This is a whitehouse.gov petition asking President Obama's Administration to recognize the protest movement, #OccupyWallStreet. .

Go to WhiteHouse.gov and sign the petition. http://wh.gov/gPv

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we petition the obama administration to:

Mr.Obama, this is a petition for you to publicly recognize, whether in a live speech, or in one of your weekly youtube addresses, the #occupywallstreet movement that is currently taking place in NYC.

These men and women are trying to send a message to their fellow Americans and to the world- the big banks and the super-rich, who is "buying out congress", are the primary drivers of the ongoing recession.

Unfortunately, they are largely being ignored by the media in the United States due to the "small size" of the protests. Note that "small size" has not deterred Fox, CNN and other US news channels/newspapers from covering, and even putting on the front page, Tea Party and other far right protests, some of which have had as little as 100 people (#occupywallst varies from 500-3000)

By Michael Collins

The legitimate demands of the people everywhere have no color, nor do their revolutions.  These are not the revolutions arising from staged events by the White House, the National Endowment for Democracy, and other meddlers.  We are witnessing what Mark Levine called human nationalism.  The people of Tunisia, now Egypt, are, "taking control of their politics, economy and identity away from foreign interests and local elites alike in a manner that has not been seen in more than half a century." (Image)

Somehow, we are supposed to believe that the English speaking peoples have a corner on democracy.  The rest of the world is still learning.  When the oppressed of a nation, particularly of the third world, stage an uprising, it is neatly packaged and color coded.  That way it's easier to follow.  The Western leaders and press assume an avuncular pose and pass judgment on how the various colors pass along the path to self-determination -- not too fast, not to0 rowdy, and certainly not to0 disruptive to first world markets, especially oil.

Reichwing -- er, I mean "right-wing" -- crazies are up in arms again, this time making a stink about the recent renovation of the Oval Office. They've keyed in on one particular element, and apparently think it's as damning as any GOP hypocrisy. Nay, worse, in their minds.

The charge? That the a quote on the rug, attributed to Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King, isn't correctly attributed, and thus a subject for controversy. The hate-mongers on the right claim that the quote originates with nineteenth-century Unitarian minister, Theodore Parker.¹ That claim isn't wholly without merit -- anyone who reads Parker's words can see that the quote draws upon the words and meaning of Parker's work.

But it is not a quotation from Parker's piece. It's a paraphrasing of his words, and a summation of the point made in a paragraph.

For those who can read and make actual judgements on their own, here are the words of King and the words of Parker for comparison, in the context in which they appeared.

King's use of the words, in context:

__________

"I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth crushed to earth will rise again.

"How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever.

"How long? Not long, because you shall reap what you sow....

"How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

__________

Parker's use of the words, in context:

__________

"I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice."

__________

King paraphrased Parker's words, making it his own within the context of his speech and creating the actual quote "The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice." That's King. It's what Parker was driving at, but compare the words -- King's quote is a summation, a paraphrasing and contraction of the point Parker was making. King made the words short and memorable, creating a quote in the process that can be attributed to his words, his context, and yet providing a hat-tip toward Parker's thoughts.

Parker made the point, but did not provide the quote.

Hat-tip Pilkington on DailyKos for providing and linking to both original quotes, thinkexist for the Parker quote and Arthur Howe on Salon for the King quote.

¹ phrase identifying Parker's name and position taken from here.

Michael Collins
(Satire)

White House Press Secretary, Robert "the mole" Gibbs, was outed last night for his lead role in throwing the 2010 congressional election to the Republican Party. The White House refused to return calls to comment on the charge or verify the outline of the carefully orchestrated plot. But a variety of off the record sources spoke as one - the plot is real and has been going on long before the 2008 general election. The scope of the plot goes well beyond the upcoming congressional contests.

In a recent interview for The Hill newspaper, Gibbs used an entirely new technique in election tactics - offend and humiliate a key element of your voting block right before a critical election. Gibbs ridiculed progressives as part of the "Professional Left" and said, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.” Research indicates that this approach has never been used within 90 days of a general election.

But the story goes much deeper than simple electoral politics. The planned outburst has a short term benefit for Republicans but, as we will see, Gibbs is reporting to a higher authority.

Arguably and the way this legislation is set up, repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policies that discriminate against the gay and lesbian communities and their ability to serve in the military will take time to do it this way. It could be done instantly with the wave of a presidential pen but the problem with that is that what the presidential pen giveth, the presidential pen may just as easily taketh away under the next discriminating and homophobic president. So, in a way, this slow walk may be better:

Amy Goodman's coverage includes talking with Trudy Lieberman of Columbia Journalism Review, who has paid careful attention to the issues. 

Lieberman closes her portion of the health care discussion segment with the topic on which President Obama chose to conclude the White House Healthcare Summit, yesterday. 

It's what I think of as the morality versus profits paradox that is concerned with the unwillingness of the world's richest nation to secure for its citizens the most basic assurances provided the constituencies of the rest of the civilized world.

Excerpted from transcript of DemocracyNow!

Trudy Lieberman: ...But I think we really still have no agreement on whether everyone in this country, every citizen, should have healthcare and the ticket to buy it. And I think the President was getting to that point at the very end, when he admitted, quite candidly, he does not know whether we can bridge the gap. And the gap that he identified was how are we going to cover the 30 million people that the government wants to cover and deal with getting everyone into a risk pool, dealing with the pre-existing conditions issue, which keeps people out of this, because in a private insurance market you really—insurance companies can’t really choose people who are sick, or they will go out of business eventually. So that is really the question that has not been resolved.

Of course, it is that paradoxical need which single-payer advocates suggest is answered with the sorts of "Medicare-For-All"-based solutions they have been striving to tell our lawmakers about.