Ron Paul, Republican congressman from Texas and current presidential candidate, discusses his new book, The Revolution: A Manifesto, the issues discussed in his book, the revelations of former press secretary Scott McClellan regarding the Bush administration's propaganda campaign in the run-up to war, the Asia Times article on the proposed attack of Iran by the Bush administration by August, the status of his presidential campaign, the enthusiasm of his supporters, the reach of the campaign and the message, the status of the GOP delegates won by Ron Paul during the campaign, the rumor that Ron Paul is negotiating to speak at the Republican National Convention, the rally planned, Bob Barr's nomination as the Libertarian presidential nominee, the status of the Iraq War and whether or not Congress will stop it, the status and the future of the U.S. dollar, the possible consequences of attacking Iran on the oil market and the U.S. dollar and the need for dissolution of the Federal Reserve
At a White House luncheon, June 26, 1954, at the height of the Cold War and McCarthyism, Winston Churchill remarked, "To jaw- jaw is always better than to war-war."
In his inaugural address, January 20, 1961, also during the Cold War, President John F. Kennedy stated, "Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate."
Negotiations are the basic tools of diplomacy and statecraft, used to prevent conflict, to conclude wars, to resolve crises, to reconcile with former or current enemies, to build coalitions, to mobilize relief efforts after conflicts or natural disasters, to forge trade agreements, to transform behavior patterns, etc..
Direct talks provide a view into the psychic and political world of other nations and groups, learning about their aims, wants, needs and fears, as well as their readiness and capability to change. Why would we deny ourselves such important tool available for promoting our interests around the globe and preventing military conflict?
The Bush-Cheney policy of saber rattling around the globe is the most self-defeating policy imaginable. It achieves nothing but spurs instability and actually increases popular support of the leaders of rival nations. May the next President be committed to emphasizing diplomacy and negotiation as the primary tools of our country in foreign affairs Military preemption should be at the bottom of the list of possible actions and used only in the rarest of circumstances when the required intelligence has been rechecked and confirmed.
Styles of diplomacy and negotiation vary from nation to nation and leader to leader. The procedure usually involves the following steps:
1. Deciding the objective 2. Preparing the case 3. Assessing the interests of the other side 4. Preparing concessions that do not harm the objective 5. Making contact with the other side at lower functionary level's 6. Negotiating the endgame at the second highest level but under the supervision of the highest level 7. Ceremonial signing of the accords with pomp and circumstance
Almost always the agreements are zero-sum games in which both sides attain their objectives. If there is an imbalance, there is usually a default early or later
Only rarely do the negotiations begin at the top leadership level, but given the history of the Bush-Cheney regime and its unilateral tendencies, the next President may initiate leader to leader talks to dramatize change in U.S. policies sending a signal to the entire world.
If you compare the only two governing systems in the world, you find the oldest devalues individuals and the newest values them. What do I mean by that, you ask. The oldest form of governance is the family, tribe and community with a leader making the decisions of what is in their best interests. The newest form is based on what are the best interests of each individual in the family, tribe or community.
The newest form has only been with us for about 400 years, while the oldest began when men and women first walked the earth. In the beginning, the family became a tribe where each individual related to others for survival, which was their overriding interest. In the new world, each individual stood on his or her own, pursued their own values, interests, aspirations, using their own talents and skills, to survive as well as grow. In the new system, each life was valued, and in being valued, laws and traditions reflected that value. In the old system, no life was valued above the defined interests of community.
The new system, in the New World, produced the greatest happiness, freedom and prosperity ever known in the world. America has stood apart from the Old World because of it, and has been the beacon of hope for all who would be free of oppression found throughout the Old World. Things have changed, however, and the Old World has infected the New with its old system of governance. It began with the devaluing of individuals attending school, on the job under union rules, as well as the unborn. The unborn are aborted and the aged and infirm open to euthanizing for the convenience of others.
The Darwin and eugenics approach to life has corrupted the notion of individual freedom and the value of individual life above all others. The ideals of free commercial exchange between individuals, the free market, have been set aside for the convenience of community and equality of outcome. The American individual is devalued to the extent each differs from the community model, as established by the new elite, the liberals who know best what is in our collective interests.
When governments want to expand power over the monetary system, they invoke the need to clamp down on money laundering by criminals. There is a problem here. After these laws and new rules are passed, crime never goes down, but our privacy does. That is a problem for us. It is not a problem for governments.
More:
The history of civil government has been a history of the governments' assertion of sovereignty over money. They do not prove the case for such sovereignty as an inherent attribute of civil government. They do not even mention this theoretical problem. There merely enforce the principle by law.
There is a reason for this. All civil governments, with the lone exception of Byzantium from 325 to 1453, have deliberately tampered with the metal content of the monetary unit. They have practiced counterfeiting. They have added less expensive metal to the silver or gold and have then spent the new money into circulation at the older, higher value.
This is theft. Governments steal from naïve, trusting individuals who sell at yesterday's prices on the assumption that the nation's official counterfeiter has not, coin by coin, stolen silver or gold and replaced it with tin or some other base metal. The skeptics see what has happened and raise prices, or they borrow with the intention of repaying the loan with money of reduced purchasing power.
ON the same day the BBC reported that former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz was to go on trial after five years in prison over the deaths of a group of Baghdad merchants in 1992, it was rumored the former prime minister of Britain will be indicted for crimes against humanity.
It starts out with one of Bush's rants, then cuts to a series of not exactly subliminal flashes,showing Obama with ears almost like bat's wings, a shot of him with an inverted cross tattooed on his forehead, vampire fangs, leering at white women, and covered with an obscene rap, dressed like an Arab. That and shots of thousands of rats swarming.
What came to mind when I watched it was Goebbels assault on the Jews as not human, portraying them as animals, rats, apes, etc. Apparently, our media is taking still more pages from the Nazi playbook and running with it.
So sad, so disgusting, and, like most of the Bush garden bulls&*t, it will no doubt have its effect in growing hatred and distrust.
This country has never been perfect, but at least, in my youth, we tried. What we do now makes the gorge rise in any thinking person.
On Memorial Day, 2008 we mourned for all soldiers who have been lost in the defense of America. This included American soldiers, men and women, lost in Iraq since the beginning of that sinful and immoral war.
There is a difference to be noted between the many of those who have died for our country before the Iraq debacle and those who have died in that war, but the saddest truth is that of all the soldiers lost in Iraq, and still yet to die in that Godforsaken mistake, not one died protecting our country, our freedom, or our way of life.
No, they were sacrificed to the Gods of profit and power - you know who I mean, the Blood Profits faction - those who started this war to enrich or empower their way of life. These ghouls lusted after the resource of Iraq - Oil - and the profits to be realized from feeding the war machine; it seems they have gotten their desired filthy lucre.
