The bombings were targeted strikes against American centers of power involved in committing horrific, systematic, large-scale violence in Vietnam, Chile and here in the United States. The only Weatherman bombing that turned deadly occurred when explosives in a Greenwich Village townhouse accidentally ignited on March 6, 1970, killing Weatherman members Diana Oughton, Terry Robbins and Ted Gold.

Berger examines the group’s 1973 release of Prairie Fire, a book that, according to group member Bill Ayers, sought “to consolidate our political organization and to forge unity with progressive activists.”

The corporate criminals, the big banks, Wall Street, the credit card companies, the nuclear power industry, the war profiteers, the agribusiness giants, the health insurance industry, the polluters, the drug companies, the unionbusters, Big Oil, the corporate Democrats and corporate Republicans?

Or with people fighting back?

Apparently, many Democrats, Liberals and leftists are on the side of the former. Here’s what some folks are saying about Ralph Nader’s announcement today that he is once again running for President:

KellyVision

I hate Ralph Nader.  I really do.  I mean, here’s the thing, he has to know that he’s never going to be elected and all he’s going to do is hijack votes from the real candidate.

I have a theory that he’s actually a Republican/blackmailed by Republicans.

And you can tell me that crap about voting your conscience instead of your fears all you want, but my conscience says that we do not need another four years of Republican leadership.  (Need proof?  I submit George Bush.)

Yes.  This may actually be my bitchiest post ever.

One thing that is probably unknown to people outside the U.S., and even most American anarchists and activists, is that some of the people leading the anti-war movements deliberately worked to kill off the U.S. wing of the anti-globalization movement in the hours after the September 11 attacks. It was inevitable that this would happen, as there were groups such as the Workers World Party, the Revolutionary Communist Paty USA, and the International Socialist Organization who had been frustrated by the anarchist nature of the anti-globalization movement. They had all notoriously “missed” the Battle of Seattle and the movement had resisted all of their attempts at entryism. The WWP responded to the September 11 attacks by quickly forming the ANSWER coalition, which started as a front group packed with their front groups and allies. They correctly guessed that the U.S. response to the attacks would lead to a war which would generate a new peace movement, As a small authoritarian organization, they were able to organize a “coalition” without having to deal with any democratic messiness. The WWP was able to position ANSWER as the leading anti-war coalition through a series of mass protests in Washington, DC and San Francisco. These protests didn’t make much news, nor did they do anything to stop the war, but they impressed an American left which was feeling powerless after the U.S. invaded Iraq. ANSWER stuck with a series of mass mobilizations every six months, which were conducive towards building credibility for their organization, but ANSWER never strayed outside a comfort zone that limited itself to permitted spectacles in large cities.

Donna Saggia explained it well in an article published on Counterpunch last fall:

The “troops” have become the “human face” of the military-industrial complex and the moral camouflage for the administration’s war agenda. For this reason, “support the troops” represents an essential dilemma and denial within American culture. Were we to look beyond these human faces, we would have to confront the reality they stand for: the military as an institution that has grown to monstrous proportions, endangered our security by conducting unjust wars, robbed us of our children, squandered our taxes on obscene war technology, and protected the interests of greed-driven multinational corporations.

My question is, will CNN.com carry a similar headline about the death of George W. Bush or Donald Rumsfeld or Bill Clinton or William Cohen or Robert McNamara or any other U.S. “terror king” who still hasn’t drawn his or her last breath? (I could be wrong, but I think McNamara’s still around. I don’t recall reading a “Death of a Terror King” obituary on CNN.com, fondly remembering McNamara’s role in the U.S. atrocities in Vietnam.)

Surely, these Americans are far more deserving of this royal honor than Mughniyeh. The American “terror kings” are responsible for the brutal killing of millions around the world, while Mughniyeh can lay claim to only hundreds. 

Former Repubican Jim Webb won election to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Virginia in 2006, defeating Republican George Allen who was videotaped a couple months prior to the election referring to a Webb campaign volunteer as “macaca.”

Democrats were high-fiving because Webb’s victory helped them to retake control of the Senate. The change in power mattered to the bullies who crave to become committee chairs. But the 2006 victory has not resulted in a rollback in the U.S. government’s move toward absolute control.

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate approved a bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. Webb and 16 other Democrats joined all but one Republican—South Carolina’s Lindsay Graham, who did not vote—to pass the bill.

“The Senate overwhelming voted Tuesday evening to legalize President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program and grant amnesty to the phone companies that helped out with the domestic spying,” Ryan Singel writes.

Singel continues:

The bill, which expires in six years, allows the government to install permanent wiretapping outposts in telephone and internet facilities inside the United States without a warrant. However, if those wiretaps are used to target Americans inside or outside of the country, the government would have to get a court order. However, if the target is a foreigner or a foreign corporation, and they call an American or an American calls them, no warrant is required.

Prior to this summer, the intelligence community was forbidden by law from wiretapping phone and internet switches inside the United States, unless they had a particular target in mind and applied for a court order from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That court largely rubber stamps such applications—it approved 2,072 in 2005 and required modifications to only 61 of those.

Here are the Democrats who voted for the bill:

“It’s the only way to be really sure about identifying people. With biometric data, it’s much easier to track people,” an unnamed European Commission functionary told the Washington Post.

“Not only do we support these measures, we applaud them,” Russ Knocke, spokesman for the U.S. Ministry of Homeland Security, told the Washington Post. 

Instead of raising a fist, pacifists raise their index and middle fingers to form a V. That V stands for victory and is the symbol of patriots exulting in the peace that follows a triumphant war. In the final analysis, the peace that pacifists defend is that of the vanquishing army, the unopposed state that has conquered all resistance and monopolized violence to such an extent that violence need no longer be visible. It is a Pax Americana.

from How Nonviolence Protects the State, South End Press, 2007, p. 63.

Wilhelm notes:

Ron Paul actually ends up with a slightly more “progressive” stance than Senators Clinton and Obama, based on his opposition to the war in Iraq and its continued funding, and his opposition to the Patriot Act. His stands as far as helping the poor are usual Libertarian nonsense. Just follow the Constitution and everything will be OK. Even some Republicans believe we should help poor families with winter heating bills.

Clinton and Obama each scored 20 points on a scale of zero to 100. Former Representative McKinney scores a 90, which could be 100 perhaps if her position on an interest freeze on home mortgages for those who are in peril of foreclosure were known. All other issues of McKinney’s are known as far as the issues covered in the chart.

When reading his invective, one struggles to determine what Taibbi truly believes. He talks a tough game in his articles and essays, but when the shit truly hits the fan again here in the United States, will he have the balls to stand up to the fascists, or will he transform into a “pussy,” an epithet he has used to describe Democrats too frightened to fight the Republican brownshits in Washington?

Until the day comes when Taibbi loses his backbone, I will continue to enjoy the contrarian spirit he exhibits in much of his writing. Here’s a fun passage from a few years back: