Gord's Notebook : #OWS " The People's Bishop " & France Socialism Not Austerity And US Ramping Up Its Culture Of Institutionalized Violence and Barbarity From Kabul and Baghdad to Mainstreet USA

‘‘Occupy,”... is a political movement. Let’s not be naive. But it also has a moral core... Those who took to the streets in the Middle East were not simply unsettled. They were called together because they had a connection with each other. Many, many people have reached a point where the only option left is to place their bodies, their beings, in a location where they can finally have some say and some control over their own lives.

...If you don’t have any money in our political system you not only have no say, you don’t have any dignity. And the only way left to reclaim our dignity is to occupy, to reinhabit the environments that have been taken away from us.”

Bishop George Packard commenting on the Occupy Movement from Chris Hedges article "The People's Bishop."

...It is a sick hypocrisy for Obama, Clinton, Panetta, or Allen to claim that these actions are not a direct result of U.S. military and foreign policy. If Dick Cheney and John Yoo were torturing language and logic to advocate the torture of humans, why wouldn't guards at Abu Ghraib fall into the same debased state of mind? (For example, years after he claimed it was "not who we are," documents proved that, ahead of the My Lai massacre, Westmoreland himself had issued rules-of-engagement orders that any civilians found in Communist-held territory like My Lai, a "free-fire" zone, were to be considered enemy combatants, and treated the same as Viet Cong.)

Quote from: American Atrocities: Not Who We Are? Really?
So Then Who in the Hell Are We? By Dan DeWalt at "ThisCantbehappening!" via Information Clearing House, May 7,2012

Military considerations increasingly shape — and warp — our entire system of democracy and law. Despite the absence of any major threat to our safety and independence, we have become a garrison state, permanently mobilized for incessant intervention. It's a safe bet that whoever wins in November, we will be embroiled in a new war sometime in the next four years.

Romney and Obama may pretend they represent stark differences in America's approach to national security and world affairs. But in this realm, there is no Democratic or Republican party. There is only the war party. Steve Chapman Chicago Tribune May 7, 2012

Quote from: Every President is a War President Politics protects the garrison state by Steve Chapman at Chicago Tribune via Information Clearing House, May 7, 2012

#OWS UPDATE:

The People’s Bishop by Chris hedges via Truth Dig.com, May 7, 2012

Retired Episcopal Bishop George Packard was arrested in Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza in New York City last Tuesday night as he participated in the May 1 Occupy demonstrations. He and 15 other military veterans were taken into custody after they linked arms to hold the plaza against a police attempt to clear it...

Packard’s moral and intellectual courage stands in stark contrast with the timidity of nearly all clergy and congregants in all of our major religious institutions... And Packard’s arrests serve as a reminder of the price that we—especially those who claim to be informed by the message of the Christian Gospel—must be willing to pay to defy the destruction visited on us all by the corporate state. He is one of the few clergy members who dare to bear a genuine Christian witness in an age that cries out in anguish for moral guidance.

‘‘Arrests are not arrests anymore,” Packard said as we talked Friday in a restaurant overlooking Zuccotti Park in New York. ‘‘They are badges of honor. They are, as you are taken away with your comrades, exhilarating. The spirit is calling us now into the streets, calling us to reject the old institutional orders. There is no going back. You can’t sit anymore in churches listening to stogy liturgies. They put you to sleep. Most of these churches are museums with floorshows. They are a caricature of what Jesus intended. Jesus would be turning over the money-changing tables in their vestibules. Those in the church may be good-hearted and even well-meaning, but they are ignoring the urgent, beckoning call to engage with the world. It is only outside the church that you will find the spirit of God and Christ. And with the rise of the Occupy movement it has become clear that the institutional church has failed.

... We need people in the church to leave their comfort zones, to turn away from the hierarchy, and this is still terrifying to a lot of people in the church and especially the church leadership.

‘‘Occupy,” he went on, ‘‘is a political movement. Let’s not be naive. But it also has a moral core... Those who took to the streets in the Middle East were not simply unsettled. They were called together because they had a connection with each other. Many, many people have reached a point where the only option left is to place their bodies, their beings, in a location where they can finally have some say and some control over their own lives.

...If you don’t have any money in our political system you not only have no say, you don’t have any dignity. And the only way left to reclaim our dignity is to occupy, to reinhabit the environments that have been taken away from us.”

France rejects austerity policies which punishes average citizens while at the same time rewarding the undeserved Rich and powerful .
It is the rich and powerful on Wall Street afterall who brought the economy to the brink as they were awash in their illgotten gains.

France Goes With the Socialist by Chris hedges Truthdig.com, May 6,2012

The austerity regime in Europe took a big hit Sunday, with French voters electing Socialist Francois Hollande, while the Greeks, also voting Sunday, handed out pink slips to the ruling centrist coalition that has slashed government spending on EU orders.

Hollande will be the first left-leaning leader of France in 17 years, an awfully long drought considering the country’s reputation as a social democracy.

