by Laurie Penny a.k.a. @PennyRed

In the forty-eight hours since I landed in the United States, flying into storm-torn Brooklyn just days after a bunch of cars floated down Wall Street, nobody has mentioned the election to me once. You know, the presidential election, the one that’s happening in – what is it, three days? Right now, New Yorkers have more important things on their minds.

Access to food, fuel and electricity, for a start. People who do have these things are opening up their homes to friends and strangers who don’t. Across the city, volunteers are packing cars and heading to the disaster zones of Red Hook and the Rockaway, as well as to Staten Island, the borough worst hit when Hurricane Sandy battered through to flatten homes and devastate lives.

Like I said, nobody’s talking about the election. The island I always privately think of as Starship Manhattan spent days cut off from the rest of New York state, all of the lights out for days under 34th street, basements choked with brackish water, old people stranded in their homes. There’s an actual crisis taking place: houses have been destroyed, lives lost. The eighteen-month media circus that passes for representative politics in this country seems worlds away from the women in Staten Island weeping in front of the remains of their family homes on the nightly news.

With it being practically impossible for anyone without a car and a full tank of fuel to cross the city, I’ve just come back from volunteering down the street at the Williamsburg Church emergency blood drive. Right now New York is in a blood crisis. When the hospitals were evacuated during the storm, there was no time to collect the blood left in storage banks when the power went out, and by the time they got everyone to safety, that blood had rotted. Now they need new blood desperately.

When me and my friend Veronica Varlow went down to the Church to open our veins for the cause, I was told that my tangy British blood was not acceptable because I might be riddled with mad cow disease (this from people who haven’t even read my Twitter feed). They did, however, need volunteers to help shepherd those donors who were waiting patiently in line for up to three hours to hand over pints of superior all-American hemoglobin. So, I pinned on a badge and spent a few hours buzzing around filling out forms for people, cleaning tables and chairs, handing out snacks and tea and generally making myself useful. Even doing something so small to help the people helping to rebuild the city felt powerful.

Blood: when disasters happen, I’m always struck by the readiness with which people queue up to restock the banks of blood, platelets, and plasma. In the days after September 11, 2001, the donation centers had to start turning people away, and indeed, here at the Williamsburg Church we’re doing the same thing; with the donation line already thirty people deep, we’re running around with sign-up sheets where eager donors can leave their name and number in case we need more blood tomorrow.

There’s something so tender about that impulse. Sure, it says, we could raise money or go and help pump water out of basements in the Lower East Side, but wouldn’t it be simpler just to give you this part of my own body that was pumping in my heart five minutes ago? I’m pretty sure that if the New York blood centre were to put the call out tomorrow asking people to donate a pound of flesh cut from the chest closest to the heart because someone stranded on Staten Island needs it, there’d be plenty of volunteers, and not all of them would be kinky Shakespeare fetishists.

When there’s a crisis on, people want to help. Running around with the snack basket I was reminded of the floods of volunteers who gave their time, money and expertise to the Occupy camps last year. Practical anarchism. Everyone so keen to do whatever they could to help. Not just the kids from all over the country who kicked in their lives to sleep in the cold and be arrested multiple times in the name of a better future, but the shop owners who shipped out their spare produce. The trained nurses who turned up to administer basic medical care to those who had none. The parents who donated freshly-baked pies and soups to the kitchens. The librarians and academics who created an enormous library that, almost a year ago, I watched the NYPD rip apart and hurl into dumpster trucks, just because it was messing up their nice clean corporate dead-zone.

It’s no accident that the original Occupy Wall Street organizers were among the first to set up and co-ordinate volunteering efforts across New York. The group, which has drifted in recent months, immediately set about organizing teams and transportation to the worst-hit areas. The Zuccotti Park protest camp which was evicted last November and the enormous post-Sandy volunteer effort going on this week are different expressions of the same thing: overwhelming human response to crisis.

Crisis is what people in the United States have been living with for at least four years. Active emergency, turning people out of their homes and into the cold, destroying lives. It’s not crass to compare a climate disaster to a juddering crisis of capitalism, because the two are connected, not least because those most responsible are also those most likely to be snugly tucked away in gated compounds shrugging their shoulders when the storm hits. Like the crash, Hurricane Sandy hit the poorest hardest, smashing through Staten Island and Rockaway while the lights stayed on on the Upper East Side.

Nobody expected it to be quite this bad. Last year’s Hurricane Irene was bearable for most. But what I’m seeing here, at least in Brooklyn where I’ve been stuck for two days, is a city coming out of a six-month paralysis: finally, there’s a concrete task that people can put their hands to.

Sarah Jaffe’s brilliant piece at Jacobin draws attention to Rebecca Solnit’s work on the communities that arise in disaster zones:

“There’s a particular opportunity for mutual aid in the void in the aftermath of disaster, particularly in a neoliberal state whose safety net has been shredded, where the state simply isn’t there and people step up to take care of each other (not “themselves” as our libertarian friends would have it, and not the rich handing out charity as Mitt Romney wants you to believe, but communities in solidarity). The idea of mutual aid was at the foundation of Occupy as much as the much-debated horizontalism and the opposition to the banks.”

Volunteerism, of course, can be regressive as well as radical. I am reminded of those “broom armies” in London in the middle of the August riots last year; the sea of white, middle-class faces holding up brooms they’d brought to unfamiliar areas of the city, the sweet intention to mop up after a disaster tempered by the idea that the kids from deprived areas who came out to fight the police could just be swept away like so much filth. Like any desperate human impulse, volunteerism can easily be co-opted, twisted into something violent, calcifying.

Greece, where I spent part of my summer documenting the human effects of economic collapse, isn’t the only developed country where people have been living in crisis for so long they are starting to numb down and accept it. As Imara Jones pointed out in The Guardian today, 50 million Americans, the same number as those in the states hardest-hit by Hurricane Sandy, are living in acute poverty, and nobody in the presidential race has deigned to talk to or about them, despite the fact that they also have votes.

