Tommie Smith and John Carlos: True Olympic Champions

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In 1968, at the Olympic Games in Mexico City, Tommie Smith won the gold medal for the 200 meter in world record time.  His teammate, John Carlos, won the bronze.  They both gave the Black Power salute while receiving their medals (in what has become an iconic photo of the times).  Both were suspended from the U.S. team by IOC president Avery Brundage. 

Brundage had been president of the U.S. Olympic Committee in 1936, and did not object at that time to the Nazi salute given by German athletes.

Smith and Carlos, and their families, received death threats from some Americans. But they are remembered and honored by people throughout the world.

The photo of Smith and Carlos giving the Black Power salute was so powerful, it has been memorialized in other forms of art. There is a statute of the two men that was created and dedicated at San Jose University. Murals of the photo have been painted on a residence in Australia, titled "Three Proud People 1968." The third man on the medal stand wore a human rights badge in support of Smith and Carlos.

Both Smith and Carlos received the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage in 2008.

You Can Keep Your Bunker-Busters, the Drones

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You can keep your bunker-busters, the drones,
Nafta, Wall Street and the politicians they own,
the armies navy and the marines,
big shots in limousines.

Give me a few angry women and some flowered bonnets and we will take over the world.

The 4th of July, Declaration of Independence, and Revolutionary War

The Europeans living in what we now call the U.S. rebelled against Britain taxing them without representation. This began as opposition to a stamp act of 1765, but grew from there. Gradually, the colonists began forming their own governing councils, taking control of their own communities, working together in what they called the Continental Congress, and resisting British rule. It was a shadow government to which the colonists committed their allegiance.

In 1773, Britain passed the Tea Act, imposing taxes on tea imported to the colonists. The colonists began a boycott of the tea, refusing to buy it on the grounds that Britain had no right to tax the colonists. "Taxation without representation" was considered illegitimate. Since the colonists were not represented in the British government, they did not want to pay taxes to England. Citizens prevented ships from unloading tea in the colonies, but in Boston the governor refused to allow the ships to leave. The colonists finally went aboard the ships and dumped the tea into the ocean. This later became known as the Boston Tea Party.

(British troops move on Concord, Massachusetts)

Britain moved in to stop this rebellion, sent troops to occupy and rule Massachusetts. Conflict and tensions continued and eventually ended in war. Britain declared the colonist's separate and shadow government, the Continental Congress and its members, to be traitors. The colonists who supported independence from England issued the Declaration of Independence.

A committee of five was appointed to prepare a Declaration of Independence of the 13 colonies from England. Thomas Jefferson was selected by the committee to prepare the first draft. Why? He was the best writer, eloquent and persuasive. John Adams came in second, but he voted for Jefferson because, as he said:  “Reason first—You are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second—I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third—You can write ten times better than I can.”

The Declaration was signed on July 4, 1776, and read publicly throughout the colonies on July 5. Supposedly the first reading was in Philadelphia, depicted here:

The war against England continued until 1783, and was finally settled by a peace treaty known as the Treaty of Paris.

Note: thousands of colonists fought on the side of Britain, on the side of the oppressor, much like the teapartiers and white working class Republicans of today.

After England was no longer in charge, the colonists had to decide whether each of the colonies would be an independent nation, or whether each of the colonies would be united in some manner. The initial agreement among the 13 colonies was that each would be generally responsible for affairs within their colony, they would help each other out when needed, and they would be united for purposes of dealing with the outside world.

This agreement was originally set forth in the Articles of Confederation, agreed to by Congress in 1777 and ratified in 1781.  "Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts-bay Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. ... Article III: The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever."