But that won't satisfy them. They're already preparing the next profit venture - Iran.
If reports that the Bush Administration and Iraq's co-conspirators, the Al-Maliki Iraqi Government, are true, then a deal is imminent that will transfer the wealth of the Iraqis to the Blood Profiteers. The good news is that this might signal a trend toward diminishing the hostilities in Iraq.
The profiteers will have raked in Billions in war materials profits and will be getting around 88% of the $300 Billion ( at $100 per barrel ) of the proven Iraqi Oil reserves. A pretty good return for the profiteers, all they needed to do was spread some money around to buy off enough of the resistance. With the influence of 24/7 propaganda, the war was on - but with a cost to humanity, more than one million dead and many more injured, destruction of a country and the future of the people of that country, and creation of over four million refugees.
The bad news for humanity is that the profiteers have started the run up denigration of another people and their country - Iran (they have almost as much oil as Iraq). And in Congress right now is a pending bill to give the Bush Administration the authority to start a new war in the Middle East (H R 1194).
Members of Congress claimed, "being misled" in the Iraqi War vote. There's an old adage "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me". Any member of Congress who votes for giving Bush "authority" to take action in the Middle East this time around does not deserve your vote for re-election. Vote them out.
America's five percent of the world's people use about twenty-five percent of the world's resources. That just ticks many people off. They call it the "world's resources," as if there must be an "equality of outcome" for the whole world in the use of their resources. Instead of being angry at America, why don't they who are so ticked simply stand back and try to figure out why Americans have so much. It did not happen over night or because America has more military power. It happened because no one stood in the way of his or her progress.
Americans grew prosperous because they had a nation based upon individual freedom, private property, law and just enough government to protect individuals against injustice, and a clear path to success for each individual who wanted to walk or run its length. America was the only nation founded on those ideals, and the results proved it works. Why aren't more nations changing their ways and adopting the proven ideals of America, instead of fighting them?
Today, Americans are told to change, which means altering its ideals so that elite, who know best, can stand on that path to success and decide if what any individual wants to do is in agreement with the interests of the community they lead. Bureaucrats standing in the way of individual progress are more concerned with justice than preventing injustice. Justice, to them, means equality of outcome for all citizens of the world they manage.
Justice is the equal sharing of resources and wealth with everyone in the world, through the generosity of the elite who manage the world's communities and economies. Individual freedom, to them, is license to steal by those not as concerned about equality or wellbeing of the entire community, as they are. 2008 is the year Americans votes their wishes for change to reality, giving those who really care the leadership over the five percent who have captured too much freedom and prosperity in this world community. Americans vote punishment for themselves for objecting to elite standing in their way.
I ran across this YouTube, which uses Holst's Mars, Bringer of War from The Planets as a background for a collage of photos, paintings, sci-fi film clips and war footage to, perhaps, bring home the horror of war.
Yes, it is anti-war propaganda. I am anti-war. I also love Holst's The Planets. Enjoy it if you wish.
There are several other copies of the same music, one with photos from the various Mars missions, which is quite interesting.
Taps play mournfully o'er the grave Loved ones bow their heads and weep The Flag folded, casket lowered down And the Hero, laid to endless sleep.
This scene played out too many times With all the sadness and the pain As War torn hearts ache with the loss It happens, time and time again.
All people should attend a Service To see the Honor Guard in dress attire To hear the bugler play that sad tune And to be startled, when the rifles fire.
A small tribute to those who gave all The true Patriots of our great Land To face the horrors of the battlefield Where sometimes, Freedom makes its stand.
War seems to be the only way, we humans Know, to change what we don't like It seems; peaceful times are short lived Before there's another military strike.
The military/industrial complex wins No matter, if war is won or lost And the New World Order thirst for power Uncaring, what their selfish goals may cost.
Maybe one day, we can live together And learn to respect those different ways Before we destroy ourselves and Earth And end the terrible price the Soldier pays.
But until that day finally comes, if ever And our Brave, no longer have to die We must Honor their ultimate sacrifice Even as we wait and ponder, "Why?"
And instead of just a day off work To enjoy the pleasures of our Country Just remember what this day is for To Honor those who gave all, for you and me.
There is a general and accepted belief in America today that government is good, as well as necessary. Further, that the bigger government, and the more distant from its people, the better it will perform for the people who need it so much. America, however, began with people, in their own families and communities, who were self-governing and self-reliant than is deemed proper today.
All sides in the campaigns of 2008 promise greater government "goodness" at the highest and largest levels, increasing the benefits it will provide. Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, tried to warn Americans, that, "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have."
Traditional conservatives still identify with Jefferson, and continue to harp on the notion that the least government is best. They are reflecting back on the reasons why America has been the most prosperous nation in the world, because of individual freedom without a labor-union mentality. Look at how well big government performed in New Orleans following Katrina. They displayed the expected bumbling of a bloated bureaucracy filled with those who could decide nothing beyond the shuffling of their paperwork, rules, regulations and small minds.
Compare their results with those of citizens in such disasters as the Chicago, San Francisco and Virginia City fires over a century ago. Citizens banded together and rebuilt their cities quickly. The winter fire of 1875, which destroyed half of Virginia City, Nevada, gave us an example of how people stood on their own and reacted responsibly, with no help from government at any level. In two months, in snowstorms and high winds over a mile above sea level, the city was rebuilt better than it existed before the fire.
The problem with those who lived there, was they did not know they could have waited for a few years, freezing, starving, with little more than the hope some large bureaucracy would finally come to their aid and rebuild their city for them, like New Orleans.
They did not realize government was so good, so they did it on their own.
UPDATE: A reader points out that the quote on government size is missattributed to Thomas Jefferson. (Read more here). --editor.
Sentences four and five in reason number twenty read as follows:
"Doug Henwood (1998), in Wall Street: How It Works and for Whom, writes that the richest 5% of Americans own 95% of all stock shares and the top 1% of the population owns 25% of the productive capital and future profits of corporate America. In Henwood's (2003) After the New Economy, he exposes that the richest 10% of Americans possess over ¾ of all the wealth in America and the bottom 50% has almost none of the wealth, but notes that they do have substantial debt."
These are interesting statistics on the concentration of economic power in America. There are comparable statistics on the concentration of economic power from other sources. They vary from study to study, from author to author, but they very consistently expose that a very small per cent of the elite class has overwhelming economic power.