How do we respond to crisis when crisis has become status quo? That’s the question facing the entire developed world this year, and neither of the men jostling to lead the nominally free world appear to have any sort of answer. The Occupy Sandy operation is not an answer either, not even the shadow-play of an answer, but it is deeply radical and compassionate. That means someone’s probably going to try to shut it down reasonably soon, especially if it continues to provide food and assistance to the needy after the floodwaters have receded. A community response to immediate external crisis can be spun as good PR for an administration, but a community response to structural, internal crisis is just embarrassing. In every case though, the most dangerous thing you can do in any crisis – the absolute worst thing you can possibly do – is sit at home and accept it.

Back to blood. Funny thing about blood: until the 1970s, America used to buy it. Blood donation, as the United States quickly discovered, is not something you want to inject with a market incentive when you have to juggle things like infection risks and supply shortages. All that changed when Richard Titmus’ book The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy was published in 1971, explaining why the values of public service beat the private market every time when it comes to social care. The private market in American blood was regulated until it became something like the British voluntary model – people coming in to open their veins for a biscuit and a cup of coffee, just because somebody else needs their blood more than they do. Quite a lot of my job at Billyburg church today was handing out packets of Oreos to younguns waiting in line to do just that – I still have no damn idea who donated those biscuits – and telling the people massing at the door that no, we have all the blood we need for today, thank you, come back tomorrow.

“There is in the free gift of blood to unnamed strangers no contract of custom, no legal bond, no functional determinism, no situations of discriminatory power, domination, constraint or compulsion, no sense of shame or guilt,” wrote Titmus. “In not asking for or expecting any payment of money, these donors signified their belief in the willingness of other men to act altruistically in the future.” There is still enough blood beating in the cynical hearts of New Yorkers to pound out an immediate, compassionate response to crisis. Today that gives me hope.

Occupy Sandy Relief information here can be found at interoccupy.net/occupysandy/ – a website put together by the good folks at OWS, which contains all you need to know about what you can do to help. Click here for the NYC Blood Drive list of donation centers and opening times.

Laurie Penny is a journalist, feminist, and political activist from London. She is a regular writer for the New Statesman and the Guardian, and has also contributed to the Independent, Red Pepper, and the Evening Standard. She is the author of Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism (2011) and Discordia (2012). She has presented Channel 4’s Dispatches and been on the panel of the BBC’s Any Questions. Her blog, “Penny Red“, was shortlisted for the Orwell prize in 2010.

by Steven Whitney

Daily tracking polls – and there are many – estimate the number of still undecided voters heading into this last weekend before the election hovering between 3 and 7%. That’s an astonishingly high number and even if half these voters are “undecided” merely because they crave media attention, in a race labeled a dead heat, even ½ of 1% could be decisive, especially in swing states.

For those voting strictly along party or ideological lines, the choice is clear. But for independents who vote more pragmatically, haunting indecision is an understandable reaction. Campaigns have always had their share of misrepresentations, deceptive advertising, the twisting of facts to suit particular messages or candidates, and outright lies. But never more so than this year, when the clear waters of choice have been muddied by the unprecedented amount of special interest money flooded into the race courtesy of Citizens United. Money used to fire a barrage of advertisements, commercials, direct mailing, and robocalls unparalleled in history, leaving the electorate overwhelmed, disoriented, and confused.

So let’s bullet point some of the more important issues – some hotly debated, others hardly mentioned at all – keeping it brief, simple, and factual.

The Economic Recovery:

According to TIGER (Tracking Indices for the Global Economic Recovery), the U.S. economy is “the sole bright spot” in a sluggish world economy.

“The global economic recovery is on the ropes, battered by political conflicts within and across countries, lack of decisive policy actions, and governments’ inability to tackle deep-seated problems, such as unsustainable public finances that are stifling growth,” their report states. “The U.S. economy remains the sole bright spot, with economic activity, employment and financial markets all showing unexpected although still modest strength.”

Think about that – in a worldwide cascade of drowning nations, and under the guidance of the Obama administration, the U.S. is the only one staying afloat.

In comparison, those countries following the Romney/Ryan plan of extreme austerity are sinking faster than a mob informer wearing cement overshoes.

The Debt:

For the last four years, the question of what to do about our almost $16 trillion of debt has caused much division and the rise of the Tea Party. Too often forgotten in all the hullabaloo is the fact that the Democratic Clinton administration ended its term in office with a huge surplus which the Republican Bush/Cheney administration turned into a devastating deficit, bringing the entire world to the edge of financial disaster. The debt added by the Obama administration occurred mostly through the much-needed economic stimulus, and spending on our infrastructure and social programs.

As our slow but successful recovery proves, the money spent of the stimulus allowed the U.S. to stand out as the only shining light in the world economy.

As for money spent on our infrastructure and social programs, the first not only provided jobs but much needed repair on our roads, bridges, buildings, and highways while the second supported the very survival of those Americans hardest hit by the financial crisis.

Last weekend on Up with Chris Hayes, Ilyse Hogue of The Nation neatly clarified our two choices in handling the debt. We can clear our debt ASAP by expediting payments to China and Wall Street – our two biggest creditors – or we can invest in our own future – in education and training, in rebuilding our vital infrastructure, and by stimulating growth – while paying down our debt on a sustainable schedule.

Obama/Biden proposes investing in America’s future by cutting costs and raising taxes on the richest 2%.

Romney/Ryan wants to clear the debt quickly, so long as our wealthiest citizens and corporations are not taxed even one extra penny, by cutting education and social programs. They also want to cut funding to the arts, particularly PBS, despite the fact that Elmo of Sesame Street played a vital role in calming children during Superstorm Sandy.

