Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

I say to you this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and so precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.

You may be 38 years old as I happen to be, and one day some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause–and you refuse to do it because you are afraid; you refuse to do it because you want to live longer; you’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you’re afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you or shoot at you or bomb your house, and so you refuse to take the stand.

Well you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90! And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right, you died when you refused to stand up for truth, you died when you refused to stand up for justice.

Who are the victims of civil liberties assaults and Endless War?

By Glenn Greenwald, Salon

Monday, Jan 16, 2012 7:29 AM

Part of the debate over the last couple weeks among progressives regarding political priorities, the Obama presidency, the Ron Paul candidacy and the like has entailed a litany of accusations – smears – hurled at those of us who insist on the prioritization of issues of war and civil liberties abuses, and who vocally highlight the ways in which the Democratic Party generally and President Obama specifically have been so awful on these matters. Some Democratic loyalists have explicitly argued that contrasting Obama with Ron Paul on these issues is warped because issues of war and civil liberties are, at best, ancillary concerns, while others have gone so far as to claim that only racial and/or gender bias – white male “privilege” – would cause someone to use the Paul candidacy to highlight how odious Obama has been in these areas.

Leaving aside the fact that (as I detail in the discussion with Pollitt), numerous women and people of color have made the same points about the vital benefits of Paul’s candidacy – voices which these accusers tellingly ignore and silence – these accusations are pure projection. Those who were operating from such privilege would not seek to prioritize issues of war and civil liberties; that’s because it isn’t white progressives and their families who are directly harmed by these heinous policies. The opposite is true: it’s very easy, very tempting, for those driven by this type of “privilege” – for non-Muslims in particular- to decide that these issues are not urgent, that Endless War and civil liberties abuses by a President should not be disqualifying or can be tolerated, precisely because these non-Muslim progressive accusers are not acutely affected by them. The kind of “privilege” these accusers raise would cause one to de-prioritize and accept civil liberties abuses, drone slaughter, indefinite detention and the like (i.e, do what they themselves do), not demand that significant attention be paid to them when assessing political choices.

First they came for the communists,

and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,

and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,

and I didn’t speak out because I was Protestant.

Then they came for me

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

–Niemöller

Birmingham Jail–

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

(op. cite)

Where you going this morning, my friends, tell the world that you’re going with truth. You’re going with justice, you’re going with goodness, and you will have an eternal companionship. And the world will look at you and they won’t understand you, for your fiery furnace will be around you, but you’ll go on anyhow. But if not, I will not bow, and God grant that we will never bow before the gods of evil.

(h/t welshTerrier2)

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

You have to ask yourself, why give free money to Banksters?

Iceland makes fledgling recovery from its economic meltdown

By Brady Dennis, The Washington Post

Published: January 16

Iceland did what the United States chose not to do – allow its biggest banks to fail and force foreign creditors to take a hike. It did what troubled European nations saddled with massive debts and tethered by the euro cannot do – allow its currency to remain weak, causing inflation but making its exports more desirable and its prices more attractive to tourists.

…

Realizing the peril – and perhaps the fallacy – of trying to rescue the banks, Iceland’s government ultimately let them collapse. “No responsible government takes risks with the future of its people, even when the banking system itself is as stake,” the prime minister said in an unprecedented address to the nation in October 2008.

…

In the wake of the catastrophe, officials guaranteed deposits of Icelandic citizens but refused to pay off many foreign investors – a controversial move that remains a sore spot here and in Europe. The government created new banks made up of the domestic operations of the failed firms. The old banks, which held foreign assets, are being dismantled and their assets sold, with proceeds going to pay off creditors.

…

The country’s debt grew to more than 100 percent of GDP in 2011. But even as government officials made budget cuts in an effort to return to a more sustainable path, they deliberately safeguarded its already-generous social safety net, adding and expanding programs targeted to the most vulnerable groups. In part to offset those measures, the country put in place new taxes on the banking system and on wealthy individuals.

…

Allowing the krona to remain weak has hastened Iceland’s return to stability. The country’s exports, which feature fish and aluminum, were running about 11 percent higher last year, and the tourism industry also showed an 11 percent increase through November. But struggling countries bound together by the euro, such as Greece and Portugal, don’t have the ability to let their currency fluctuate to more favorable levels.

Judging by economic data and by the workaday scenes of life in the capital, the economic engines are turning again. “For a country whose entire financial system collapsed, Iceland is doing remarkably well,” said Julie Kozack, the IMF’s mission chief for Iceland, adding that the country “is not out of the woods yet.”

But wait ek you say, what about all those scary bad no good things the Post reports are the evil consequences of kicking the Bankster’s asses out on the street corner to sell apples like, like, like…

LIKE POOR PEOPLE!

Oh, you mean like-

Iceland has weathered the worst of the financial crisis, but its society has yet to solve the identity crisis that followed in its wake.

…

The crisis scarred Iceland’s national psyche, and citizens are wrestling with profound questions, not only about how to return to better financial footing but also about what kind of society should emerge.

Well-

Inflation has fallen. Consumers are spending more money. There are new investments in geothermal energy, and the fishing waters remain plentiful. Hammers and power saws have become a familiar sound again in Reykjavik. Fewer Range Rovers clog the streets, but there’s no lack of Audis and Mercedes or BMWs.

But ek- SCARRING THE NATIONAL PSYCHE!

Businessmen came and went from Reykjavik in private jets. They bought showy yachts and multimillion-dollar vacation homes. Bankers became a popular and swaggering breed; after all, they were handing out a slew of high-paying jobs and providing a fortune in tax revenue.

“You had to be crazy not to want to become a banker,” said Heimir Hannesson, a student council member at the University of Iceland. “You went to college, studied business. You became a millionaire overnight. That was the dream. And for a few years, it was the reality.”

…

“What we had before was some sort of irrational exuberance. That has left, and maybe that’s a good thing,” said Gylfi Magnusson, an Icelandic economist who served as minister of economic affairs after the crash.

…

“The smaller the country gets, the bigger the national pride, the bigger the soul. Here we are on a tiny island, with nothing but our pride,” said Hannesson, the student council member.

…

“The modern-day financial Vikings, I think we feel scarred by the reputation they gave us,” he said. “Especially among the younger population, there’s a desire to do things better and more honorably.”

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Double Negative

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<iframes> are evil.  EVIL I tells ya.

SuperPAC pr0n– Jon and Stephen “not co-ordinating” in front of a lawyer.

It feels so good to be bad.

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Who’s your go daddy(.com)?  <iframes> use Suicidal Sweatshop Chinese Child labor!

Meet me at Camera 3- (they’re people!).

Oh, you want to know about The ONLY Question of any Political Significance in 2012.

Google informs me that there may be more than one herb involved, get your lips off that bong you smoke suckers.  We have got to get to the big story-

But I won’t.  Yet.  We need some exploratory committee first.

WØRD.

Sometimes people say to me (in varying tones of accusation)- ‘ek, you don’t seem to focus much on Republicans.’

That’s because the Republican Party is a fringe group of insane, racist, Randians.

Their ideas and policies are no more worthy of consideration in rational political discourse than the lead addled ravings of a Caligulan Courtier.

Except, of course, in Washington D.C. which speaks more volumes about their bootlicking insularity than there are in the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

With Huntsman’s departure the only lips on that stage tonight, including the audience, moderators, and questioners, that might breathe a word of truth, fact, or relevance are Ron Paul’s.

Does that scare you?  Let me say it again then- RonPaul, RonPaul, RonPaul, RonPaul, RonPaul, RonPaul, RonPaul, RonPaul, RonPaul, RonPaul.

What should scare you is that only a wacky, racist, Bircher operates in the same world of reality that you and I and the other 99.9% of us belong to and for that he is reviled and ignored by an establishment elite with a 30 year record of abject failure.

The debate is on Faux Noise.  If you feel compelled you can comment below.

It would be irresponsible not to speculate.