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On the eve of the first anniversary of President Obama's inauguration, it's become painfully obvious that elected officials are not going to save us. The 2008 election was all about "Hope." But Hope is simply not cutting it.

What we need is Hope 2.0: the realization that our system is too broken to be fixed by politicians, however well intentioned — that change is going to have to come from outside Washington.

This realization is especially resonant as we celebrate Dr. King, whose life and work demonstrate the vital importance of social movements in bringing about change. Indeed, King showed that no real change can be accomplished without a movement demanding it.

Haiti has a longstanding history of US military intervention and occupation going back to the beginning of the 20th Century. US interventionism has contributed to the destruction of Haiti's national economy and the impoverishment of its population.

The devastating earthquake is presented to World public opinion as the sole cause of the country's predicament.

A country has been destroyed, its infrastructure demolished. Its people precipitated into abysmal poverty and despair.

Haiti's history, its colonial past have been erased.

The US military has come to the rescue of an impoverished Nation. What is its Mandate?

Is it a Humanitarian Operation or an Invasion?

1. Bless the President for having rescue teams in the air almost immediately. That was President Olafur Grimsson of Iceland. On Wednesday, the AP reported that the President of the United States promised, "The initial contingent of 2,000 Marines could be deployed to the quake-ravaged country within the next few days." "In a few days," Mr. Obama?

2. There's no such thing as a 'natural' disaster. 200,000 Haitians have been slaughtered by slum housing and IMF "austerity" plans.

3. A friend of mine called. Do I know a journalist who could get medicine to her father? And she added, trying to hold her voice together, "My sister, she's under the rubble. Is anyone going who can help, anyone?" Should I tell her, "Obama will have Marines there in 'a few days'"?

Relations (PR) campaign to convince the public that smoking is not dangerous. They encouraged the tobacco industry to set up their own research organization, the Council for Tobacco Research (CTR), which would produce science favorable to the industry, emphasize doubt in all the science linking smoking to lung cancer, and question all independent research unfavorable to the tobacco industry. The CTR did a masterful job at this for decades, significantly delaying and reducing regulation of tobacco products. George Washington University epidemiologist David Michaels, who is President Obama's nominee to head the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), wrote a meticulously researched 2008 book called, Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health. 2 In the book, he wrote: "the industry understood that the public is in no position to distinguish good science from bad. Create doubt, uncertainty, and confusion. Throw mud at the anti-smoking research under the assumption that some of it is bound to stick. And buy time, lots of it, in the bargain". The title of Michaels' book comes from a 1969 memo from a tobacco company executive: "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy". Hill and Knowlton, on behalf of the tobacco industry, had founded the "Manufactured Doubt" industry.

The Manufactured Doubt industry grows up
As the success of Hill and Knowlton's brilliant Manufactured Doubt campaign became apparent, other...

If the Democrats in Washington won't pass single payer.
Then maybe the people of Pennsylvania will.
I just returned from McConnellsburg and Harrisburg.
Where a grassroots movement is growing.
And fast.
Demanding nothing less than a strong, enlightened, universal state single payer.
A bill has been drafted.
Hearings have been held.
The Governor has vowed to sign it — if it passes the legislature.
Legislators are being lined up.
On Tuesday, I was with more than 1,200 people in the state Capitol building in Harrisburg.
Rallying for single payer.
It was such a joy to be with people who were saying loudly, clearly — and without hesitation:
Single Payer.
Now.
No Democratic Party waffling.
No wavering.
No watered down public option.
Just plain old single payer.
Everybody in.
Nobody out.

Gold's proven ability to bust cleanly through the $1,035 level — and now the $1,050 level — confirms what I've been saying all along:

A coordinated international effort to replace the U.S. dollar as the world's dominant reserve currency is now well under way ... and gathering steam.

Consider the gathering forces that are now converging and pummeling the U.S. dollar in international markets ...

The total amount of U.S. government debts and obligations is far greater than what most people realize.

Uncle Sam is saddled with ...

An officially recognized national debt of $11.8 trillion, which will likely exceed $12 trillion sometime this month.


Unfunded national obligations of $104 trillion!


Another $9 trillion in cumulative deficits over the next ten years.


Plus another trillion dollars for health care reform, no matter what bill finally makes it through Congress.
Grand total: $125.8 TRILLION of public debts!

All told, that means that each and every household in America is now indirectly responsible for more than 1 MILLION DOLLARS in government debts and obligations. And that assumes no new government spending, no new social programs, no new wars, no new economic disasters or bailouts. Worse, it assumes no new deficits in the meantime!