The American Constitution is missing a word. There was a word left out that our Founders failed to recognize as important. The word is "Bailout." There is nothing in that document that allows the government to bailout someone whose house burned down, or a car company, or someone with medical problems, or someone who spent too much on a house they could not afford, or a bank that made bad loans.
Why did the founders overlook that crucial word? After all, we use it all the time now.
Because it is popular with the crying and compassionate crowd, government is supposed to take care of anyone who stumbles. Of course, everyone knows people will take risks that lead to stumbles, since they know taxpayers are going to pull their chestnuts out of the fire.
If government's role is to take care of its people, help those who crash their cars to get a new replacement, or those who gobble up too much fats and sugars to buy clothes that fit and ramps for their wheel chairs, what responsibility do the governed have for their own lives? If none, how did America ever become so free and prosperous.
Where, in our Constitution should we insert the word "Bailout?" Perhaps we could use that word in the Preamble to follow "General Welfare," not that the Preamble is anything other than an introductory statement, rather than law. Maybe it could be in Section 1 that describes the legislative powers vested in a Senate and House, and add, "Who shall then be in charge of bailouts."
I would be interested in knowing what the constitutional scholars think of this word "bailout," and where it should be placed in the Constitution. Judging only from all the run-up documents preceding the Constitution, and the statements of those founders, other than Hamilton, I can find no source for interest in inserting that word.
Oh well, no one really pays attention to the Constitution anyway, so who cares?
Actually, the scene was set for Cheney/Bush when Nixon was allowed to resign (necessary for a pardon. Impeachment has no pardon) then was pardoned over the protests of millions. The argument was that Nixon was out of power now, that a trial would "denigrate" the presidency, and that "We must, as a nation, move on."
The reality, though, was that nothing could have denigrated the presidency anymore than what ended up happening - letting a crook abuse his office and the Constitution, then resign with his ill gotten gains.
It told the greedy and power hungry that any two-bit crook, if he became president, could rape the country, or give it to his cronies and walk away unscathed. And so it has come to pass.
We stop it now with impeachment, or kiss the United States as we knew it, good-bye.
The Supremes dealt a defeat to the elite when they took down the DC gun ban. We know there are Pied Piper elites, like Barack Obama, with their legions of followers, the non-elites, who believe non-elites should not be permitted to own firearms, or any kind of weapon that could be turned against them in rebellion.
What a serious blow to their ego to know that those less intelligent and less favored can own a handgun. Elites have promoted themselves to a higher level of human compassion and ability to lead and manage America. It is a blow to their superiority to know that all those common people they should manage can have a firearm. Elites believe only they can have handguns, to protect themselves against lower order humans who should be constrained to follow their rules.
This is what many Americans have yet to grasp about the battle of the liberals against the Second Amendment. Liberals believe only a regulated militia of their own should be armed, never the individual citizen. Only the interests of community as defined by them are important, and to uphold that concept, their loyal subjects are the only ones allowed to own a gun.
Those loyal to the founding principles of America, however, see no reason why anyone should have the right to deny them ownership of a firearm, since their primary reason for having it is to protect themselves against criminals and marauders, as well as elites who believe they are superior. These Americans respect the law and law enforcement, but know they never gave up their responsibility to defend themselves and their families when no police are present.
This battle of the Second Amendment clearly demonstrates the two sides of our nation, those who are free and responsible against those elite who are superior masters of the many by virtue of their self-professed greatness as nation-managers.
Hail to the court, but notice one of the liberals moved over to join the conservatives, which means it was close. It might be a good idea to consider this in the November voting.
Reports are all over the news this week of the European Union and the US Congress enacting more sanctions against Iran. This may appear to some to be a good alternative to all-out military attack on Iran.
I do not know the movtivations of the European governments to restrict Iran, and they are probably varied. But I know, and have followed closely, the pattern of the United States threats on Iran, coming from the Bush regime. Since 2006, VP "Dick" Cheney has been mobiilzing for a military attack on Iran, with what is more and more clearly, the goal of regime change through airstrikes.
I just spoke with Gareth Porter, who will be speaking at World Can't Wait-initiated events in Los Angeles tonight, and New York City tomorrow night. He told me that it's well known in the international community that Iran offered as recently as several years ago to limit its nuclear enrichment program to 166 centrifuges, which would amount to only a symbolic program. When their offer to the US to limit the nuclear program in exchange for an agreement that the US would not attack Iran was repeatedly rebuffed, Iran went ahead with their program of nuclear enrichment.
It's essential to understand that Iran is under International Atomic Energy Agency inspection, and signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United States, which has 10,000 nuclear weapons is not under that inspection, and is rapidly building new generations of nuclear warheads. The IAEA has consistently found no evidence of a nuclear military program in Iran.
The Bush regime's goal is not to reduce nuclear weapons. As Gareth just pointed out to me, the United States plan is to reduce Iranian power in old fashioned way. Sanctions and blockades can sometimes be used to avoid military confrontation, but in the Bush regime's history, they are used as a prelude to military attack. The US military has 1000 targets in Iran, including all possible military targets. Remember, Rumseld and Cheney after 9-11? "Go massive. Sweep them all up?"
This is all going to to a very bad place. And now we have Congress passing House Con Resolution 362 (with something similar in the Senate) calling for sanctions and punishment of Iran, possibly without even a vote. From Truthout.org:
"The most strongly worded section of the legislation is article three, which states: 'Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress - (3) demands that the President initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia [among other things], prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program.;'
The resolution makes no mention of the National Intelligence Estimate report released in December 2007, which found that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons development program in 2003."
Pelosi's office says this will pass "like a hot knife through butter." Senators McCain and Obama continue to emphasize that "all options" are on the table regarding Iran. You may have seen John Bolton's comments that the US will attack Iran after the election, but before another president takes power. As we've noted, those who opposed an attack from within the US military have been forced to resign.
If there were ever a time where the founding principle of America, as a nation, is justified again, it is the issue of state sovereignty. The notion of multiple governing entities, contractually united for a few common and limited purposes, where all else are functions of each state, is apparent in the campaign of 2008.
Here's why. On the one hand, we have a young, highly intellectual, quick-thinking, ambitious, good-looking man seeking to be our new compassionate socialist dictator running for office against an old airhead. The old airhead, easily manipulated because of his arrogance, self-centeredness and vacancy of intellect, is always in a corner defending and speaking without factual knowledge.
