class politics a long time ago, and I think that most politicians are motivated by cynicism and greed, and many of my supporters and comrades will tell me that Dennis is a shill to keep the antiwar segment of the Democratic Party tied to the party—and I think they could be correct—but Dennis will stand up for peace, and against blatant power grabs, no matter who is president. In fact, he and Ron Paul of Texas, and Walter Jones of North Carolina (both R’s) just co-sponsored a bill to have the troops out of Afghanistan by the end of this year—it failed, but it got 28 more votes than last time. It might all just be a charade, but I also know that there is no great movement of civil society pushing hard to make Congress defund the wars to end them—it’s just not there. We are failing, too. Of course, I would be thrilled if Dennis would leave the Democratic Party and become a Green, or Independent, like Bernie Sanders of Vermont, but we need his voice where it is, for now." (-Cindy Sheehan)

"How is it possible that a Nobel Peace Prize winner leads a gang to attack and invade?" (- Bolivian President Evo Morales)

"Is it fair to kill the youth?" (-Prince)

"Law and order's done their job-the prison's filled, while the rich still rob..." (-Stiv Bators)

"President Obama tells us that he's asked the Pentagon whether the conditions of confinement of Bradley Manning, the soldier charged with leaking state secrets, 'are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are.'

If Obama believes that, he'll believe anything. I would hope he would know better than to ask the perpetrators whether they've been behaving appropriately. I can just hear President Nixon saying to a press conference the same thing: 'I was assured by the White House Plumbers that their burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's doctor in Los Angeles was appropriate and met basic standards.'

When that criminal behaviour ordered from the Oval Office came out, Nixon faced impeachment and had to resign. Well, times have changed. But if President Obama really doesn't yet know the actual conditions of Manning's detention – if he really believes, as he's said, that 'some of this [nudity, isolation, harassment, sleep-deprivation] has to do with Private Manning's wellbeing', despite the contrary judgments of the prison psychologist – then he's being lied to, and he needs to get a grip on his administration.

If he does know, and agrees that it's appropriate or even legal, that doesn't speak well for his memory of the courses he taught on constitutional law.

The president refused to comment on PJ Crowley's statement that the treatment of Manning is 'ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid'. Those words are true enough as far as they go – which is probably about as far as a state department spokesperson can allow himself to go in condemning actions of the defence department. But at least two other words are called for: abusive and illegal.

Crowley was responding to a question about the 'torturing' of an American citizen, and, creditably, he didn't rebut that description. Prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity – that's right out of the manual of the CIA for 'enhanced interrogation'. We've seen it applied in Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. It's what the CIA calls 'no-touch torture', and its purpose there, as in this case, is very clear: to demoralise someone to the point of offering a desired confession. That's what they are after, I suspect, with Manning. They don't care if the confession is true or false, so long as it implicates WikiLeaks in a way that will help them prosecute Julian Assange. (-Daniel Ellsberg)

"While much of the media presents an unquestioning, sanitized version of the war -- cable news hosts more focused on interviewing retired generals about America’s fancy killing machines than the actual, bloody facts on the ground -- the truth is that wars, even liberal-minded “humanitarian” ones, entail destroying people and places. Though cloaked in altruism that would be more believable were we dealing with monasteries, not nation-states, the war in Libya is no different. And innocents pay the price.

If protecting civilians from evil dictators was the goal, though -- as opposed to, say, safeguarding natural resources and the investments of major oil companies -- there’s an easier, safer way than aerial bombardment for the U.S. and its allies to consider: simply stop arming and propping up evil dictators. After all, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi reaped the benefits from Western nations all too eager to cozy up to and rehabilitate the image of a dictator with oil, with those denouncing him today as a murderous tyrant just a matter of weeks ago selling him the very arms his regime has been using to suppress the rebellion against it." (-Medea Benjamin Code Pink)

Same Old Song And Dance...

