The Candle Or The Dark?

Image credit: Occupy Wall Street

Apparently, today is a day to light candles:

January 15th, 2012 @ 7:00pm in Each Time Zone Globally

Via J15global.com: On his birthday and in the spirit of Dr. King’s vision for racial and economic equality, peace, and non-violence, we are holding candlelight vigils to unite our world in a global movement for systemic change.

The Vigil for Unity is followed by Occupy the Dream on January 16, and the first day of Occupy Congress actions, on January 17.

Wherever we may be, whether in our homes, in city squares, online, Occupies, or at work, we lift a beautiful message high above the political dialogue. We light the dream of a more equitable world in our hearts. We can overcome!

Dr. King said ‘A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and say: ‘This is not just.’

Occupy Wall Street announcement about Jan. 15 vigil

I'm not much into candle burning, but I love the expression "Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness", so consider this a virtual candle in our virtual world.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons.

For anyone who is active in politics, or wants to understand how activism works, one of Dr. King's most important legacies may have been the Letter From A Birmingham Jail (see UPDATE 2 below). While being held for his actions in a civil rights demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama, King used the time to compose a letter that explained the reasons he and his compatriots used demonstrations and civil disobedience to protest the injustices that African Americans faced in the South of those days. One of the paragraphs that stands out for me, as if it were calling directly from that time to this is:

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]

We, too, live in a time of monologue. Our press is largely controlled by the people who don't want things to change, who like them fine the way they are. Until the Occupy movements changed the discussion, we seldom even saw discussions of the widening gap between the upper few percent of our population and the rest of us. As first the poor and lower middle class, and now the rest of the middle class have lost ground, we have been told by the people who are pleased to call themselves our leaders, that everything is just fine, and we should just shut the hell up.

Caption: Where did all the economic growth end up? Into the hands of the richest people in the country, mostly.

Image credit: Economic Policy Institute

What Dr. King was saying, in essence, was what I was saying:

You don't arrange a protest to deliver a doctoral thesis. You arrange a protest to deliver one simple demand to your rulers: Get it done.

The Place Is The Message

Demonstrations happen because there is no talk, or nothing but talk. All we have gotten the last few years, when we haven't gotten screwed, is talk. And that talk has been a monologue.

Absolutely nothing has changed since I wrote this on MLK Day a year ago:

Caption: Soldiers from Company A, 3-187th Infantry watch from an observation post as bombs are dropped on insurgent positions during Operation Iron Blade II in Ghazni Province Nov. 28.

Image credit: Lt. Col. David Fivecoat/U.S. Army

In a time when we have no real enemies worthy of the name, we've become obsessed with defense, spending far more than any other advanced country and getting even less. We pay for these priorities in lost jobs and diminished prospects. After the Second World War, we were the world's leader in physics. Now, thanks to our neglect, coupled with Europe's interest, they appear to be regaining the lead they had in the early part of the Twentieth Century. From going to the Moon in a decade, our space program can't even service the space station it built. The next generation of boosters has been canceled. Our infrastructure inadequate and crumbling thanks to decades of neglect. We sacrificed all this, not to mention our health care and retirement, to be better at destroying someone else's country than anyone else is.

Dr. King's Nightmare

That's why there are demonstrations, because when we talk, we're not listened to. As another African American activist, Frederick Douglass, once wrote:

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Until demands are made, until there's a clear implication that the next step will be even more unpleasant for those in power if things don't change, nothing will change. That's as clear now as when Douglass was trying to free his people from the slave owners, or when Dr. King was battling white racists and their enablers a century later.

As Jackson Browne would say, no one rides for free.

We're headed for a dark time. With income inequality getting worse, there is no way that the power shift can be halted without a lot of, to use Dr. King's word, "tension". How dark it will be, and how it ends, will be largely dependent on how insistently we demand what we need, and what we do when we don't get it.

That's what Dr. King taught us.

UPDATE: Slight edit to remove a sentence that I didn't complete...

UPDATE 2 (Jan. 16): The University of Stanford's Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute has an annotated version of MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail online. If you're not too aware of the history of the civil rights movement (and who below the age of 60 is these days?), it's a good way to read the letter.

Sunday Photo(s)

In the Midwest, and some parts of the basin and range region, there are days when the clouds provide their own amazing scenery. Being able to see long distances without obstructions like hills and mountains allows an observer to watch clouds pass by for hours as the weather changes.

When you live on either the East Coast or West Coast of the United States, such opportunities are more limited. There are always hills or mountains around to block your view, as well as the occasional building. One of the better vantage points out here for cloud watching is the shore itself.