McCain assumes any attack from the other side against his people is immediately correct, and his reaction is to condemn his people before checking the facts. He also tries to justify his older positions, which have been shown unjustifiable, by compromise, as he always seeks to compromise with his opposition even before debating on an issue. This is driven by a fear of looking bad; a weakness the other side orchestrates.
The young man, Obama, wants everyone to simply hand over his or her liberty to him. He says he will watch over it and hand back that which he decides is needed from time to time, but use the rest in order to better manage the nation and its economy, all of which he wants us to accept that he is capable of doing.
If we were still holding onto the principles of the founder's of America, maintaining the position of sovereignty of each state, then the damage done by people like Obama and McCain would be limited to a state, as was the ruin of Louisiana by Huey Long.
The limits placed upon the central government would allow little damage by men like these tinkering as they plan to do. After all, the central government's only role was to protect our nation and make sure one state did not intervene in the business of another. We dismantled those principles under Lincoln, and continued the march to dictatorship ever since, and now we have Obama who will run the whole shootin' match as he sees fit, because we love him and want change.
Here's Ron Paul's take on the recent (criminal) FISA vote in Congress:
The main reason I oppose this latest version is that it still clearly violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution by allowing the federal government to engage in the bulk collection of American citizens' communications without a search warrant. That US citizens can have their private communication intercepted by the government without a search warrant is anti-American, deeply disturbing, and completely unacceptable.
In addition to gutting the fourth amendment, this measure will deprive Americans who have had their rights violated by telecommunication companies involved in the Administration's illegal wiretapping program the right to seek redress in the courts for the wrongs committed against them. Worse, this measure provides for retroactive immunity, whereby individuals or organizations that broke the law as it existed are granted immunity for prior illegal actions once the law has been changed. Ex post facto laws have long been considered anathema in free societies under rule of law. Our Founding Fathers recognized this, including in Article I section 9 of the Constitution that "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." How is this FISA bill not a variation of ex post facto? That alone should give pause to supporters of this measure.
Despite heroic efforts by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) to bring 35 Articles of Impeachment against Bush, the wildfire of information and affirmation of these articles in print and in the blogosphere, and the efforts of so many within the impeachment movement, the main-stream media continues to marginalize Kucinich's effort by either ignoring the story altogether or publishing simplistic 200 word articles about it.Main-stream media insists, despite polls that say otherwise, that impeachment is not popular and because George W. Bush is a lame duck at this point, impeachment is unnecessary.
Is George W. Bush a lame duck? Is impeachment at this point unnecessary? What kind of future can we look forward to if Bush is never impeached?In order to answer these questions it is important to look at what impeachment is and what it would do.
Impeachment would open up investigations by the judiciary committee into the 35 Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush.
If the judiciary committee finds that these investigations show that crimes have been committed a resolution will be issued to the House, which then goes on to a Floor vote, and if voted through by a majority will lead to a trial in the Senate.
The trial in the Senate would be run similar to a court trial, with the full Senate acting as jury with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, (John Roberts), acting as judge. Once the arguments of the prosecution and defense are heard the Senate would meet in a closed session to deliberate, the Senate would then vote in open session on each Article of Impeachment - a two-thirds vote is needed for a conviction. On conviction the official, (Bush), would be removed from office, if a two-thirds vote is not reached the official would be acquitted.
If convicted Bush would be removed from office, but even if Bush was not convicted in the course of the impeachment spectacle the crimes of the Bush administration would be aired, debated, and proclaimed to the world. No longer could the media ignore the vast legacy of criminality that the Bush regime has perpetrated for the last seven years, and the people of the world would hear all the dark dirty secrets and crimes that this regime has kept and committed and there would be a resounding outcry for justice.
Not only would the Bush regime's deadly crimes be laid bare, but it is highly probable that an impeachment trial would completely prevent Bush from attacking Iran. Article XXI charges Bush with: "Misleading Congress and the American People About Threats from Iran, and Supporting Terrorist Organizations Within Iran, With the Goal of Overthrowing the Iranian Government". Surely with such a charge pending trial and with a public challenge on the validity of any action against Iran being heard in the Senate, no declaration of war could be acted upon during that time.
The fact that George W. Bush has pushed and continues to push for war with Iran shows that he is far from a lame duck. Bush and his administration are continuing their agenda unabated and virtually unchallenged. Impeachment could be instrumental in preventing Bush from starting another illegal, pre-emptive, and baseless war.
Not only can impeachment lay bare the crimes of the Bush regime for the world to see, remove Bush from office, and at the same time prevent war with Iran, impeachment can also serve another extremely vital function: the impeachment process can serve as an example to future leaders of what will happen to them if they decide to subvert the rule of law.
But what will happen if Kucinich's 35 Articles of Impeachment quietly die in judiciary committee and the crimes of the Bush regime are not investigated? If the Bush regime's crimes are not investigated will these crimes then become accepted behavior by America's leaders? If no one is held to account for authority over-stepped, laws undermined, rule of law flouted, and torture codified, what's to stop the next president, and the next and the next and the one after that from following suit?
To allow George W. Bush to go virtually unchallenged in any significant and legal way now is to allow a foundation of corruption and despotism to be laid at the feet of every president after him: an absolutely flawless model for sidestepping accountability and practicing unchecked and unfettered powers.
Imagine a progression and a continuation of the agenda of the Bush regime year after year. Imagine the aftermath that a pre-emptive and deadly bombing of Iran will have on the world, not only the horrendous death and destruction such an act would immediately cause, but the worldwide economic fall-out, and the possibility of an increase in the ferocity of the wars already being waged and the likely increase in terrorism in retaliation for the actions of George W. Bush.Such a future portends to be a much darker version of our current reality.
A future without impeachment paints a frighteningly bleak picture, a picture that at this point many of us can see but too few of us are acting to prevent. If ever there was a time to act, now is that time. Congressman Kucinich has promised to re-introduce the 35 Articles of Impeachment against Bush within 30 days of the first introduction if the judiciary committee does not act. That's just a few short weeks from now. It's time, right now, to promote the necessity of impeachment as widely as possible. It is imperative that the Bush regime be driven from office and held accountable for its many crimes - it's time to act now.
At this point the future in unwritten, which one we get is up to us.
...on the one hand we must see that America has reached a condition where traditional civil rights are flagrantly restricted as never before - as when former Attorney General Gonzalez told a shocked congressional committee that "There is no expressed grant of habeas corpus in the Constitution."18 At the same time, we must see that 9/11, as an unexplained or deep event nudging us away from constitutional normalcy and into an unnecessary permanent state of war, is not unprecedented. It is one of a series of similar unexplained events, all of which have had similar results, reaching back to the second Tonkin Gulf incident, the Kennedy assassination, even the misremembered outset of the Korean War...