Jobs:

850,000 jobs per month were lost during the last year of the Bush administration which, along with the mortgage and debt crises, brought our country to the precipice of another Great Depression. Recovery was understandably slow, but starting in February, 2010, the Obama Presidency has added jobs each month since, despite the fact that House Republicans have killed every single Jobs Act proposed. Last month, House Republicans even rejected the Veteran’s Jobs Act which would have provided training and jobs for 20,000 veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Romney/Ryan has promised more jobs with more tax cuts, just as Bush did. But the Senate Research Committee released a study this past September which incontrovertibly showed that cutting taxes for the rich does not increase jobs. Senate Republicans squashed the report and it was leaked only this past week. Yet both Romney and Ryan kept hitting the stump with the same old trickle-down economics theory that has failed on a grand scale everywhere it’s been implemented.

Healthcare:

Obama instituted the Affordable Care Act and Patient Protection program, commonly called Obamacare, which eventually provides healthcare to every American, allows those with pre-existing conditions to be covered, and, importantly, cuts the costs of the programs. He supports Medicare, Title X, and Medicaid.

Romney intends to repeal Obamacare and go back to the insurance-run health programs that led to the explosive run-up in health care costs and 50 million uninsured Americans. He wants to replace Medicare with a voucher system –and vouchers will not help get you covered if you have a pre-existing condition. He also wants to hand responsibility of Medicaid to the individual states and eliminate Title X, a program that delivers comprehensive care to the poor.

Social Security:

Obama/Biden support Social Security and want to expand funding by raising the limit of employee contributions.

Romney/Ryan want to privatize Social Security without explaining what would have happened to those accounts during both the 2000 dot.com crash and the 2008 Bush/Cheney financial disaster.

Supreme Court:

At least three of our aging Supreme Court justices will retire in the next four years, most likely Ginsburg (79), Breyer (74), and Kennedy (75). Ginsburg and Breyer are often labeled liberal justices, while Kennedy has been rightly or wrongly considered the swing vote between the 4 conservatives and the 4 liberals.

If Obama selects the replacements, the Court would remain about the same, perhaps giving the so-called liberal justices a 5-4 advantage.

If Romney is elected, he would appoint solidly conservative justices, probably in their late 40s or early 50s, giving the Court a 7-2 plurality of conservative judges for years to come.

Human Rights:

Obama/Biden pledge equal rights for all Americans, regardless of race, color, and creed.

Romney/Ryan hope to kill the Equal Rights Act, the Voting Act of 1965, college grants, arts grants, and social programs that help seniors, minorities, and the poor. They also seek to place into law the Defense of Marriage Act, a constitutional provision that would define marriage strictly as a union between a man and a woman (no LGBTs need apply).

Religion:

Obama/Biden stands by the 1st Amendment right of Freedom of Religion, allowing all to practice their own personal spiritual choices without government interference.

Led by the Religious Right, Republicans want to introduce into law wide-ranging faith-based policies born of extreme Christian doctrine.

Women:

Women’s issues would normally come under Human Rights, but the Republican War on Women makes it a separate category in this election cycle.

Obama/Biden support all women’s rights and claims of equal status, including the right to preventative healthcare and the right of choice over their own bodies.

Romney/Ryan advocates repeal of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act that mandates equal pay for equal work for women (and all minorities). They support the Religious Right in ordering government control over women’s bodies. And Republicans engage in frequent sexist invective to put women in their place. For a fuller assessment of their stand, read this short post on the War on Women.

Disaster Relief:

Especially in light of Hurricane Sandy this past week, it’s important to emphasize that the Obama administration has rebuilt and streamlined FEMA to not only respond to natural disasters but to prepare for them as well.

Romney/Ryan plan to dismantle FEMA and put individual states in charge of their own relief. This would, of course, give rise to uneven programs – some good, some bad – but none with the resources of the federal government. And, too, how does a state even initiate disaster response when its entire infrastructure has been destroyed? Other Republicans, like Eric Cantor, want to fund disaster relief only if it’s paid for in advance, as long as none of this money comes from the upper 2%.

The Environment:

Obama has pledged to fiercely combat Climate Change by sparking the birth of Alternative Energy Sources – and his administration has done just that, investing in clean, renewable, and sustainable energy projects. Some, like Solyndra, have failed, but his success rate of 93% is extraordinarily high for start-up companies. Indeed, it’s far better than the 80% success rate Romney had investing in already going concerns businesses for Bain Capital, even counting all the jobs Romney slashed or moved overseas to increase his own profit.

Neither Romney nor Ryan are convinced that Climate Change is real, and therein is a huge problem.

The War on Terror:

After 9/11, the Bush/Cheney administration over-reacted to such an extent that a new National Security nation was born within our borders – a true Orwellian nightmare.

Most troubling was both the use and potential abuse of NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) – allowing troubling practices such as rendition, indefinite detention, “enhanced interrogation,” and even assassination – alongside surveillance programs such as Trapwire, and the deployment of drones.

An old maxim states that leaders of countries never give up powers they have inherited from others. So the electorate must judge how each candidate might use those powers in the future – and in whose hands they might be used with the least potential for harm.

While there has been far too much collateral damage from the use of drone air strikes, we’re out of Iraq and we’ll be out of Afghanistan in 2014 – so it appears as if Obama is using these powers to shorten and end our involvement in these wars. And, too, Obama initiated and signed a START treaty with Russia that greatly reduced the number of nuclear weapons in both arsenals. He has also pledged to reduce all U.S. nuclear weapons by an astounding 80%, cutting our stockpile back to a level we haven’t seen since the 1950s. Plus, his projected budget cuts Defense spending.

Romney, on the other hand, is surrounded by the same neo-con advisors that served Bush and the Cheney/Halliburton combine. He has promised to dramatically increase Defense spending by as much as 40% and has already said we should confront Iran militarily.

So Obama – a man working toward a streamlined military – sounds like a much more responsible caretaker of these dangerous powers than Romney, who clearly wants to expand them.

Foreign Policy:

As has been clear for the last five years, Obama is respected as a global leader with integrity and credibility. He has improved relations with countries that Bush and Cheney insulted, and has worked in efficient partnership with many nations.

