After a bruising confirmation hearing, former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel was confirmed as United States Secretary of Defense. Hagel’s confirmation today, and the recent one of John Kerry at the US State Department mark a departure from the first term of the Obama administration. If President Obama’s first term in office can be largely viewed as Bill Clinton’s third term, the nominations of Hagel and Kerry could be, hopefully, the indication of a slight distancing from a full tilt pro-war and  pro-Israel  foreign policy. While it would be naive to perceive either Kerry or Hagel as doves, these two Vietnam veterans are certainly less hawkish than Hillary Clinton and Clintonite Leon Panetta. The confirmation of Chuck Hagel will not be well received by Israel and the all-powerful Jewish lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Ultimately, the nominations of Kerry and Hagel indicate that the campaign promises expressed by President Obama to get the US out of Afghanistan are real and regarded as a foreign policy priority.

Withdrawing the US military from Afghanistan: the number one job for Hagel and Kerry

Just like in Vietnam, the war in Afghanistan is a quagmire, and unquestionably Mr. Kerry and Mr. Hagel are the most qualified politicians in Washington to understand this. Both know that the war is unwinnable on the battlefield. The Afghanistan war is the United States’ longest military involvement, and it is a war of attrition against an elusive enemy. If Kerry returned from Vietnam resolutely opposed to the war and was very vocal about it in 1971, this was not the case for Hagel. But lately, Hagel’s positions on America’s war adventures have been an anomaly in Washington. He has consistently voiced his opposition to the troop build ups in Iraq pushed by the Bush administration and rubber stamped by the US Congress. But even if Hagel has some good intentions, he will certainly face serious opposition from the military leadership at the Pentagon. In a recent report assessing the readiness of Afghan troops, the Department of Defense estimated that very few divisions are ready to fight the Taliban. Another enormous job, related to defining a coherent exit strategy from Afghanistan, will be for Kerry and Hagel to repair the damaged US relationship with Pakistan.

Will Kerry and Hagel bring a more balanced US policy in the Middle-East?

The main opposition to Hagel’s nomination came from groups and individuals close to Israel. On February 14, an online magazine called the Washington Free Beacon alleged that back in 2007, Chuck Hagel  called the State Department “an adjunct to the Israeli foreign minister’s office.” In a town where Israel, through groups like AIPAC, has so much power, this unconfirmed statement attributed to Hagel immediately became fodder for pro-Israeli Senators such as Lindsey Graham to delay Hagel’s nomination by several days. The founder and editor of the online publication is Michael Goldfarb, and he is also the main strategist behind a group called the Emergency Committee for Israel, which is anonymously financed but is rumored to be an offshoot of AIPAC. During the last election cycle, the Emergency Committee for Israel financed advertisements against politicians considered to be “not supportive enough of Israel.” AIPAC and the Netanyahu administration will not be happy about Mr. Hagel’s confirmation. Hagel’s views on Iran, notably, are considered too soft and conciliatory.

Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran, less on the agenda?

Chuck Hagel’s arrival at the Pentagon might be a welcome change from his predecessor, former CIA chief and pro-Israel Clitonite Leon Panetta. As a poison parting gift to his successor, Panetta gave an alarmist exclusive interview to the Wall Street Journal in early February about the “growing threats” from Iran. Panetta accused Iran of smuggling small but very effective “man-pad” anti-aircraft weapons to its neighboring allies, namely the Assad regime in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon. If Panetta’s 19-month run as secretary of defense was a period marked with a focus on preparation of military action against Iran, Hagel’s focus should be different, unless he is forced to do otherwise. Chuck Hagel is highly skeptical of military operation in Iran, and when Hagel was Senator of Nebraska he even voted, in 2007, against labeling Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.

Obama’s first term: What would MLK have said?

A few weeks before the presidential election, News Junkie Post tried to secure interviews with different prominent African-American media figures regarded to be on the very left of the United States’ political spectrum. The interview project would have been titled: “Obama’s First Term: What Would MLK Have Said?”  The people approached for this project were, a few months before the election, highly critical of President Barack Obama’s first term in office, but as election day approached, they avoided our interview like the plague. Like many African-Americans, members of other minority groups, and so-called progressive voters, at the last minute they decided to stick by their man by muting their attacks on Obama to make sure he would be reelected, following the dubious logic of: “Obama is not as bad as the other guy.” But considering Martin Luther King Jr.’s  own words, if he had been alive today, he would likely be one of the leading voices against Mr. Obama’s policies both domestic and foreign.

“A Time to Break the Silence”

As “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” was one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s most eloquent statements against social injustice, “A time to Break the Silence” was his major statement against war in general, delivered in 1967. The latter was presented in the context of expressing his staunch opposition to the Vietnam war and the escalation policy of Lyndon B. Johnson, but MLK’s words could very easily address the Obama administration’s war mongering policies in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and, probably soon, Syria. As a matter of fact, it is likely that MLK would have broken his silence as soon as Mr. Obama — a war president — had ironically received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. Just like today in the United States, King’s moral protest against the war was a minority position. Even people among his supporters in the black community were concerned that his anti-war position would take energy away from the civil rights movement. Dr. King also pointed out — and this remains the same in 2013 — that the poor and minorities in the US were the primary components of the US military.

“Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silence and to speak from the burning of my own heart, as I have called for radical departure from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path: ‘Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King’; ‘Why are you joining the voice of dissent?’; ‘Peace and civil rights don’t mix’, they say.’” And further: “The Nobel Peace Prize was also a commission — a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for the brotherhood of man. This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances,” said Dr. King.