In 1787, the members of congress agreed they needed to amend the Articles but then decided to just draft an entirely document, which became the U.S. Constitution. It begins with the famous phrase: "We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Many of the citizens had no interest in becoming part of a union with a strong central (federal) government because they figured it would be abusive, just like England had been. In order to convince them to accept the Constitution, the first ten amendments to the Constitution were prepared, often called the Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights was intended to clarify that all the rights of the individual remain with the individual, and cannot be taken away by the government. Some people think that the Bill of Rights gives rights to the citizens. That is untrue. The Bill of Rights instead confirms that the citizens have many rights associated with freedom, and simply confirms that the federal government has no authority to take away or impair those rights. Citizens have the freedom of speech, for example, not because the government gave it to us, but because we are born with it. The Bill of Rights simply states that the government cannot pass laws trying to impair our freedom of speech. The same is true for the first 10 amendments to the constitution which are commonly called the Bill of Rights.

July 4, 1939: Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day at Yankee Stadium

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Fourth of July, 1939

July 4, 1939 was called Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day at Yankee Stadium. On that day, the man they called the Pride of the Yankees, wearing jersey #4, delivered one of the most famous speeches ever in baseball. He would never play again. Weakened by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, he nonetheless called himself the "luckiest man on the face of the earth."  His number was retired by the Yankees.  Gehrig would be dead within two years. 

Lou Gehrig Farewell Speech:

Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

Look at these grand men.  Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day?  Sure, I'm lucky.  Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert?  Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy?  Sure, I'm lucky.

When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift - that's something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies - that's something.  When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter - that's something.  When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body - it's a blessing.  When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed - that's the finest I know.

So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.

We Need National Healthcare (And Dental Care) For All Citizens, Funded By Income Taxes.

We pretty much know the position of the right-wing on healthcare and every other issue. They want taxes paid by working people to be used for war and corporate subsidies, nothing else. They do not want any public services funded by taxes, which means get rid of public education, police, firefighters, transportation, airports, beaches. Sell off everything owned by the public, turn it over to hedge funds and private equity funds where the rich and the politicians they own amass their fortunes in secret, and let them charge citizens a dollar for a drink of water, fifty cents to drive on the freeway, a quarter to flush their toilets. We know this because we spend a lot of time looking at the right-wing.

What we should be doing is looking at the liberals, because that is the real problem. If they simply stood up for what is good and right, the right-wing would at least face a counter narrative. The refusal of democrats to stand up for the citizens is what caused this problem in the first place. Should we have a national healthcare (and dental care) for all citizens? Yes. How should it be funded? By a progressive system of taxation, just like all other basic services in a modern society. The failure of democrats to promote a system funded by our taxes is what has caused the current problems in the court.

Further, the democrats have failed to reform healthcare in the only way that was truly needed: cut the costs. Under the democrats' plan, people will still be sucked dry by the healthcare system while insurance companies, doctors, hospitals and drug companies make billions in obscene profits. The only thing the democrats did was force more impoverished citizens to turn their paychecks over to the Medical Industry, or face government-imposed fines.
 
If we had a national healthcare and dental care system for all citizens, funded like all social programs from our progressive income tax system, the government could then set prices and fees for medical care, eliminate much of the waste paid to the health insurance industry, and make healthcare reasonable and affordable. What is the effect of the individual mandate? 50 million Americans who are currently uninsured are ordered by the government to buy health insurance from a private supplier, in a for-profit market.

Let's say each pays $300/month, $3600/year. That is $180 Billion Dollars a year that the democrats have funneled into the Medical Industry to be divided up among the major players, some of the wealthiest people and businesses in our country: doctors, hospitals, drug companies, and insurance companies.

What would we say if Republicans passed a law to funnel $180 Billion into their pet industries every year, out of the pockets of already impoverished working people? Wouldn't we see that for what it is: a corrupt, disgusting misuse of power to further enrich private interests which presumably will pay enormous kick-backs to the democrats. Wouldn't you?
 

Why were these deals negotiated in secret, right from the outset? One of the first things Obama did was meet secretly with the leaders of the Medical Industry. He didn't meet with the citizens, didn't solicit our views. He met with the rich people, and asked them what they want.