I think Mr. Scott makes some very good points. I'd suggest downloading this for a careful read.
Whoa! Slow down, America. You got too much! You make too much! You consume too much! You got too much prosperity, because you got too much freedom. Rein it in, folks, and slow it down. You'll all be a lot happier if you just tighten your belts and let all the other members of the United Nations catch up, at least gain an equitable share of the happiness you have. It is only right you in America pay for it, give your wealth over to those guys in the United Nations so they can spend it as they see fit. After all, they are the elite from their countries and they know best how the world should run. I don't care what kind of loin cloths they wear.
You see what can happen when people grow up in an atmosphere of freedom. With individual freedom, people take it upon themselves to use their own interests, follow their own aspirations, use their own skills and talents, creating, building, innovating, trading freely with each other, and contaminating the rest of the world where the people are not free or permitted to do those things. It is no wonder the rest of the world envies America and wants to raid her treasury and stop the progress growing there.
America should become like Michigan, where the union rules, taxes increase, and government spending drains the wealth that is left, so fewer people have jobs and can claim handouts from the people of surrounding states. Michigan has found what Huey Long discovered in Louisiana, that government can grow on the promises it makes to take care of everyone, the unions can create higher costs than employers can bear, and everyone can enjoy higher taxes on purchases, homes and any income left. Michigan is the Democrat's garden, the monument to proper governance destined for the rest of America soon under Obama.
Obama has promised to allow the United Nations to reach into the pockets of Americans to take what their Michigan-style government has left them, and those should make the people of the world happy because America is heading into the toilet where most of them live.
I recently contacted my "representatives" about the FISA bill and actually got a reply from Senator Lincoln. Here's the letter (with my response below):
Thank you for contacting me about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
As you know, following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to secretly monitor international phone calls and e-mails between U.S. residents and foreign individuals outside of the U.S. without court supervision. While I support giving law enforcement and intelligence officials the tools they need to protect the security of our nation and its citizens, I am troubled the NSA surveillance program was conducted without court approval and oversight.
Congress enacted FISA in 1978 which established the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). This special court was set up to supervise the use of electronic surveillance by the government in gathering foreign intelligence information. Further, the legislation specifies procedures under which government officials may conduct surveillance of a foreign agent or official.
As you may know, the Bush Administration contends the NSA eavesdropping program did not require approval under FISA and was legal under authority the President has to protect our national security. I am concerned by the Administration's failure to sufficiently explain why the current FISA procedures are insufficient to meet the needs of intelligence officials. I believe the Administration should work closely with Congress to amend FISA to address any shortcomings in the legislation which is designed to protect our safety as well as the civil liberties we cherish as Americans.
I appreciate knowing of your concerns regarding legal immunity for telecommunication companies involved in the NSA surveillance program. As Congress debates legislation to modernize the FISA legislation in the future, I think it is critical to establish clear guidelines and safeguards for future terrorist surveillance programs that will ensure both our security and civil liberties are protected.
Thank you for contacting me. I am proud to represent the citizens of Arkansas in the U.S. Senate and hope you will not hesitate to let me know whenever I may be of service to you in the future.
Ms Lincoln
As my representative along with Senator Pryor, what are you two going to do to protect my rights as a Citizen?
Words are something that can be mouthed, written, heard, and many times ignored.
What actions are the two of you going to do to punish a lawbreaker? You, Pryor, I, and millions of Americans know that what Bush and his cronies did was not legal. What are you going to do about it?
Will you vote for Impeachment of Bush and Cheney? If not, why not? They broke the law.
They lied to the country. They started a war on false pretenses and illicit propaganda. Hundreds of thousands have died. Our economy has been trashed to fuel this immoral war. What are you two going to do?
There are some rather extraordinary developments rapidly unfolding in Washington on one of those crimes that will forever be connected to the Bush regime: torture. More and more is coming out! Those of us determined to stop this need to perk up, pay attention, and make the most of this moment.
Lest you think I only read pieces that bolster what I already know, see The Wall Street Journal's editorial Tuesday, "The Torture Gambit". I think they are telling us something by their protesting too much!
Last week, the Supreme Court gave the Bush regime a third defeat in their attempt to deny Guantanamo detainees access to US courts. The Center for Consitutional Rights and others defending the detainees called it a surprising victory. As I've noted previously, the Mukasey Justice Department had to drop charges against one of the Guantanamo detainees they had before the Military Tribunal for trial, because the proceedings would certainly have revealed he was tortured.
On Wednesday, Physicians for Human Rights released a stunning series of reports called "Broken Laws, Broken Lives" detailing the medical effects of so-called "Enhanced Interrogation" techniques planned in the White House.
Most extraordinary is that the preface to the reports is written by Maj. General Antionio Taguba who led the US Army's official investigation into the Abu Ghraib prisonerabuse scandal, and was later fired by Donald Rumsfeld. Taguba says, "There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered torture will be held to account."
Scott Horton, in his blog "No Comment" tackles the question: Could officials of the Bush Administration face war crimes charges? "In The New Republic, I examine that question and note that, far from this being an outlandish suggestion, criminal cases are in fact being prepared. Which is why the Bush Administration torture-team members need to think twice before boarding an airplane that will take them beyond the sheltering confines of the United States."
Philippe Sands, author of Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values was interviewed Thursday on National Public Radio's Fresh Air.
Sands, an international lawyer, accuses former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld of condoning sensory deprivation and humiliation during interrogations at Guantanamo Bay. And he has a huge amount of evidence about the interrogation methods used. He is another who makes a compelling case for war crimes prosecutions.
The Senate Armed Services Committee is holdling hearings this week onhow these interrogation methods were adopted in 2002. Spencer Ackerman writes in The Washington Independent, "Tuesday the Senate Armed Services Committee answered those questions. In a marathon hearing spanning eight hours and three separate panels, the committee revealed, in painstaking detail, how senior Pentagon officials transformed a program for Special Forces troops to resist torture -- known as Survival Evasion Resistance Escape, or SERE -- into a blueprint for torturing terrorism detainees."
Democracy Now reports Thursday, "The Senate investigation confirmed the Pentagon sought the help of military psychologists as early as 2002 to devise so-called aggressive interrogation techniques. Dr. Steven Reisner is a psychoanalyst and a leading critic of the American Psychological Association's policy governing the role of psychologists in interrogations. He is running for president of the APA and has received more nominating votes than any other candidate." Listen to Dr. Reisner.
