Some points to ponder as you gear-up for Tuesday

The Virtual Economic Recovery
By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research, October 30, 2012

Americans are far more oppressed by the power brokers in Washington than statistics display. Moreover, the young are born into the oppressive, exploitative American system and do not know any different. They are fed by the Presstitute media with endless propaganda about how fortunate they are and how indispensable their wonderful country is. Americans are kept in a constant state of amusement, and many never grasp the loss of their civil liberties, job and career opportunities, and respect that the US won during the decades-long cold war with Soviet Communism.

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Police State USA: In Amerika there will Never be a Real Debate
By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research, October 24, 2012

No doubt that Americans, if they think of this at all, believe that it will only happen to terrorists who deserve it. But as no evidence or due process is required, how would we know that it only happens to terrorists? Can we really trust a government that has started wars in 7 countries on the basis of falsehoods? If the US government will lie about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in order to invade a country, why won’t it lie about who is a terrorist?

America needs a debate about how we can be made more safe by removing the Constitutional protection of due process. If the power of government is not limited by the Constitution, are we ruled by Caesar? The Founding Fathers did not think we could trust a caesar with our safety. What has changed that we can now trust a caesar?

If we are under such a terrorist threat that the Constitution has to be suspended or replaced by unaccountable executive action, how come all the alleged terrorist cases are sting operations organized by the FBI? In eleven years there has not been a single case in which the “terrorist” had the initiative!

In the eleven years since 9/11, acts of domestic terrorism have been miniscule if they even exist. What justifies the enormous and expensive Department of Homeland Security? Why does Homeland Security have military-equipped Special Response Teams with armored vehicles? Who are the targets of these militarized units? If eleven years of US government murder, maiming, and displacement of millions of Muslims hasn’t provoked massive acts of domestic terrorism, why is Homeland Security creating a domestic armed force of its own? Why are there no congressional hearings and no public discussion? How can a government whose budget is deep in the red afford a second military force with no defined and Constitutionally legal purpose?

What is Homeland Security’s motivation in creating a Homeland Youth? Is the new FEMA Corps a disguise for a more sinister purpose, a Hitler Youth as Internet sites suggest? Are the massive ammunition purchases by Homeland Security related to the raising of a nationwide corps of 18- to 24-year-olds? How can so much be going on in front of our eyes with no questions asked?

Why did not Romney ask Obama why he is working to overturn the federal court’s ruling that US citizens cannot be subject to indefinite detention in violation of the US Constitution? Is it because Romney and his neoconservative advisers agree with Obama and his advisers? If so, then why is one tyrant better than another?

Why has the US constructed a network of detainment camps, for which it is hiring “internment specialists”?

Why does the US Army now have a policy for “establishing civilian inmate labor programs and civilian prison camps on Army installations“?...

...How wonderful it would have been for Obama and Romney to have confronted in a real debate how QE3, designed to help insolvent “banks too big to fail,” can help households operating, with two earners, on real incomes of 45 years ago, which is where the current real median household income stands.

How does saving a bank, designated as “too big to fail,” help the family whose jobs or main job has been exported to China or India in order to maximize corporate profits, executive performance bonuses and shareholders’ capital gains?

Obviously the working population of the US has been sacrificed to the profits of the mega-rich.

An appropriate debate question is: Why has the livelihood of working Americans been sacrificed to the profits of the mega-rich?

No such question will ever be asked in a “presidential debate.”

In the 21st century, US citizens became nonentities. They are brutalized by the police whose incomes their taxes pay. They, for protesting some injustice or for no cause at all, are beaten, arrested, tasered and even murdered. The police, paid by the public, beat up paralyzed people in wheel chairs, frame those who call them for help against criminals, taser grandmothers and small children, and shoot down in cold blood unarmed citizens who have done nothing except lose control of themselves, either through alcohol, drugs, or rage.

Brainwashed Americans pay large taxes at every level of government for protection against gratuitous violence, but what their taxes support is gratuitous violence against themselves. Every American, except for the small number of mega-rich who control Washington, can be arrested and dispossessed, both liberty and property, on the basis of nothing but an allegation of a member of the executive branch who might want the accused’s wife, girlfriend, property, or to settle a score, or to exterminate a rival, or to score against a high school, college, or business rival.

In America today, law serves the powerful, not justice. In effect, there is no law, and there is no justice. Only unaccountable power.

What is the point of a vote when the outcome is the same? Both candidates represent the interests of Israel, not the interests of the US. Both candidates represent the interests of the military/security complex, agribusiness, the offshoring corporations, the suppression of unions and workers, the total demise of civil liberty and the US Constitution, which is in the way of unbridled executive power .