America sells it's sci-fi weapons of mass destruction to all these dictators, and is always happy to prop these thugs up, so long as they obey the Western intelligence agencies, who work for the big-oil oligarchs. It's become so simple for them to confuse us into believing their lies, about how this or that tyrant needs to be forced from the throne by the U.S. military, and the big-media never call them out, because they are all owned and operated by the war-mongers. Many are afraid to criticize Obama, because they fear his rightwing challenger in the next election will be even worse, but if we can not distinguish any legitimate differences between the Bush and Obama administrations, it should be clear to all of us by now, that the Democratic Party is just a branch of the rightwing war party. Nothing's "changed", except Obama has been able to expand the authoritarian police state, under cover, of being supposedly liberal, centrist, or moderate. The culture wars kooks even call him a "socialist", for giving more tax breaks and bail-outs to the corporate executive robber class, and continuing the neo-con's infinite war on oil-rich, Muslim nations. I recently saw Tom Hayden speak on community-organizing, and how the police state apparatus continues to persecute and spy on peace activists-just like they did in the days of Angela Davis, Huey P. Newton, John Lennon, and Abbie Hoffman. He spoke about how the establishment revises history, co-opts the collective memory, and waters-down the messages of John Lennon, Martin Luther King, Abbie Hoffman, even Malcolm X-by turning them into these cuddly, lily-white, sanitized saints, ice cream brands, by always editing-out the hardline aspect of their belief systems. No one likes to remember how King railed about class, and against the Vietnam War-they just emphasize that he had a passive, pacifist dream, that's supposedly come true, now that some rightwing elitist people of color have been appointed to token positions of power. There have always been house slaves, sell-outs, and Uncle Toms, with titles.

The corporate-media control the narrative about the sixties, revising all of it, to make it seem as if the civil-rights activists, hippies, and later on, the seventies punks, were all unwashed, lazy, Manson-crazy, juvenile deadbeats, and the country club pricks and strong-arm cops were somehow "right" about repressing the poor, and waging endless, genocidal violence, on disadvantaged peoples. The Ann Coulter/Limbaugh/Beck/Palin crowd are just livid they were never embraced as being cool, because they were espousing all that crack-pot, far right, Nixon-Nazi, hateful, elitist extremism, trying to make fascism seem sexy and fun. Since that faction controls the entire debate in the modern corporate media, insisting there's even such a thing as a "liberal media" in America, while spewing lies, and creating divisions, on behalf of the war profiteers, and top one percent trillionaires, it's difficult to compete with their propaganda machine. The Koch Brothers can employ people to troll around the internet, white-washing the crimes of the executive-class, in the comment boxes, and chat-rooms, on-line. They can organize big rallies with wide-screen TV's, and bus-in misguided cable-viewers, to promote the war-party agenda. They can finance billion dollar elections of obedient toadies, to do their bidding in Congress, like they did this last election-cycle in Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan. The Senate Republicans in Wisconsin rammed through a bill that strips hundreds of thousands of nurses, school workers, snowplow drivers, and EMTs of their collective bargaining rights -- without even a dime of actual savings to Wisconsin taxpayers. The establishment Dems were complicit, and alarmingly silent on this issue. The union busting billionaires versus the common folk. Obama's staying fit, golfing, playing B-ball, sight-seeing, while the 'Pubs crush the unions, the radiation leaks all over Japan, and his bombs are being dropped on the people in Gaza, Libya, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Supposedly, the USA is so broke, but they can always drum up trillions more for invasions, wars of occupation, domestic spying, air-port molestation and radiation, and ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Fifty-nine percent of the U.S. budget is openly devoted to aggression, violence, and military-rule, and much more is hidden in other parts of the budget, like "Homeland Security", and foreign-aid to repressive regimes, like Egypt and Israel, but you wouldn't know this, if you listen to talk-radio, because the disinformation bullies are paid millions, for tricking you, into believing that any significant portion of the budget goes to welfare, and housing, and providing health-care, education, and social services for poor folks, and illegal immigrants. Not true. What a sham. Eight years in Iraq, nine years in Afghanistan. As an old associate of mine noted, "If back in '01, there had actually been any gen-u-wine, Ay-rab, suicide for Allah terrorists, looking to inflict max casualties on Great Satan, they'd have flown all four planes into the Indian Point nucleur facility built on two fault-lines, in NY, But THAT caper was a psy-op to get that blank check for war 'n' fascism."

Even if you're willing to believe the official story of those tragic demolitions in NYC, that were used to justify pemanent-war, and this Constitution-suspending, militant police-state, (see "Loose Change" on Youtube...) We all know Obama pledged to close the torture-camps and bring the troops home, but instead, he started additional wars in Pakistan, Yemen, and Libya. 'Ushered in more raids on peace activists homes, more porno-scanners, more warrantless wiretaps, more spying on peace groups. The people need to reorganize third parties to stand for civil liberties at home and abroad, even if the Egypt-style State-Media refuses to cover our protests. Ann Wright, a retired Colonel, and the Pentagon Papers whistle-blower, Daniel Ellsberg, were brutally arrested, last week, for protesting the inhumane confinement and nightly forced nudity, of Pvt. Bradley Manning, who's alledgedly, the whistle-blower, who Wiki-Leaked the "Collateral Murder" war-crimes video we've all seen on Youtube, where the U.S. military casually assassinates journalists, a civilian father rushing to their aid, and his children. Not a word about this on cable. Obama is allowing Manning to be tortured and degraded, for exposing the truth of these atrocoties. Some Democrat, huh? Meanwhile, the cable brainwashed herd continue to Facebook about "American Idol", and Charlie (9/11 Truther) Sheen.