56 members of Congress wrote Mukasey this week asking for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the torture, saying "This information indicates that the Bush administration may have systematically implemented, from the top down, detainee interrogation policies that constitute torture or otherwise violate the law,"
And, at the top, a President who says he approved the interrogations. "WE DO NOT TORTURE" is one of his biggest lies.
Wednesday night, David Swanson of AfterDowningStreet.org interviewed me on The People Speak Radio. You can listen here. Thanks for the kind comments, Mom and Dad!
Methodically, a relatively few self-proclaiming elitists of the world, being shrouded in the shadows of the darkness of their controlled media, have in a clandestine manner, chained our people to a bottomless crevasse of debt.In defiance to the laws that our founding fathers established and secured in our Republic and its Constitution, they have stepped out-of-bounds and defaced our moral, national and personal integrity.All of this has been accomplished with the aid of a self-proclaimed corporate media "prominence" and a so-called educational "excellence".
The "R3VOLUTION" which has been formulated, due to the revelations made public as result of the Presidential campaign of Dr/Congressmen Ron Paul, was not planned or orchestrated to become a de'ja`vu of the ?Old North Bridge at Concord' on April 19, 1775.However, it has caused many to revisit the catalyst around which those events were spawned and how far we, as a nation have come from the dawning of America.
As result of the discouraging and painful wounds, inflicted on our patriots by the ravenous controlled media, we may not experience a Presidency of Dr. Paul or the immediate reenactment of the blessings of the Freedoms and Liberties for which our people yearn.However, the SPIRIT to which we have given our devotion and time should not diminish nor be dampened until Liberty and Freedom have been restored to ourselves and secured to our progeny.
From the year of our infancy in 1776 to the year of our infamy in 1913 it took them nearly 200 years to weaken the strength of our Republic and the Spirit of our Constitution.Today, armed with the history of our experiences and a renewed resolve to avoid compromising erroneous behavior, we shall have a new birth of Freedom.
To this spirit we must pledge our lives, fortunes and sacred honor.
We need new management. Too many of the old managers are letting the inmates run the asylum. Under a free market, individual freedom, Jeffersonian model, the inmates make all the decisions and, for the most part reap all the rewards. What happens to the staff of the asylum and those who are supposed to make the decisions? Don't they count?
This is the year we select a new manager. Barack Obama, though young and inexperienced, can count the people and the resources and best decide who gets what share. Let Barack and his party manage us and tell us how we should live. One of the best tools Barack will have is the ability to ration and properly allocate energy resources, as the supply is decreasing, exploration prohibited, and the American enterprise machine must be slowed if the rest of the world is to be appeased.
Barack knows America has been on a roller coaster of prosperity and individual freedom so long it has lost touch with its responsibility to community needs and interests. He can best define the interests of community and who needs what than all the free people in America. In 2008, the American people will finally surrender to the inevitable, the rule of the few elite who know over the many who do not. Marxist managers have been telling us this for years. Americans fought against them, hoping that freedom, and prosperity is enjoyed by most and not despised.
From atop his perch in Washington, Barack will be able to see the entire nation, assess the needs of all their communities, and apportion to them amounts of resources he believes, in the least, they must have to sustain themselves. Slow down the energy supply to those most active in production and transportation, and America will settle down to a level of existence any third world nation could be happy to have.
It may not be 3:00 a.m., but the phone is ringing.
A lot depends on how YOU answer the call. . . No, you may not be the Commander-in-Chief or have just cinched your Party's nomination but YOU possess far greater power than just a single vote every two or four years! And at this critical juncture in our history, that power can be used now to:
End endless war. People of conscience recognize the senseless carnage in Iraq & Afghanistan and we DEMAND an end to rape, torture, murder and war! Now! Close down the military recruitment centers preying on our youth, seducing them to commit these atrocities.
Stop a catastrophic military strike on Iran. Condoleezza Rice calls dialogue with Iran "pointless" and Bush, Cheney and others ratchet up the rhetoric and lies in ways reminiscent of the build-up to the attack on Iraq. Attacking a country that has not attacked your country is illegal and a war crime. For the sake of humanity, for the sake of our planet, there must not be an unprovoked strike on Iran by the US or its allies.
Hold war criminals accountable. John Yoo, a law professor at UC Berkeley, wrote the legal justification the Bush regime hides behind to torture. Yoo must be fired from his job teaching Constitutional law, disbarred and prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Be the CHANGE others are only hoping for. The Bush regime has trampled the peoples' rights and civil liberties. They can do much damage before Jan 2009, including attacking Iran. And if there is not a massive repudiation of the Bush Regime program-war, torture, etc-the program will continue in significant ways whoever is elected. The people must set terms in the interests of the people of the world, not allow terms to be set by the candidates who are vying for the position of chief executive of the U.S. empire.
Two key pledges made by the George W. Bush administration on military bases in its negotiations with the government of Iraq have now been revealed as carefully-worded ruses aimed at concealing U.S. negotiating aims from both U.S. citizens and Iraqis who would object to them if they were made clear.
Recent statements by Iraqis familiar with U.S. demands in negotiations on the U.S.-Iraq "strategic framework" agreement have highlighted the fact that administration promises that it would not seek "permanent bases" or the use of bases to attack Iran or any other neighbouring countries were deliberately misleading. The wording used by the Bush administration appears to have been chosen to obscure its intention to have both long-term access to Iraqi bases and complete freedom to use them to launch operations against Iran and Syria.
Did you ever really believe our forces would ever leave Iraq?
Did you believe there would ever be peace in our time?
Dld you ever believe the Bushgang would give up the World Domination Dream?
The second paragraph gets right to the point. It reads as follows:
"In my opinion, the two biggest factors in oil's high price are the weakness in the US dollar's exchange value and the liquidity that the Federal Reserve is pumping out."
The last paragraph explains some of the consequences, but not all of the consequences, of the decline of the American dollar as the global currency.
"The crisis that looms for the US is the loss of world currency role. Once the dollar loses that role, the US government will not be able to finance its operations by borrowing abroad, and foreigners will cease to finance the massive US trade deficit. This crisis will eliminate the US as a world power."
Paul Craig Roberts has avoided the domestic economic, social and political consequences. They are:
(1) The American economy is hit by a devastating economic depression, possibly on the order of the 1930s depression.
(2) The American economy experiences rampant inflation, possibly on the order experienced in Germany following World War One.