This is the view from Lincoln Park, in southern Seattle, just west of the ferry docks:

Image credit: All photos by Cujo359

(More pictures after the break)

Another Look At Our Future

Isn't this a sign of the times?

Organised crime has tightened its grip on the Italian economy during the economic crisis, making the Mafia the country's biggest "bank" and squeezing the life out of thousands of small firms, according to a report on Tuesday.
...
Organised crime now generated annual turnover of about 140 billion euros ($178.89 billion) and profits of more than 100 billion euros, it added.

"With 65 billion euros in liquidity, the Mafia is Italy's number one bank," said a statement from the group, which was set up in Palermo a decade ago to oppose extortion rackets against small business.

Mafia now "Italy's No.1 bank" as crisis bites-report

Why would anyone, particularly someone as familiar with the Mafia as Italians must be, use their services? The article eventually gets around to answering that one:

Typical victims of extortionate lending were middle-aged shopkeepers and small businessmen who would struggle to find a new job and who were ready to try anything to avoid bankruptcy, it added.

"They are usually people in traditional retail sectors like food, greengrocers, clothes or shoe shops, florists or furniture shops. These are the categories which, more than any other, are paying the price of the (economic) crisis," it said.

According to a separate report this week from small business association CNA, 56 percent of companies had seen banks tighten their lending requirements in the past three months.

Mafia now "Italy's No.1 bank" as crisis bites-report

There's money to lend, of course, but the banks see no reason to lend it. Pretty much like things are over here. My guess is that Italy isn't the only country that's going to see its organized criminals profit from this thing.

Of course, it could be said that the main difference between the loan sharks and the real banks is who they ruin. Big banks seem to be content to ruin big businesses and small countries. The mob is more ambitious.

The Real Question

Caption: Screenshot from Live Leak video of U.S. Marines about to urinate on dead Taliban.

Image credit: Screenshot of this video taken and reduced by Cujo359

The video is making the rounds, if you want to see it, it's here, among other places. You can see screenshots here. Personally, I've seen all I want.

There are people, like the sad excuse for a human being CNN hired as its Tea Party viewpoint who think that things like this are just dandy, and what's everyone's problem? Needless to say I disagree with this point of view.

On the other hand, I am neither shocked nor appalled by it. This sort of thing is going to happen in a war. Behavior like this, as disgusting as it is to us, isn't unknown in warfare. I've never been in combat, so I can't speak to what that's like. But I know my own personality well enough to know that if a group of people scared the hell out of me, making me fear for my life or the life of someone I cared about, and then I had a loaded weapon placed in my hands and the chance to deal with the problem, the results would not be pretty, nor would the aftermath.

John Edwards Diagnosed With Serious Heart Ailment

Caption: John Edwards in happier, and healthier days, speaks to reporters in New Orleans after announcing his candidacy for president, December 28, 2006.

Image credit: the Edwards campaign

According to multiple sources, former presidential candidate John Edwards has a heart condition that has delayed his trial on misuse of campaign funds:

A federal judge says she has two letters from a cardiologist saying ex-presidential candidate John Edwards has a life-threatening condition that will require surgery in February.

John Edwards Has Life-Threatening Condition: Doctor

Both CNN and CBS have similar news stories on file.

I see no word yet on what the condition is, but if it requires surgery it's bound to be serious. Edwards is 58 years old, and will go on trial soon. It's not a time for elective heart surgery.

According to CNN, Edwards faces up to thirty years in jail, and $1.5 million fine, if convicted. Those are the sorts of numbers I recall from earlier reports on Edwards' upcoming trial.

Edwards was the candidate I endorsed during the 2008 election.

UPDATE: From the Charlotte News Observer report concerning Edwards' condition:

Judge Catherine Eagles did not disclose the medical condition afflicting Edwards, but said she had received letters from his cardiologist.

In those letters, the judge said the doctors wrote that the condition was treatable and the former U.S. presidential candidate had a good chance of success if the course of treatment were followed.
...
She indicated that his condition has given him problems on three occasions since being diagnosed in December. She said his condition has affected his daily life and makes it difficult for him to drive.

Judge delays Edwards' trial, confirming medical condition

Which is probably as much as anyone can write on the matter without a statement from Edwards' attorneys.

Quote Of The Day

From the ignominy of last month's smackdown, Robert Reich has recovered enough of that magic to be the quote of the day:

The Republican right thinks Paul’s views on the economy are responsible for this fire among the young. Yesterday evening, on Larry Kudlow’s CNBC program, I squared off with Larry and the Wall Street Journal’s Steve Moore. Both are convinced young people are attracted by Paul’s strict adherence to the views of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, and Paul’s desire to move America back to the gold standard.

