Anti-Fascism: 2013 POOR PEOPLES CAMPAIGN & MARCH FROM BALTIMORE TO WASHINGTON D.C.

[www.PeoplesPowerAssemblies.org]
BE PART OF HISTORY: Reclaim Dr. King’s dream during this special year
Ignite a fight for people’s rights!
[BaltimorePeoplesAssembly@gmail.com] [410-500-2168] or [410-218-4835] [2011 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218]
Initiated by the Baltimore Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Baltimore Peoples Power Assembly

On the anniversary of the Poor Peoples Campaign ignite a fight for people’s rights.. RECLAIM DR. KING JR’S DREAM DURING THIS HISTORIC YEAR – 2013 MARKS THE 50TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE 1963 JOBS & FREEDOM MARCH and the 45th anniversary of the 1968 Poor Peoples Campaign!
Beginning on the anniversary weekend of the Poor Peoples Campaign, we will hold a civil rights walk and March from Baltimore to Washington D.C. and arrive in Washington on Sunday, May 12, 2013.
We invite people from around the country to join us in Baltimore on May 11th.
We are Marching because...

POLICE BRUTALITY & MASS INCARCERATION ARE GROWING -
Baltimore has become the capital of police killings! Since January, 2012, 16 people have been killed by the Baltimore City Police Department and not a single officer has been indicted. The epidemic of police terror and abuse are not confined to our city. The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement has documented that every 36 hours a Black person is killed by police agencies in this country. Police repression and racism go hand in hand with the mass incarceration of young people, mostly of color, who are locked away in prisons across this country.
We march to bring national attention to these issues and to demand community control of police and an end to mass incarceration. On May 11, 2013 we will link arms with the families of the victims of police killings to demand that the Justice Department charge killer police.

POVERTY IS DEEPENING AND THE PEOPLE NEED JOBS, NOT JAIL -
One out of every four persons in Baltimore City lives below the poverty level. Growing poverty due to continuing depression level joblessness in every major city in this country and in many towns underscores the need to revive Dr. King’s fight to end poverty. Justice minded people everywhere must begin to prepare a united resistance to stop any and all austerity measures, whether it comes in the form of cuts to social security, Medicare, unemployment or food stamps.
We must renew Dr. King’s call for “Jobs or income now” and demand that the federal government: 1) bailout the people, not the banks; 2) provide a massive Works Projects Administration program to put the people back to work and 3) through Executive Order place a moratorium on home foreclosures.

WORKERS RIGHTS ARE UNDER ATTACK -
If the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were alive he would be on the front line of stemming the tide of right wing attacks on workers and unions couched in the misleading language of “right to work.” Dr. King would have been leading sit-ins to win justice for low wage workers from Wal-Mart to McDonalds. His last days were spent fighting for sanitation workers rights – this battle is yet to be finished.
On May 11th we will be marching to defend workers’ rights from Detroit to Atlanta.

JUSTICE FOR ALL IS NEEDED -
We will march to continue the ongoing struggle to stop racism, end attacks on immigrants, women and LGBTQ people.
We can no longer be divided from or consider a person as "illegal” simply because he or she has crossed a border; the fight for justice is far from over when someone can be profiled and murdered because they are Black, Latino/a, Native or Asian; it continues when women are still denied equal rights and LGBTQ people continue to suffer from violence and bigotry.

FUND EDUCATION, HEALTH CARE & HUMAN NEEDS, NOT WAR & OCCUPATION -
Dr. King proclaimed very accurately that “every bomb that falls on Vietnam, is a bomb dropped on our inner cities.” The names of the targeted countries and occupations have changed. What hasn’t is the growing trillions spent on the Pentagon that drain the wealth of this country and that could instead fund healthcare for every uninsured person, provide education for youth, stop school closings and provide jobs for all. Not only does war still threaten the people of this world, but the refusal to deal with ever growing evidence of climate change, and the insatiable desire to put profits before people, threatens the entire planet. The only way to build Dr. King’s beloved community is to end war and put people’s needs before profits.It is urgent that we reclaim Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy and begin a new revolution to ignite a people’s movement for not only civil rights but human rights.
The Occupy movement inspired many, but the 1968 Poor Peoples Campaign in Washington D.C. was, outside of other heroic examples in labor history, one of the first “occupations.” Let’s bring the movement together. Join the 2013 Poor Peoples Campaign March!
The campaign to reclaim Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy in this historic year to fight back against police terror, austerity measures, attacks on workers and student rights was voted and consented on at the December 15, 2012, National Peoples Power Assembly.
We in Baltimore invite everyone to join us – from Oakland to Atlanta, from Detroit to New York. Our problems are the same as your problems – let’s stand together. If you are interested in organizing your community, school, or union to be part of this effort call us at 410-500-2168 or 410-218-4835 or email BaltimorePeoplesAssembly@gmail.com. To sign on as an endorser of this effort please contact us by phone or email.

POOR PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN and MARCH SCHEDULE FOR THE WEEKEND

FRIDAY, MAY 10 — 5:00 P.M. Pre-Poor People’s March Kick-off in the Community at Biddle Street and North Montford Avenue, 21213 – Join us from 5 P.M. to 9:30 P.M. Remember Anthony Anderson Sr. with family members. Hot dogs and refreshments! We will be putting together signs and listening to spoken word artists and singers. We’ll open up the People’s Power Assembly with a community speak-out, and showing videos as it gets dark. We will also canvas the neighborhood.

SATURDAY, MAY 11 — 10 A.M. The Poor People’s Campaign March rally begins. The March will start at 11 A.M. sharp. We will gather in the lot where Anthony Anderson Sr. was killed by Baltimore Police. This is one of the poorest communities in Baltimore. At a brief rally, we will recognize all who have come.
Representatives of the families of Alan Blueford and other victims of police killings will be coming from as far away as Oakland and California’s Bay area. Students are coming from local campuses and from other cities. A bus of poor people and union workers from Boston will join us.
OUR Walmart workers, who are fighting for workers’ rights will join us in Baltimore and later in Hyattsville. We will be marching past one of the super Walmart’s.
We will take a break for bag lunches as we exit Baltimore City and begin our March down Route 1. Route 1 is the historical route used by prior Civil Rights leaders in the campaign to desegregate restaurants and other facilities. It’s important that we raise the demand to defend voting rights, which are under attack.
The Baltimore and Washington D.C. Metropolitan AFL-CIO Councils have both endorsed, along with the national United Food and Commercial Workers Union Minority Coalition and other union locals.
 Several key things to be aware of: There will be support vehicles, vans, and cars, so there will be options. Some people may choose to ride the entire route. Most will take breaks and alternate between walking and riding. Some participants will also have to drive. For those activists who view the 41-mile march itself as very important, we are making it possible for them to walk the entire route. From our own experience and that of others who have done this, the key is unity, a lot of spirit, group decision–making and lots of water.
The “Rude Mechanical Band” from the Occupy movement will take part in this walk. Some Boston school bus drivers from United Steelworkers Local 8751 will have a special sound car, which will blare great music.
We will break near Elkridge/Columbia which is about 1/3 of the way. There, we will be greeted by local activists for a break and dinner at the side of the highway. We will also schedule bathroom breaks on the route.
Students and activists will greet us at the University of Maryland College Park, where we will continue our People’s Power Assembly and hear and record testimony, thoughts and proposals from participants.
Depending on physical needs, there will be floor space for bedrolls and sleeping. For those who need beds, we will arrange for motel rooms nearby. For some Baltimore and regional participants who have brought cars, they may go home to sleep and return the next day for the final leg of the march.