We are told constantly that children with preexisting conditions can now buy insurance. The total number of people in the U.S. with preexisting conditions, from an insurance perspective, was estimated by the white house at around 12 million people. But not all of those are people who could not get insurance. Like me -- I had a back problem and had to pay 10% extra.

But even if all 12 million could not get insurance, 3% of the population, that is not a significant reform for the rest of us -- the 97%. It's just tinkering around the edges. "Allowing" parents to continue to pay for their kids' insurance once they're 21 is also not a big benefit, since kids don't cost much anyway, and the parents always could have just given the kids a check to buy their own insurance.

So instead of a true reform -- such as allowing people over 50 to buy into Medicare, people under 21, gradually embracing more groups -- instead we get a meaningless tiny reform which does not benefit most of us and, in any event, with respect to the individual mandate is unconstitutional. The federal government has no authority to order citizens to purchase goods or services from a private business. It's an absurd idea which should strike terror into the heart of anyone with a brain and I hope it is stricken.

If the individual mandate was upheld, the next government would order us to buy $1,000 worth of software for each kid in school (sold by a business which pays enormous bribes to the politicians), and anything else they want to force us to buy on the most absurd claims that the commerce clause allows it.

If the individual mandate is stricken, maybe the democrats will get real, or maybe not. But stop pretending they did something significant. My own premiums (self-employed) went from $340/month to $600/month in 2 years. Thanks for nothing Democrats.

Nato Protests: The World Says No To Nato

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(Nato Protests - Oslo, Norway)

Nato is an "alliance" (or "conspiracy" as some would say) of twenty-eight countries, as follows: Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/nato_countries.htm

Or, in other words, Nato is the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, England, and a few eastern European and otherwise tiny and/or bankrupt countries who presumably were given money in exchange for pretending to be part of the conspiracy.

(Nato protests Pakistan)

Nato was formed in 1949, after World War II and after the post-war anti-communist hysteria had taken hold in the U.S. Its stated goal is to promote peace but also provide for the "collective defense" of member nations. So if somebody attacks California, in other words, Slovenia will rush to our defense. Makes it easier to sleep nights knowing we have the mighty empire of Slovenia on our side. And, as a back-up, Slovakia is right there behind them. http://www.rferl.org/content/NATO_At_60_Alliances_Article_Of_Faith/1600763.html

(Nato protests Chicago)

The obvious truth is that Nato simply is a shell entity which gives the U.S. an excuse to intervene in Europe and other nations, to act as a roving military threat to Russia and China. We're everywhere. We have the open invitation of Europe to participate in their wars.

(Nato protests, Lisbon, Spain)

The organization of Nato is a great example of how democracy, and the right to have a voice in the nation, has been taken away from citizens and transferred to entities with silly names, which allegedly make the decisions. So the U.S. doesn't decide to attack Libya: Nato did. The citizens of the U.S. have no voice because our government did not make the decision -- Nato did. So they say. 

(Nato protests, Ukraine)

It's just like the citizens no longer have a voice in our economy, because the World Trade Organization makes all the decisions. Our government shrugs it shoulders and says: we can't do anything about it. That's what the WTO ruled. All of these groups need to be disbanded, and our involvement rescinded as nothing more than a fraud on the people.

What we do not have is the consent of the U.S. people to have our government voluntarily agree in advance to use our money and military in other nation's wars. The government has agreed that if any one of the member nations is attacked, the U.S. will "pretend" that we were attacked. But our constitution does not authorize war in response to pretend attacks. If we were not attacked, then any waging of war by the U.S. is a war of aggression, which is unconstitutional, illegal, and a war crime.

There is nothing in the constitution which authorizes our government to be the world's military, simply choosing to involve ourselves in any war, anywhere, if the president feels like it. If the government wants to involve the U.S. in somebody's else's war, since the constitution does not authorize the government to do that, they would have to hold a special election, and let the citizens decide whether to do so or not. Any war, or war activity carried out by the U.S. government pursuant to any alleged authority under Nato or other similar schemes, is unconstitutional and unlawful.