In the US today, the power of money rules. Nothing else is in the equation. Why vote to lend your support to the continuation of your own exploitation? Every time Americans vote it is a vote for their own obliteration.

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Obama-Romney: Two Defenders of American Imperialism
By Patrick Martin
Global Research, October 22, 2012

These disputes, however, take place within a common political framework. They amount to wrangling about which individual will be more effective in implementing a policy on which they fundamentally agree.

Behind the backs of the American people, the United States is preparing new military interventions and wars of aggression against Syria and Iran, first of all, and ultimately against China, Russia and other rival powers.

The entire process demonstrates the thoroughly undemocratic character of the election itself, in which the American people have no say on any of the fundamental issues.

Obama won the Democratic Party nomination in 2008 over Hillary Clinton in large measure because he positioned himself as the more “antiwar” of the two candidates, in part by repeatedly citing her 2002 vote to authorize George W. Bush’s war of aggression against Iraq. He won the general election over McCain by taking advantage of the massive popular discontent with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Once in office, however, Obama reappointed Bush’s secretary of defense, Robert Gates, selected a former general as his national security adviser, and his “hawkish” former rival Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. He doubled and then tripled the US troop commitment to Afghanistan, while adhering to the withdrawal schedule in Iraq negotiated by the Bush administration.

Last year, Obama played the decisive role in facilitating the NATO war against Libya, which led to the overthrow and murder of Muammar Gaddafi and 50,000 deaths. Now his administration is preparing a similar fate for the Assad regime in Syria, where the US-instigated civil war has already claimed 30,000 lives.

US troops, warplanes and drone missiles are now deployed over a far wider area than under the Bush administration, including the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa, and much of the Sahara and North Africa, in addition to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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Libya’s Green Resistance Did It... And NATO Powers Are Covering Up
By Mark Robertson and Finian Cunningham
Global Research, September 20, 2012

The NATO powers and the bureaucrats they installed in Libya want you to think that all 5.6 million Libyans are happy that NATO and its proxy terrorists destroyed Libya, whose standard of living had been Africa’s highest under Gaddafi.

They want you to think that NATO brought “freedom and democracy” to Libya, not chaos and death.

They want you to think that there is no Green Resistance to the NATO imperialists or NATO’s Islamist allies in Benghazi.

In reality, the Resistance has been increasingly active since shortly after the murder of Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011, as will be shown below. They strike any NATO target they can, and they execute key Libyans who betrayed Gaddafi and sided with NATO. The Benghazi incident was merely their latest blow against what they see as NATO’s illegal occupation of their country.

Everyone in Libya knows about the Green Resistance, whose members are called “Tahloob” (Arabic for “Gaddafi loyalists”). The denial only happens outside of Libya, by the NATO powers and their dutiful Western mainstream media.

Because of this denial, and because most of the world’s people have forgotten about Libya, the internet is filled with blind guesses, unfounded claims, and ridiculous counterclaims regarding the Benghazi incident last week in which US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and at least three other American personnel were killed. And the NATO lie factory is operating at full blast.

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UPDATE:

Got this email from my friend Eric Sheptock (now, the Chairman of SHARC!) today.  I met Eric in 2009, while I was in graduate school in DC.  I am so damned proud of this Brother! Never forgetting where he'd been, he turned his homelessness (in the shadows of the White House and Congress!) into some serious advocacy!  If you're anywhere in the area, please do check him out (info at the SHARC link)!

SHARC Update and Discussion Points for November 5th Meeting,
Scanned Documents from Today's MTG & Updated demand List

All,

People did a great job coming together to make the October 29th event happen. However, Sandy tested our resilience. Let's not despair; but rather, let's get reinvigorated for yet another round of homeless advocacy. Below and attached you'll see discussion points for our next weekly meeting. Please read them and come full of ideas that we can discuss as we chart the path forward.

Also attached are the scanned documents from the mayor's office and the demand list relabeled as "SHARC Homeless Town Hall List of Demands."

SHARC Update and Discussion Points for November 5th Meeting

1 – SHARC has weathered the storm and made the best of a mess. Though Sandy “rained on our parade” by forcing the cancellation of an event which we spent five weeks planning and organizing, it hasn't discouraged us from trying again. We'll come back bigger and better the next time.

There is no need to consider what possible shortcomings SHARC may have exhibited during the storm. Given the fact that we had many food donations, the rain date would have been the next day (Tuesday) during which the government was shut down. Sandy was an unpredictable storm which we only found out on the 26th was going hit us on the 29th of October (the day of our event). That said, the five weeks leading up to October 29th were a true show of our increased organizing ability. So, let's give ourselves a hand, dust ourselves off and chart the path forward.