SUNDAY, MAY 12 — 10 A.M. Our final leg of the March will begin. This is Mother’s Day. It was the actual day that Coretta Scott King led the kickoff of the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968. We will gather in front of the corner near Hyattsville Bus Boys & Poets at 5331 Baltimore Ave., Hyattsville, MD 20781
Women participants will lead this part of the March, including the women of OUR Walmart, who are marching in honor of Alan Forest; the mothers and sisters of the victims of police killings; youth from the Dreamers; women workers impacted by the sequestration cuts, and others. Bring your mothers, sisters, daughters and friends on this special day. Honor Mother’s Day in the best way possible. We urge our brothers to bring roses for all the women marchers.
This is the shortest leg of our March.
We expect to arrive at Freedom Plaza at 3 P.M. where we will be greeted by Dr. Bernard Lafayette and Dr. C.T. Vivian, who helped lead the original Poor People’s Campaign. We will also hear greetings from local community and labor representatives and Occupy D.C. from the Peace House.
We will then get snacks and food and proceed to a 5 P.M. People’s Power Assembly where we will hear people’s testimony on the many issues and important proposals about where we should go from there.
8 P.M. to 9 P.M. We will show videos and have teach-ins. During this period, we will hold a meeting of those who will remain in D.C. to decide what we do on Monday and in the future.




2013-05-09 "On the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign / ‘We will march to ignite the revolution King called for’" 
by the Rev. C. D. Witherspoon, president of the Baltimore chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference:
Next Saturday morning, many of us will mark the 45th anniversary of the Poor People’s Campaign that Martin Luther King inspired, but did not live long enough to lead, by marching from Baltimore to Washington, D.C.
On May 11, the families of young Black and Brown people who have been killed by police will link arms with poor people, immigrant workers fighting for their rights, students, Walmart workers, union members, unemployed people and Occupy Wall Street activists, and walk 40 miles south down the highway to Washington, D.C.
We will occupy Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue, a few blocks away from the White House and down the road from the Capitol. There we will erect a big tent and convene a People’s Power Assembly.
We are doing this to bear witness to the truth, and to help spark the social revolution that Dr. King prescribed in the months before his death.
Dr. King often said that truth crushed to earth will rise again. The brutal truth is that the powers that be are waging a war against virtually everything that Dr. King fought and died for.
Fifty years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Monument, King shared his dream with the world. Today more and more of us are living in a nightmare.
Anyone who thought that having an African-American family or a Democrat in the White House would negate the urgent necessity for a social revolution has long awoken from that dream.
Our young people are more likely to be in prison than in a job.
Poverty, unemployment and desperation are more widespread today than they were when King was alive. The pauperization of the population is the biggest crisis today.
The banks got bailed out after the 2008 global financial crash, and the stock market has soared through the roof. But for the rest of us -- the people that Occupy Wall Street calls the 99% -- there’s nothing but economic terrorism in the form of unemployment, evictions, foreclosures, low wages and cutbacks.
The 1% have never been richer, greedier and more determined to eliminate, privatize or otherwise destroy every program that is helpful to the poor.
Wall Street has ordered the politicians and the corporate media to justify the war against the poor.
We’ve been told that the cutting of Social Security, health care and unemployment benefits and the closing of hospitals, schools and post offices are being forced upon us by harsh economic realities.
We’ve been told that there’s no point in proposing a real jobs program because we can’t afford one.
These things are presented to us as though they were inarguable facts. They are not.
They are absurd and cruel lies put forward by the 1% in defense of a social and economic order that puts profits and greed before people’s needs. These lies are meant to demoralize us and persuade us that it’s useless to fight for a world based on equality, justice, solidarity and love.
These lies, and the 1% whose interest they serve, must be defeated.
When King proposed the Poor People’s Campaign in 1967, he said that a revolution of values was needed, one that would transform a profit-centered economy into a people-centered one.
We will be marching on Saturday to ignite that revolution.
For details on the March see [www.PeoplesPowerAssemblies.org]

"Statewide Tour to Pass AB 880 & Close the "Walmart Loophole" Kicks Off in West Sacramento"

