Good Thing: Where Have You Gone?

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts." <

-Abraham Lincoln

Good thing, where have you gone? (Watch video, and for all you pianists like Yours truly, enjoy the truly fine ragtime riff of the 'king of the keys', Jools Holland.)

The 4th of July came and went with a quiet, rather uncelebratory bang around here and I am not sure if it had less to do with the fact that the 4th happened to fall mid-week this year or if, with all of the signs of our Democracy being looted (Libby pardon, Cohen &Grigsbygate, Iraq, the Subprime lending scandal, SCOTUS so far packed to the Right that is has fallen completely off the integer line, Poisoned food from China, the Dollar tanking, etc.) could it be that We the People have had just about enough yet?

Sure, maybe we're all a little tired and cranky from being reamed by the unmistakeably virulent corporate leaders who are hell-bent on colluding with a corrupt Congress to sell off our jobs and our civil liberties, while the elitist zeitgeist cooks up more international schemes to manufacture and sell any old crap to an increasingly wary world that is quite arguably being left worse off from the opressive Western hand of globalization?

Read more about this in the new book by Stephen Marshall "Wolves In Sheep's Clothing", which raises the specter of whether the forced corporatization (that's what 'democracy' really means) of our Western Democracy on third world societies is not only a failed model for people but a necessary tool of perpetual war all around the globe.

http://www.alternet.org/stories/55418/

One concern I have about "Wolves In Sheep's Clothing" is that author defines blowhards like Tom Friedman as a "liberal elite" which, if you read the comments, almost every one raised questions about. I mean, I have always thought of him as a "conservative" but then when you think about it, he comes out here to Silicon Valley and schmoozes with self described bipartisan "best and brightest" ceos and executives who, with their legendary outsourcing bluprint, have made slave drivers on the plantations look like candy stripers.

On another note, Cindy Sheehan has taken up the Iraq war protest circuit once again and I don't know why she and her posse have not made an announcement to make a pitstop here and challenge the ceos and executives who are bunkered down in this War on the Middle Class as Cohen & Grigsbygate has outted them for selling off our educated white collar workers also to the third world Read more about this at

http://noslaves.com

http://programmersguild.blogspot.com

Good Thing: Have the Good Reporters Sold Out? With rampant layoffs and media consolidation, where does one find reliable reporting that respects its readers with an emphasis on speaking truth to power? As the "Big Blogs" take up banning their constituents, becoming more 'secretive' and Skull and Bonesy as they schmooze with the Kool-Aid stand manufacturers, the need for professional journalists with character and integrity has never been greater to report on this War on the Middle Class.

That, indeed, would be a good thing.

-2Truthy