Romney, on the other hand, embarrassed himself everywhere he went on this past summer’s overseas trip. He knows absolutely nothing about foreign affairs, even claiming Russia is our fiercest enemy, and has insulted The U.K., China, Japan, and almost every other nation he talks about.

Platforms:

If you think your country’s future is worth an hour or two of your time, read the platforms of both the Democrats and Republicans. Each one cuts through the verbal hijinks of candidates on every level by specifically stating party positions.

After reading these documents, if you still cannot divine the differences between the parties, or if you do understand all the variances but are still ambivalent, give it up – you probably shouldn’t cast a ballot you may later regret.

But since this election may very well define our destiny, the rest of you must decide which direction you want your country to take…and vote.

[..]

by Rachel Allshiny

Occupy Wall Street has hit the streets of New York in force once again. This time, instead of protesting the symbiotic relationship between big banks and politics, they are organizing relief efforts in the hardest-hit areas of the city in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

In the immediate aftermath of the super storm, Occupy Wall Street activists began coordinating aid to those in need in conjunction with climate activist group 350.org and recovers.org – a site that offers tools for organizing disaster relief within affected communities. This effort, dubbed “Occupy Sandy,” combines the organizational power, established communication network, and autonomous agility of the Occupy movement to provide direct relief where it is needed the most. Occupy Sandy not only connects those who are able to donate supplies or volunteer their time with those looking for aid, but also fills in the gaps in services that organizations with non-profit status are not able to provide. For example, one recent Facebook post shows a photo of shopping carts full of perishable food that is unusable by Red Hook Initiative due to sanitation codes and the community center’s 501c3 status. The caption recommends picking the food up to redistribute “DIY style,” thus circumventing a frustrating technicality.

Remarkably, the Occupy Sandy effort is not limited to the hardcore Occupy activists who camped in Zuccotti Park and were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge. The immediacy of the situation at hand and the speed at which Occupy networks were able to mobilize has drawn new recruits into a movement that had recently been losing steam.

Jeremiah Birnbaum, of Astoria, describes himself as apolitical and lives in a collective house with several activists, including some involved with Occupy Wall Street, but is not personally involved with the movement. He joined up with Occupy Sandy as a way to offer immediate help to those in need, particularly in poor communities that are often overlooked. “We asked: Who is not being helped?” Birnbaum explained in a phone interview. “I could have gone to Red Cross and done two hours of training, or I could help people right now.” He is working to coordinate efforts on the ground, matching abilities and resources to meet needs within the community, especially for those without access to the internet or social networking sites.

Birnbaum further described the process of contacting the city or other relief organizations as rife with red tape. “The bureaucracy is insane,” he said. When residents were unable to get in touch with ConEd about getting power restored to a nearby housing project, they turned instead to the Recovers.org network. When delivering the first round of donations to the stricken building, Birnbaum was asked specifically for less clothing and more lighting so that residents could get around the pitch-dark building. He immediately sent a text message asking his partner, who was at home, to request donations of flashlights, batteries, and candles through the local website they’d set up, providing his home address as a drop-off point. By the time he arrived home 15 minutes later, nearly 100 flashlights had been delivered. “I was stunned,” he admitted. “People have been given the ability to help.”

That, ultimately, may be the power of Occupy Wall Street moving forward; Restoring power to the people with their ability to organize and mobilize in a way that empowers individuals to make change within their own communities. “People ask me, are you from the Red Cross?” Birnbaum says. “We tell them no, we’re your neighbors, and we’re here to help you.” This is where a leaderless, horizontal movement can shine. As Birnbaum puts it, “There’s been this organic network created, and it works. It’s time to get away from process to focus on taking action.” Whether or not he will participate in future protests remains to be seen, but working with Occupy Sandy has initiated him into the Occupy community. “It’s made me appreciate what Occupy has been doing behind the scenes for the past year.”

Resources available for coordinating relief efforts through Occupy Sandy include a Google doc volunteer sign-up sheet, a donations page, and recovers.org pages for the communities of Staten Island, Red Hook, Astoria, and the Lower East Side. You can follow @OccupySandy on Twitter or search related hashtags, such as #SandyAid and #SandyVolunteer. You can “Like” the Occupy Sandy Facebook page or even sign up for text alerts by texting “occupysandy” to 23559.

All these resources and more have been collected on an Occupy Sandy hub by InterOccupy.

Photos by Jenna Pope (@BatmanWI), Julia C. Reinhart (@juliacreinhart), and @an0nyc.

by Steven Whitney

Mitt Romney has done a good job keeping religion out of this election. . . and for a good reason. Many Americans view Latter-Day Saints (LDS) with some skepticism, mostly because they’re not sure who or what Mormons really are. Are they Christians? Are they a Messianic cult? Are they a hybrid, a little bit of everything – a touch of Masonic ritual here, a little Christianity there, and a little sci-fi way over in the corner? Or are they something else entirely?

A close friend whose opinion I respect warned me that going after someone’s religion might be considered a low blow. Normally, I think he’d be right because until recently most candidates were Sunday-only churchgoers in mainstream religions we’re all familiar with and nothing more. And as long as they weren’t zealots, their religious views were none of my business, just as my personal beliefs are none of theirs.

But recently we’ve been dealing with a whole new breed of cat – particularly an extreme Religious Right that insists that only they know the truth and that everyone else must live by their interpretation of what was heretofore a good book. That is not only an outrageous breach of our 1st Amendment Freedom of Religion rights, it tells us that we need to take longer looks at candidates’ religious choices to gauge whether or not we, the electorate, are comfortable with them.

Besides, I’m not “going after” anyone’s religion – Romney and any citizen can believe anything they want within the laws of our country. But it must be pointed out that he has taken several sacred vows in his ascent to the position of bishop in his church – an office achieved only through strict adherence to Mormon doctrine – that raise serious doubts about his fitness for office.