2013-05-10 "Sacramento Workers Join Early Morning Protest to Close Walmart Loophole” from "California Labor Federation Spotlight":
This morning before dawn, dozens of workers gathered outside Walmart in West Sacramento to spread the word to shoppers about a loophole in the Affordable Care Act that Walmart and other corporate giants are exploiting to get out of paying their fair share for workers’ health care. They carried signs that read “Protect Taxpayers- Close the Walmart Loophole” and delivered an invoice to the store’s manager that detailed how Walmart’s practice of dumping workers onto Medi-Cal is costing taxpayers $32 million annually.
“Walmart is the most profitable company in the United State of America, with $444 billion in revenue last year alone,” California Labor Federation’s Steve Smith said at the early morning action. “Their CEO makes $28 million a year, and yet they’re pushing their own workers onto Medi-Cal and onto taxpayers.”
---
"Statewide Tour to Pass AB 880 & Close the "Walmart Loophole" Kicks Off in West Sacramento"
by Steve Smith, "California Labor Federation" [http://www.calaborfed.org/index.php/site/page/statewide_tour_to_pass_ab_880_close_the_walmart_loophole_kicks_off_in_west]:
Walmart shoppers probably didn’t expect to be greeted this morning at 5am by a lively group of taxpayers protesting the “Walmart Loophole,” which allows large companies like Walmart to avoid their responsibilities to pay their fair share for their workers' health care. But that’s exactly what they encountered in West Sacramento.
 About 30 demonstrators launched a statewide tour today aimed at educating shoppers and the media about Walmart’s practice of paying its workers so little that they are pushed into taxpayer-funded programs like Medi-Cal. The group also handed out information about AB 880 (Gomez), which would mandate that the state’s largest and most profitable companies pay their fair share when their workers end up on taxpayer-funded Medi-Cal.
 The bill is a fix to a growing problem. Walmart and other large companies are cutting their workers’ hours and wages to skirt their responsibility under the Affordable Care Act to provide affordable health care or pay a penalty. If these large companies reduce workers’ pay to poverty levels, the workers go on Medi-Cal, and Walmart avoids the penalty. As a result, taxpayers have to pick up the tab. It’s called the "Walmart Loophole," and this morning’s demonstrators said it must be closed.
Barbara Aldridge works for Walmart in Placerville. She’s seen her hours erode over the last year to the point that she must apply for public assistance to obtain health coverage for her and her son.
[begin excerpt]
We live paycheck to paycheck. I make $12.05 cents an hour, but of course, I’ve been there for 8 years, and with my hours getting cut it’s a hard struggle. If we get the hours to qualify for (health coverage), we make so little that it’s a decision that’s really hard to make. Winter clothes or health benefits? Food on the table or health benefits? I’m tired of struggling.
[end excerpt]
The protesters delivered a $32 million invoice to Walmart, representing the cost of Walmart shifting its health care responsibilities onto taxpayers every year [http://www.calaborfed.org/index.php/site/page/new_report_taxpayers_on_the_hook_when_corporate_giants_dump_workers_onto_me]. Walmart management rejected the invoice, steeling the resolve of today’s demonstrators to pass AB 880 and close the Walmart Loophole.
Watch news coverage from today's actions here [http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2013/05/10/group-accuses-walmart-of-cutting-employees-hours-to-avoid-healthcare-law/], here [http://www.kcra.com/news/protestors-attack-walmart-loophole-in-west-sacramento/-/11797728/20094948/-/k6ah8z/-/index.html] and here [http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/html5/video?id=9097186&pid=9097207&section=news/politics].
Demonstrators are headed to Stockton and Fresno next as part of a statewide "Close the Walmart Loophole" tour. AB 880 passed the Assembly Health Committee this week and will be heard in the Appropriations Committee as early as next week. The bill is sponsored by the California Labor Federation and the United Food and Commercial Workers.

2013-05-09 "Obama in Plunderland: Down the Corporate Rabbit Hole"

by Norman Solomon [http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/05/08-0]:
The president’s new choices for Commerce secretary and FCC chair underscore how far down the rabbit hole his populist conceits have tumbled. Yet the Obama rhetoric about standing up for working people against “special interests” is as profuse as ever. Would you care for a spot of Kool-Aid at the Mad Hatter’s tea party?
Of course the Republican economic program is worse, and President Romney’s policies would have been even more corporate-driven. That doesn't in the slightest make acceptable what Obama is doing. His latest high-level appointments -- boosting corporate power and shafting the public -- are despicable.
To nominate Penny Pritzker for secretary of Commerce is to throw in the towel for any pretense of integrity that could pass a laugh test. Pritzker is “a longtime political supporter and heavyweight fundraiser,” the Chicago Tribune reported with notable understatement last week, adding: “She is on the board of Hyatt Hotels Corp., which was founded by her family and has had rocky relations with labor unions, and she could face questions about the failure of a bank partly owned by her family. With a personal fortune estimated at $1.85 billion, Pritzker is listed by Forbes magazine among the 300 wealthiest Americans.”
A more blunt assessment came from journalist Dennis Bernstein: “Her pioneering sub-prime operations, out of Superior Bank in Chicago, specifically targeted poor and working class people of color across the country. She ended up crashing Superior for a billion-dollar cost to taxpayers, and creating a personal tragedy for the 1,400 people who lost their savings when the bank failed.” Pritzker, whose family controls Hyatt Regency Hotels, has a vile anti-union record.
Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker? What’s next? Labor Secretary Donald Trump? SEC Chairman Bernie Madoff?
The choice of Penny Pritzker to run the Commerce Department is a matched set with the simultaneous pick of Tom Wheeler -- another mega-fundraiser for candidate Obama -- to chair the Federal Communications Commission.
With crucial decisions on the near horizon at the FCC, the president’s nomination of Wheeler has dire implications for the future of the Internet, digital communications and democracy. For analysis, my colleagues at the Institute for Public Accuracy turned to the progressive former FCC commissioner Nicholas Johnson, who called the choice “bizarre.”
“There is no single independent regulatory commission that comes close to the impact of the FCC on every American’s life,” Johnson said. “That’s why Congress, in creating it, characterized its mission as serving ‘the public interest’ -- an expression used throughout the Act.”
But with countless billions of dollars at stake, the corporate fix was in. As Johnson pointed out, “Wheeler’s background is as a trade association representative for companies appearing before the Commission, a lobbyist in Congress for other FCC customers, and a venture capitalist investing in and profiting from others whose requests he’ll have to pass on. He has no record, of which I am aware, of challenging corporate abuse of power on behalf of consumers and the poor.”
But wait. There’s more. “Nor does Wheeler’s membership on the president’s Intelligence Advisory Board bode well for those who believe Americans’ Fourth Amendment privacy rights should be getting at least as much attention as the government’s perceived need to engage in even more secret snooping.”
To urge senators to reject the nominations of Pritzker and Wheeler, click here.
Meanwhile, at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Obama’s recent appointment of Wall Street insider Mary Jo White as SEC chair is playing out in predictable fashion. Days ago, in an editorial, the New York Times faulted her role in an SEC decision on regulating the huge derivatives market: “Last week, in her first commission vote, Ms. White led the commissioners in approving a proposal that, if finalized, could leave investors and taxpayers exposed to the ravages of reckless bank trading.”
We need to ask ourselves how the forces of corporate capitalism have gained so much power over government, to the extreme detriment of people who aren’t rich. Humpty Dumpty’s brief dialectical exchange with Alice is on point:
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
"The question is," Alice replied, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," Humpty Dumpty responded, "which is to be master -- that's all."
Denunciations and protests against the dominant power structure are essential. And insufficient. For the body politic and the potential of democracy, accommodating to the Democratic Party leadership is a deathly prescription. So is failure to fight for electoral power by challenging that leadership, fielding genuinely progressive candidates and organizing to win.

Bohemian Grove stories

"Bohemian Grove Photos: Set 1" 
photos and text copyright © 1997 Kerry Richardson, archived at [http://www.sonic.net/~kerry/bohemian/photosone.html]:
Ronald Reagan is one of several former United States Presidents who are or were members of the Bohemian Club. Others include George Bush, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower, and Herbert Hoover. Reagan's administration had a strong overlap with the Bohemian Club, several of his cabinet members were also affiliated with the Bohemian Club. This photo was made July 29, 1989 after Reagan was out of office. He did not attend the summer Bohemian Grove encampments while in office. His travelling companion pictured in the yellow shirt is retired U.S. Marine Lt. General Victor Krulak who, along with Reagan, is affiliated with the "Owl's Nest" camp within the Bohemian Grove. Sort of a summer camp for grownups, the Bohemian Grove contains over 100 residential camps with names such as "Lost Angels", "Mandalay", and "Cave Man."

