Yesterday, the New Mexico House of Representatives unanimously decided to move the states' money into small banks and credit unions, becoming yet another example of the fact that progressive change will not come from the top down.
In the context of the larger movement against the greed and irresponsibility of Wall Street, this is a dramatic repudiation of that behavior from a somewhat unexpected source.
The bill enables a possible switch of $2-5 billion of state funds into CUs and small banks.
If enacted, the municipal funds bill, in the works since last year and still subject to a Senate vote, would represent a setback to large national banks, like Bank of America and Wells Fargo, which have had a lock on such funds.
The altered view of New Mexico lawmakers in favoring local control of state funds, officials said, follows national mention of the New Mexico effort in the "Move Your Money" campaign of New York pundit Arianna Huffington in her online Huffington Post columns.
This weekly diary takes a look at the past week's important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.
When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:
1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?
2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?
3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?
The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist's message.
In a profoundly anti-democratic decision with far-reaching implications, the US Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a law limiting the ability of corporations to spend money in support of political campaigns.
When Obama needed the votes of progressives to get elected, his message was Change We Can Believe In. But now that he no longer needs us, now that he has power, he has a very different message for progressives . . .
That blunt message is echoing from one end of the Beltway to the other, from the White House to Capitol Hill, it's echoing from K Street to Wall Street and across the corporate media airwaves. Corporate power must not be challenged. Don't even think about it. Byron Dorgan got the message. Chris Dodd got the message. Robert Wexler got the message. We all got the message.
2 AM and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake,
Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?
I don't have to tell you what her latest mistake was, I don't have to tell you when she made that mistake, I don't have to tell you because she wasn't the only one who made that mistake. 100 million other Americans made the same mistake on November 4, 2008, they believed the lies, they voted for liars and frauds and career criminals up and down the ballot.
So here we are.
"Pragmatic" progressives tell us we can't jump the track, the corporate media tells us we're just cars on a cable, the "Christians" tell us life's like an hourglass, glued to the table, so go to church unless you want to be damned to Hell for eternity like the Muslims and the Jews and the heathens in Africa and Asia. Well we've seen this movie before, we know who the killers are, we know who the victims are, we know who the warmongers are, we know who the hypocrites are, we know how it ends, we know how it always ends, but no one can find the rewind button, no one can ever find the rewind button.
Is there a tradition any more backward or disgusting practiced across America today than that of Black Friday? Hordes of consumers mob stores for great deals on useless "goods" like new TVs or Playstations or clothes manufactured by Southeast Asian or Central American children in sweatshops.
We're in a pretty messed up place politically and environmentally. Multinational corporations and financial firms pretty much own the government. Global warming is not only a real and present danger, but rapidly accelerating. There is a plastic "raft" in the Pacific Ocean bigger than Texas. And as people we're constantly being taken advantage of to make this situation last longer so that corporate profits and bonuses can climb even higher than they are now.
The strong link between these two things - our society's consumerism and the terrible political, social, environmental, and economic situations we're in - demands action. By buying things from these corporations and feeding into this model of an economy, we only encourage it. So I'm asking you: please join me in buying nothing tomorrow.
Mistakes were made when Baxter Pharmaceuticals mistakenly sent out virulent flu strains contained in a flu vaccine which, if it hadn't been caught by Czech medicos, could have resulted in a pandemic catastrophe. The laboratory protocols make this kind of mistake nearly impossible without malice of forethought. Or as it is viralized today; LIHOP.
As our cities start to crumble,
And the towers fall around us,
The sun is slowly fading,
And it's colder than the sea . . .
45,000 Americans died last year because they couldn't get the medical care they needed, 45,000 more Americans will die this year, 45,000 Americans are going to die next year and the year after that and the year after that because corporate profit is more important than human lives, because money determines who receives medical care and who doesn't, because the depravity of Republicans, the moral cowardice of Democrats, the craven propaganda peddling of the corporate media, and the back room deals of Barack Obama have turned an electoral mandate for health care reform into a Category Five Clusterfuck of co-ops that can't compete, mandates that punish the powerless, and a public option trigger that will never be pulled.
Brace yourselves for three more years of change we can't believe in, brace yourselves for more "bipartisan solutions", brace yourselves for escalating establishment attacks on progressives, brace yourselves for more Republican outrages, more Republican threats, more Republican attacks. The truth is burning, crosses are burning, trillions of dollars are burning, Baucus and Conrad and Snowe have lit the funeral pyre of real change and we have Obama to thank for that, he's the one who gave them the torches.
45,000 Americans are dying every year because they cannot get the medical care they need. America is suffering a Hurricane Katrina death toll every month. A 9/11 death toll every 30 days. More than 3,000 Americans died in January because they couldn't get the medical care they needed, 3,000 more died in February, 3,000 more in March and April and May and June and July and August. A hurricane didn't kill them. Muslim hijackers didn't kill them. The corporate hijackers of America's government killed them, the Muhammed Attas of K Street, the Bin Ladins of the Beltway, the Jihadists of Corporate Greed killed them. They were American citizens, they needed health care, they asked to be given medical treatment, but the profit driven health insurance industry gave them a death sentence instead.
So you . . . thought you . . .
Might like to go to the show,
To feel the warm thrill of confusion,
That space cadet glow.
I've got some bad news for you, Sunshine,
Change isn't well, it stayed back at the hotel,
And it sent us along, as a surrogate band,
We're going to find out where you folks really stand.
So far, it's quite clear where ardent admirers of Obama stand . . .
They stand for ardent admiration of Obama.
Can they support no torture prosecutions?
Can they support no investigations of BushCo's 8 year crime rampage?
Can they support trillions of dollars for Wall Street criminals?
Can they support indefinite detentions, more government secrecy, and more NSA spying on Americans?
Yes they can!
Meanwhile, as Obama's ardent admirers clap louder for superficial change, the hard core RePug base is waiting for a great leader to emerge. Someone who'll wave the flag like it's never been waved before, who'll carry the cross into that bloody mess of a Holy Land, who'll smite those heathen Muslims so Jews can live in peace until they die and burn in Hell for eternity, who'll punish the enemies of Christianism and conservatism, who'll boldly go where no RePug has ever gone before, even that halfwit wolf-killing governor of Alaska.
They're damn well not waiting quietly, they're celebrating murder while they're waiting, spewing racism while they're waiting, inciting hatred while they're waiting . . .
Waiting to cut out the deadwood.
Waiting to clean up the city.
Waiting to follow the worms.
Waiting to put on a black shirt.
Waiting to weed out the weaklings.
Waiting to smash in their windows
And kick in their doors.
Waiting for another 9/11. It might not happen for 10 years. Or it might happen tomorrow. And then the shit will hit the fan like this country hasn't seen since the Civil War.
Reform Immigration -
March on Washington