The American people are totally unaware of this concentration of economic power and how this concentration of economic power has been used to create our de facto American fascist state. Also, the American people are not aware of how this concentration of economic power into a very small fraction of the elitist class has resulted in most Americans being economically disenfranchised. Further, the American people do not have the foggiest idea how being economically disenfranchised has resulted in them being politically disenfranchised.
Are some Republicans thumbing McCain? Is it because they see McCain as giving the thumbs down to American conservative ideals, the way America began and prospered for almost 400 years? McCain is a different kind of Republican, as he has said many times.
He establishes his principles upon the ideals of those he opposes, thus showing himself to be a sound and generous compromiser. He dislikes the Republican who stands fast on founding principles when so many on the other side disagree with them. He believes in eliminating disagreement by the other side, even if that means raising disagreement and pain on his own side.
He reminds me of the fellow who was beating his thumb with a hammer, crying out in pain with every blow of the hammer. One of his close friends asked him why he was beating his thumb with a hammer, and he replied, "Because it feels so good when I quit."
Standing on conservative ideals, of supporting life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, personal responsibility, individual freedom, smaller, limited government and few taxes, is like beating his thumb with a hammer. Getting off that platform, even for a moment, is a chance to be without pain for him, as we have all seen when he pokes one of his unbeaten fingers in the eyes of conservatives.
Some may have assumed he beats his thumb with a hammer because he wants to see if he is still young enough to feel the pain, while others believe he is just generating some additional adrenalin to prevent taking an untimely nap.
In any case, when he stops wielding the hammer, that is when the conservatives start looking for an alternative candidate, or perhaps escaping to the Barr for refreshments.
The decision to go to war is not made by the Military high command.
The decision to go to war is taken by civilians.
The US Military is characterised by a hierarchy and command structure. Orders come from above, emanating from the "civilian government", namely the Bush administration. They are transmitted downwards through the military command structure. Once the order to go to war is taken, it is not discussed or debated, it is carried out by the military. Moreover, in all likelihood, in implementing a "preemptive attack" on Iran, the Bush administration would bypass the US Congress, in blatant violation of Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.
In practice, the President and Commander in Chief, namely George W. Bush, does not decide. He also obeys orders from above. He follows the diktats of powerful financial and corporate interests.
This war is profit-driven. "War is good for business". It is a money making operation. It results in billions of dollar of profits for Wall Street, the oil giants and the military industrial complex, not to mention the institutional speculators in the oil, currency and commodity markets.
The objective of the proposed war is to extend the frontiers of the global capitalist economy, eventually taking control of Iran's oil wealth. The broader implications of a war using tactical nuclear weapons in the conventional war theater are of no concern to those who decide to go to war.
It is a bit long, but has a lot of meat on its bones. We (the planet) are in a heap of trouble.
"Relativity as a scientific concept was not invented by Einstein, but by Galileo Galilei, who posited that both motion and rest are relative to ambient factors, and that absolute uniformity cannot exist in the question of motion."
On Wednesday May 14, the Chicago City Council was scheduled to vote on a resolution against a US attack on Iran.This resolutionwas created by the No War on Iran Coalition of Chicago and was introduced by Alderman Joe Moore.
But Richard Daley, Mayor of Chicago emphatically criticized the resolution, effectively blocking the Council from proceeding, and forcing it to be tabled.Daley said such decisions should be left to the Democratic nominee for president, and that this issue being "injected" into the political campaign would harm Obama's chances. Daley 's statement
The next day President Bush gave a speech before the Israeli Knesset in which he made clear he would not negotiate with Iran.He compared anyone who tried to negotiate with Iran to a Nazi appeaser. These statements make all the more real the threat of an attack on Iran.Bush statement.
Bush's statement launched a battle between Obama and McCain to show who can be the toughest in the war on terror. Meanwhile the lives of the Iranian people hang in the balance.
The No War On Iran Coalition is determined to pass this resolution despite the vote being blocked on Wednesday. Coaliltion response here.
World Can't Wait calls on the anti-war movement as a whole and the citizens across this country to act with urgency to introduce resolutions to elected bodies where you live opposing an attack on Iran, and to mobilize to stop business as usual to prevent an attack on Iran.
We will not be the "appeasers" of a war criminal president hell bent on committing further war crimes and crimes against humanity. We will not allow the "politics as usual" of this presidential campaign to "inject" silence and complicity among the people of this country while the people of Iran, the entire Middle East, and the globe over face this grave threat.
How do people get rich? There are three ways. One, you work for it. Two, you steal it. Three, you get others to steal it for you. In working for it, you focus all the mental and physical energy you have to producing more of what other people want, so they can pay you for it. To steal it, you keep an eye on those who apply their energy productively and when they are paid, you swoop down and rob them. If you are one of those who are not rich, have no urge to steal it yourself, you tell politicians you will vote for them if they steal it for you.
The people who work hard represent early America, which is why America, the New World, became so prosperous. Early Americans did not take kindly to thieves and fought them when they reared their ugly heads. The third kind of people grew to prominence in today's America, because they discovered they could vote themselves access to other people's earnings without being called thieves. Working Americans, out of misguided compassion, allowed them to grow. In fact, these new Americans see stealing from others as their entitlement.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of other people's prosperity became a new American mantra.
In order to justify themselves, and their moral stand for legalized plunder, to avoid negative judgment by others, they join with our politicians and leaders of other nations to limit some of the physical energy Americans use to become prosperous, such as electrical energy and propulsion from internal combustion engines, by limiting the fuel needed to run them. They accomplish this by frightening everyone into believing in the mythology of impending global weather disasters. America has the fuel under its own ground. We are not allowed to get it into our pipeline.
In time, and with enough power in the hands of their politicians, they can limit the mental energy as well by the threat of punishment for thinking out of the box. At this point, the mantra changes with the removal of liberty, leaving life and plundering others as our guiding principles.
When referring to America as a "corporate fascism," Ralph Nader is absolutely correct on every point. This is why we need third parties and independents. We need them to expose the lies, hypocrisy and corruption of the two major parties that have been taken-over by strong pro-fascist factions. The strong pro-fascist factions in both of the major political parties are exclusively serving the pro-fascist factions and their pro-fascist corporations.
Now, why is fascism so attractive to the American elites and their corporations? It is attractive because fascism provides a way for they and their corporations to maintain their economic and political power in the face of the overwhelming problems associated with keeping American-style capitalism functioning. Problems for which they apparently do not have any solutions.
The single most serious problem confronting American capitalism, for which they do not appear to have a solution, is: How can the American economy be kept functioning when the American dollar no longer is the global currency and America can no longer export its inflation?
The next major problem probably is: How can the American military/commercial empire be maintained when it is impossible to finance the enormously expensive American war machine because the world will no longer loan America the money to finance its enormously expensive war machine?