Secretary of State George Shultz (in the dark shirt on the plane ramp) arrived in Santa Rosa on an Air Force jet en route to the Bohemian Grove Friday, July 22, 1988. Traveling with Shultz was then National Security Advisor Colin Powell. This was before Powell was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and before the Gulf War. Shultz is affiliated with the "Mandalay" camp at the Bohemian Grove and attended the summer gatherings while serving as Secretary of State.

Dr. Henry Kissinger, shown here en route to the Bohemian Grove with Drew Lewis of Union Pacific in 1986, likes to attend the Grove gathering and has been featured as a speaker at the "Lakeside Talks" that occur daily during the two-and-one-half week long Bohemian Grove encampment. At the Grove, Kissinger often host guests who have included foreign dignitaries and clients of Kissinger's consulting firm. Like George Shultz, former Secretary of State Kissinger is affiliated with the "Mandalay" camp, as is Drew Lewis.


2001-06-19 "Meet the Secret Rulers of the World: The Truth About The Bohemian Grove"
by Alexander Cockburn And Jeffrey St. Clair [http://www.counterpunch.org/2001/06/19/the-truth-about-the-bohemian-grove/]:
Where’s the fashionable rendezvous for the World’s Secret Government? In the good old days when the Illuminati had a firm grip on things, it was wherever the Bilderburgers decided to pitch their tents. Then Nelson and David Rockefeller horned their way in, and the spotlight moved to the Trilateral Commisssion. Was there one secret government or two? Some said all the big decisions were taken in England, at Ditchley, not so far from the Appeasers’ former haunts at Cliveden and only an hour by Learjet from Davos, which is where jumped up finance ministers and self-inflating tycoons merely pretend they rule the world.
Secret World rulers spend a good deal of time in the air, whisking from Davos to APEC meetings somewhere in Asia, to Ditchley, to Sun Valley, Idaho, though mercifully no longer to the Clinton-favored Renaissance Weekend in Hilton Head, South Carolina. But comes next July 14 and every self-respecting member of the Secret World government will be in a gloomy grove of redwoods alongside the Russian river in northern California, preparing to Banish Care for the 122nd time, prelude to three weeks drinking gin fizzes and hashing out the future of the world.
If the avenging posses mustered by the Bohemian Grove Action Network manage this year to burst through the security gates at the Bohemian Grove, they will (to extrapolate from numerous eyewitness accounts of past sessions) find proofs most convincing to them that here indeed is the ruling crowd in executive session: hundreds of near-dead white men sitting by a lake listening to Henry Kissinger, plus many other near-dead white men in adjacent landscape in a state of intoxication so advanced that many of them had fallen insensible among the ferns, gin fizz glasses gripped firmly till the last.
The avenging posses may find some puzzling elements within the Grove. Why, for example, areat least 80 percent of the Bohemians in a state of intoxication so advanced that many of them had fallen insensible among the ferns, gin fizz glasses gripped firmly till the last? Why so many games of dominoes? Why the evidence that a significant portion of the Secret Government appear to be involved in some theatrical production, involving the use of women’s clothes and lavish application of make-up?
Many an empire has of course been run by drunken men wearing make-up. But a long, hard look at the Bohemian Club, its members and appurtenances, sug-gests that behind the pretense of Secret Government lies the reality of a summer camp for a bunch of San Francisco businessmen, real estate plungers and lawyers who long ago had the cunning to recruit some outside megawattage (e.g., Herbert Hoover, a Rockefeller, Richard Nixon) to turn their mundane frolicking into the simulacrum of Secret Government and make the yokels gape.
The simulacrum isn’t half bad. For Republicans the club is an antechamber to the White House. Teddy Roosevelt was a member. So, as noted, was Herbert Hoover. In his memoirs Hoover wrote that within one hour of Calvin Coolidge’s announcement in 1927 that he would not run again, “a hundred men... editors, publishers, public officials and others from all over the country who were at the Grove, came to my camp demanding that I announce my candidacy.” Hoover was at the Grove again the following summer, as he had been with some considerable regularity since 1911, when news came that Republicans had chosen him for their candidate.
A speech to the industrial and financial titans clustered for one of the Grove’s famous lake-side talks could make or break a candidacy. After a poor reception, Nelson Rockefeller abandoned his bid for the Republican nomination in 1964. Richard Nixon, like Hoover a member of Cave Man’s camp inside the Grove, got a rapturous reception in 1967 and pressed forward to the nomination and the White House. It was at the Bohemian Grove that America’s nuclear weapons program was first devised by physicists such as Ernest O. Lawrence and Edward Teller, both members, meeting with other members who were then in government, all confident of the security of the redwood club-house built by Bernard Maybeck (one of our favorite American architects) in 1904.
European leaders travel discreetly to the Grove to ad-dress the American elite. German chancellor Helmut Schmidt (not to be confused with Club members Chauncey E. Schmidt or Jon Eugene Schmidt) strolled its paths with club member Henry Kissinger, as did French socialist leader Michael Rocard. Where else could such men hope to chat privately with the head of IBM, a couple of Rockefellers, bankers galore, a Justice of the US Supreme Court and Charlton Heston? Even the prickly Lee Kuan Yew hastened to visit the club, only to have the mortification of being mistaken for a waiter.
The Bohemian Club began as a San Francisco institution in 1872, founded by journalists and kindred lowly scriveners as an excuse for late-night boozing. Its membership was dignified by Jack London, Mark Twain, Bret Harte and other literary roustabouts who had fetched up in the city after the Gold Rush.
The hacks soon concluded that Bohemianism, in the sense of real poverty, was oppressive. “It was decided,” clubman Ed Bosque wrote, “we should invite an element to join the Club which the majority of its members held in contempt, namely men who had money as well as brains, but who were not, strictly speaking, Bohemians.” So they pulled in a few wealthy men of commerce to pay for the champagne and the rot soon set in. Within a very few years the lowly scriveners were on their way out — except for a few of the more presentable among them to lend a pretense of Boho-dom — and Mammon had seized power.
There were laments. “The salt has been washed out of the Club by commercialism,” one writer grumbled. On his visit to the city, Oscar Wilde gazed around at the fleshy faces and handsomely attired members and re-marked, “I have never seen so many well-dressed, well-fed, business-like looking bohemians in all my life.”
The final blow to the hacks came soon thereafter. Near the end of the last century the cult of the redwood grove as Nature’s cathedral was in full swing and the Boho-businessmen yearned to give their outings a tinc-ture of spiritual uplift. The long-range planning commit-tee of the club decided to buy a grove some sixty miles north of the city near the town of Monte Rio. When the wheeling and dealing was over, the club owned 2,700 acres of redwoods — a grove of the mightiest of thou-sand-year-old Sequoia sempervirens:
“We are grown men now,” a piece of club literature announced in the early 1920s, “but each year in the hard procession of our days there comes, thank God, to us Bohemians, a recess time — it is upon us. Come out, Bohemians. Come out and play!” Soon the ancient redwoods, hated by the Pomo Indians of the area as clammy and sepulchral, rang to the laughter of the disporting men of commerce.
When all is said and done, the way the beleaguered American male asserts his personhood, defies convention, hails the American dream, is to piss against a tree. Indeed, when confronted with a sex-discrimination suit a few years ago, the Bohemians indignantly asserted that theirs had to be a Men Only institution precisely because any woman entering the club’s precincts would see nothing but men occupied in this crude pastime.
Like all such institutions the club has its rituals, its ceremonies, its hallowed rules. In June there are three long weekends of Springjinks, mostly attended by Californians. At the opening of each summer season proper, on July 14 this year, there is the traditional masque, representing the banishment of Care. Amid somber music, horses carrying caped riders gallop through the trees. Then, eerily picked out by torchlight, robed tycoons move slowly into a clearing with a bier supporting the effigy of Care. Amid stentorian chants, a blare of music and leaping flames, Care is finally cremated. In its place the flame of eternal friend-ship is ignited and three weeks of Boho-dom are underway.
This amalgam of pop Druidry, Klan kitsch and Fraserian mumbo- jumbo stems from the nineteenth-century passion for “ancient ritual.” Two thousand miles away, at the other end of the continent, the same impulse produced Mardi Gras in New Orleans, with its Mystick Krewe, its Elves of Oberon and the tribute paid by Rex to Comus. Many of the Boho rituals and its first play, The Triumph of Bohemia, were worked up by a real estate speculator called George Sterling who took to poesy and Boho-dom late in life and banished Care permanently in 1926 by taking strychnine in the Club’s city premises.