(2) There is massive social and political unrest.
(3) The fascist regime in power at the time, Republican or Democrat, declares martial law and imposes a fascist military/police state.
(4) The private fascist armies, such as Blackwater, perform the role for which they were created, which is the same role that was played by the Schutzstaffel (SS) in Germany, and terrorize all opposition to fascist rule.
In closing, notice that Paul Craig Roberts explains what is taking place and why, but he does not offer a solution to our present crisis. This leads me to believe that he does not think there is a solution to our present crisis.
After all, if there was a solution, and he knew what it was, I am sure he would not let the opportunity to present it slip-by.
If you go back a couple of hundred years, in America, you find two major players identified with the liberal and conservative split. On the side representing the Old World, you find Alexander Hamilton. On the side of the New World is Thomas Jefferson. Tracking the heirs of those two, you find, starting with Hamilton, folks like John Jay, John Marshal, on up to Lincoln, Grant, then to Wilson, FDR and pretty much every president since then except Ronald Reagan. From Jefferson, you have Madison, Monroe up through Jackson on up to Cleveland, Democrats all, and Reagan.
What best defines the differences in these two paths? The Hamiltonians believed, as does Hillary, Tom Vilsack and Obama, that the interests of community are more important than the interests expressed by individuals. Since community has no capacity to have interests, it is something they, as the elite few who manage the many, must define. They are superior to the rest of us. They promote a strong central government.
The Jeffersonian people, offering a new form of political philosophy, believe individual interests are most important and are harmonious for the most part with community. It is the reason why they believe in individual freedom and the free market, something no one beyond individuals concerned should, or even could, manage. The Jeffersonian path, new in this world, proved prosperity comes from freedom and not tyranny. They promote smaller, more limited government.
There is your historical route. Now, examine the basic ideological differences between them. If community interests are superior to individual interests, as the liberal side claims, then individual life is devalued, easily overruled for the sake of community, the tribe. The unborn are aborted, the aged and infirm euthanized, and anyone thinking out of the bubble and living out of the box squashed, because changes they bring to market may disturb the way elite manage community.
Individual freedom implies we are each equal in how we can pursue our many inequalities and build our lives on them, serving community with our interest, aspirations, talents, skills and specialties community needs and wants. It puts a smile on people knowing they are the masters of their own destinies.
Before the United States invaded Iraq, it sought the approval of the Security Council of the United Nations. Secretary of State Colin Powell, supported by George Tenet, Director of the CIA, presented the US case against the government of Saddam Hussein in great detail. However, in a formal vote, the Security Council refused to authorize the attack.
In violation of its obligations under the UN charter, the Bush administration went ahead with the invasion. Within a few weeks, the American forces were in complete control of Iraq and the Saddam government had disappeared.
Then, in a remarkable display of imperial chutzpah, the US government applied to the United Nations for the authority to administer the affairs of the conquered nation. On May 22, 2003, the Security Council adopted resolution 1483 granting the US and its allies a broad mandate to run the country. In the name of humanitarian relief and the reconstruction of Iraq, the United Nations gave to the US the authority it had refused three months earlier; an acceptance of the military victory and a submission to the power of the US.
This mandate expires on December 31. As a legal substitute, conditions for US presence in Iraq will be authorized by the elected Iraqi government, supported militarily and financially by the US government. The two parties have been negotiating a status of forces agreement similar to other agreements the US has signed in connection with the 737 military bases it has in 130 countries.
However, the Iraqi puppet government has resisted the terms demanded by the conquerors who installed them. The US is demanding 58 military bases, the right to remain in the country indefinitely, the power to determine whether a hostile act from another country is aggression against Iraq, control over Iraqi airspace up to 30,000 feet, immunity from prosecution for US troops and private military contractors, and the right to continue to carry out military operations.
One senior Shiite politician close to Prime Minister Nouri-Al-Maliki said, "The Americans are making demands that would lead to the colonization of Iraq." The supreme Shiite religious figures Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran and Ayatollah Sistani of Iraq have urged Maliki to reject US terms. Many Iraqi officials are questioning the need for US troop presence under these terms.
The political system is working in Iraq. The negotiations are being discussed openly by the executive and legislative branches. The legislature demanded and obtained the right to approve or reject. But in the United States, discussion and challenges are muted. From the Senate has come a weak call for the agreement to be considered a treaty to be ratified by a two thirds vote: however, the Bush administration wants to treat it as an Executive Agreement not subject to Senate ratification. The presidential candidates spar on Iraq policy but do not analyze and discuss the proposed agreement. The American public, strongly against the war, has not reacted to these negotiations.
If we will leave Iraq soon, why do we need any agreement? Fifty-eight military bases are expensive to build and maintain. Do they imply permanent military presence? Control of airspace indicates control of Iraqi military operations. Immunity for US troops may be an arguable demand but to spread this immunity to civilian contractors significantly diminishes Iraqi sovereignty.
If the parties fail to reach agreement, the US will surely continue to operate without legal sanction whether or not the Iraqis like it. The entire operation was illicit from the start: violation of the U.S. Constitution by going to war without a declaration by Congress, violation of the UN Charter provision against cross-border invasion without approval of the Security Council, falsification of intelligence, falsification of conspiracy between Saddam and Al Qaeda, lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq etc.
But the most important question is whether the proposed agreement is an indication that Iraq will become another one of the string of US bases around the world enforcing our unique superpower status and locating US military power at the heart of the largest concentration of oil on the Earth. Can we afford to continue this expense in lives and treasure indefinitely or even for the next decade? We made a mistake in our illegal invasion of Iraq. We should not compound the error with a permanent occupation.
Do you recall that wonderful little comedic movie from the early 1980s, "The Gods Must Be Crazy"?
If not, here's a very brief synopsis: A Coke bottle dropped from an airplane disrupts the quiet life of a family of African Bushmen (the San people) living in the deep isolation of the Kalahari desert. It introduces the concept of property and begets previously unknown covetousness and other antisocial behavior among the simple people. Xi, the head of the family, takes the evil thing and embarks on a journey to the end of the world to return it to the gods from which the San believe it came.
At the same time, a white teacher is fed up with city life and takes a job in Botswana. She meets a shy and bumbling natural scientist. Their hilarious misadventures are intertwined with Xi's journey, which he "successfully" completes as it puts him in contact for the first time with modern technology and so-called "civilization" and "civilized" people. Good movie.