To the American elites maintaining their economic and political power transcends all other concerns. The state and church issue, gun control, environmental issues, global climate change, Peak Oil, etc., etc. all are very secondary in importance to the very immediate problem of maintaining their economic and political power through the current on-going national financial and economic crisis for which, and I repeat, they appear to have absolutely no solutions.
Ron Paul is one of the only politicians in a long, long time, to have clearly explained the proper use of war powers. He has repeatedly cited the Constitution in stating that only Congress has the power to declare war (and that there's no authorization for them to transfer that power to the President, like they did in 2002).
Rarely, does anyone in the media touch on this issue, but John Dillon in the Christian Science Monitor did just that this past week:
Nothing separates Paul so clearly from most Republicans as his views on the Iraq war. His reasoning goes straight back to the Constitution, specifically Article I, Section 8, which reserves the power to declare war exclusively to Congress.
No such declaration happened with Iraq in 2003 under President George W. Bush, or in Iraq in 1991 with President George H.W. Bush, or in Vietnam in the 1960s with President Lyndon Johnson, or in Korea in 1950 with President Harry Truman. Instead of demanding declarations, we've settled for congressional "resolutions."
Truman started this defiance of the Constitution. In the Korean conflict, which official Washington called a "police action," 36,407 US service men and women were killed. That's more than all those killed (22,424) in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Spanish-American War.
This bears repeating.
In matters of war, the US government has not followed the Constitution since World War II. Since then, this government has waged war repeatedly, without the Constitutionally-mandated Congressional Declaration of War.
Dillon continues:
In his book, Paul writes: "The Framers [of the Constitution] did not want the American president to resemble the British king.." He quotes Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers:
"The President is to be commander-in-chief.... In this respect his authority would be nominally the same as that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces . while that of the British king extends to declaring war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies - all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature [Congress]."
Do these kinglike actions by recent US presidents really matter?
Absolutely. Just look at Iraq. The war is being fought by a shrunken volunteer military - made up of less than 1 percent of the American population. This is convenient for politicians. With no congressional declaration and no draft, most American families don't feel the real pain of war.
The incredibly incompetent fascist Bush regime, and its equally incredibly incompetent fascist Republican and fascist Democratic allies in Congress, have involved America in extremely expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have imperiled America economically and financially, and weakened America militarily.
Because of the of the reckless conduct of these fascist incompetents America has been brought to the very edge of economic ruin wherein a backwater such as Iran can threaten to topple the American economic and military house-of-cards.
The whole world is aware of America's decline. It is only the American people, who been intentionally kept in ignorance by the American news media, that do not understand how serious their national predicament is.
"Standing on the corner watching all the girls go by" were lyrics from a great song describing what the boys are doing when the girls are out walking. The only bad thing about it is that too many of the boys can no longer stand on the corner, not because fewer girls are walking, but it is too difficult to stand on one's own feet any longer.
It is not that the girls have lost their appeal, but the task requires too much energy and dedication, something most people no longer want to invest when government is so willing to do the job for them. Standing on your own two feet was something that began in New England almost 400 years ago, not to watch the girls go by, but to survive and grow. New England set the pace and separated America from the rest of the world because prosperity resulted from freedom and people willing to stand on their own two feet. People were busy building the corners to waste time standing on them
Americans have begun the 21st Century with the idea that a few elite who know best will take care of them, taking wealth from those who still do stand on their own two feet to give to them, as their new birthright. It is much easier to give up the motive of girl watching in exchange for government's free bread and circuses, obesity without obsession, so to speak. Laziness and carelessness are easier to live with than the efforts needed to be free and prosper. Those things require blood, sweat and even tears, while a government that cares means we can relax, until we are labeled surplus.
As for me, I would like to build more corners and even stand on them and watch the girls go by. Then again, I still like girls and still believe the life I deserve is the one I build myself.
If the silent majority of Americans wonders why our economy is going down the drain and the prices for gasoline and food are steadily increasing, AntiWar.com's Justin Raimondo has the answer. Here's an excerpt:
The same pattern that characterized the run-up to war with Iraq is being employed in the case of Iran. We're acting on intelligence that is so overcooked the stench is overpowering. There is no evidence these alleged training camps even exist, or, if they do, that their purpose is to train Iraqi "militants." Indeed, all efforts to show the media hard evidence for this phantom threat seem to have evaporated into thin air: these charges are the intelligence community's equivalent of "vaporware."
We are being bankrupted by wars; lied into one foolish fiasco after the other by our Executive branch and a Congress full of Israel-Firsters.
Wake up, America!
Price of gas too high? You ain't seen nothing yet, just wait till we attack Iran!
Every citizen who cares about their economic future needs to read this and demand that your Senator and Representatives do something to stop it. Then take another look at Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, the only one who has been speaking out against this madness.
Hillary says the interests of community, when compared to the interests of individuals, are more important. This is a common political theme since man began his life on earth. Whose community is it, however? If it does not belong to individuals, whose interests lack importance, then who is in charge? What is the belief-system guiding their decisions?
Another common political theme is that there are two kinds of people. First, there are the few elite among us who are superior in all respects. Second, there is the rest, the majority, who are the ones led by the higher order people, the elite.
Community, then, belongs to those in the higher order who decide what the interests of community are, whose defined interests vary from one community to another. If they vary enough, there is war, famine and misery for the many in the second order that are destined always to follow those in the higher order, the elite. Life goes on. War happens here and misery over there and life is always lived on the edge for those in the miserable many class.
It did change once, however, where the interests of individuals were more important, and community simply prospered because so many individuals made it big. That was in America, where individual freedom set the pace of laws and economics and all men and women, without elite or follower class, could make it big if they wished.
In this new 21st century, Americans are urged to change their political system. The new elite tell us we need to change back to the way it has always been, where the few elite rule the many. The elite will take the wealth and property of the many and spread it around equally, so no one person has more than another does. The result is, as it has always been, the misery of the many when one community argues with another over who decides their best interests and what share they are to receive.
When Barack says we need to change, should we even dare to challenge him and his elites on what the change will bring?
The first and most satisfying reason for smiling today was this nest I found recently in an old tool belt of mine hanging in my shop containing four baby Carolina Wrens eagerly awaiting to be fed. I thought that I had been hearing faint noises of their presence for a couple of days before I found them. I think I would buy a brand new belt before I would disturb this one. I am enjoying watching them grow. I think Thoreau would have as well.
The second reason I found to smile today really is not smiling at all but another way of expressing my awe at the cerebral activity (or lack thereof) of our political and media icons. I want to thank swiftspeech.blogspot.com for posting this insane conversation.