A college kid we’ll call Tom — the arm of the Secret Government is, after all, far-reaching — worked at the Bohemian Grove each summer for three years in the middle 1990s. At that time (and we doubt things have changed) the basic wage for the very ample force required to assist in the banishing of Care is not handsome — $5 to $6 an hour. But Tom worked for an independent con-tractor supplying food and help and got $125 a day plus tips (officially banned at the Grove) and ended up with $3,000 for his three-week stint.
Tom’s day began at 5:30 a.m., preparing for break-fast. The Bohemian Club is set up along frat house lines. Instead of Deltas and Pi Etas there are camps, some 120 in all, stretching along River Road and Morse Stephens canyon. Their names follow the imaginative arc of American industrialists and financiers over the past hun-dred years, from Druids to Hillbillies (George Bush, Walter Cronkite, William F. Buckley), Isle of Aves (John E. Du Pont), Meyerling, Owl’s Nest (Eddie Albert, Ronald Reagan), Silverado Squatters, Totem Inn (which has actually boasted a writer, Allen Drury), Woof (former Secretary of State James A. Baker III), Wayside Log (which has boasted another writer, Herman Wouk), Ye Merrie Yowls, Zaca.
The camp Tom lived and worked at was thick with real estate tycoons and had a reputation for good food and comfortable appointments. Tom fixed the early morning gin fizzes and kindred cobweb banishers. He got the pa-pers — San Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, New York Times. He cleaned up the mess left by the Bohos’ nocturnal revels. He served up the fruits, juices, eggs and bacon and listened to captains of commerce start their day’s chat about business affairs. The club has a famous motto, “weaving spiders not come here,” meaning No shop talk, but Tom laughs. “They talk business here all the time. The younger members brown-nose shamelessly, making contacts.” By midmorning it’s another day in Bohemia, with Tom’s hands never idle as he runs up Old Fashioneds and Manhattans. The members prefer to mix their own martinis.
Though he was no career man at the Grove Tom had already taken on a caustic loyalty to his camp. He sneered at nearby Abbey, a lowly place equipped merely with tents and believed to have a tradition of unmentionable prac-tices. He sneered too, though more deferentially, at lordly Mandalay camp, inaccessible save by written invitation by a member, luxuriously appointed and stocked with the Membership Committee’s most determined stab at the pretense of Secret Government. Here are to be found members of the Bechtel clan owners of the largest engineering contractorship in the world, veterans of Republican Washington of the era of Gerorge Bush Sr (former Treasury Secretary Nick Brady, former Secretary of State George Shultz), souvenirs of industrial might (Leonard K. Firestone. Edgar F. Kaiser), 1970s retro (Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger) and foreign bric-a-brac (Andrew Knight of The Economist).
The waiting lists for membership are so long it takes years for the novitiate to be admitted. Lobbying is pathetically fierce. Tom Watson, the builder of IBM, once took a long weekend off from his retirement job as US ambassador to Moscow to fly to San Francisco to dine with a Bohemian Grove board member and discreetly lobby for membership. A friend of mine, big in Reagan time, has been on the doorstep for 15 years. He says he likes it that way. He’s spared the hefty sign-up fee of around $10,000 and annual membership dues and only has to pony up when he’s invited, which is every two or three years. Particularly in the more sumptuous camps even this takes plenty of money, sharing bills for retinues of uniformed servants, vintage cellars, master chefs and kindred accouterments of spiritual refreshment. But what, in the end, does the member get for his pains?
There are lakeside talks. Here, of an evening, Grovers can hear a banker or a Treasury official wend his way through the intricacies of Third World debt rescheduling, or listen to a European leader who will offer himself up for inspection. There are increasingly popular science talks at the Bohemian Grove’s museum. During the day there are enviro-strolls with some biologist from Stanford or Berkeley lecturing his retinue on successional stages in redwood regeneration. There’s skeet-shooting on the private range. There’s endless dominoes — the Grove’s board-game par excellence. There’s Not Being At Home with the wife. But best of all, there are the talent revue and the play.
Visit some corporate suite in San Francisco in June or early July and if you see the CEO brooding thoughtfully before his plate-glass window overlooking the Bay Bridge, the chances are he is not thinking about some impending take-over or merciless down-sizing. He is probably worrying about the cut of his tutu for the drag act for which he has been rehearsing keenly for many months.
These plays are planned five years in advance, with no expense spared. Tycoons vie eagerly for the privilege of shifting a stage prop or securing the best computerized lighting system that money can provide. Although the talent shows put on by Merv Griffin and Art Linkletter were reckoned at least in past years to be good, the plays are pretty awful, heavily freighted with double-entendres about swollen members and the like. A poster for one Grove play, Pompeii, featured a mighty erection under a toga, modeled no doubt on the redoubtable organ in the Pompeiian fresco photographed by many a touring tycoon.
Along with the big play there is the comedy revue — Low Jinks — for which members again rehearse with passionate anticipation. World affairs stood still a few seasons ago as Henry Kissinger prepared for his big moment, which was to enter, dressed as a dumpy man wearing a Kissinger mask which he duly pulled off, to reveal the ever-familiar features, while announcing in his glottal accent, “I am here because I have always been convinced that The Low Jinks is the ultimate aphrodisi-ac.” Puissance — this is after all a mature crowd scampering about amid the Sequoia sempervirens — is a big theme, and the drag acts are heavily overstated.
Boho-member Wouk once got off a sententious paragraph about the Grove being the site of that purest of loves, the friendship that men can nourish between each other in noble surroundings. Some years ago a gay writer called Ron Bluestein described his stint waitering at the Grove in a very funny pamphlet, “A Waitress in Bohemia,” in which he evoked the below-the-stairs homosexual culture fostered by a workforce mostly recruited from San Francisco. Some anthropologists of Boho culture even believe that the Grove is now encircled with gay residential suburbs that have inevitably sprung up to accommodate these migrants.
Informed sources discount these stories somewhat. Of course there are gay waiters and gay bohemians too, discreetly cruising River Road, but it seems that it was back in the 1970s things got somewhat out of hand. The Club took certain measures and things are now under control.
Along with its most definitely closet contingent, the club also has about 2,000 heterosexuals cooped up for the summer retreat, with no women officially on the premises except for a daily minibus of female cleaners — the consequence of a lawsuit brought by feminists a few years ago — which can go no farther into the Grove than the Camp Fire circle, 400 yards from the Main Gate. Randy members break bounds and head for such straight cruising spots as the Northwood Lodge and Country Club where vigorously bejeweled women in their thirties are to be found
A few years ago KGO radio, out of San Francisco, had an interesting talk show in which callers with first-hand Grove experience told their tales. A man from Monte Rio said he was only one of several towns-people renting cabins every year to prostitutes traveling from as far as Las Vegas to renew the Bohos’ spiritual fibers. He said it was a big shot in the arm for Monte Rio’s ailing economy. This same caller moved from shots in the arm to shots in another location. He said he stocked his cabins with plenty of booze as well as syringes of a potency drug recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration which furnishes four to six-hour erections. Sempervirens indeed. The Monte Rio caller added that at least this quotient of Secret Government included good tippers, doling out splendid gratuities to their companions.
 In the 1990s the Grove’s reputation as the site of Secret Government was in eclipse. The Mandalay camp roster told the story, with its grizzled veterans of the Reagan-Bush years. The contours of the Republican Party had changed, in a manner not entirely suited to the Club. The young Christian zealots of the Newt revolution were scarcely Low Jinksters, and Newt — he did give a lake-side talk in 1995 — was a little too tacky in style for the gin fizz set. Dole wasn’t even a member and with Bill and Hillary in office, journalists dashed off each year to the Carolina coast to write about the Renaissance Weekend at Hilton Head where the idiom was of the 1990s — self-awareness, being in touch with your inner self, networking — rather than the 1890s — making merrie, getting drunk and us-ing the Old Boy Net.
But here we are in the Bush II era, and the Bush Clan is pure Secret Government, all the way from the old Rockefeller connection, to Skull and Bones and the Knights of Malta. Dick Cheney’s a Grover.
So spare yourself the expense of traveling from Quebec to the next session of the WTO. Voyage to Sonoma County and muster against Secret World Government which, let’s face it, isn’t exactly secret. For the Rally and Line of Shame, be at the Monte Rio parking lot across from the Rio theater at 2pm, July 14
For further details, call the Bohemian Grove Action Network, whose Mary Moore has been chivvying the Grovers for twenty years, at 707-874-2248 or check out http://www.sonomacountyfreepress.org