The white collar criminals have a free pass from this government, but the Judge Judys love to throw a big book at a poor person who steps out of line. The people get no say, really. The billionaires and trillionaires control the elections, the debates, the fraudcasts, the infotainment networks, used to distract the masses. According to the most recent polls, about thirty percent of Americans are still in favor of these bogus wars, and those are the cops, the oil-barons, some misguided military families, people who listen to the radio at work, or love watching the round the clock glamorizing of high-tech weaponry on the Discovery channel, and shoot 'em up video games. You see 'em in the suburbs, talking on cell-phones, cutting people off in traffic, racing to Hooters, or Home Depot. Meanspirited, R. Crumb women from evangelical homes, with those enormous blimp-like breasts and Popeye forearms, demanding more barbeque sauce. The monster-truck drivin', shaved headed, tattooed, musclebound marines, who are swaggerin' around, wearing AXE, rockin' that white cracker, "Jersey Shore", Eminem, played-out, playa, pimpolicious, Guido look, even though they're all johns, not pimps. Oblivious, "Twilight" watching, teen girls, sadly imitating the Kardashians, in the tall boots and super skinny tight jeans, and side-swept bangs, who get nagged by their jealous, overweight Mothers with bad bleach jobs, who hoard the photo-booth at Chuck E. Cheese...and I suppose, there is also a shrinking demographic of comfy, college grads, who stubbornly, still believe the Brand Obama war propaganda, because we all had so much false hope sold to us, when Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen played, "This Land Is Your Land", at his Inauguration. The diehard Obamabots, who are kept distracted from the hard news of the day, and are mostly content to shop at high-end pet emporiums, sleepily drifting from this store, to that, buying Kat Von D cosmetics, and maybe even, purchasing some deliciously low-cal, Ben And Jerry's Malcolm X-cellent Vanilla-Whipped, Double Pomegranite, Lemon Sorbet, and shit. The rulers love to market a dead revolutionary hero, neuter the words of a once potent social justice leader. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were high on the Dick Nixon/J. Edgar Hoover enemies list, because they were so successful at raising consciousness, and awakening the lumpen herd, by being media-clowns for peace. They used to guest-host mainstream talk shows and invite people like the Black Panther Party, yippie Jerry Rubin, and the tireless, moral crusading, too-legit-to-quit, consumer advocate, Ralph Nader, on TV to have a platform, from which to participate in Democracy. It's a damn shame both George Harrison and John Lennon are dead. We used to hear songs like, "Give me love, give me life, give me peace on Earth"....and "Power to the People!" on the radio. Now, if a celebrity is opposed to torture, airport molestations, or murdering civilians in needless "pre-emptive" invasions, they are black-listed, persecuted, ridiculed all day long, and character assassinated by people like Billy Bush and Glen Beck, on shows that are owned by Saudis and big rightwing media-emperors. None of those people really care that Charlie Sheen does the whacky Youtube performance art, or admits to recreational drug-use (they all do drugs) and likes the ladies. He's actually, taking this non-stop hammering in the press for his high profile stance on 9/11. I never thought I'd be defending a Hollywood brat like Sheen, but come on, it's so obvious. What high-paid actor isn't raising hell in bourgeois hotels? The sad fact is Keith Olbermann was similarly, kicked off of the corporate-media monopolies for his high profile views, opposing the Patriot Act and the Endless Wars. He, too, has been reduced to Youtubing his eloquent outrage, on-line. Same with Rosie O'Donnal, and Phil Donahue. They just love to slander the truth tellers. Look at how they currently treat fearless human rights hero, Bradley Manning. Where is his medal, Obama? He should be rewarded, not humiliated, isolated, degraded, and punished. Neo-cons, Gates and Clinton want to perpetuate endless, world war, for the profit of a few. How many even know that Hillary was on the board of evil union-killers, Wal-Mart?