(Nato protest, Naples, Italy)

The supposed justification for the Nato attack on Libya was Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, below. It provides for mutual defense in the event of an "armed attack" against a member nation. And yes, you will be wondering: "what armed attack on a Nato country?" because there wasn't one, but let's not get tied down in trivia.  

Article 5   The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.htm

(Nato protests, Afghanistan)

I know you're thinking the same thing I am: Where's Libya? Isn't Libya a part of Nato? Didn't Libya sign on to this conspiracy of nations? No, it's not a part. So exactly why was Nato attacking Libya? Which European nation did Libya attack? Or even threaten? The answer is none. Yet Article 5 clearly required an "armed attack" against a member nation in order for Nato to start dropping bombs.

Libya had an internal conflict between the existing government and a group of its own citizens who were trying to overthrow the government. Nobody attacked Europe, nobody did anything that would justify a Nato armed attack on Libya. Why is the U.S. invading Libya using this phony European "common defense" conspiracy and claiming that makes it legitimate?

(Nato protest, Strasbourg, France)

We need to get out of Nato, and start enforcing our own constitutional limits which prohibit wars of aggression. The military spending by Nato members represents 70% of the military spending in the world. It's not just a conspiracy, it's a well-armed one.

Stagger Lee

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Stagger Lee was a well-known song in the Mississippi Delta region at least by the early 1900s. The first known published version of the song was by folklorist John Lomax in 1910. The song is based on the murder of William "Billy" Lyons by Stagger Lee Shelton. The song was first recorded in 1924.

In 1959, Lloyd Price had a hit with the song. But Dick Clark decided that the lyrics were too controversial for his American Bandstand, so a second version was made in which there was no murder, just two men arguing. Lloyd Price's original version (with the murder) reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and is ranked #456 on Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The song has been recorded by over 400 artists. Among other artists who have recorded a version of the song are Mississippi John Hurt, the Grateful Dead, the Clash, Nick Cave, R.L. Burnside, Keb Mo, Pat Boone, James Brown, Neil Diamond, Fats Domino, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Jerry Lee Lewis, Tom Jones, Beck, and Elvis Presley.

Margaret Walker and James Brown wrote poems using the song. It has also been used as the basis for novels, short stories, and a stage musical. http://jazzagemusic.blogspot.com/2009/10/spotlight-stagger-lee.html

The story of Stagger Lee is of a murder which took place in a St. Louis saloon on Christmas Eve, 1895. Stag Lee Shelton was a black pimp, and he shot William "Billy" Lyons with a forty-four. Supposedly right before the killing, Williams had grabbed Shelton's hat from him, so Stagger Lee shot him dead. http://www.staggerlee.com/

The night was clear,
and the moon was yellow
And the leaves came tumblin' down.

I was standin' on the corner
When I heard my bull dog bark
He was barkin' at the two men
Who were gamblin' in the dark

It was Stagger Lee and Billy
Two men who gambled late
Stagger Lee threw a seven
Billy swore that he threw eight

"Stagger Lee," said Billy
"I can't let you go with that
"You have won all my money
And my brand-new Stetson hat

Stagger Lee went home
And he got his .44
He said, "I'm goin' to the ballroom
Just to pay that debt I owe

Go, Stagger Lee

Stagger Lee went to the ballroom
And he strolled across the ballroom floor
He said "You did me wrong, Billy
And he pulled his .44

"Stagger Lee," said Billy
"Oh, please don't take my life
"I've got three hungry children
And a very sickly wife"

Stagger Lee shot Billy
Oh, he shot that poor boy so hard
That a bullet went through Billy
And broke the bartender's bar Go, Stagger Lee,

Go, Stagger Lee. Go, Stagger Lee.