Obama: The ultimate humanitarian imperialist

In his book “Humanitarian Imperialism,” published in 2006, author Jean Bricmont argued that since the end of the cold war, human rights have been used as a justification for war or foreign interventions — sometime under the auspices of the United Nations like in Haiti — by the world’s leading economic and military powers, and above all the United States. The criteria for such intervention are usually arbitrary and self serving. They can involve the muscle of global imperialism in the form of NATO, or a softer version such as USAID. President Obama, during his first term, become expert in this type of double language and hidden agenda. It was used in Libya to justify the intervention against Gaddafi, and the same discourse about protecting human rights is unfolding to deal with the Assad regime in Syria. The same rationale of humanitarian imperialism is used by Mr. Obama’s NATO ally, France’s President Hollande currently waging a war in Mali.

“US interference in the internal affairs of other states is multi-faceted, but constant and repeatedly violates the spirit and often the letter of the UN Charter. Despite claims to act on behalf of principles such as freedom and democracy, US interventions have disastrous consequences. Every aggressive action led by the US creates a reaction. Development of an anti-missile shield produces more missiles, not less. Bombing civilians — whether deliberately or by so-called ‘collateral damage’ produces more armed resistance, not less. Trying to overthrow or subvert governments produces more internal repression, not less.” wrote Jean Bricmont in February 2012.

Obama: A chameleon with a gift for public relation

In appearance, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Barack Obama share a lot in common. Both of are very intelligent individuals and excellent orators. But this analogy cultivated by Mr. Obama only holds water near the surface. The current occupant of the White House actually has more in common with Ronald Reagan than with the civil rights leader. Mr. Obama is ultimately an actor. It is by design that Obama’s public inaugural ceremony, which should have been scheduled for January 20, when he took his oath, coincides instead with the celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Day on Monday January 21. Obama wants to keep this false analogy between himself and MLK going, as well as pay tribute to the civil rights leader.

Despite superficialities, Obama’s reelection does not at all embody what MLK longed for in his famous statement: “A man should not be judged by the color of his skin but by the content of his character.” Judging by his first term in office, it is impossible to know the content of Mr. Obama’s character. George W. Bush had very few qualities, but at least he had the merit of being unapologetic and transparent about who he was:  the quintessence of the ugly American, aggressive and uncultured. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, gives the illusion of being a polished humanist despite being as imperialist as his predecessor. Obama is both a Nobel Peace Prize recipient and the United States’ hit man in chief. He is both a president who uses executive power to force a gun control law on US citizens, despite the second amendment, and the most successful salesman for the military-industrial complex in US history.

Editor’s Note: Photographs three and six by 13 Lucie.

It seems like everyone who is paying attention to the fiscal cliff debate has an opinion one way or another about the benefits and disadvantages of the Tuesday night passage of the Senate Bill. The compromise that was agreed upon can be described as a barrel filled with pork for both Democrats and Republicans and their corporate sponsors, being that earmarks and tax breaks for corporations are included amongst the illusion of fiscal relief for the middle and lower classes.

For the left, the tax increases on the super-rich, who make up approximately 0.9 percent of the American population (those individuals earning more than $400,000 or $450,000 per household), was a victory but still managed to fall short of the Obama campaign promise of raising taxes on the top two percent (individuals earning more than $200,000 or $250,000 per household). For the right, the numbers must have added up, seeing as quite a few house Republicans voted in line with the Democrats. This tax increase on rich folks from 35 percent to 39.6 percent will create about $600 billion in revenue over the course of ten years, but with congress’ track record being as shoddy as it is, who knows what programs or misuse it will go to, you know: like the TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program), where taxpayer money went directly to the banks and CEOs but not to the millions of underwater homeowners that it was designed to assist to avoid foreclosure. But don’t worry, this money will surely not go towards paying down our world-record national debt of $16.4 trillions that was not even addressed by the bill. Economists have predicted that all the expenditure this bill allows will raise the national debt to $20 trillion during the next ten years.

Let us take a look at what else this bill will do to the economy and the American people. For starters, the bill extends for another year Goldman Sachs and Bank of America’s tax break by moving their headquarters to the “Liberty Zone”, a post 9/11 area where the World Trade centers once stood. This tax provision was created to help revitalize Lower Manhattan’s small businesses but instead helped out these two mega-bailed-out banks and helped to subsidize the construction of luxury apartments. Goldman Sachs alone was reported to have received $1.6 billion in tax free financing of its new building.

The Extension of the Active Financing Exception of Sub-part F is a very fancily-worded trade tax loophole; it extends a bill created in 1997 that allows American companies to avoid paying taxes on income from certain transactions called “active financing.” This loophole, a credit of up to $9 billion, basically encourages American companies to move overseas and thus outsource employment from Americans. One of the biggest corporations to abuse this loophole is General Electric (GE).

Hollywood catches a break with a subsidy called “Extension of special expending rules for certain film and television productions,” meaning that corporations such as Disney will continue to receive tax breaks for filming three-quarters of their films in the United States and get more tax breaks if they film in an underprivileged area, costing taxpayers about $150 million dollars.

NASCAR gets a tax break of $43 million over the next two years to encourage new tracks and racing facilities to be constructed so they can compete with other theme parks. The clean-energies provision will not only provide subsidies to “green energy” production such as wind power, but also help to keep the coal-mining industry afloat by calling Indian Land coal clean, at $1.2 billion a year for ten years.

Credit for Expenditures for Maintaining Railroad Tracks provides a tax credit of $331 million dollars for short-line railroads to help offset the cost of maintaining railroad tracks they own or lease. The ongoing fear is that these rails would discontinue due to maintenance issues, thus interrupting the shipping process.