1991-11 "Inside Bohemian Grove: The Story People Magazine Won't Let You Read"
from "Extra!":
When Dirk Mathison, San Francisco bureau chief for People magazine, infiltrated the exclusive Bohemian Grove retreat this summer, he got a view into the U.S. elite that very few reporters have glimpsed. Unfortunately, that elite includes the management of Time Warner, the owner of People, which prevented Mathison from telling his story.
 Bohemian Grove, a secluded campground in California's Sonoma County, is the site of an annual two-week gathering of a highly select, all-male club, whose members have included every Republican president since Calvin Coolidge. Current participants include George Bush, Henry Kissinger, James Baker and David Rockefeller -- a virtual who's who of the most powerful men in business and government.
 Few journalists have gotten into the Grove and been allowed to tell the tale (one exception is Philip Weiss, whose November 1989 Spy piece provides the most detailed inside account), and members maintain that the goings-on there are not newsworthy events, merely private fun. In fact, official business is conducted there: Policy speeches are regularly made by members and guests, and the club privately boasts that the Manhattan Project was conceived on its grounds.
 Given the veil of secrecy that surrounds the Bohemian "encampment," a reporter needs to enter the grounds covertly in order to get a full portrait. Mathison entered the grounds three times July 1991, aided by activists from the Bohemian Grove Action Network.
 He witnessed a speech -- "Smart Weapons" -- by former Navy Secretary John Lehman, who stated that the Pentagon estimates that 200,000 Iraqis were killed by the U.S. and its allies during the Gulf War. Other featured speakers included Defense Secretary Richard Cheney on "Major Defense Problems of the 21st Century", former Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Joseph Califano on "America's Health Revolution -- Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Pays", and former Attorney General Elliott Richardson on "Defining the New World Order".
 Mathison's entree into the secret world of the Grove was cut short on July 20, however, when he was recognized by two of the participants in the festivities -- executives from Time Warner, People's publisher. More loyal to the Grove than to journalistic endeavor, they had the reporter removed from the premises (San Francisco Weekly, 8/7/91).
 Mathison already had plenty of material, however, and turned in an article to his editors, which was scheduled to appear in the Aug. 5, 1991 issue. They were pleased with the piece, according to Mathison: "They liked it enough to expand it a bit," he told Extra!.
 But then the story was suddenly killed. Landon Jones, managing editor of People, told Extra! that the decision had nothing to do with the Time Warner executives. "It was cut partially because he hadn't been there long enough to get a complete story. Secondly, we felt very uncertain about reporting what we did have, because, and this is my fault and I take responsibility for this, I simply didn't realize it was technically trespassing."
 For his part, Mathison said he did not know why the story was killed, and implied it would be nearly impossible to find the real reason. "It's easier to penetrate the Bohemian Grove than the Time-Life Building," he told Extra!.
 But the story raises questions about the ability of a media entity to report critically on an elite when its executives are enthusiastic members of that elite. Indeed, the Time organization was noted for sending a corporate plane to the Bohemian gathering every year, according to long-time Grove-watcher Kerry Richardson.
 Time Warner is not the only media corporation with Bohemian connections. The list of Fourth Estate bigwigs who have been members or guests is extensive: Franklin Murphy, the former CEO of the Times Mirror corporation; William Randolph Hearst, Jr.; Jack Howard and Charles Scripps of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain; Tom Johnson, president of CNN and former publisher of the Los Angeles Times.
 When Associated Press president Louis Boccardi spoke at one of the Grove's "Lakeside Talks" about kidnapped reporter Terry Anderson (Spy, 11/89), he referred to his audience as men of "power and rank" and "gave them more details than he said he was willing to give his readers."
 Walter Cronkite, now on the CBS board, hangs out at the same lodge at Bohemian Grove as George Bush and the former chairs of Procter & Gamble and Bank of America; Cronkite's voice has served as the voice of the Owl of Bohemia, a fixture in the club's mock-druidic rituals.
The media figures attending the retreat all agree not to report on what goes on inside. The prohibition seems to apply to reporters who are not guests or members as well: In 1982, NPR got a recording of Henry Kissinger's speech at the Grove -- but declined to air it (Spy, 11/89). Also in 1982, a Time reporter went undercover as a waiter in Bohemian Grove; like Mathison's People article, his story was killed