In the context of "The Gods Must Be Crazy" this question arises: Is the bottle that creates so much havoc among the San people in the movie a metaphor for the Bush-Cheney administration and its having been dropped upon these here United States of America by crazy gods or is the bottle a metaphor for what the crazies who make up the Bush-Cheney administration have dropped upon these here United States of America? Or is it both -- some kind of a crazed daisy chain?
The question, of course, is this : Were the authorities right to take away these kids because of what they were being taught at home?
Maybe we should just give government bureaucrats and politicians all the power to determine what's right and wrong for parents to teach their children. Shouldn't we?
That way, if enough extremist nutcases get elected, then they can implement a law that says it's "abuse" to teach children about global warming, or about a particular religion, or about virtually anything that a pure "majority" of elected officials determine to be "harmful to the children"
Because as soon as you give the state the power to determine what's right and wrong in your home, you give your "political enemies" the power to someday declare what YOU believe to be wrong too.
Someone in the comments, for example, said
"no parent [should be] allowed to brainwash a child into their way of thinking including; racism, sexism, religion, political affiliation, or anything else that is quite frankly a matter of opinion. "
That would be the best-est thing. Ever. Wouldn't it? If enough people like this person would elected - then no parent would be allow to "brainwash" their opinions on their children.
What would that require to police?
Or, on the other hand, maybe the state shouldn't be forcing children to stay with their parents at all. That way, a relative, or a friend, or anyone, could encourage these children to leave on their own volition - and stay with someone else - without the fear that the state would forcibly return those kids to their parents.
I sure with all the attention this story might be getting, that there would be plenty of people willing to take these kids in and care for them, and if given the freedom to choose, maybe the kids would choose just that.
But, that's "illegal."
I think the problem comes from the fact that people assume that either parents, or the state itself, claims the right of "ownership" over another person. In this case, these poor children who are being inundated with this violent, racist crap.
We are shifting away from a War on Terror to a War on America. After all, the terrorists are like minor criminals who destroy things and kill just a few people. The police and FBI can deal with them, as long as their methods are fair. Americans, by their behavior, are destroying the world and injuring the pride of everyone in the world. Americans, so used to using carbon fuels are turning the world into a Turkish bath. Can't you feel it?
The American politicians, the Democrats, have joined with the rest of the world to bring war to America by prohibiting Americans from using their own resources to keep their economic growth running. America has plenty of carbon fuel sources under their own ground. Environmentalists and liberals prevent Americans from getting it out. They want America's engine of economic growth to slow down and stop running, so the rest of the world can catch up. The best way to do that is to deny it the fuel it needs to keep on running.
American Democrats want to block individuals who make things run by taxing them into failure and regulating them into the shadows. Americans who think out of the bubble and live out of the box are an embarrassment to Democrat efforts to lift the rest of the world. Energy, from both individuals and their machines, has made America prosperous and free of domination by government agents, something that must be stopped.
Winning the War on America will help China, India, Russia and all the third world nations achieve a more balanced and equal outcome under the auspices of the United Nations. America must move to the rear of the bus. Can Americans refuse to be relegated to the back of the bus? Can they fight back, or are the Democrats the only ones with the power to decide how we will live?
The other night, Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment for President Bush. He read them all into the record over four hours. Robert Wexler co-sponsored. Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment on Vice President Cheney in April 2007.
I am not asking you to barrage Congress with pleas to listen to our demands, which by now are well established, documented, and represented in the blood of 1.2 million people in Iraq, in the crimes done against humans, American and not, in our name.
I do propose that you contact everyone you can about the need to repudiate these criminals.
We want a situation where no president, and no government can get away with what the Bush regime has done, because people living in this country will not accept it!
Here are a few comments from leaders of the movement:
"The situation today is more serious than the conditions that provoked the American Revolution. If we stand by now and allow this government to openly torture, abrogate habeas corpus, carry out unjust, illegal and immoral wars, and spy on all Americans, may we be damned by history."
Dr. Loo, co-editor/author of Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney, Associate Professor of Sociology at Cal Poly Pomona, serves on the National Steering Committee of the World Can't Wait.
"In light of the illegal war in Iraq, the systematic torture of prisoners in US custody, the illegal surveillance of Americans, and George W. Bush's refusal to carry out his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws, impeachment proceedings should be initiated immediately and a criminal investigation launched against the President of the United States."
It appears the fascist Bush regime is planning on militarily securing Iraq, with permanent military bases in Iraq, all for the benefit of American oil companies.
What does this really mean? It means that the fascist Bush regime's principal financial backers will make huge profits, for many years, plundering Iraqi oil resources while being protected by the American military. This will take place without the oil companies paying American taxes to support the American military that is defending their commercial empire.
It also means the American people will not only pay for the long-term occupation of Iraq with their taxes and reduced social services, but that they will also pay for it by being killed, or wounded, or wounded and maimed in the American military, or in the private fascist armies often described as the paramilitary.
If the American people are so brainwashed that they will allow this to happen they deserve the abuse that is about to be piled on them by the fascist Bush regime, or its fascist Republican or fascist Democratic successor.
Barack Obama said he was going to be "The Manager of the Economy." He leaves an image of the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain moving all the levers, wheels and knobs to keep things running. This wizard says 1% of the people have all the money and 99% are left out in the cold, something he will change.
He makes it appear as if everyone, the entire 100%, are the same age, same education, same levels of intelligence, interests, skills, talents and values. If that were the case, then perhaps the 1% is ripping off the 99%, but since such equality does not exist, he will never be able to adequately remodel, reorient and manage our economy. Our inequalities make us different and hard to manage.
Who would be the best to manage our economy? Is there someone we can elect who will do a better job of running the nation? Yes, there is. It is us. Elect us, all of us, to run the economy, because we proved we could do it better than any super-intellectual elite could. Pointy-headed leftist know-it-alls have failed in the past. With us managing the economy, what we call the free market, decisions are made by those most directly involved and interested, not those who would remodel everyone's lives.
Hitler tried to manage Europe. Mussolini tried it for Italy. Lenin, Stalin and those that followed them tried to manage a big chunk of the world. Look at the misery they left behind. There are still elite out there who think they know best, like the Mullahs and Imams, petty dictators like Castro, Chavez and Ortega. Nowhere, at no time and place, has the job ever been done correctly except in America under us. We did it right. Why not elect us?
The other night on C-Span I watched Dennis Kucinich present his 35-count Resolution for the Impeachment of Bush. Remember, he presented a resolution for the Impeachment of Cheney last year. That resolution is still open but has not been acted on.
I really got to burning when I was watching CNN this afternoon after I got in from working and they were talking about the McCain - Obama Campaigns.