Some of the seemingly better points of the new bill are that Unemployment Benefits and its tiers have been extended, at least for another year, but expect a raging debate about it again upon its expiration. Taxes will stay as is for the middle class for now; but counter-productively, the lowered payroll tax that was implemented in 2011 expired on Monday and will go back to 6.2 percent, up from 4.2 percent. This two percent increase will leave about 160 million American workers with smaller paychecks and, in turn, will surely cause a decrease in economic stimulus (which was why the payroll tax was decreased in the first place), seeing as the average household will be out of about $35 to $180 a week, depending on its income.

For lower-income families, Earned-Income Credit, Child-Tax Credit and other college-tuition credits will still hold true for at least another five years, and the Child-Dependent Care Tax Credit will become permanent, relieving parents in need of childcare by up to 35%. But still, the payroll-tax increase will stun this fragile class, along with almost every working family in the United States. So what do we have to thank congress and our president for? If corporations didn’t have loopholes like the Active Financing tax dodge, billions of dollars could have been generated back into America’s economy and could have possibly avoided layoffs and thus halted the rise in Unemployment-Benefit requests by keeping our factories open and not shipping our jobs over to third-world countries. If real living wages were paid out by corporations to the lower-income workforce, then maybe there would be no need for any Earned-Income Credit and other tax credits. If congress and the presidents (past and present) had any ethics at all, these looming fiscal collapses could have canceled each other out or never have existed in the first place.

Editor’s Note: Photographs one, three, four and five by Peter Patau. Photograph two by Gilbert Mercier.

By Dady Chery and Gilbert Mercier

Solving problems with violence is as American as apple pie

The National Rifle Association (NRA) has become public enemy number one amongst left-leaning Americans since the most recent incident of random shooting. Is blaming the NRA a convenient way for Americans to avoid some necessary soul searching: a refusal to address the deeply-rooted cultural problem of violence being the preferred method of conflict resolution and most popular source of entertainment in areas that include sports, movies, TV, and video games? In essence, violence provides the backdrop to nearly all aspects of life in the United States. The government has glamorized violence by conducting endless wars, maintaining a gargantuan prison system, and keeping the death penalty legal. The US economy has increasingly become a war economy since 2001, and the business of death is booming. Recruitment centers for the US military are popping up in every high school and shopping mall. Television and cinema advertisements for the Marines have the slick and sexy look of Hollywood trailers. “Be all you can be!” says Uncle Sam, who carefully omits from his sales pitch that the main requirements for the job are the willingness to kill and get killed.

Can one blame the NRA when the US president runs a kill list from the White House?

A couple of days after the assassination of Osama bin Laden, president Obama’s approval rating jumped up more than five percent. Mr. Obama was proud and excited to take responsibility for the extrajudicial killing: “shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda.” Everywhere, newspaper headlines shouted “We took him out!” and the US public glowed from the pleasure of doing away with their favorite bogeyman. Killing people for the US federal government has become a quite simple affair that can even be done remotely, as in a video game, with drones that reach anywhere in the world from Yemen to Pakistan. The countless innocent victims of these drone attacks are called “collateral damage.” Most people in the US could care less about them, the understanding being that it is all right to kill people who had the bad luck to go to a market, mosque, or wedding at the wrong time.

So a man loses his job and kills his boss and numerous colleagues at his place of work.  This has become so common that it is called “going postal,” or more politely, “workplace violence.” Every year, more than 10 Americans on average are gunned down in such workplace killing sprees. The enemy is quite close, especially for women. For example, of 429,729 homicide FBI files examined by evolutionary psychologist David Buss, 13,670 (or 3%) were cases in which a husband killed his wife. Thus, in their more intimate roles as jilted lovers or unloved sons, a small fraction of men murder not only their mates or parents but also everyone else who happens to be nearby at the wrong time.  Why should collateral damage be solely the purview of the President? After all, he is considered to be the country’s ultimate role model. And why should Americans be surprised by an endemic violence problem when their role model, their foremost example of what one does with power, runs an assassination program directly from the White House?

Guns and America: A love affair

One week after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Mr. Wayne LaPierre broke the NRA’s silence with a press conference. LaPierre argued that only more guns in the hands of “good guys” could stop America’s killing spree.

“I call on Congress today to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation. Innocent lives might have been spared if armed security was present at Sandy Hook. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” said LaPierre. Besides this “good guy with gun” versus “bad guy with guns” argument, reminiscent of a John Wayne Western movie cliche, LaPierre blamed the mass shootings on popular culture like “vicious, violent video games” such as ‘Bulletstorm’, ‘Grand Theft Auto’, ‘Mortal Kombat’ and ‘Splatterhouse’ and on movies such as ‘American Psycho’ and ‘Natural Born Killer’ for “portraying life as a joke and murder as a way of life. In a race to the bottom, media conglomerates compete with one another to shock, violate, and offend every standard of civilized society by bringing on ever-more-toxic mix of reckless behavior and criminal cruelty into our homes,” added LaPierre.

The supposed adverse effect of popular culture on vulnerable minds is a perennial argument that gets brought up after each shooting, although the details vary. But this argument is about as sound as blaming a flood on the movie “Waterworld.” Violence is ubiquitous in American life, and it is quite natural that it should pervade American fantasies and popular culture.

Who are LaPierre’s “good guys?” Might they be the policemen who routinely criminalize and kill innocent black youths in urban centers? Might they be part of the growing security sector? Or could they be the teenage students who meet a life-size cardboard cutout of a machine-gun toting soldier at the entrance to their high schools every day? One moment of impatience about growing into full adulthood is all it takes for them to sign away their lives. Thus the dear children survive elementary school, junior high school, and finally high school, only to be sent off to kill people in places like Haiti, Iraq, and Afghanistan. There they learn not to distinguish those who are defending their countries from invasion from those who either cannot fight (like children and the elderly) or choose not to fight. The cost is their very soul. Many return hollowed out and suicidal.