Much of the LDS religion is, by its own choice, secret both to outsiders and to those within the church who have not achieved certain ranks. As a Constitutional matter, that’s perfectly legitimate. But it also means that many voters don’t know the ins-and-outs of the Mormon sect and, in a political arena, the electorate has the right to full transparency.

The embedded 7-minute video was filmed so people outside the inner circle of the LDS church could look “Behind the Veil” and glimpse just a small portion of secret Mormon beliefs, agendas, and ceremonies. Using a covert remote camera, the filmmakers recorded the hallowed Endowment Ceremony in which Saints (what Mormons call themselves) are given the key passwords and handshakes (called “tokens”) they need to pass by angels guarding the way to heaven.

For much of the last week, I have sourced the video to ensure its accuracy by contacting both its original website and ex-Mormons I know who went through this ceremony. While the entire video is fascinating, two short sections – from 3:30 to 3:45 and from 4:00 to 4:28 – stand out as the most relevant to our election. Watch for them:

If Mitt Romney believes in the god Elohim and the planet Kolob, that’s fine – those are matters of faith. . . and no one should posit definitive views on anyone else’s religious beliefs.

But the video reveals at least two doctrines that are relevant to this election.

First is the LDS notion that our civil government should be replaced by a religious one administered by Mormons. Does Romney himself believe that? And does he consider his candidacy the first step in a LDS grand plan?

If so, it’s a clear violation of the democratic principle regarding the separation of Church and State (and confirmed by our government in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli). Not to mention the fact that he would then be engaging in the treasonous act of “overthrowing” our government, not a good qualification for the Presidency.

Secondly is the Oath of Vengeance against the United States for the “murders” of Hyrum and Joseph Smith:

“You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophet Elohim upon the United States and that you will teach the same to your children and your children’s children unto the third and fourth generation.”

Did Romney himself ever take a vow to wreak vengeance on the United States for any reason whatsoever? If so, it’s not the best back story for someone who wants to be our Chief Executive.

So if he answers yes, he did take both those vows, he remains a good Mormon but his candidacy must be weighed in the light of those promises to the LDS.

Then again, if he swats these issues away in avoidance as he has done so often with other legitimate questions, we have the right to fill in our own answers based on what little we know of the real Romney.

But there’s a third alternative, one buried in LDS tradition and appropriately called Lying for the Lord – an accepted custom of lying to protect the church which has been described by an ex-official of the LDS as “a pattern of institutionalized deception established by Joseph Smith” that has now become “standard practice.” And routine for Romney, as it allows him to lie without sanction about himself and his agendas if he believes it serves the greater good of his church.

The problem, of course, is that 97% of voters are not Mormons and they would rather a President – or any elected official – serve his country rather than the LDS.

Even if he “lies for the Lord” and answers no – that he does not and never has sought or envisioned a religious government nor swore vengeance upon the U.S. – we have to wonder how he became a bishop of the LDS without adhering to two of its principle doctrines. Or if he has expediently forsaken his religious vows to win the political office he now seeks. And if he broke promises to the church he holds sacred, how can he be trusted to keep the oath of office of the Presidency?

It’s the Romney conundrum. No matter how he responds to these specific questions,
red flags are raised. Is his first allegiance to the LDS. . . or to our country? Or, glancing at his personal history, is he just out for himself?

There have been so many deceptions in Romney’s campaign about where he really stands on issues, about his business practices (the phrase “vulture capitalist” keeps raising its ugly head), about his secret plans for tax reform, healthcare, Social Security, and nearly everything else on which he constantly flip-flops, he’s become the Invisible Man of American politics – he’s smack-dab in the middle of the election, but no one can see him clearly.

A participatory democracy mandates an electorate informed by facts. It needs a true understanding of the issues, the candidates and their platforms, and the vision each holds for our sovereign nation.

So a last question must be asked: should anyone trust Mitt Romney, whose true nature and agenda remains deliberately unseen?

[..]

by Steven Whitney

As if the illegal Iraq War and the botched Afghan War were not enough, it seems as if Republicans are going to war against damn near everybody but old, rich white guys.

First up is their War on Facts – their avalanche of misstatements has set a new record (and a new low) in both congressional and campaign practices. The GOP lies about Obama’s record and Romney assiduously avoids any concrete facts about his own plans.

There’s a closely related War on Science – it contains too many perplexing facts and, after all, faith provides all the answers we need.

There‘s a covert War on Voting Rights, particularly VWB (Voting While Black) and VWP (Voting While Poor) – and then the very visible War on GLBTs, especially those who want to hold their weddings at Chick-fil-A.

There’s an open War on Immigrants – in Arizona, and despite being sued by the Department of Justice for racial profiling, the self-aggrandizing Sheriff Joe rounds up Hispanics, detains them in dehumanizing tent city corrals, verbally taunts them, and heads them back over the border. In Missouri, Republican Steve King also views them as animals, recently doubling down on his statement last May that “comparing immigrants to dogs is a compliment.”

There’s a War on Education and the snobs who attend college. And a War on Healthcare – Romney wants to repeal Obamacare on Day One and turn Medicare into a voucher system benefitting insurance companies. (If you have a serious pre-existing condition, do you really think a voucher is going to help you get coverage?)

Then there’s the War on Labor – particularly those nefarious teachers, firemen, postal workers, and policemen who are getting obscenely rich lapping up money from the public trough.

And Romney himself apparently wants to go to war with Big Bird and Iran.

To a degree, I understand their warmongering on these issues – racism, xenophobia, selfishness, skullduggery, and outright stupidity have always found a place in our politics, although never to the extent bandied about by Republicans in this election cycle.

But what I cannot comprehend is the Republican War on Women. While the GOP denies any such crusade, a mere summary of their actions suggests otherwise.

The Republican platform calls for a Constitutional ban and criminalization of abortion without exception – not rape, not incest, not even if the mother’s life is severely endangered by her pregnancy.

It denounces contraceptive education in schools while encouraging teenagers and young adults to abstain from sex until marriage.

