If you keeping fucking with the theories behind democracy, the way elected officials who are shallow, spineless, ruthless, power-hungry and egotistical (democrats and republicans) do, then expect one day to have an “Arab-spring” (political revolt) right here in the good old US of Amnesia. When will we ever learn?

There are those who seem to think an Arab-spring can never happen here, since the traditional institutions which are so embedded in the polity, offer some type of protection and buffer from the frustrations of most voters. They are wrong. They also believe that the implied power(s) of the federal, state and city/local governments (security forces, militias, executive branches of government, plus the legal system, etcetera) will always guarantee stability and compliance. They are wrong again.

The Tea-Party movement is about frustration within the political system. The Occupation Wall-Street movement extends this frustration to the banking/financial system. Dwindling voter-participation all over the country is also about overall frustration with our so-called democratic system; which is in fact an unfinished democracy.  read more »

Can't. Stop. Smiling.

Go Sonia Sotomayor, GO!

Let me be up front. I have never been a fan of Jesse Jackson. I appreciated the movement he tried to create, but always was leery of the man himself. I was viewed with some suspicion by some of my white liberal friends because I didn't jump on the Jesse Jackson bandwagon, but the truth is he creeped me out.

The first chance I had to directly observe Jesse Jackson in action was when then bishop Desmond Tutu came to speak at UC San Diego where I was a student. This was back when Tutu had to be very careful what he said or he might join Mandela in prison. His speech was amazing, and had the main message that too often America put itself on the wrong side...and for once we should do the right thing, back the right horse.

Through the entire event, Jesse Jackson was there, often pushing himself to the forefront and hogging the spotlight. I found his presence irritated me, and this despite all the good things I had heard about him from fellow liberals. And it seemed to me, though I may have just been projecting, that Tutu himself seemed to look a bit askance at Jackson.  read more »

The whole situation around Omar Rivera's cruel death is just sickening to me.

I am a "white collar" working-class mother to two boys who had to contend every day for 3 years that their father and I were winging it without medical insurance. We've been lucky to have found a pro-active, pro-alternative medicine, health care safe haven in our family doctor's practice at the Sidney Hillman Family Practice.

But our health care experience is not common for most New Yorkers. Most people jump from one practice to another in a game of health insurance coverage musical chairs. And those who are too poor to work out any payment scale have to contend with whatever they can get either through an indigents' clinic or whichever emergency room that may attend them.

What's so horrible about Omar's death is that it reminds me of a "so true it hurts" bit in Chris Rock's stand up routine, Bigger and Blacker.  read more »

Sobibor was almost the forgotten Nazi Death Camp. It was almost forgotten because the SS themselves tried to eradicate all traces of the camp. The camp had become an embarrassment after nearly half the Jews at the camp rebelled and escaped.

That rebellion happened today in 1943.

Sobibor was one of the actual "Death Camps" where extermination was the primary goal. Most concentration camps focused on working the prisoners to death. The "Death Camps" focused on killing them as fast as they could. There were six death camps, all located in Poland: Aucshwitz II, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka. More than 250,000 people were murdered at Sobibor alone. Both Treblinka and Sobibor were destroyed thanks to Jewish uprisings.

At 4 PM, Oct. 14th, 1943, rebels led by Alexander (Sasha) Pechersky started killing SS soldiers at Sobibor. The first to die was the camp's deputy commander, killed as he visited the tailor's shop to try on a new uniform. Here is an account of that first blow as told by a survivor:  read more »