A culture of death

By far the most violent practice of the US is capital punishment, in which a person is made completely defenseless and then killed in cold blood by the state with the collusion of its citizens. The shooters, who are well aware of this, typically conclude their sprees in a quick suicide, thus depriving the state of the sadistic process involving a protracted stay on death row and numerous appeals. The practice of the death penalty is all the more gruesome for its discrimination based on race and the innocence of many of those killed.  An Innocence Project study in 2011 discovered that, of 230 individuals exonerated in the US by DNA Testing, 17 had been sentenced to die.

For US presidential candidates, the support of capital punishment has become a rite of passage: the ultimate proof of their willingness to kill the innocent so as to support an expansion of US wars and weapons sales. Former US President Clinton suspended his presidential campaign so he could return to Arkansas to make sure Ricky Ray Rector was executed. Rector was so mentally impaired and clueless about his fate that, before his execution, he asked the guards to save his pecan pie “for later.” On the evening of George W. Bush’s inauguration as Governor, the state of Texas executed Mario Marquez, who was brain damaged and had the skills of a seven-year old; later, when Mr. Bush was a presidential candidate, he mocked Karla Faye Tucker in an interview a year after her execution. On November 6, while Mr. Obama celebrated his reelection with an elated public by hugging his wife, mentally-ill Oklahoma inmate Garry Allen, who had been watching the election with great enthusiasm, was executed.

The violence of the state, domestically and abroad, is pervasive. It is celebrated: even sexy. Violence breeds more violence and, in a sense, we have become collateral damage.

Editor’s Note: Photographs one, two, three and seven by United States Marine Corps. Photographs five and six by Joe Loong.

By Andrea Egizi

Hurricane Sandy hit the Eastern seaboard a month ago and left a path of destruction from the Caribbean to the Northeastern United States. In its wake, thousands of residents have been stranded without power, food, clean water, lodging and heat. Those who have been displaced have either been staying with relatives, moved into temporary Red Cross and FEMA shelters only to be relocated to either far off private shelters and churches, or thrown onto the streets.

The mission statement of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) is to “support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.” For those who have become victims of this never-before-seen super storm, most likely will disagree with this mission statement and response time of FEMA. One such hard hit area is Atlantic City. This East Coast gambling Mecca is a densely populated tourist region on the northern most point of Absecon Island and is know for it’s transient population of the casino industry. Before the storm reached the coast, the whole barrier island chain was issued a mandatory evacuation and ended up taking a direct hit from the storm sustaining major wind damages and over 80 percent of the island was flooded. The result has been a housing nightmare for not only homeowners, but for the poorer renting residents and who are being denied and/or have pending FEMA checks due to landlord illegalities such as unregistered/unlicensed multiple family homes and single rooms for rent.

These legitimate candidates for FEMA relief are the hub of the denials and have to resort to staying with family members or go to the shelters. The Red Cross set up several temporary shelters in offshore high schools for anyone who lived in mandatory evacuation areas but had to be closed a week later to allow for the schools to reopen. Those leftover evacuees were then shipped to the FEMA assigned Atlantic City Convention Center where the connecting Sheraton Hotel and the large convention room would be used as lodging families. Sadly, the Convention Center and Sheraton shut down with one days notice after being open for only a little over a week. Many of the families moved onto the local homeless shelter where overcrowding and sanitation has been an on going issue.

Kristopher Irizarry-Hosekema, a displaced and disabled Atlantic City resident who suffers from MS and seizures, spent a few days in the Convention Center with his service dog, Birdie. “The Convention Center looked like a police state,” Irizarry-Hokesema said. “There were local and state police; even corrections officers, but no FEMA workers to be found except for two men who were taking applications for disaster relief. I had many questions on what was going on and received no answers, only heckling from the police when I threatened to go to the press about the incompetence of FEMA when I found out that volunteers and supplies were being turned away at the door when they were desperately needed.”

Meanwhile in Freeport Long Island, Sandy destroyed massive amounts of public and private property and and left 90 percent of the city without power for up to three weeks. A local homeowner, who would rather remain anonymous, had FEMA reject her claim for disaster relief via mail ironically the same day FEMA workers finally made it to her home to survey the damage after a week of clean-up had already begun. The letter, the homeowner claimed, noted that she and her husband were not eligible for compensation because they lived in a flood zone and was required to have flood insurance. FEMA claimed the insurance money would be enough to cover all the damages. “We only had a basic flood insurance policy,” the homeowner said. “The insurance company only wants to pay us $9,000 when the damage to our home is somewhere around $80,000. We had to pull up all the carpets, get rid of all our furniture and fix the foundation not to mention the clean up of all the sand and mold left behind.”

In Queens New York, a similar story has emerged. The Rockaways has been described as the worst hit region of the hurricane where 111 homes burned to the ground and damage was widespread across the entire peninsula. An optional evacuation order was placed and many residents stayed put in their homes thinking Sandy was going to be a dud like Irene was fourteen months prior. The hurricane and fires swept the Rockaways and desperate residents were left stranded with no immediate help arriving. Entire communities were out on the beach keeping warm with bonfires and were running short on what little supplies they had left. FEMA again was a no-show. Instead, homegrown community initiatives came into configuration with a neighbor-helping-neighbor feel to it. One of he first to arrive was the Occupy Movement inspired Occupy Sandy Recovery.