Virginia Republicans passed a bill requiring women to undergo invasive trans-vaginal ultrasounds at least 24 hours before having an abortion. Other state legislatures in GOP control quickly followed suit, proposing bills with identical or more severe mandates.

In Michigan, GOP representatives banned Rep. Lisa Brown from speaking “for violating the decorum of the House” after she mentioned the word “vagina” during a debate on women’s healthcare. In defending their action, Republicans characterized the word vagina as “offensive, disgusting, and vile.”

In Congress, Darrell Issa (R, CA) created an Oversight Committee panel to shape policy on Women’s Reproductive Rights without a single woman invited to contribute, either as a panelist or speaker.

For the last several years, House Republicans have vociferously attacked and attempted to defund Planned Parenthood, a non-profit that serves 1 in every 5 women sometime during their lives. The GOP also wants to repeal Title X, which provides breast and cervical cancer screenings, birth control, and testing for all STDs to low-income women. Without Title X’s preventive care, thousands of American women will needlessly die before their time.

If their positions on healthcare weren’t enough to reveal the GOP’s stunning misogyny, consider the sexist invective they employ to put women in their rightful place.

It’s no fluke that drug felon Rush Limbaugh – considered by many to be the ex-officio head of the Republican Party – labeled a female law student a “slut” and a “prostitute” for speaking to House Democrats about the importance of requiring insurance companies to cover birth control. And it’s no surprise that Rush – who takes Viagra-fueled holidays in the Dominican Republic, famous for its teenage sex trade – encouraged her to send him video tapes of her own sexual activities. Rush, of course, originated the term “Feminazis” for women seeking equal rights and protections under the law, so is it any wonder he likes to watch?

In her book, What I Saw at the Revolution, Peggy Noonan – Reagan speech writer and chronicler/pundit of all things GOP – likened women who have abortions to Germans exterminating Jews during World War II.

Following his widely disseminated remark about “illegitimate rape,” Republican Todd Akin called Claire McCaskill – his opponent in the Missouri Senate race – “one of those dogs.”

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. A Google search for “republican sexist comments” returns thousands of examples. Just this week GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said he came to realize that pregnancy as a result of rape was “something that God intended to happen” and a “gift from God.”

Is it any wonder that Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic bill mandating equal pay for equal work? Or that the GOP views women as less than equal citizens?

One has to ask: Do Republicans still blame Eve for biting into the apple? Were all their mothers Mommie Dearests? Do they feel emasculated by women? Are they threatened by empowerment?

What is it with these guys? Don’t any of them have daughters?

This isn’t political, it’s neither right nor left, it’s just a human truth – if any father seeks to deny his daughter(s) the same rights, opportunities, and benefits that boys (or men) possess, then he must relinquish his “Best Dad in the World” coffee cup for one that designates him a “Bozo Dad.”

What father wants his daughter to be coerced by law to birth a child sired by a serial and violent rapist – or to be forced to carry a child at the risk of her own life?

What father wants decisions about his daughter’s medical care left in the hands of an all-male House Oversight Committee task force, or by a squeamish male legislature that can’t even say the word vagina?

What father wants his daughter to die prematurely because she couldn’t afford breast and cervical examinations that are now covered by Title X, Planned Parenthood, and Obamacare?

What father deems his daughter less capable than a man to make choices about her own life?

What father adheres to a religious group that values his daughter less than any other person. Or a political party that demeans her through legislation and verbal sexist abuse?

What father doesn’t want his daughter to be all she can be? Or to have the opportunity to achieve everything she wants while pursuing her personal goals And how can she do that without equal rights and equal protection under the law?

What kind of father envisions his daughter as a second-class citizen?

Having a daughter is the greatest gift any man can receive, for through them we finally learn the meaning of and experience a love that is completely unselfish. Wives and lovers bring us much pleasure and happiness, but they are equal partners in our lives, with the expectation of equal “give and take.” But because daughters light up our lives in countless ways, fathers want nothing back from them, except perhaps that they find their own particular brand of happiness.

Those who most severely criticize this new brand of far-right Republicans often accuse them of putting their party before the country they were elected to serve. But for me, their most repugnant betrayal is putting the GOP agenda before their own daughters.

These days our daughters are brought up to think for themselves in all things. Are they now expected to willingly turn over their rights and decisions to an out of touch Republican agenda? If anything qualifies as an “illegitimate rape” that does.

And as a father, my response is simple: I value my daughter more than anyone else on earth and I will fight to my last breath anyone who makes any kind of war on her. And I think every father, deep down, must feel the same.

This November, every father in America is faced with a clear choice. And I suggest each of them votes for the platform that will most benefit and honor his daughter(s).

It’s the least we owe our daughters for bringing both joy and true meaning to our lives…and for shining the light of unconditional love into our hearts.

Related Posts:
The Rich Get Richer
Interview: Greg Palast – Billionaires And Ballot Bandits
Non-Chemical Dependency
Political Ramblings And Random Thoughts
From Death And Despair. . . Dreams Can Soar
Modest Solutions To Voter Suppression
Character. . . And The RNC
The Do-Damage Congress: Who’s Responsible?
Worse Than A Do Nothing Congress
Forget The Barbeque On Labor Day – It’s Time To Take Care Of Business
Chicken Shits: The Slippery Slopes of Chick-fil-A
The Vagina Solution
Fighting Back Part 4: The Big Liar, Intimidation And Revenge
Fighting Back Part 3: Fighting Fire With Fire
When The Past Is Prologue
Fighting Back Part 2: Defining Rovian Politics
Fighting Back
The Electoral Scam
Being Fair
Occupy Reality
Giving. . . And Taking Back
A Tale Of Two Grovers
A Last Pitch For Truth
America: Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.
Gotcha!

by Greg Palast

He’s kidding, right? Did I just hear Mitt Romney say, “I would do nothing to hurt the US auto industry”

Really? REALLY?