Votes are still being counted as of this posting, but President Nicolas Sarkozy has already conceded.

Hollande’s ascension is significant to the Greeks, who spent the day castigating their pro-austerity representatives in parliament and voting to support a variety of alternative parties on both the left and right.

America's Violent and Brutal Culture acted upon abroad has come back to the streets of the USA .
American soldiers and mercenaries are given the green light to unleash brutal barbaric warfare on those deemed as the ENEMY . The American war machine is unleashed to destroy the homes ,villages and cities of a nation deemed to be an enemy .
The US troops are given a licence to kill, murder, rape, maim, degrade and torture the peoples in the countries where the US has declared open war or is involved in secret covert operations in foreign nations of interest.

American Atrocities: Not Who We Are? Really?
So Then Who in the Hell Are We? By Dan DeWalt at "ThisCantbehappening!" via Information Clearing House, May 7,2012

The latest PR catch phrase from business, administration, military, state and local officials after some atrocity or other is that whatever happened, it is certainly “not who we are,” a phrase appropriately initially uttered by the Vietnam War commander, Gen. William Westmoreland, with reference to the My Lai slaughter of 400 women, children and old men, all civilians, by a group of US soldiers.

Yet if all these abominations are not “who we are,” then why do our business, police and military and government institutions generate so many examples of obscene, horrific or criminal behavior?

If we examine the culture that guides our young men and women in battle, our public safety employees in their duties, or our business class in its pursuit of profit, it’s easy to see how shameful and reprehensible episodes such as these have become as routine as they have...

...It is a sick hypocrisy for Obama, Clinton, Panetta, or Allen to claim that these actions are not a direct result of U.S. military and foreign policy. If Dick Cheney and John Yoo were torturing language and logic to advocate the torture of humans, why wouldn't guards at Abu Ghraib fall into the same debased state of mind? (For example, years after he claimed it was "not who we are," documents proved that, ahead of the My Lai massacre, Westmoreland himself had issued rules-of-engagement orders that any civilians found in Communist-held territory like My Lai, a "free-fire" zone, were to be considered enemy combatants, and treated the same as Viet Cong.)

Those in power attempt to frame the issue within the “one bad apple in the barrel” rubric. As long as they can pretend that war crimes and atrocities aren’t a logical outcome of official policy, they can shift blame to those without power and keep the odious policies in place. The cabinet secretary sanctimoniously intones platitudes about morality at the same time as one of his underlings is screaming “KILL!” into a fresh recruit's trembling face.

The same kind of thing happens in the case of police and federal law enforcement officials. Increasingly militarized themselves, they are trained to believe not that their duty is to “protect and serve” or to uphold the nation’s freedoms and liberty, but rather that they are centurions tasked with enforcing “order” and protecting property--generally government property and the property of the wealthy. The general public then becomes a kind of “enemy” to be subdued with whatever force is necessary. Those who stand up for their rights under the law are perceived as threats to the authority of the enforcers, and are dealt with as enemies, to be beaten, pepper-sprayed in the face, spied upon and locked up.

Does America find meaning and purpose only when pursuing and involved in conflict and war? Is Perpetual war taking its toll on America's psyche or soul leaving it twisted, perverted, mangled beyond all recognition?
The problem for America is that after almost a dozen years of war can America kick the war habit?
Since 9/11 America's citizens have abandoned bit by bit all of their nations principles, freedoms, rights and ideals traded for National and personal security. They have replaced "thou shalt not kill" and "Love thine enemy" for a paranoid policy of stand your ground , shoot first ask questions later and if need be kill them all before they kill you.
This mind set does not bode well for a healthy civil society but rather one of suspicion , paranoia, fear, isolation and / or tribalism of a War of All against all.

Every President is a War President Politics protects the garrison state by Steve Chapman at Chicago Tribune via Information Clearing House, May 7, 2012

...Looking at recent history, you would conclude not that the Constitution allows the president to make war, but that it requires him to do so. Modern leaders don't brag about keeping us out of war but about getting us in.

Barack Obama reinforces that truth more than any president of our era. He owed his victory in the 2008 Democratic primaries partly to his record of opposing the invasion of Iraq...

"We've had enough of a misguided war in Iraq that never should have been fought — a war that needs to end," he said during the campaign. He proclaimed, "Now is the time to start bringing our troops out of Iraq — immediately."

...Either Obama's supporters misread him or he misled them. In any case, he turned out to be very receptive to war. Instead of immediately withdrawing our troops from Iraq, he adhered to the very same departure timetable established by President George W. Bush. Not until the end of 2011 did the last American forces make their exit.

In Afghanistan, Obama actually increased our presence, while setting a distant deadline (2014) for ending our combat role. He has greatly increased the pace of drone missile attacks on targets in Pakistan, and he has made them in Yemen and Somalia.

He launched an air war against the government of Libya, which had neither attacked nor threatened us...