They were able to put boots on the ground and organize supply drives almost immediately after the hurricane struck using boardwalk stores ruined by flood-waters as food, water and clothing distribution centers along with first aid stations with volunteer nurses. Greenpeace arrived shortly after that with solar powered trucks used for charging stations so families could get in touch with loved ones. Even the Hallowed Sons Motorcycle Club out of Brooklyn were offering help in other hard hit areas on Staten Island by cooking hot meals and offering neighborhood protection from looters. “We walked around neighborhoods asking people what they needed,” said Diego Ibanez, a Sunset Park resident and Occupy Sandy Organizer, “and people thought we were FEMA. When we told them we were volunteers and had nothing to do with FEMA they were completely shocked. They were even more shocked at our quick response and to receive help and supplies from everyday people and not the government.”

When FEMA finally arrived days later, they set up in the affluent neighborhood of Belle Harbor in the Rockaways. They approached members of the different relief groups and asked questions about their relief efforts. “FEMA made it clear to us that they were all about private property and showed very little empathy towards the situation the community was in,” added Ibanez. “They even left behind two FEMA surveyors when the announcement was made to evacuate the Rockaways for the Noreaster that was going to hit. The two wayward FEMA workers came to us in a panic when they realized they were left behind. We fed them and arranged their transportation off the peninsula.”

FEMA’s response has been highly criticized by those who have been affected on the East Coast. Food, bottled water, generators, shelter, clothing and gasoline shortages have been reported all throughout the hurricane zone when the FEMA warehouse in Atlanta Georgia remains stocked to the gills and has had plenty of notice of the impending storm. Reports of FEMA’s Camp Freedom For Hurricane Sandy Relief in Oceanport, New Jersey have suggested incompetence at every level. The press has been turned away from entering the camp and reports from inside have said that there is limited heat and sanitation. It was also reported that once the press was catching wind of the dire conditions at the camp, the wi-fi and other electricity had been restricted.

President Obama had the photo shoot of his career posing with Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in Brigantine two days after the storm. Christie sang the praises of the Commander in Chief for his ongoing hurricane relief efforts and turned his back on his own political party less than a week before the presidential election. At that early stage of the recovery, no one knew exactly the immensity of the damage zone and Obama was able to keep face with the majority of the liberal press on his side. But where is Obama now? Where are the millions of dollars he set aside for hurricane relief? Where are the FEMA checks for victim losses?

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005, FEMA’s reaction was no different under the Bush administration than with the Obama administration. The similarities are so obvious and yet are going undetected by the mainstream-Obama praising media. Are the blinders on so tight that they can’t see that volunteer and professional help was turned away when they were needed the most? Or that government staffed distribution centers were not set up and running beforehand? And how about the federal funds that were mishandled for the victims? Then President Bush was completely trashed by the media for being cold and insensitive to the poor of New Orleans and yet President Obama seems to be getting the free pass. In his 2008 election speeches, Obama talked and talked about accountability. Well now Mr. President, we need you to be held accountable for your failures of one of your top government agencies.

Editor’s Note: Andrea Egizi is a journalist who focuses mainly on issues of ethics, equality and human rights. She is currently working on a novel. Photographs two, three, four and five of Sandy’s immediate aftermath by Dr. Pavloff. Photographs one, six, seven, eight and nine of Katrina’s aftermath by Gilbert Mercier.

The views in this article represent only the opinion of its author Ron Steinman. They do not represent News Junkie Post as a publication. Note from the Editor in Chief.

Despite what some of your continuing detractors in the increasingly defunct Republican Party complain about, Mr. President, you do have a mandate for change. After all, you won the election decisively and your opponent did not. This is not simplistic. It is the truth. Do not give in to the likes of John Boehner and his increasingly weak brother-in-arms Mitch McConnell. Neither seems to realize you have won the toss. They lost. Despite a Republican majority in the House, you, Mr. President are still in the White House. The Republican Party is not.

As a reminder, this is where we as a nation stand domestically. Yes, there is a very serious financial crisis. I am not an economist, but for some the fiscal cliff is more like a fiscal slope. I prefer slope to cliff. On Wall Street fear of the unknown rules. The bears are hard at work. People are running from reality and stuffing money in their mattresses where it does little good. We are now in the lame duck session before the next inauguration. Much work lies ahead  as everyone tackles the deficit in the hope of reducing it. It is something few understand. Further, we must eliminate the Bush tax cuts. We must avert the payroll tax cut. In doing all this, President Obama has to assert himself as never before. There are good signs he is doing this. We saw something of that in his most recent news conference.

Mr. Obama was strong, tough, and fierce in defending his vision, which, by the way, despite what many pundits said, was clear during the campaign and remains clear. Mr. Obama understands that in order to allow the middle class to flourish and to allow people to enter the middle class, every American must participate, but tax increases on the very wealthy must come first. The wealthy must understand that because of their wealth they are not entitled to a free ride in the America of the 21st Century. The idea of wealth seems to breed the concept of entitlement and all it does is allow the wealthy the freedom to do what they want without paying any price. Just because someone has more money than someone else does not make the person smarter, gentler, and more caring. The idea is an anachronism. People must contribute their fare share, especially if the country is to grow and people are to thrive.

Spending cuts that make sense without killing what Republicans call entitlements; meaning what people pay all their lives to get -Social Security when they retire and the necessary medical aid in their later years- are also part of how we will save the economy. There must be a combination of tax increases and a desire to rein in runaway spending. Closing loopholes in the tax code will provide some revenue but it will be nothing more than a band-aid that will temporarily stop the bleeding. There is some hope on the horizon because some Republican Party pundits and even hide-bound Republican governors are suddenly talking about the need to raise taxes as part of a way to deny the fiscal cliff. Revenue to run the country must come from somewhere. Now that mostly universal health care is the law, we have to consider ways to cut Medicare and Medicaid without cutting the heart and soul from the lives of many needy and have-nots in our country.