So, before you read this, remember that here we have O'Reilly (who joins Dubya, Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity as the loudest of the "endless war" supporters, all of which have never served in a war themselves) interviewing a man who spent time in a Vietnamese prison camp where he endured torture for a few years and has, I would assume, physically and emotionally felt the real horrors of war. Now McCain is backing a man that is wanting an economy based on war. How ironic can you get? It appears that he has been kicked in the head one too many times.
What does that say about McCain's thinking?!?
If this wasn't so damn insane, it would make for a comical skit.
MCCAIN: Of course not. I campaigned all over this country for him.
O'REILLY: So you voted for President Bush.
MCCAIN: Of course. I mean, that's a ridiculous question.
I think I will spend the rest of the day watching those baby birds screaming for their mama and daddy to feed them. On second thought, if I do that it will remind me of how the masses are screaming for government to step in and be much more to us than they need to be or were ever designed to be. And they are laughing their ass off at us because they know they are getting us right where they want us.
Then again, there is a further even more serious moral issue. Who on Earth gave the USA the assignment and right to roam the Earth and kill whomever it pleases in any way it chooses for whatever reason it believes serves its military/industrial/congressional purposes?
I believe that this is the question that billions of people around the world ask first. And it's a question that one hears asked in the USA all too infrequently, almost never by the military/industrial/congressional cabal for obvious reasons. Business as usual occupies them, it seems.
If the USA wants to kill its own people, that's their business to address. Industrialised murder of thousands and millions of people outside the USA is indeed the business of the victims. The USA has been doing precisely this since time immemorial.
How sad. What a waste. What a moral wasteland in fact when the American empire is on the move.
According to a CNN poll, what five issues are the most important to Americans in their deciding for whom they will vote for president in 2008?
Well, education ain't nary a one of 'em, Bunkie. The five are -- in order -- the economy, the war in (or occupation of) Iraq, health care, terrorism, and illegal immigration. Education as something to be concerned about fits somewhere within what makes up the sixth issue -- "other."
But just because most Americans don't think that education is a top issue and appear not to realize that the reasons for it actually being a top issue have roots in CNN's top five issues (a little reasoning reveals why and how) don't mean that it isn't extremely important to the future and the strength and prosperity of the country. As Bob Herbert of The New York Times points out:
" . . . The nation's future may depend on how well we educate the current and future generations, but (like the renovation of the nation's infrastructure, or a serious search for better sources of energy) that can wait. At the moment, no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S. . . .
"Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it's widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900.
"'We have one of the highest dropout rates in the industrialized world,' said Allan Golston, the president of U.S. programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a discussion over lunch recently he described the situation as 'actually pretty scary, alarming.'
"Roughly a third of all American high school students drop out. Another third graduate but are not prepared for the next stage of life - either productive work or some form of post-secondary education. When two-thirds of all teenagers old enough to graduate from high school are incapable of mastering college-level work, the nation is doing something awfully wrong. . . . "
But what about George Bush's shining pedagogical achievement (with bipartisan support from Congress), No Child Left Behind? Isn't that off-setting at least part of what the nation is doing that is awfully wrong? Isn't that ameliorating America's school daze? Well, not according to William Collins, who refers to NCLB as "mainly snake oil."
Other well-written commentaries (here, here and here) outline more problems with American education than they offer solutions for what ails it. But in total they do offer a thoughtful review of the apparently undervalued issue among Americans. And they indicate why the extremely complicated issue is one that needs far more and better attention that it has received from the Bush administration -- and why for the good of the country the education issue must be high priority for solving by Bush's successor.
Joshua Frank and Jeffrey St. Clair point out the obvious in their latest CounterPunch article - something we don't hear enough about:
The nation's biggest polluter isn't a corporation. It's the Pentagon. Every year the Department of Defense churns out more than 750,000 tons of hazardous waste -- more than the top three chemical companies combined.
That's important enough that it's worth repeating.
The biggest polluter in the US is the Pentagon.
So, what's all the hysteria about regulating the actions of you and I? Why are the actions of individual people all the rage in regards to protecting the environment?
Because a lot of people still falsely believe that government actually protects us. Frank and St. Clair remind us of just another example of how the federal government not only can't protect us, but it chooses not to, and goes to great extent to cover it all up. Here's more:
Yet the military remains largely exempt from compliance with most federal and state environmental laws, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Pentagon's partner in crime, is working hard to keep it that way. For the past five decades the federal government, defense contractors and the chemical industry have joined forces to block public health protections against perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel that has been shown to effect children's growth and mental progress by disrupting the function of the thyroid gland which regulates brain development.
Sadly, people still want to spend their time trying to get the government to force us to use certain kinds of energy, certain kinds of bottles, drive certain kinds of cars, and on and on and on.
The sick irony of it all is that the government itself is the greatest threat to our environment. The Pentagon isn't the only culprit, the US Mint has been destroying our waterways for quite some time too.
Harry Browne warned us of the dangers of government pollution and destruction of the environment some time ago. His article "Saving the Environment from Political Destruction" published in 2000 still rings true today.
Here's an excerpt:
From raw sewage flowing into the lakes and streams of Yellowstone National Park to U.S. Navy oil spills in Washington's Puget Sound to PCBs making fish inedible in the Shenandoah River, government managers have devastated government facilities without concern. And why should they care? Government agencies are exempt from almost all the harsh, expensive laws the politicians have imposed upon private companies.
The EPA estimates the cost of cleaning up all the sites the federal government has polluted to be at least $280 billion - five times the cost for all the privately polluted SuperFund sites.
All this devastation isn't an accident. It isn't a case of hiring the wrong people to manage government property. It is the direct result of putting property in the hands of people who have no personal interest in its future value.
What's the solution? Well, it isn't easy, but we need to strike the root of the problem. If we're ever to be good stewards of this earth, we'll have to stop the US Federal Government from destroying it.
By the end of last year, seven states had passed laws prohibiting implementation of REAL ID in their state: Maine, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Washington, New Hampshire, and Georgia. That number became eight on April 9 of this year when Idaho joined up. Ten states had laws that were passed in one house but not the other. Eight more states had introduced such laws. Twelve had passed nonbinding resolutions denouncing REAL ID. That's a 38-state rebellion!....... http://www.newswithviews.com/Yates/steven36.htm
Senator John McCain has finally given the kiss-off salute to all conservative republicans and libertarians. He has joined with Al Gore, Barack Obama and the red and green Marxist environmentalists to bring America back into the fold of Old World politics, where the all-knowing elite few rule the many. By standing on the mythology of man made climate change and a means of people management by government, in the name of global warming, McCain has turned his back on free market economics and the prosperity of the New World.
