Matt Taibbi on Iowa

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi doesn't see real democracy unfolding in Iowa:

In the wake of the Tea Party, the Occupy movement, and a dozen or more episodes of real rebellion on the streets, in the legislatures of cities and towns, and in state and federal courthouses, this presidential race now feels like a banal bureaucratic sideshow to the real event – the real event being a looming confrontation between huge masses of disaffected citizens on both sides of the aisle, and a corrupt and increasingly ideologically bankrupt political establishment, represented in large part by the two parties dominating this race. Let’s put it this way. What feels more like a real news story – Newt Gingrich calling Mitt Romney a liar for the ten millionth time, or this sizzling item that just hit the wires by way of the Montana Supreme Court.
Taibbi points to an astonishing statistic brought to the public attention by Dylan Ratigan: "94% of the time the candidate who raises the most money wins. That's not a democracy. That's an auction."

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We are moving from the few and big to the small and many

At Orion Magazine, Bill McKibben has noted a trend in energy production, information, health care, banking and (believe it or not) farming:

[W]e’re moving, if we’re lucky, from the world of few and big to the world of small and many. We’ll either head there purposefully or we’ll be dragged kicking, but we’ve reached one of those moments when tides reverse.
This movement to the small and many is a democratic movement, and McKibben's comment about the "tides revering" refers to the fact that "small and many" will be resisted by those who can profit by confiscating and retaining large-scale control:
In our world, most of those people are not actually persons—we call them corporations. But their power over our democracy is very real, and on the farm and on the trading floor and in the hospital ward they’re doing their very best to block the transitions we need. Their money, earned under the old bigger-is-better paradigm, gives them great power to block change: just look at how skillfully the fossil fuel industry has used the Tea Party to stifle legislation that would speed the transition to renewable energy. Watch Big Ag write the next Farm Bill—it won’t be pretty.

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UC Davis Chancellor Katehi makes her silent exit

One of the comments at this youtube video says it all: "Of course it was peaceful. The ones causing violence were not there: the cops." The story is here. More and more, we are seeing a militarization of urban police forces--America's military weapons and tactics turned toward her own people who are exercising their First Amendment rights.

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A new Declaration for America: to wake up from its delusions

With the help of a DI reader who wishes to remain anonymous, I have created the following Declaration for modern Americans to wake up from their delusions. I'd recommend that all adults and school children put their hands over their hearts in the morning and say the following instead of pledging allegiance to the powers-that-be (but see here for an alternate form of the Pledge).

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