Mr. President, stalemate is not in your future. I really enjoyed your firmness during your recent news conference. You must use your bully pulpit to twist arms when you can and defy the small-minded likes of Boehner and McConnell and their followers. Certainly, reach out. Yes, try to be bi-partisan, but that is likely to fail. In the end, all the meetings you will have at the White House, and those you will consult around the country will not make things right. Your vision for a better, stronger America, the vision that  originally put you in the White House and that you brought forth with your new coalition for a second term is what matters.

During the campaign there were reports that you and your campaign staffers consulted scholars, biographers, historians and a variety of social scientists in an effort to help you define and make the case for your mission. Surely they helped. But ultimately any newly toned toughness must come from you. You have a grand opportunity to help remake America. It is a moment that could lead to the health of this nation as you set the pattern for your successor in 2016, also, a candidate I would hope from the Democratic Party. That will be someone who will carry your ideals forward in our increasingly diverse nation. Despite what the now devastated Republican Party believes. diversity is what make America great. It will again. But be tough when you lead. It is no longer about politics. It is now about your legacy, It will pay off big in the end.

Editor’s Note: Photographs one, two and four by Hey Paul.

By Eileen Douglas

Years ago, when he was a newly elected young Congressman and my husband a local radio/television personality, Mitch McConnell would now and then join a Sunday racket ball game some guys from the station would get together for each week.

As a reporter in Louisville, I would occasionally cover the Congressman. As the wife, on Sunday, my role was restricted to watching their coats and left behind gear bags in the booth overlooking the court as the men swatted the ball around on the court below. In either case, I was around.

I mention this for a reason.

Today, when I watch now Senator McConnell, and a powerful leader, on the television in my New York City apartment, so far from where he began, he is not just a spectral image on the screen to me. I see him and I go, “Oh, there’s Mitch.” A real person I used to once really watch pack up his gym bag and grab his coat at the end of a game, or put a mike in front of at a Kentucky press conference.

And it’s for that reason my ears perk up more than they might for someone I never laid actual eyes on when, through these last few years, I have heard him—and his cohorts, Boehner and others—begin so many of their sound clips with “The American people.” As in “The American people demand…” “The American people want…”

I would sit there in front of the television set sputtering in disbelief, believing myself to be one of the American people…knowing that whatever I was hearing good old Mitch say on this or that matter of the day…I did not agree with. I did not want. I did not demand. He certainly hadn’t checked with me, or any of the people I know and talk to.

Yet he was speaking in my name.

Did dear old Mitch think I was not one of the American people? Did he and his colleagues believe they had a special pipeline to ALL the American people. Every single one of them had whispered in their ears…and agreed with him? And not with the point of view I knew to be the opposite for many.

“How can he say that?” I used to think. How dare he presume he speaks for me? Isn’t he leaving a good chunk of us out? How does he have the nerve to think that he speaks not just for himself, or for his side, I would ask myself, but for all?  All the American People? The American people, my eye.

And now we know. Now that we have digested the election, and seen the commentaries and analysis on the electorate and the demographics and the changing face of “the American people,” we know that “the American people” have spoken. And the message they delivered is not the one McConnell and Boehner and Cantor, et al claimed “the people” would be demanding. More than half of the American voters, 62 million people, said “Not so fast, Mr. McConnell.”

Thank goodness.

Fine to have your point of view and defend it, promote it, passionately. Just don’t claim your point of view is the one and only one. That you and you alone speak for every single American. That you speak for me, when you don’t.

Since the election, I have not heard any sound clips from the GOP that start with, “The American people demand.”

I hope I never do again.

It’s early yet. I have my fingers crossed. Perhaps it will sneak in again. But I hope McConnell and crew have heard the message. The one “the American people” have sent. Not necessarily the one they thought they would hear.

The one I want to send is this.  I can speak for myself.

And so, it seems, can “the American people.”

Editor’s Note: Eileen Douglas is a broadcast journalist and author turned documentary filmmaker. She has covered the news for WINS Radio, Channel 5 and ABC in New-York, and as a partner in Douglas/Steinman Productions is the co-Producer of “My Grandfather’s House” and “Luboml: My Heart Remembers”. She has been a columnist for The Digital Journalist and The Digital Filmmaker and is the author of “Rachel and The Upside Down Heart”. Photographs two and three by Gage Skidmore.

By Dady Chery and Gilbert Mercier

General Petraeus had to resign today from his position as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He admitted to an affair, but some — such as the New York Times — are already saying that the convenient timing of the resignation was related to the intelligence failure in the September 11 attack on the United States Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Was Petraeus blackmailed for money by his lover or was he framed for internal CIA reasons or political ones? We might never know. General Petraeus’ resignation will excuse him from being called to testify before Congress about the security breach in Benghazi. This is for now an embarrassment for the Obama administration. Petraeus was credited for turning around the Iraq war at its worst stage for the US, in 2007. But the fact is, this resignation leaves a new slot open for an appointment by President Obama during his second term.

In the typical Orwellian world we live in, a four-star General becomes a spy, and a Clinton spy — Leon Panetta — is switched to the Pentagon as Secretary of Defense. The affair was “discovered” by the FBI — spying on a CIA Director — from a “compromised” computer he had used. This is nothing new in the United States, in the rarefied circle of power, considering that Bush Sr. had been a CIA Director before becoming Reagan’s Vice President. Often in US politics, sex scandals have also been motivated by political reasons. From the affair of Marilyn Monroe with John F. Kennedy, to more recent sex scandals involving Bill Clinton, John Edwards and Arnold Schwarzenegger, it seems that sex is always linked to power. It is often — this could be the case with Petraeus — a way to hide a forest behind a tree.