In spite of evidence the world is cooling, McCain wants America to apply its economic brakes by backing away from the use of energy. The human energy of free people, coupled with the energy applied to machines, as tools, made America the most prosperous nation in the world, the by-product of its individual freedom. McCain's political allies on the left have already poisoned the pool of human energy promoting envy, anger and depression. All of America's freedom and prosperity is to be sacrificed for a centrally managed system of economics which has always proven a disaster where tried. McCain promises, as does Obama and Clinton, to bring America to the standards of Darfur.
McCain is an ignorant and arrogant bureaucrat who has accepted the role and accolades of great leader before being crowned, which makes his loss at the polls this Fall a given. He has placed his head well into the clouds with Obama as elite to supervise the great American unwashed.
Where does this leave concerned Americans in the elections of 2008? Unless a third party can gather momentum sufficient to attract reasonable, freedom-loving Americans to the poles, our New World principles may be permanently lost to humanity.
No matter how far society progresses, we'll always have thieves, thugs...and tyrants. The founding fathers, however, recognized that the most dangerous of these come right from our own governments.
The Framers understood the most important point about the nature of government: It constitutes the biggest threat to the freedom and well-being of the citizenry. Unfortunately, it is a point that has been lost among many modern-day Americans, who have come to view government as their friend, protector, provider, and savior.
No doubt about it - many good-meaning people believe it's the government, instead of everyday people, that's supposedly going to protect us. But, the reality is quite different. It's the government that we need to be most wary of.
Hopefully, the tragedy that is the "war on terror" awakens a few more people to this sad reality.
Liberals, like Obama and Hillary, always refer to people as part of a group or community and never as individuals. This is a common characteristic of liberals, because they see everyone below their level of elite-hood as part of a community. To the liberal, the world is broken into two parts. They are the few elite who really matter. We are the many non-elite who really do not matter, other than as a herd to be moved here and there en masse and trimmed as needed.
When Hillary speaks of Black Americans supporting Obama and working class White Americans supporting her, this is a natural thing for a liberal to do. There is nothing racist about it at all. A community or herd, in which many belong, according to liberals, determines how people will perceive, think and vote. Individuals are non-existent, non-entities, except to the American Conservative raised to see everyone as potentially great including himself or herself.
If Hillary seems confused when accused a racist, just understand she cannot be racist except in the way she looks at all people who are not members of the small number of elite. Even Barack would have to admit to that, as he has placed himself among that small, special class of people who tend the herd. Not all elite are allies in their rush to power over the herd.
When I wrote "Christian Fascism in America," I had both the Reverend Rod Parsley as well as Hagee in mind - among many others - because I know that every Sunday in America, some Preacher who wants to strut his "Macho" in front of the Congregation will support the vile and ungodly war against Iraq.
A country that did us no harm.
A country who's worse crime was to be setting on top of a pile of oil that was lusted after by ungodly people who would murder and wreak carnage to increase the size of their bank account.
There are good Pastors and there are good Christians in America; and there are also moral people who don't frequent the church.
But as they say, the proof is in the pudding. I remember my preacher during my young years used to proclaim that a man can make a sign that reads "I Am A Christian" and wear it around his neck every day, but that sign won't make him a Christian.
Sometime ago, I forget in which article, I mentioned a Church Deacon who was openly advocating the complete destruction of Iraq and the killing of every Iraqi. And he was damn proud of himself.
I asked him why he believed what he said and why he thought that God might approve of his thoughts and actions. He told me that "those" people don't believe in God, they worship Allah. And on a scale of 1-100 he is about a 101 in favor of Bush. I swear, I believe that if he ever got to touch Bush he would be convinced that he had made physical contact with almighty God himself.
This is what the good people of America are up against. There is not an insignificant group of madmen enabling the chief madman and his cohorts. Ignorance is a terminal blessing for them. They won't be influenced by facts. They are proud that they listen only to Limbaugh "to get the truth".
These two preachers are charlatans, and I know at least three people who are absolutely sure of it - me and the two of them.
Why didn't the MSM jump on McCain for having two preachers guiding him that were much more dangerous to the world than Reverend Jeremiah Wright? Why were they more dangerous? Because they want to destroy the world, and Wright only wants to get his message of residual discrimination out for the record.
But the real reason the MSM is for McCain is the same reason that they were for Bush. Both are Damn fools who can be easily manipulated by our Shadow Government. I think that if you added Bush's and McCain's IQ together it would still be somewhat short of Kermit's. McCain is the worst excuse for a candidate that has been on the stage in my lifetime.
A major disappointment in the presidential race has been the failure of the three surviving candidates to address nuclear weapons, the greatest existential threat to planet Earth, to the human race itself, and of course, by extension to the United States of America.
The failure is extraordinary because the abolition of nuclear weapons has been raised recently and repeatedly by some of the most respected and powerful personages in the U.S. military, the federal government, and corporate America. How could a serious election virtually ignore this powerful initiative?
A January 2007 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Senator Sam Nunn and former Secretary of Defense William Perry called for a "world free of nuclear weapons" and urged the United States to lead an international effort to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles. They argued for a multilateral verifiable plan with strong enforcement mechanisms. They stated: "Nuclear weapons today present tremendous dangers, but also an historic opportunity. U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the next stage -- to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world."
Last month, in response to a question about her reaction to Iran attacking Israel with nuclear weapons, Hillary Clinton said that she would "obliterate" Iran in that eventuality. In a later interview she again threatened "massive retaliation."
Her remarks were unwise and destabilizing, echoing the irresponsible statements of President Ahmadinejad of Iran who has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map" and then tried to modify the statement. Hillary knows not to answer a hypothetical question, particularly when Iran does not have nuclear weapons according to the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate that stated that Iran ended its unsuccessful program to build them in 2003. Clinton should have used the question to rally support for stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the reduction of nuclear arsenals that exist in eight countries. She might have pointed out that such an attack was unlikely because Israel deters other countries with its own nukes, some of them on submarines constantly patrolling the Mediterranean.
Overt threats like those by Ahmadinejad and Clinton to use nuclear weapons are dangerous because they initiate a process that might become uncontrollable. Nuclear war must never happen and even to contemplate it weakens international inhibitions of their use.
Most importantly, Clinton wasted an opportunity to rally support behind the well-documented and responsible proposal to reduce and eventually eliminate all nuclear weapons. That is the crucial issue for the survival of America.