Here’s the facts, ma’am:

As I reported in this week’s Nation magazine cover story “Mitt Romney’s Bail-out Bonanza,” the Romneys are in a special partnership with the vulture fund that bought Delphi, the former GM auto parts division.

The Romney vulture fund investment syndicate shipped every single UAW production job – EVERY job – to China.

Just after The Nation broke the story, Washington newsletter The Hill received the Romneys admission of profiteering:

“Romney’s campaign did not deny that he profited from the auto bailout in an email to The Hill, but it said the the report showed the Detroit intervention was ‘misguided.'”

The truth? On June 1, 2009, the Obama Administration announced that Detroit Piston’s owner Tom Gores, GM and the US Treasury would buy back Delphi. The plan called for saving 15 of 29 Delphi factories in the US.

Then the vulture funds pounced.

The Nation discovered that, in the two weeks immediately following the announcement of the Delphi jobs-saving plan, Paul Singer, Romney’s partner, secretly bought up over a billion dollars of old Delphi bonds for pennies on the dollar.

Singer and partners now controlled the company…and killed the return of Delphi to GM.

These facts were revealed in a sworn deposition of Delphi’s Chief Financial Officer John Sheehan, confidential, but now released on the web.

Sheehan said, under oath, that these speculators threatened to withhold key parts (steering columns), from GM. This would have brought the auto maker to its knees, immediately forcing GM’s permanent closure.

The extortion worked. The government money that was supposed to go to save jobs went to Singer’s hedge fund Elliott and its partners, including the Romneys.

Once Singer’s crew took control of Delphi, they rapidly completed the move to China, sticking the US taxpayers with the bill for the pensions of the Delphi workers cut loose.

Dan Loeb, a million-dollar donor to the GOP, who made three-quarters of a billion dollars off the legal scam, proudly announced that, once he and Elliott took control, Delphi kept “virtually no North American unionized labor”

In all, three hedge funds run by Romney’s million-dollar donors have pocketed $4.2 billion, a return on their “investment” of over 3,000%, all care of the US taxpayer. The Romneys personally earned minimum $15.3 million, though more likely $115 million – a range their campaign does not dispute.

Frankly, I’m no fan of the way Obama handled the Delphi bail-out. Allowing these speculators to crank the US taxpayers for $12.9 billion in subsidies – and losing almost all the auto parts jobs in the process.

But when I heard that Son of a …Detroit, Mr. Romney, tell us, “I would do nothing to harm the US auto industry,” I thought I’d lose my dinner. I suggest Romney repeat this directly to the Naylor family of Kokomo, Indiana.

Bruce Naylor lost his job at Delphi, then his health insurance (terminated by the Romney syndicate) – then his home to foreclosure.

Should Obama have done something about that? You bet. If I were the president, I’d have started with putting the vulture speculators out of business – including Elliott’s silent, hidden partner, one Mitt Romney.

And a question to the US media: HELLO, ANYBODY HOME?

This info on Romney’s profiteering and the shipping of Delphi jobs to China by his cronies is on the COVER of The Nation magazine and in a New York Times bestseller (Billionaires & Ballot Bandits). So, where is the New York ‘Paper of Record’? Or, for that matter, MSNBC?

Bill Press explained it to me when I was on his show this morning, “Sorry, Greg. There’s no more investigative reporting in America. No reporters, just repeaters.”

That’s why I fear Jimmy Carter’s statement that, “The American people deserve a president as good as they are.” Now I’m afraid that’s exactly what we’ll get.

Greg Palast is the author of the recently published New York Times Top 10 Bestseller Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps, which is available via Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Indie Bound. Author’s proceeds from the book go to the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund for reporting on voter protection issues.

[..]

by Steven Whitney

As Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan relentlessly pursue further tax cuts for the top 2% and finagle ways to cut back (or completely jettison) Medicare, Social Security, and myriad other services for the 98%, a few facts and common sense correlations should be considered.

According to economists at the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics, in 2007 the six heirs to Sam Walton (founder of Walmart) had a net worth equal to the bottom 30% of Americans. Since then, the rich have gotten even richer. When our economy went into the toilet, average families lost 39% of their wealth while business for discount super-chains like Walmart soared, as did wealth for the 1%. As a result, new data from the Federal Reserve suggests that the six Waltons now hold as much wealth as the bottom 41.2%. With the US population right now at just over 314 million, those 6 siblings combined have more wealth than the bottom 130 million.

Stop for a moment and think about that. Six individual people who didn’t build anything have more combined net worth than 130 million other Americans altogether.

As Bernie Sanders revealed on the Senate Floor, the top 1% now own more than 50% of our nation’s wealth. The next 19% of high earners own more than 44%. That means that the top 20% own more than 94% of all American wealth while the lower 80% of Americans have less than a 6% share of the pie.

Even more alarming, right now 93% of all new income in America goes to the top 1%, leaving 310 million citizens to scramble after the remaining 7%.

The fuel accelerating this unjust and massive inequality of wealth distribution is the GOP tax policy from 1981 onward: cut income, corporate, and estate taxes for the rich, raise taxes on and cut services for the poor and middle class, and borrow money for the War on Terror. Do anything at all as long as the rich don’t have to pay for it.

Last year, the top 1% had an average tax base of 16.2% (Romney’s, of course, was lower), compared to the 39% they paid during most of the Clinton Presidency – a Democratic administration that turned a huge Reagan/Bush debt into a surplus largely by taxing the rich a progressive but fair rate.

This frightening gap in wealth distribution widened exponentially during the “W” years, when middle class rates went up, on average, from about 20% to 28% while taxes for the 1% were cut in half and more loopholes were added.

Suddenly, teachers, police, firemen and the entire middle class were paying a higher percentage on their income tax than the 1%. On average, these tax cuts for the rich helped quadruple the wealth of the top 1%. Yet while multiplying their net worth, corporations and the 1% stopped hiring, ostensibly so they would have time to count their money. During W’s last year in office, the nation lost an average of 850,000 jobs per month. None of our nation’s wealth “trickled down.” All of it “trickled up.”