Sex, in a less schizophrenic culture than America’s, should not be this way. It brings life and death, propels and paralyzes, compels rebellion and collaboration, inspires love and hate. It is free most of the time, but it sells always. The media relentlessly serve up made-up teenagers, with no natural talent except their sex appeal, as the ideals of beauty in television advertisements; reality shows promote premises that border on pornography, and the serious news are presented alongside the shenanigans of out-of control pop stars.  This is the more obvious form of sexual manipulation. There is also a more insidious use of sexuality for political ends.

Consider, for example, the spectacle of the recent United States Democratic National Convention. This followed a public debate, not on US aggressions throughout the world, but on abortion and gay marriage. It was a seduction on a national scale. The incumbent President’s wife looked as if on a hot date, and the next day newspapers discussed her well-sculpted bare arms, designer dress that gave the illusion of being short, and high-heeled red shoes. There followed former President Bill Clinton, and later President Obama himself, both of whom wowed the public with the deliveries of their speeches rather than any relevant content.  The public reacted as anticipated. Some of its response in social media was quite graphic, and it was all about sex.

Between consensual adults, sex should be fun, free, creative and absolutely nobody else’s business. Private life, even for public figures, should be private in sexual matters, unless it is criminal. Most of us know what constitutes a sex crime, and this is rather simple: non-consensual sex, such as rape or sex with youths below the age of consent, or sex that is associated with actions that are criminal. One example would be the fraudulent expenditure of public funds to support a mistress.

In countries that are non-puritanical like Italy, France, or Haiti, the threshold for a sex scandal is rather high. In the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, for example, it took an accusation of rape — some said he was set up by Sarkozy — to finish his career in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) simultaneously with his political campaign for the French presidency as a Socialist contender. Berlusconi had to engage in sex orgies with underage girls, combined with graft and tax-fraud allegations to lose his position and be sentenced to prison. In Haiti, where Martelly boasts of his bisexuality and infidelities, the only sexual scandals that have received any attention have been homosexual rapes by UN personnel.  In the US, however, the threshold for a sex crime is much lower. It is an issue of puritanical morality in complete contradiction with the reality of an hyper-sexualized culture.

Once again, while facing catastrophic problems such as floods followed by winter storms and homelessness, a second round of a recession that might eclipse the 2008 crash, a real estate market still shaky, a build up of tension between Turkey and the Assad regime in Syria, and millions of  Americans unemployed, the US and its sad excuse for media are focused mainly on the sex scandals of politicians.

The United States remains a borderline schizophrenic country living in delusions and lies. On policy issues, the US claims to support “freedom and democracy” while the real concerns are to secure resources, their transit routes and to maintain the empire by the use of either military or economic power. The United States (especially in the Obama era) boasts endlessly about its positive role in world affairs, while it supports repressive and authoritarian regimes worldwide. This was the case under dictators Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt before the Arab revolution. It is still the case, in a flagrant double standard, in Bahrain, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

On sexual matters, America’s pathological contradictions are just as acute. In many ways, America is still a puritanical country which has been left behind by the 1960s sexual revolution.  Americans do not talk much about the fact that 60 percent of married men and 40 percent of married women have affairs at some point in their marriages. Since the degree of infidelity is correlated with the number of people with whom these married adults come into contact, it stands to reason that the figures would be much higher for politicians. Yet, America has an obsession for sexual topics when it comes to its celebrities and politicians, and quite often the distinction between the two has become blurred. America has a serious dichotomy problem when it comes to sex, while it even eroticizes violence, it is also a very sexually repressed culture.

Not that long ago former governor Schwarzenegger started a nightmarish journey of public humiliation and private hell when it was revealed that he had a “love child” with one of his staffers. US news outlets were relentlessly headlining on the “rage” of his wife.

A while back former presidential hopeful, John Edwards, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges related to his efforts to cover up an affair and child, which he had when his wife was fighting cancer. Edwards was allegedly using campaign donations to fund the cover up of the sex scandal. Another meaningless sex scandal Americans were dwelling on was one concerning Congressman Anthony Weiner. The Weiner scandal — called ”Weinergate” back then — started when an underwear picture was allegedly sent from Representative Weiner’s tweeter account.

What is truly pathetic, in all this, is that what Americans call their media and journalists are paying attention to side stories of this nature. Editors are putting up all this meaningless nonsense as headliners. There is one thing that the American press knows well: Americans cannot get enough of sex scandals. People on the East Coast are still dealing with the aftermath of Sandy; the job market is still shaky in most states; another major financial crisis is looming on the horizon due to a more than 17 trillion dollar national debt, yet most so-called reporters and media organizations are talking and writing about a  CIA Director and well-respected General having an affair and being forced to resign.

Editor’s Note: Photograph one by Mike Licht, photograph eight by Gilbert Mercier, and photograph four by Laurent Gauthier.

Two Faces of the Same Coin

On November 6, 2012 or shortly thereafter, the farce will be over, as US citizens will have played along with this sad excuse for an electoral process. The “leader of the free world” will be crowned, but the policies, global state or corporate puppet masters will still have their hands gripped on the levers of power. Gore Vidal  wrote: “There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party, and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.” This one-party Demopublicrat system has been going on for decades. People in the United States of America are comforted in this illusion of democracy, while in fact, this country is an oligarchy/ plutocracy well on its way to becoming part of a global corporate fascist mega-state.

In the rarefied circle of power of the global elite, only transnational interests matter. The current tenant of the White House and/or the next one do not care that vast areas of America have turned into no-man’s lands similar to third-world countries. Just like their colleagues on Wall Street or in any transnational corporation, they care about quarterly profits. They only care about the bottom line. The pseudo left in the US and its “fire-brand thinkers” are mostly on the payroll of mega-corporations to maintain the status quo and not only keep the illusion alive but make it thrive. Take Rachel Maddow for example. Rachel’s hefty salary is paid by MSNBC, but NBC is owned by GE. So in reality, the darling of America’s “far left” is on the payroll of General Electric which is a major player of the military industrial complex.