As a result of Sandy, SHARC members were able to:

• begin the conversation around bringing three councilmembers together in a meeting. They are Jim Graham (Human Services Oversight Committee), Michael Brown (Oversight Committee on Economic Development and Housing) and Kenyan McDuffie (oversight Committee on Jobs and Workforce Development).
• Speak with several councilmembers on the dais during their legislative meeting and make the case for ending homelessness rather than maintaining it.
• Arrange a meeting with the mayor

2 – Weekly and Homeless Town Hall Meetings during the holiday and hypothermia season:

a) What day do we want our next big event to fall on?

– November 26th (the last Monday of the month)?
– December 31st (the last Monday of the year)?

• December 24th (Christmas Eve)?
• December 17th (which would give us six weeks to organize and fall nicely between events highlighting homelessness and hunger in the third week of November and the Homeless Persons' Memorial Day on December 21st)?

b) Do we want to meet on Christmas Eve or new Year's Eve? Both fall on Mondays.

c) Do we want to do anything special around Thanksgiving (November 22nd)? The Fannie Mae Homeless Walkathon would have been on November 17th (the Saturday before Thanksgiving).

3 – What should our next big event (our make up event for “Occupy the DC Council”) be?

An idea is that we plan a march from CCNV to the Wilson Building beginning at 11 AM on November 26th. We make our case to the council and/or the mayor. We then return to CCNV around 1 PM for our regular Homeless Town Hall Meeting. Those who marched are given tickets upon exiting the Wilson Building and eat first.

Another idea is that we plan a large event inside of the Wilson Building on December 17th (possibly without a march) and invite churches and other groups to feed the homeless there.

It doesn't need to be “either/or”.  It can be “both/and”.
You are welcome to present additional ideas. These are just conversation starters.

4 – “The Future” of CCNV:

City officials and people from the business community have begun conversation around “The Future” of the CCNV Shelter. During my meeting with one such person, there was some confusion as to when either of us was talking about CCNV as is or the new concept which we envision. We began to refer to the revamped CCNV Shelter as “The Future”.

It is believed by many that the restrictive covenant between Ronald Reagan and Mitch Snyder mandates that the building be used as a homeless shelter until 2018 and the parking lot belongs to the homeless until 2099 with the right to renew the lease for the latter indefinitely. It is also believed that the property on which the building and parking lot sit is worth as much as $120M. What's certain is that, if the building were sold, ALL MONIES GENERATED FROM THE SALE MUST BE USED FOR THE HOMELESS COMMUNITY.

All of this adds up to the city being FORCED to use the CCNV property to assist the homeless community in one way or another. City officials and the business community have been informed that ANY PLANS TO BUILD ON THAT PIECE OF LAND WOULD HAVE TO INCLUDE HOUSING AT LEAST 1,350 HOMELESS PEOPLE. This gives homeless/housing advocates a constant (invariable) which we can use as a starting point for our thoughts on how best to assist the homeless residents of the Federal City Shelter (CCNV, Open Door, John L. Young, DC Central Kitchen and the Unity Health Clinic).

Plans that are being discussed include:

• building a 10-story building on the parking lot
• taking the present building up to 10 stories (possibly rebuilding it from the ground up)
• having a mix of permanent apartments, supportive housing units, transitional housing units and shelter for at least 1,350 people
• giving tax credits to contractors
• having homeless people help design the program

While several people have expressed understandable skepticism about the city's plans to effectively assist the homeless community, let's bear in mind that a 24-year old restrictive covenant is holding them at bay. Let's also remember that, if we refuse to come to the table with those who are ostensibly there to work with us, we give them occasion to say that they reached out to us and WE refused to work with them. On the other hand, if we come to the table with city officials and members of the business community and they fail to make good on their promises, they give us occasion to pin the blame on THEM. So, let's give them a chance.

A contract employee of the business community might attend our November 19th SHARC meeting.

5 – Forming a charette: It has been suggested that we form a charette that would draw up a plan for ending homelessness in DC and then take that plan to government officials, as opposed to waiting for the governments to end homelessness.

6 – Creating unconventional partnerships: It has been suggested that SHARC develop unconventional partnerships with environmental groups, the LGBT community and others who don't usually advocate with or for the homeless, as there are various reasons for which we are inextricably connected to them. (Most homeless teens were thrown out of their parents' house for being LGBT and the construction of affordable housing lends itself to the creation of green jobs.)

7 – Protesting/opposing unconventional targets: It has been suggested that SHARC demonstrate in front of the Verizon Center and other businesses that have tried to push homeless people and/or homeless services (including housing for the homeless) out of their neighborhood.

8 – Making our enemies work for/with us: It has been suggested that we involve those who don't want the homeless in their neighborhoods (see item #7) in our effort to end homelessness.


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