They just couldn't bring themselves to state that McCain, his wife, and her father received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Keating personally during the Keating Five episode. They more or less presented that episode as one in which McCain was just misled. If that was the case, I'm not sure what he thought he was getting all that money for.
It's like the elder Senator Pryor episode when he was running for Governor. He and Wilbur D. Mills received bribes to influence the AMPI milk scandals. When the bribers were caught, tried, and sentenced to prison for bribing public officials, Pryor claim that he didn't know he had been bribed. No charges were ever brought against he or Wilbur Mills. Later on Wilbur had his thing with one Fanny Fox. Pryor went on to be elected Governor in a landslide.
In that election I voted for Mills' opponent Ms.Julia Petty. A friend of mine asked me if I "voted for that woman"? I said "sure, didn't you?" Well, he said, "I just couldn't vote for a woman."
So I said "you mean you could vote for a known crook, but not for an honest woman?" "Yep, that's right," he said.
McCain has promised to cross the aisle, and he has been doing it since he became the Republican nominee for president. He has left the Republican Party and crossed over to the other side, running against Obama to attract his and Hillary's supporters. He has abandoned his own base of support.
He has rejected the Christians by snubbing Billy Graham. He has promised to help China and India share equally what Americans have worked so hard to achieve. He is copying the lofty, meaningless rhetoric of Obama to impress voters that he too can promise manna from heaven and hand outs to appease everyone's needs, by taking from those who have to give to those who have not. He leans toward restricting Americans from individual success and growth to make those in the third world happier to associate with America. He has pledged to support higher gasoline prices, stopping use of our own resources, which could bring prices down.
McCain has shunned the conservative, the Christian, the individualists and anyone who believes what America started almost 400 years ago is best for the whole world. His position is not to pass judgment on what is right, left or wrong, but to compromise and join with those who have issues with America's freedoms and the prosperity it created. In short, he has crossed over the aisle and joined with those who are ashamed of America.
All he has done is raise the Barr; making it difficult for those Americans, he leaves so far behind, to find a political home other than climbing that Barr. Assuming McCain and his people are wise and all knowing about Americans and their 2008 political desire for change, he is telling us that Americans want a more Marxist society instead of a Jeffersonian one. So, where do Americans go now?
I have spent the afternoon reading this 65 page pdf, which is Kucinich's resolution of impeachment. I would strongly recommend downloading it and spending the time to read it.
Thousands of us have spent the past eight years writing and blogging the same information, sending it to the media and to our alleged representatives. It has been for the most part ignored by both our alleged reps and the media, but now it is official and impeachment should be firmly "on the table." If not, then I fear we are further into fascism than we thought.
If nothing else, this should be good ammo for the choice of a VP for Mr. Obama. Not only would he be an excellent and hard working facilitator, but he would be great assassination insurance for Mr. Obama.
"God grant, that not only the Love of Liberty, but a thorough Knowledge of the Rights of Man, may pervade all the Nations of the Earth, so that a Philosopher may set his Foot anywhere on its Surface, and say, 'This is my Country.'" --Benjamin Franklin
On June 9, 2008, on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush. These articles describe a wide variety of actions George W. Bush has taken as president in violation of the law and the Constitution.
The next step is for the House to refer the articles to the House Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee will then determine -- by majority vote -- whether the grounds for impeachment exist. An objective review of the articles would undoubtedly demonstrate that many, if not most, of the articles prepared by Rep. Kucinich are backed up by sufficient grounds to proceed with the impeachment process.
Now is the time to let your U.S. representative know that you strongly support impeachment hearings before the House Judiciary Committee and further proceedings on the House floor. Please take a moment to let your U.S. representative know that you support the impeachment of George W. Bush by using this link.
The founders of our country feared more than anything else the prospect of an executive who put his own power and desires above the Constitution. Congress was given the power of impeachment so that it could remove any president who committed the high crime of violating the Constitution during his (or her) term in office.
A strong case can be made that no president in the history of this country is more deserving of impeachment than George W. Bush. If he is not impeached, the bar for impeachment will have been raised so high that it might as well no longer exist. Future presidents will know that they can violate the Constitution at will, confident in the fact that Congress does not have the courage as an institution to do anything about it.
Here's my comment, which was magically "vaporized":
Well, let's see now. 1. Iran says it has no nuclear weapons program. 2. US Intelligence says it can find no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. 3. UN Inspectors say there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. 4. Nations that deal directly with Iran say there is no nuclear weapons program. 5. Iran has not waged an offensive war for over a thousand years.
Therefore, Israel, which has several hundred nuclear weapons with missiles to deliver them, (and allows no inspections of any kind) receives several billions per year in advanced weapons technology and hardware from its client state, the US, makes war at will upon its neighbors, oppresses the Palestinians with overwhelming force and cannot seem to remember from the 40's that oppressed people fight back, should bomb Iran and destroy their country and civilization, while conducting business as usual on KP (Killing Peasants) in Palestine.
What is wrong with this picture? Who needs to be brought to heel?
I guess even in the so-called liberal press, one has to tread lightly amongst the corpses of Israeli aggression.
God, I hope someone sits on them before they start WW-III.
"The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man only tells them with all his might." --Mark Twain
Have you been distracted by the hedge-speculator-driven price of gasoline or the tail-end of the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president -- or both -- since about May 28 and not noticed the big to-do over former Bush spokesman Scott McClellan's new book in which he writes bad stuff about his former boss and the press?
Well, even if you have noticed the McClellan kafuffle, perhaps you haven't yet run across a comprehensive look-see at the book, the kafuffle itself, and the fallout. A good place to start is with what Mark Green wrote for the Air America website --
"Scott McClellan's book What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception has been a feast for cable talk shows and commentators everywhere, with much discussion veering off on his motives. The Bush Team went into overdrive with its smear gear. Disgruntled? Money grubbing? Out of the loop? Off his rocker? A Manchurian author controlled by his North-Korean-like publisher? In a laughable attempt to blame the radar gun for the speeder, apologists Michele Bernard and Michael Smerconish actually argued on MSNBC that the big story was whether McClellan wrote the book in order to defeat John McCain.
"One who got it right was New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, who wrote that the issue is not the author but a "scandal and a crime" called Iraq.So since it's not flak McClellan but commander-in-chief Bush with the power of war and peace, life and death over Americans and the world, let's now focus on George, not Scott.