This election cycle is a circus, but a very profitable one: Obamney raised two billion which was lavishly spent mainly on TV ads. This astronomical amount of money is endlessly recycled or laundered from corporate entities — after all, according to the US Supreme Court, corporations are people — and it ends up back in the pocket of the mega-corporations controlling the US media and so on. The US is not the best democracy money can buy, it is a pathetic circus act with a few elephants, some donkeys and some predictable clowns who have run out of ideas on how to make people laugh. Sadly, the joke is on the American people and the rest of the world, for that matter.

“Lesser of Two Evils?”

The argument of voting for the “lesser of two evils” is something that is heard a lot both on the left and from libertarians. The argument falls apart in about five minutes when the people expressing it are pressed for a justification. One says: “I hate the US foreign policy, but on gay rights…”. Another one, and this was on Twitter’s open feed: “Republicans are hard on pu**ies!” Not much articulation there. Meanwhile, the current resident of the White House is running a “kill list” and acting like a worldwide assassin; Guantanamo is still open for business; fascist legislation  such as NDAA and the Patriot Act are part of the US legal system; the police state has grown with police forces in the process of being militarized; wars for profit are spreading across the globe like a cancer, making all the real players of America Empire Inc. rich and happy.

“When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross” is a quote that some attribute to Sinclair Lewis, a novelist of the 1930s. Corporate fascism is in America, and it has been here for a while. Instead of a cross, it is plastered by the brands sponsoring it: Coke, Pepsi, WallMart, General Electric, Chevron, Wells Fargo etc. ad nauseum. Americans are the quintessential consumers. Politics are no exception. Anybody with an experience in advertising knows that brand fidelity is the key to a successful product. Just like Coke and Pepsi are more or less the same product with different brand names, Obamney is a product that comes in two different flavors and different packaging. It is, however, manufactured by the same corporation: America Empire Inc. Consumers have the “freedom” to choose between Pepsi or Coke and McDonalds or Burger King, just like they have the freedom to chose who will read the teleprompters in the White House. It is not a matter of governance or policies but of consumer taste.

Editor’s Note: The original version of this article was written on December 27, 2011. At the time NJP was “floating” the idea of a Senator Sanders run for the 2012 US presidential election. The article was not received well by the decision makers at Occupy, who painted the movement paradoxically as a “pure grassroots leaderless movement”. With only 40 shares on Facebook and very few on Twitter — a very small number for our publication — the original article was basically shut down by the powers that be within the OWS movement.

Some Occupy activists conveyed to NJP that they didn’t want to get into the “fray of electoral politics”, at least not at a national level. Some were sincere. Others were in the process of infiltrating the movement on behalf of the Obama campaign. Occupy was in the process of being neutered, hijacked and even bribed  by Obama’s indirect surrogates such as George Soros (through his outlet MoveOn.org) and even directly by Obama’s thinly disguised political operator Van Jones. Both infiltrations were exposed by Liam Fox and myself for NJP.

The Occupy movement has changed the overall political discourse and is helping to define what could be a global left. Needless to say, US Democrats, at large, are so center-right that they do not offer anything the Occupy movement could remotely support. Even in Europe the mainstream left — Socialist parties in France, Spain and Italy — has no political alternative to offer to the Occupy movement, because the so-called European left has become neoliberal. In the United States, one of the only political figures who could legitimately garner support at the polls from the Occupy movement is Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont. Some are pushing him to challenge President Obama in the Democrat primaries. Even though President Obama is more or less a shoe in, someone like Senator Sanders would be the best option for Occupy to have a voice during the 2012 election cycle.

Although the United States is usually described as having a two-party political system, it has been in the reality of policies, both foreign and domestic, a one party system, with minute nuances between Democrats and Republicans, for the past 30 years. In this uniform political landscape, there are really only two worthwhile exceptions which do not belong to what has morphed a democracy into an oligarchy/plutocracy: Senator Sanders and Representative Ron Paul. Ron Paul is tracking remarkably well in the GOP primaries, but even though his campaign is actively trying to tap into a potential Occupy voting block, he is unlikely to get any real momentum going in his attempt.

Some view the Occupy movement, both in the United States and Europe, as “vague and lacking focus, despite good intentions.” Indeed the scope of the Occupy movement is wide in its critiques of neoliberalism, war, inequality, corporate-controlled globalization, and concentration of wealth. But the wide scope of Occupy should not be confused with a lack of focus. The Occupy movement is a “big tent” encompassing a lot of causes, but the essence of it is rather simple: ideologically, Occupy can be defined as an anti-neoliberalism and anti-corporatism movement fighting for the rights and interests of the 99 percent.

But Occupy cannot be simply reduced to a movement for debating ideologies. Instead, the Occupy movement is about redefining moral and ethical principles. Philosophically and morally it is a fight against oppression, for equality and social justice. The Occupy movement is not trying to reinvent the wheel either. Occupy gets its core direction from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which has non-discrimination as its fundamental principle. Human beings, whereever they are, shouldn’t have their rights denied based on class, race, gender, disability and religion.

Occupy is about leveling the global playing field in human affairs to give the many real say and power over the few. Occupy is about defining a real democracy where the long forgotten and mainly never applied  motto of the French revolution “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” would be implemented and not just be mere lip service and make believe. Occupy is about challenging the failed world order of corporatism and neoliberalism. For the Occupy movement, we are all Egyptians, and we are all the 99 percent fighting to define a better world without oppression, war, famine, inequality and gross mismanagement of our collective resources.