The airwaves constantly glorify war, hosting retired generals, celebritizing creeps like Patraeus, and Eric Prince from Blackwater. Even the supposedly liberal, "Vanity Fair", runs a puff piece/glamor shot of some war pig in each and every issue, nowadays, giving the literary equivalent of a ticker tape parade to the mercenaries and war profiteers. The torture lawyers, John Yoo, and Jay Bybee, walk free, while Obama gives the Gitmo treatment to the brave whistle-blower, Bradley Manning, and lets the paramilitary thugs rough-up national treasures, like McGovern and Ellsberg. It's a damned, dirty shame. We don't have many great spirits, like John Lennon, in positions of influence and power, anymore. The peace folks are a rag-tag lot. Underfunded, everyday people of conscience, villified by the very same criminal element that has infiltrated the government, and actually owns the news agencies. Spied on by the FBI and NSA. The corporate oppressors make jails, while the Code Pink crowd has bake sales. It never was a fair fight, was it? Whenever someone steps forth, with a powerful message of love that rings true...A John Lennon, Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Aaron Russo, Joe Strummer, Paul Wellstone, Stiv Bators, Tupac Shakur, or Hunter S. Thompson, they all seem to "mysteriously" develop these sudden, fatal illnesses, or wind up having accidents like all the dead scientists and 9/11 witnesses, and JFK Jr....Or, they become the targets of lone gunman assassinations. Tim Leary, Wayne Kramer, John Sinclair, Sly Stone, Lenny Bruce...they all get entrapped and busted by the cops, imprisoned, undermined, demonized by the big-media. Land of the free? They imprison more people in the U.S. for smoking pot than anything else, non violent drug offenders. More political prisoners rot here, in their for-profit prisons, than anywhere else, in the world, including Iran, and China. "War On Drugs", doncha know? Bob Dylan said this, when the Nixon spooks wanted to deport John Lennon for his political activism: "John and Yoko add a great voice and drive to the country’s so-called art institution. They inspire and transcend and stimulate and by doing so, only help others to see pure light and in doing that, put an end to this dull taste of petty commercialism which is being passed off as Artist Art by the overpowering mass media. Hurray for John and Yoko. Let them stay and live here and breathe. The country’s got plenty of room and space. Let John and Yoko stay!" A damn, damned shame about John Lennon. 'Shame about Sir Paul, too...Billionaire Paul McCartney is only too happy, nowadays, to hob-knob with the war-pig establishment. Lennon fought for the people, he stood for peace. 'Same as George Harrison. Where do you stand? Let's each light a torch for peace, for liberty, and human rights.

Let's all do our bit to honor and preserve the true heroes from our past, and to carry forth their messages, in the days to come, and to be courageous enough to practice the most noble traditions of the sixties beats, hippies, yippies, folkies, acid-heads, draft-dodgers, concientious objectors, civil rights activists, pop-artists, and punks. Let's endeavor to teach the next generations to value peace and cherish all human life. Let's stop letting the military industrial complex get away with the gratuitous revisionism, recruiting in our schools for wars of imperialism, and pretending that worker's rights, or civil rights, or women's rights, were ever given over to us, willingly. Write to your so-called representatives, and demand that Bradley Manning be freed. Do something, everyday, for peace and democracy. We've lost so much ground, since '01, we have to work extra hard to revitalize our people's movements, and to carry on the good works of those who came before us, before all that's left is that Orwellian combat boot, stomping on a human face, forever.

Wise up and rise up:

www.bradleymanning.org/
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Kw7j4lbDB4
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x565627
dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/ralph-nader-calls-for-impeachment-of-obama-daniel-ellsberg-obamas-monarchical-presidential-powers/
www.OneMinuteForPeace.org
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbGOr8L5kGQ&feature=related
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x565821
www.stopthesewars.org
www.counterpunch.com/takashi03222011.html
www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/24-4
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x733545
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4775085
www.alternet.org/rights/150187/naomi_klein%3A_%22shock_doctrine%22_unleashed_by_right-wingers_in_wisconsin_and_throughout_the_country/
dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/humanitarian-war-is-an-oxymoron-by-cindy-sheehan/
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x565627
www.alternet.org/story/150310/daniel_ellsberg%2C_ann_wright%2C_other_activists_arrested_at_bradley_manning_protest?akid=6697.154158.Cte4Yj&rd=1&t=8
dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/power-concedes-nothing-without-a-demand-by-chris-hedges/
warisacrime.org/content/michigan-fascism-old-news-dc
www.aircrap.org
www.firejohnyoo.org
www.dontscan.us
kucinich.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=46&Itemid=58
www.joinnutopia.com
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