2013-05-08 "Disaster Capitalism Strikes as Hedge Funds Circle Near-Bankrupt Municipalities Like Vultures

A troubling pattern emerges as private funds seek to profit from beleaguered cities

by Jon Queally, from "Common Dreams" [http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/05/08-0]:
In Detroit, a once bustling city at the center of the US economy, the hedge fund vultures are circling.
But first, a moment of background, employing Naomi Klein's contemporary classic The Shock Doctrine, which tells the story of how purveyors of aggressive capitalism take advantage of crises and public vulnerability in order to push through neoliberal policies and profit-motivated financial arrangements.
Played out in various spheres before and after the book's publication in 2005, the idea of 'disaster capitalism' has been at the center of austerity politics on both sides of the Atlantic (and around the world) in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown. And now, in places like Detroit, its taking place in US communities at the municipal level as towns and cities hit hard by diminished economies and the slashing of public services are struggling on the edge of bankruptcy.
But, as reporting by Reuters on Wednesday reveals, one city's pain is a possible hedge fund manager's gain.
As Reuters' Tom Hals explains, large private hedge funds, which once preyed on vulnerable companies ripe for liquidation and restructuring, are now taking aim at wounded cities and counties—with no place beckoning "more than Detroit." [http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/08/us-usa-detroit-funds-idUSBRE94704P20130508]
 [begin excerpt]
This sudden interest in the staid world of municipal debt comes as these so-called distressed funds are looking for new places to put their money. Lucrative corporate bankruptcies have dried up, thanks in part to the Federal Reserve's policy of low interest rates. [...]
[end excerpt]
But despite the risks, some are already betting hundreds of millions of dollars that there are big returns in cash-strapped governments.
In Detroit, where a previous ploy of the disaster capitalists has already taken hold in the form of an appointed "Financial Emergency Manager"—a position that strips out local government and puts city decision-making into unelected, bureaucratic hands—the people have almost no political avenue to resist the sale of public assets or the manipulation of city debt [https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/03/14-7].
And as Hals notes, "the hedge funds' interest in municipal debt reflects the divergent fortunes of Wall Street and Main Street." He continues:
[begin excerpt]
Distressed debt funds love to jump in when most bail out. But with the coffers of U.S. companies overflowing with cash, there has been a dearth of the debt defaults, bankruptcies and liquidations that such funds normally feast on.
By contrast, a small but potentially growing number of U.S. cities and towns are struggling with pay and pension obligations that they took on in the boom years. As well as Jefferson County, the California towns of Stockton and San Bernardino have recently filed for bankruptcy.
[end excerpt] 
And Detroit's fragile state—and the existence of the city's emergency manager Kevyn Orr—make the city enormously vulnerable and thus attractive to hedge funds.
 [begin excerpt]
Detroit was once America's fifth largest city and a thriving center of U.S. industry. Now, its population has plummeted to 700,000 from a peak of 1.8 million, a third live in poverty and basic services such as street lighting have broken down. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder appointed Orr, a corporate bankruptcy expert, in March to take over the city's finances.
Even if the city does not file for bankruptcy, its debt will likely be restructured, providing an opportunity for hedge funds to make a profit. [...]
Financial advisers, restructuring consultants and lawyers who work with the funds have told Reuters they have been fielding calls, digging through documents and even flying to Detroit as they try to pinpoint a profitable investment.
"Everyone is looking for ways into Detroit. It's new and unique," said Marti Kopacz, who founded Brant Point Advisors, which provides turnaround advice to municipal governments.
One of the normally secretive distressed debt fund managers confirmed the funds are circling the Motor City.
[end excerpt] 
But what of the warnings? What does it mean to "liquidate" or "restructure" a city in the same manner you might a failed electronics company or an unprofitable factory?
According to Marti Kopacz, a financial adviser who offers guidance to municipal governments and was interviewed by Reuters for his expertise on the big-money interests circling Detroit: "I think it will be a period of time where the distressed investor community will come to an appreciation that these situations are so very, very different from a commercial bankruptcy," he said.
"Everyone points to the politics but it's even more fundamental than that. If you live in the north you have to take care of the snow and you have to have a police department and a fire department. You can't liquidate a city."
And then, of course, these questions remain: How long will "this period of time" be? And how much damage to the city might be done as the vultures gain "appreciation" whilst snacking on their scrumptious, municipal lunch?

