Monday, July 9, 2012

Too Big to Jail


Here's the amazon.com link to a great read I recently downloaded for my kindle: With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful, by Glenn Greenwald.  You can read a sample chapter there for free.  A former litigator and now journalist with salon.com, Glenn Greenwald tells the recent story of how many of the biggest criminals on Wall Street are too powerful to be prosecuted.  


The book itself is the latest chapter in the ongoing class warfare saga of these United States, or what I like to call generally Justice for the Rich (one of my topics/labels for blog posts here).  Glenn Greenwald's book is mainly about the recent failure of our government to prosecute the biggest criminals on Wall Street, or the problem of - to use a title of one of the actual chapters of this book -  "Too Big To Jail."  That is to say, while big financial institutions are deemed "too big to fail," the leading banksters in charge of them are similarly just too big and powerful to be jailed. 

I heard Glenn Greenwald on NPR today, but the Democracy Now! interview, "Zero Accountability": Glenn Greenwald on Obama's Refusal to Prosecute Wall Street Crimesis more informative.  Glenn is one of at least two Greenwalds active in the political and journalistic arena and in it for the right reasons, to seek truth and justice.  The other is Robert Greenwald, whose documentaries I have often mentioned here on my blog.  I wonder if these two Greenwalds are related.   In any case, I have no personal connections to either and get nothing for this plug other than the satisfaction of passing on a good read.


Sunday, July 1, 2012

The President We Really Need


Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party Presidential Candidate, from Massachusetts, is the only Presidential candidate who is speaking the truth about Obamneycare and is talking about a real solution to the health care crisis: a single-payer system: Romneycare and Obamacare are class warfare and failures, says Stein; calls for "real solution" of Medicare for All.


She is the President we really need.  I am, however, about 100 percent sure we will instead get the one named Obamney.

Last election, my vote, and my campaign contribution, went to Obama.  This year, my contribution has already gone to Dr. Jill Stein and my vote will follow.   This year, I cannot bring myself to vote for the Demopublican over the Republicrat.   Each principal party candidate has now proven by his actions - despite what he may have said, or may now say, to get elected - that he is steadfastly in support of unnecessary and immoral wars, that he is shamelessly in favor of lavish corporate welfare and bailouts to the rich elite who regularly and legally steal from the rest of us, and that he will obsequiously kowtow to Wall Street and big corporations and continuously pretend to serve the public interest without actually doing so.

In this year, as in all national political election years, I am especially mindful of the eternal truth in George Orwell's statement that political language is "designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."