And yet the GOP wants everyone to believe that if only the rich were richer, and the rest of us shared increasingly smaller pieces of the pie, all of America’s economic problems would be solved.

Yeah, right.

The Debt

As of October 12th, the National Debt is just over $16.2 trillion.

The TARP rescue plan gave our six biggest banks over $700 billion. But that’s not all. It was only recently revealed that to stimulate the economy and lower unemployment, the Federal Reserve gave banks another $16 trillion. The banks, of course, got richer, but didn’t free up access to vital consumer loans until the Obama administration pushed them into a corner.

Of course, it was those very banks and their recklessly criminal behavior that caused the current recession, but they were “too big to fail.” Or were they too rich to fail?

Take that 700 billion, add it to the 16 trillion, and give it to our creditors instead and the debt would be completely wiped out. . . with 500 billion, less interest, left over.

Money Politics

Anyone who has been even barely conscious the last six months knows that a lot of billionaires are spending a lot money on SuperPACs in this election. For them, it might not be so much about politics as it is an important part of their overall business plan.

Starting with Charles and David Koch, two of most ethically-challenged men on the planet; The brothers are second-generation oil barons who don’t want any regulatory agency looking over their shoulders, don’t want minimum wage standards, don’t want lawsuits from the toxic damage they spread as casually as farmers toss seeds on their fields, and a lot of other petty nuisances. One can certainly understand their perspective – with rules and regulations in place, the two brothers have made only $45 billion in their family business. And they want, perhaps even need, more. Indeed, Charles has more than once been heard to say: “I want it all.”

In cahoots with Karl Rove and Fox News, they fund SuperPACs and “scholarly” foundations to push their business interests, most often distributing wildly false disinformation. Early on, they secretly funded and helped organize the Tea Party and their extreme ideologies with one caveat: that the wingnuts didn’t oppose or interfere with the billionaires’ business plans.

Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson backed Newt Gingrich’s run in the primary with tens of millions of dollars. Now that Gingrich is gone, he’s doubled down on Romney to the tune of hundreds of millions. When asked why, he answered candidly that he is in both civil and criminal jeopardy for business practices at his Macau gaming properties. A Romney administration, he offers, would be more conducive to helping him escape his legal woes. And besides, he’s so wealthy ($24 billion) the Romney tax decrease for the rich would save him an immediate $2 billion in taxes. So like the Kochs, he gives money – to buy influence and policy, stay out of prison, and make even more money – in the same way Al Capone greased the palms of Chicago police and politicians.

But Capone was small potatoes compared to the Kochs and Adelson, who use Citizens United – which they also backed – to make unlimited donations solely to give their businesses free and unrestricted reign. For them, mega-donations in the billions are just the cost of doing business.

That they are collaterally supporting the Tea Party and the Religious Right doesn’t matter to them in the least. After all, they don’t have to live with those lunatics or suffer any of the consequences their extreme policies would inflict upon the rest of us. The Kochs and Adelson live in another world that now actually has a name – the Global Superclass, a race of superior beings reminiscent of Greek and Roman gods and goddesses of ancient times, living in the mountains or sky above, looking down at we mere and foolish mortals. It’s a world where money can buy anything and narcissists like these don’t have to abide by any one nation’s laws because they are above the concept of sovereignty. They are an autonomous entity of their own – so why can’t they make up their own rules. . . and have it all?

The Real Miss Moneypenny

Somewhere in the past four years, Sarah Palin picked up a real taste for money. Maybe it was all the designer wardrobes the GOP bought her for the 2008 campaign that apparently started her addiction – like a playground dealer giving kids free tastes of paradise until they’re hooked and have to pay.

And when poor Sarah had to start paying for her luxuries, she attacked the problem like the lipsticked bulldog we all admire – garnering million dollar contracts with Fox for television and HarperCollins for books, and millions more gathered from speaking engagements booked by the Washington Speakers Bureau.

But as her star waned in a night sky filled with new stars, other ventures were needed to keep her in the money. So a SuperPAC was created and raised millions of dollars solely for the greater good of Sarah, who relentlessly teased her admirers with vague but seductive hints at a run for the White House. Some of that money funded her gaffe-filled bus tour. And a little more was spent helping host Tea Party events. But that was pretty much it.

So what happened to the rest of the SarahPAC millions? Was it donated to charitable causes? Did she give it to other GOP candidates?

Or did she keep it?

Under SuperPAC regulations, she could have exercised any of those three options. But we heard not a word about the first two. No charity thanked her for ponying up some needed cash and no other candidates expressed their gratitude to Sarah for bulking up their campaign coffers.

If she took the remaining money, she’s right in step with a GOP that runs both real and false campaigns to dovetail with personal income goals. And according to the very loose rules of SuperPACs, it’s not even illegal.

But was it wrong for Sarah to literally scam her biggest, most misguided fans – the people who believed in her the most – out of so much money?

You betcha!

Related Posts:

Interview: Greg Palast – Billionaires And Ballot Bandits
Non-Chemical Dependency
Political Ramblings And Random Thoughts
From Death And Despair. . . Dreams Can Soar
Modest Solutions To Voter Suppression
Character. . . And The RNC
The Do-Damage Congress: Who’s Responsible?
Worse Than A Do Nothing Congress
Forget The Barbeque On Labor Day – It’s Time To Take Care Of Business
Chicken Shits: The Slippery Slopes of Chick-fil-A
The Vagina Solution
Fighting Back Part 4: The Big Liar, Intimidation And Revenge
Fighting Back Part 3: Fighting Fire With Fire
When The Past Is Prologue
Fighting Back Part 2: Defining Rovian Politics
Fighting Back
The Electoral Scam
Being Fair
Occupy Reality
Giving. . . And Taking Back
A Tale Of Two Grovers
A Last Pitch For Truth
America: Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.
Gotcha!