2013-05-08 "Will you sacrifice some personal liberties for the sake of national security?"

by Gel Santos Relos from "Asian Journal" [http://asianjournal.com/editorial/will-you-sacrifice-some-personal-liberties-for-the-sake-of-national-security]:
Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
---
THE Boston Marathon bombings have somehow revealed a dichotomy in most Americans’ (including Fil-Ams) state of mind: What do we really value more? Our full enjoyment of our freedom and liberties or our national security?
As the Associated Press reported, Republican lawmakers question whether the Obama administration’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies failed to share crucial counterterrorism information.
The question zeroes in on whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were working closely about information they have on 26-year old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died in an escape attempt a few days after the bombings.
The Russian government had tipped off the FBI and the CIA about Tamerlan’s possible links to radical extremists/ Jihadist groups in 2011. His brother, Dzokhar (another bombing suspect) is in custody.
The FBI was able to interview Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but investigations showed no information was found to indicate that Tamerlan had any connection to known extremist or terrorist groups.
There was also no proof of any imminent threat for a prescribed period of time.
As CBS News explained, under FBI DIOG and US Attorney General guidelines: there are strict prohibitions about running open-ended investigations into American citizens, or those legally in the United States, in the absence of a clear indicator of criminal activity or association with terrorism.
Yet many people, even among our kababayans, said the Obama administration’s intelligence agencies should have been more vigilant in their investigation of Tamerlan.
In the online opinion poll of The Filipino Channel’s daily newscast Balitang America, a majority (58 percent) of those who voted believe that the Boston Marathon tragedy could have been avoided.
Some wondered why the government did not continue to monitor Tamerlan’s actions more closely if the FBI had already been tipped by Russia about his probable radical leanings since 2011.
Because the Tsarnaev brothers were of Islamic faith, Republican Rep. Peter King even went further, asking the FBI to focus on threats from within the Muslim community.
Rep. King said on CNN: “Most Muslims are outstanding people, but the threat is coming from the Muslim community… We must ask the question only Muslims can answer. What is going on in your community that a critical number of your youth believes every American military action in the Middle East justifies a violent response? It’s coming from the community.”
But Democratic Representative Keith Ellison disagreed with King. He said while he recognizes the need for public safety, he sees it as “ineffective law enforcement to go after a particular community.”
“Once you start saying we’re going to dragnet or surveil a community, what you do is you ignore dangerous threats that are not in that community and you go after people who don’t have anything to do with it,” Ellison said.
When we asked our Balitang America viewers the question: “Do you agree with a Republican lawmaker’s proposal to ramp up surveillance of Muslim communities to prevent another attack?” Most of those who voted (92 percent) said YES.
One viewer named Delia even passionately argued,: “Why are we so worried about profiling? The safety of AMERICANS far outweighs the risk of ‘insult’ to a group whose religion advocates and actually KILLS AMERICANS.”
After the Boston Marathon attack, we heard Republican senators, Lindsey Graham and John McCain (among others) criticize the way the Obama administration has given Dzhokhar Tsarnaev too much liberty and rights, as an accused. They argued that investigation and treatment of Tsarnaev should have been handled in a way that many think would be a violation of his civil rights as an American citizen.
Yet, despite expectations from government to be more vigilant in investigating people (who are suspected of being part of extremist groups; or who belong to the same religion at least) the latest CNN/Time/ORC poll reveals that 49 percent of Americans are NOT willing to give up their civil liberties in order curb terrorism. Only 40 percent are willing to give them up for national security.
In fact, the same study finds that 61 percent of Americans are more fearful that the government will overreact to the Boston bombing, compared to 31 percent who are worried that the government won’t act strongly enough.
The Guardian’s Harry Enten rightly pointed out that the reaction to Boston has been monumentally different compared to the polling results after 9/11.
Immediately following the attacks on the World Trade Center, 66 percent of Americans were willing to sacrifice their “civil liberties” to stop terrorism — 26 percent higher than today.
Enten also wrote that Democrats at large are now more willing to give up personal freedoms than Republicans.
In the CNN/Time/ORC survey, 51 percent of Democrats were willing to give up some civil liberties to curb terrorism, while only 41 percent of Republicans did.
The same trend, he said, was also reported by polls made by Fox News and Washington Post.
“Republicans, it seems, have become the standard-bearers of civil liberties due to two factors: who’s in the White House and shifting currents inside each party,” Enten theorized.
“Second, the Republican party is increasingly becoming the party of Rand Paul and civil libertarians,” he added.
Expounding on the role politics play in this issue, Enten explained: “This puts hawkish Republicans like Graham and McCain in an awkward position within their own party. If there were a Republican in the White House, I think more Republicans would be willing to sacrifice civil liberties to prevent terrorism. At the same time, though, the Republican party simply is in a different place than it was a decade ago.”
However, our kababayans in America have remained hawkish on this issue. When we asked on Balitang America, “Would you give up some of your personal freedoms to fight terrorism?” A big majority of those who voted (83 percent) said YES.

Hate and Rape are acceptable in the corporate rap game

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXdsIBofwCE]:

2013-05-01 "PepsiCo pulls Mountain Dew ad after criticism"
from "Associated Press":
NEW YORK (AP) -- PepsiCo is once again learning the risks of celebrity partnerships after an ad for Mountain Dew was criticized for portraying racial stereotypes and making light of violence toward women.
The soda and snack food company said it immediately pulled the 60-second spot after learning that people found it was offensive. The ad was part of a series developed by African-American rapper Tyler, The Creator, and depicted a battered white woman on crutches being urged to identify a suspect out of a lineup of black men.
A goat character known as Felicia is included in the lineup and makes threatening comments to the woman, such as "Ya better not snitch on a playa" and "Keep ya mouth shut."
The woman eventually screams "I can't do this, no no no!" and runs away. The word "do" is in apparent reference to the soft drink's "Dew It" slogan.
Mountain Dew, known for its neon color and high caffeine content, is generally marketed to younger men and sometimes attempts to have edgier ads. But the controversy over the company's latest spot illustrates the fine line that companies must walk when trying to be hip.
It's not the first time a major brand has taken heat after trying to align itself with a celebrity to appeal to younger consumers.
In fact, Mountain Dew also was criticized recently because of its endorsement deal with Lil Wayne, whose rap lyrics compared a rough sex act to the tortuous death of Emmett Till, a black teen who was murdered in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman. And last month, Reebok also ended its relationship with Rick Ross after he rapped about giving a woman a drug to have his way with her. Women's groups and rape victims issued petitions in protest.
"For brands that are going after a young demographic, they're always walking that fine line between getting in trouble and appealing to their audience," said Laura Ries, president of Ries & Ries, a marketing firm based in Atlanta.
If PepsiCo had created an ad for Mountain Dew, Ries said it might not have been considered edgy or cool. But by handing over control to a celebrity, she said the company ran the risk of having an ad that wasn't appropriate.
PepsiCo Inc., based in Purchase, N.Y., apologized in a statement and said it understood how the ad could be offensive.
Jen Ryan, a spokeswoman for PepsiCo, said the company learned from its consumer relations team on Tuesday that people found the ad offensive. She said the company was told by Tyler that he would remove it from his YouTube channel as well.
Ryan said that Tyler had "final approval" over the ad but did not know the details of PepsiCo's involvement. The ad was never intended to run on TV, she said.
A publicist for Tyler, the Creator did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. His raps have been criticized for being misogynistic and homophobic at times but he has also expressed support for the singer Frank Ocean, who revealed he was bisexual.