This past weekend, World Can't Wait held a national meeting in Berkeley CA. Here is how I began the meeting:
About six weeks ago, Bush got approval and funding from the Congress for a secret directive authorizing a range of operations, including assassinations, against the Iranian government. According to Andrew Cockburn on May 2, the area "covers actions across a huge geographic area - from Lebanon to Afghanistan - but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines - up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. A Marine amphibious force, originally due to leave San Diego for the Persian Gulf in mid June, has had its sailing date abruptly moved up to May 4." That's tomorrow. It'll take them about a month to get there.
This preparation is real, the threat of a new attack must be taken extremely seriously - and there is NO opposition to this coming from within the halls of power or from the democratic presidential contenders. Hillary Clinton threatened to "totally obliterate" Iran and Obama's only objection was that "using words like obliterate doesn't actually produce good results.
"I think the Iranians can be confident that I [too] will respond forcefully." Vanity Fair wrote a month ago that the only thing standing between the US and an attack on Iran was General Fallon - and just days later he was forced to resign.
The Bush program is still shaping the world - and everything they have put in place for the last seven years is what is setting the stage and the terms for all of official politics today.
As we said in January, "George Bush is unrelenting in his determination to drive the savageness of his agenda into the next administration". Politics as usual will not meet the enormity of the damage that has been done. Can the world wait? Hell, no! And do we still need to bring to a halt this whole program and direction? Hell, YES!
This is a time for moral clarity and fearless determination. The horrors that we came together to stop are not over - and we can't be over either. Read more.
At least half-a-dozen active-duty military officials have been working closely with a task force headed by the far-right fundamentalist Christians planning religious events at military installations around the country to commemorate [last] Thursday's National Day of Prayer.
In working directly with the National Day of Prayer (NDP) Task Force and agreeing to work as event coordinators, these military officials not only violated constitutional provisions governing the separation of church and state but they also signed an oath that states they "believe that the Holy Bible is the inerrant Word of The Living God" and that "Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only One by which I can obtain salvation and have an ongoing relationship with God," according to materials posted on NDP Task Force's website.
If this can go on, are non-Christian pogroms far away? What have we become in the name of the "Prince of Peace?"
One has to wonder why Jews and Muslims can't be allowed to organize and pray together with Christians on a military-sponsored Day of Prayer. It's not a clash of cultures, it is outright sectarianism.
Will a Jew coming to this event have to identify him/herself with a Star of David pin on the lapel, or be considered a non-Christian if not wearing a cross, as public folks are criticized as unAmerican if they don't wear a flag?
Considering the overt discrimination against non-evangelical Christians and non-Christians that has been exposed in the military in recent years, I fear we are rearing a new bunch of fanatical crusaders that have many megatons of persuasion to use, should they finally run amok, not to mention a "leadership" that has shown itself more than ready to use them.
Attention: To our [or] the lobbyist owned Legislators:
You may have noticed that the constituency who abides in the district you now supposedly represent, no longer places a blind trust in your integrity to represent that which is written in the Constitutional Contract between the States.
You may remember...that's the document on which you swore to defend we the people against all enemies both foreign and domestic.
It may be possible (though I wouldn't count on it) that those, who have violated our sacred trust; will be able to circumvent the punishment of treason by trying to use the self-serving laws which they have so cunningly enacted to protect their sponsors and themselves.
The peoples' proxies that you now hold which is a vested trust in the office you currently occupy, requires that you uphold your oath to us. Make no mistake about it!
If you are relying on the so-called mainstream-media "polls" to measure your value and integrity to your voting neighbors---you may discover that (their polls) only reflect their integrity.
We the people do NOT trust them!! Should you ?
A major change has already taken place regarding where we get our news. The antiquated printed newspapers and the television network corporations are all controlled by the same old tired dozen or so manipulators. Most of you, in political office have known that since your own campaign. Since the Internet we are now able to objectively [and] subjectively identify who is telling the truth. You might want to consider conducting yourself accordingly.
Historical true Statesmen were spawn at the Old Concord Bridge. Will there be a deja-vu and a re-birth of our once Blessed Republic? Let it be so! ...if not---
Politicians tell us that government protects the people from the cut-throat practices of Big Business. But in truth, Big Government is in bed with Big Business. If I were CEO of a major corporation - let's call it the Big Widget Corporation - I would love Big Government. That's because I could:
lobby Congress to subsidize the widget industry, explaining how vital widgets are to the economy.
lobby for tariff protection against imported widgets. This will allow my company to gouge American consumers with higher prices.
lobby for regulations that would drive my smaller competitors out of business.
What's that word...when Government and Business work as one? I think it starts with an "F"
DownsizeDC has introduced a number of ways to limit this "cooperation" - or is it corporatism? It all starts with the Read the Bills Act - which is part of the Populist Party's 10 Planks.
Six billion people inhabit the earth and five billion are in poverty. Just over 300 million people live in North America, the United States. Senator Barack Obama has introduced Senate Bill 2433, and the House has a similar bill, HR1302, each called the Global Poverty Bill.
Those bills become a bill for almost one trillion dollars taken from American taxpayers, as a UN tax, to give to leaders of all those nations wherein poverty prevails. The just over 300 million are expected to feed the five billion, as if they are required to do it as a punishment for their being successful and prosperous on their own, without elite managers telling them how.
Translating this political-speak into real language means that the tyrants, their families and supporters, will be enriched by the American Taxpayers each year by a UN Tax supposedly to feed those impoverished living under those dictators.
This is the old story of giving a fish to a hungry man feeds him for a day, while Americans pay for the daily feeding, just as long as they do not try to teach the hungry man to fish.
How would America ever presume to teach a hungry man to fish, or anyone to be prosperous? The only way they could ever teach people in the Old World how to feed themselves is to teach them what Americans did in the early days of their settling America, which is to pursue their own interests, talents and skills and be productive beyond the dreams of those who manage them.
That means individual freedom, instead of the common good and the interests of their community as defined by the tyrants managing them.
Does any reasonable politician, supporting Obama's Global Poverty initiative, really believe in feeding people with taxes plundered from the Americans? Certainly not, it is simply to make Obama look like a world leader before being elected as an American president.
America's great prosperity is a result of individual freedom to pursue self-interests, not a need to fulfill community interests. So many who live and suffer from the weakness of envy, anger and depression, of not sharing equally in the benefits of freedom, want only to encourage government by caring elite and force an equal redistribution of someone else's earned wealth.
Those who form the envy class have enlisted and empowered politicians to represent them in destroying all that made America the most creative and prosperous nation, to block creative progress in favor of sharing the prosperity it created. The investment of wealth, skills, talents, interests and pursued aspirations by free Americans is to be curtailed in a headlong seeking of popular theft.
In this way, America destroys itself and any hope of liberty and prosperity in the future.