Baloney. The young are flocking to Ron Paul because he wants to slice military spending, bring our troops home, stop government from spying on American citizens, and legalize pot.

The Youthful Magic Of Ron Paul

Let me just break in here and point out the obvious - this isn't quite true. There are some people that age who have just read Atlas Shrugged and now think they should be selecting their luggage and travel kits for when they go Galt. In the meantime, they are no doubt fans of Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Whatsisname. Still, I'm pretty sure Reich's correct, if only because those were the things that mattered to me back in those days, and I don't think things have changed that much in the intervening years. In fact, if anything, civil liberties and ending the drug war are more of a priority now than they were back when I was part of the youth vote. Larry Kudlow and Steve Moore are almost certainly seeing what they want to see, and ignoring the fact that much of what is appealing about Ron Paul to anyone who doesn't have his head up his ass has nothing to do with his crackpot theories of economics.

Reich concludes:

[I]f Republicans — or Democrats, for that matter — want to win over much of the nation’s young next November, they’d do well to listen carefully to Paul’s positions on national defense and civil liberties.

The Youthful Magic Of Ron Paul

I think that if there's one sure thing about the 2012 election, aside from the futility of swapping Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, it's that damn few in either party will listen.

What Football Can Teach Us, Part II

Yes, American discourse is far too full of metaphors, similes, and references to sports. Given my attitude about sports, football in particular, it probably would have behooved me to avoid this discussion, but then I read this column by The Nation sports columnist Dave Zirin, concerning last weekend's playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Denver Broncos:

My central Xs and Os mistake in predicting a Pittsburgh blowout was ignoring the injuries that had ravaged the Steelers. Their quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, had one working leg, with his other ankle swollen to badly he had to wear a larger shoe. Their Pro Bowl center Maurkice Pouncey and starting running back Rashard Mendenhall were both out with injuries. Their safety Ryan Clark also couldn’t play with a serious blood disorder. It was certainly ignorant of me to ignore that long list. But I made an even bigger mistake than that.

I made the cardinal error of applying the laws of politics to sports. In the last two weeks, two Republican primary also-rans—Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry—invoked the name of Tim “Focus on the Family” Tebow to inspire their flagging Christianist base. To put it mildly, the gambit failed to work for either candidate. I was over-eager to see Tebow then fail in their footsteps.

Tim Tebow: Praising the Player. Hating the Game

I've seen this tendency in people before, and not just regarding the case of self-righteous jerks like Tim Tebow. It's a fairly common mistake people make - mistaking their wishes for what they should know is actually true.

Happy, Happy. Joy, Joy. Oh, Wait, We're Still Unemployed?

There was, as usual with unemployment reports that sound positive, all sorts of hoopla from Democrats about how marvelous it is that we're finally on the right track economically. Their usual apologists in the press are taking a crack at making this pig look perfect for that shade of lipstick. I think all you have to do is read Paul Krugman's or Brad DeLong's frank assessments to realize that this is overblown, but maybe the best rebuttal came from Dean Baker yesterday:

Another Anniversary

In what is, perhaps, more of a milestone than others, the comic xkcd turned 1000 on Friday:




As usual, xkcd author Randall Munroe can't resist tossing in some geek humor. (For the uninitiated, 1024 is the next-nearest power of two. It's also the number of somethings we computer types are usually referring to when we refer to a 'K' of something, though we sometimes round off to 1000 to make it easy on you ten-based folks.)

Congratulations, and as long as you're happy about the idea, here's hoping for a thousand more.

New Year's Day

It's finally 2012. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, but I'm glad to see the back of 2011.

Caption: The Oregonian Clock, or what's left of it, at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) in Portland. Here's part of what the sign next to it said:

The Oregonian Clock was originally purchased in 1892 for the old Oregonian building on SW Fifth and Yamhill. It is a model 4S tower clock, manufactured by the E. Howard & Co. of Boston. The model 4S is a heavy duty hour striker that could operate the hands of up to four dials from 8 to 30 feet in diameter.

Image credit: Photo by Cujo359


Now, I might have tried to find some New Year's-themed music, but Dana embedded "New Year's Day", which is quite likely the one I would have chosen. Suzanne went with ABBA, which I think I can honestly say I will never do.

So take your pick. And enjoy the fact that I managed to find a picture of a clock.

Hope yours is a happy 2012.