Back in late 2006, it was widely reported in the Latin American media that President Bush, or perhaps his old man, had bought a 100,000-acre farm in a remote area of Paraguay.
What struck people at the time was the choice of country. Paraguay, of course, has gained a certain Club Med status among the world's villains and criminal elements as the place to go when the law's on your tail. The country, ruled for six decades by the dictatorial and fascist Colorado Party of Gen. Alfredo Stroesser, an almost cartoon charicature of a Latin American dictator, has no extradition treaty with any nation.
That's why it has long harbored aging Nazis, bank robbers, and a string of ousted or retired Latin American dictators and their assistants over the years.
Given that President Bush, once he leaves office on January 20, 2009, will no longer have the diplomatic immunity conferred upon heads of state, or the Constitutional protection against indictment by domestic prosecutors, it makes sense that he would be looking for a safe haven from the long arm of the law.
After all, they guy is guilty of a huge laundry list of international crimes, from the Crime Against Peace and Conspiracy against Peace in the UN Charter, to Geneva Convention violations like approval of torture of prisoners, collective punishment of civilians, the killing of children and child soldiers, the failure to protect occupied citizens, the use of banned weapons, etc., etc., and also of domestic crimes, ranging from political use of government employees, conspiracy, treason, lying to federal officials, defrauding Congress, etc.
No wonder he wants to do what Klaus Barbie, Josef Mengele and Adolf Eichmann did, and hole up in Paraguay.
Only trouble is, Paraguay may not be such a safe haven for long.
Last month, a former Roman Catholic Bishop with leftist, populist tendencies, Fernando Lugo, surprised almost everyone in Paraguay, and no doubt President Bush, by winning the national presidential election, ousting the Colorado Party for the first time in 61 years. There is talk that among other things, Lugo is thinking of returning Paraguay to the community of nations, by signing some of those extradition agreements.
If he does that Bush may be stuck having to hide behind his rump squad of Secret Service agents down at the Crawford Ranch, hoping they can keep the process servers from Brattleboro and Marlboro, VT, with their war crimes arrest warrants, at bay.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive". --C. S. Lewis
Just about all the laws that the Bush Administration chooses to ignore are supposedly done in the name of protecting the people. And this refusal to observe the laws of this country benefit only the ones in power.
We've all head it " We have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here". Really? We invaded Iraq, who had no WMD, had no organized Al-Queda, hadn't threatened the United States, and was complying with all United Nations demands. So Bush ran out the Inspectors, had artists renditions of "WMD" drawn, overtook the airways with 24/7 propaganda of the danger of allowing Iraq to exist as a sovereign Country for one more minute, got the majority of Americans to believing Iraq was behind 9/11 and marched into Iraq killing and destroying the country.
Just what has average Joe Citizen gained from our destruction of a Country that not only had no means to bring us any harm, but also never threatened to do so? Basically we have all fallen under the tyranny of a War criminal who is enabled by a do nothing Congress, leaving all but 4,000 plus of us to suffer further shame and the task of paying off a staggering $3 Trillion debt that much of that has gone to the Bush Administrations friends and enablers.
How does that old song go? Is it "They got the mine, we got the shaft?"
Of course we can get out of this starting tomorrow. We can start Impeachment proceedings against the whole gang of thieves and criminals. But we won't. We'll be too busy trying to decide which of the three evils we need to select for the next President.
Never, Ever, vote for the lesser of Evils. What you are sure to get is Evil.
Instead, why not join a group who has as their mission to wrest control of the Government back for the people? They're out there. My passion is to somehow to get the various Independent parties to form a Coalition to support common delegates. That's one peaceful way to regain our Government.
"The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." --Edmund Burke
Janet Ritz at HuffingtonPost writes, "The old adage: we can learn from history or we can repeat it."
There's no doubt about it...especially these days when we see the resurgance of so many of history's tyrannies in our own US Government. Ritz gives some pretty good insight as to how empires fall under the massive weight of foreign wars:
Rome fell under its own weight of over-extension in war and occupation after their leadership had become increasingly out of touch with their population, after they had neglected real enemies in favor of chosen ones who's been misperceived as easy conquests, after a widening between upper and lower classes that had stressed their merchant (middle) class to the point where they were relying more upon slaves (I am Spartacus) than their own ingenuity, resulting in a tax base no longer able to afford a bloated government that had given its power over to emperors who filled their armies with foreign mercenaries, increased their debt to an impossible level and bled their own provinces dry until there was nothing left but the enemies they'd created all over the world.
All in all, Ritz's article is a pretty good read. Where I feel she misses the point, as do many "liberal" bloggers, is her focus on the notion that we've been "repeating the worst of history" in the "last seven years."
Only when we start recognizing that this policy - of interventionism, militarism, war and empire - has been a constantly growing beast for the last century (and not just a neo-con creation) will we ever get out of this mess.
This article is well worth the reading, I think. Here's an excerpt:
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a "limited" nuclear attack on the main Iranian underground site in Esfahan would result in three million people killed by radiation within two weeks and 35 million people exposed to dangerous levels of radiation in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.
"The occupying Russians, when they discovered that we were Americans," writes Vonnegut, "embraced us and congratulated us on the complete desolation our planes had wrought. We accepted their congratulations with good grace and proper modesty, but I felt then as I feel now, that I would have given my life to save Dresden for the World's generations to come. That is how everyone should feel about every city on Earth."
I wonder if a "peace shield" would work with these bloodthirsty amoral bastards?
This article published by the Muckraker Report is a must read. Here's an excerpt:
Rev. Jeremiah Wright had his "historic" speech on April 27th at the fund raising dinner for thousands of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) delegates in Detroit, extensively publicised and enthusiastically promoted by the flagship of the corporate media, CNN.
Canada Watch will be on line for approximately one more month. I am retiring from politics. I have had it!
"I am not here for political reasons, I am not a politician," said Rev. Wright. I heard this in 1980, when "Solidarity" was first born out of the protest of the Lenin Shipyard workers in Gdansk, Poland. The protest quickly spread across the country and transformed into a massive political movement.
Sixteen months later, "Solidarity" had 10 million members out of 14 million employed adults, had issued, as a resolution of its First National Convention, the "Appeal to the Workers of Eastern Europe," and had issued a call for a Workers` Self-Government in state-run companies and political grassroots self-government throughout the territory of the country. Consequently, "Solidarity" was suspended and outlawed, with the implementation of General Jaruzelski's martial law in December 1981.
Your life and the future ( if in fact there is to be one) of your progeny and our once Great American nation is being decided behind the phony facade of (D) and (R) symbols.
On Wednesday May 14, the Chicago City Council was scheduled to vote on a resolution against a 