"Understandably upset with another source exposing his falsehoods, Karl Rove went on Fox to say that McClellan "sounds like a liberal blogger." Well . . . yes! In fact the liberal community -- Air America, MoveOn, the Nation, the Huffington Post and scores of others -- has been completely vindicated on Iraq and Rove et. al. completely discredited. Since the Far Right likes World War II and Adolf Hitler analogies, here's one -- the left was mocked and then historically vindicated about Iraq as much as an out-of-power Winston Churchill was when he warned about the rise of Nazi Germany. Facts are stubborn things, said Ronald Reagan."
Reading the corporate media this week, I find some commentators are bothered by the lies coming out of the Bush regime.
A committee of the US Senate argued over a report for 5 years, just releasing the news - gasp! - that the Bush administration lied about Iraq. Dan Froomkin writes in The Washington Post,
"Some of what President Bush and others said about Iraq was corroborated by what later turned out to be inaccurate intelligence. But their most compelling and gut-wrenching allegations -- for instance, that Saddam Hussein was ready to supply his friends in al-Qaeda with nuclear weapons -- were simply made up. In an accident of timing, the report also validates former press secretary Scott McClellan's conclusion in his new book that the White House pursued a "political propaganda campaign" to market the war."
Tim Rutten, in The Los Angeles Times, writes about the arraignment of 5 alleged Al Queda operatives before the military tribunal in Guantanamo,
"By any reasonable standard, the Guantanamo tribunals are a farce. By the government's own admission, Mohammed and other high-level Al Qaeda detainees have been tortured. The five men arraigned Thursday all face execution if convicted. Their military defense lawyers say they've been denied adequate access to their clients or time to prepare a reasonable defense. The pool reporters the Pentagon is allowing to cover the proceedings have to sit behind a glass partition and listen over a sound system with a 20-second delay. Ostensibly that's to prevent the media from hearing any national security secret inadvertently blurted out during the testimony. Thursday, it apparently was used to shut off any mention of torture."
The price of oil jumped suddenly yesterday because of the threat by Israel's Deputy Prime Minister that Israel "will attack" Iran if it continues pursuing what he said is Iran's nuclear weapons program. Scott Peterson, in the Christian Science Monitor writes about reponse to the International Atomic Energy Agency"s ambiguous report on Monday that Iran is not giving them enough information about its nuclear program,
"Analysts say that cherry-picking of quotes and Western spin, coupled with 'breathless' media reporting about Iranian recalcitrance, could point in a nondiplomatic direction. Rhetoric ratcheted higher this week, with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday warning that 'for the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.' Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, speaking to the same pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC, in Washington, said 'the Iranian threat must be stopped by all possible means,' adding that it was a global 'duty' to take 'drastic measures' to prevent it. Even Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who says the US must engage Iran with 'strong diplomacy' - and told AIPAC Wednesday that this would enhance Israel's security also - said the 'danger from Iran is grave,' and that he would 'do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon - everything."'
Boy, I just finished watching this. If it's not a weekly video (on the homepage, every Friday AM), it should be. It is Bill Moyers addressing FreePress. Man, does he ever lay it out! A must watch, in my humble opinion.
I ran across the compilation of quotes addressing fascism and plutocracy.
We're not a democracy. It's a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we're a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy. -- Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General
"Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy" -- John Pierpont Morgan
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." -- Thomas Jefferson
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." -- Abraham Lincoln
"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
I am certain the average marine and the lower level marine officers believe the official propaganda line that this is not directed at American citizens, but that doesn't change the intent by the fascist Bush regime and its upper-level, pro-fascist military elite.
The fascist Bush regime, and its fascist successor, Republican or Democrat, are being confronted with an ever more precarious national economic/financial/military situation for which they have very few options to maintain the economic and political power of the class that financed their rise in political power.
Their official lies are wearing thin.
All of their allies see them as very desperate, and therefore dangerous. American economic and military power is in decline. The American economy is being bled white by two disastrous and totally unnecessary wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran, a fourth rate economic and military power can, with absolute impunity, initiate economic warfare with the world's former superpower, America, by selling oil in currencies other than the American dollar. Unfortunately, the list of failures and unsolved problems confronting American "capitalism" go on and on.
The bottom line is the towering house-of-cards called the American capitalist economic system, which currently is in the throes of one economic/financial crisis, could experience an even more devastating economic/financial crisis for any of several reasons. The ensuing social and political unrest following such an event is what the U.S. Marine Corp is actually being trained to suppress.
Apparently, it will be the mission of the U.S. Marine Corp to suppress the resulting social and political unrest, very brutally if necessary, to preserve the economic and political power of the ultimate powers in America.
That is if the fascist regime in power at the time consider the U.S. Marine Corp to be politically reliable. If they are not viewed as being politically reliable then the fascist regime in power at the time will resort to using private fascist armies, such as Blackwater, to preserve the power structure.
A prominent lawyer lays out a compelling case in The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder(by Vincent Bugliosi). Staggering evidence is collected against the president in a startling new book.
Watch this video:
Here's my letter to Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard:
On behalf of all deceased Arizona soldiers who may have been murder victims of George W. Bush in Iraq as noted by former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi in his book "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder", and as presented above in his YouTube video, I implore you to investigate these charges, and if warranted, indict and prosecute George W. Bush on murder charges.
A garlic necklace will not stop the midnight gas thefts from the punch or siphon, nor will it prevent politicians from crippling America by depriving it of all forms of energy. To bring America down where it is equalized with the third world, easier to manage by elite, energy use must be cut. The American economy speeds up with both increased human and physical energy. It slows down with them being limited. Taxes can slow and punish the human energy, while regulations block the use of physical energy.
To take a huge bite out of America, the great, compassionate vampire politicians running for office must bring America to its knees. They do it by preventing us from drilling for and using of our own oil, nuclear power, natural gas or refining coal to power our tools, machines and vehicles. They know they can box and punish the human mind and stop individuals from creating; innovating and inventing ways and means for making things work better, something government does best. They know it is the compassionate thing to do for them to impress the rest of the world, showing how the vampires of the left can drain the life from a successful and powerful nation.
To appease the citizens they solicit for votes, they encourage the use of inefficient ethanol from corn to replace oil while causing food prices to rise. They advocate inefficient wind and solar power to keep the lights on, and offer anxiety about the world's atmosphere going to hell because of American habits. They have provided greater intellectual darkness in which they can move from victim to victim, biting deep into the traditions that made America great.
These liberal vampires corral the American citizens into herds they can manipulate emotionally to accept their deadly desire to bring Old World government back onto the American shore without opposition. Those victims holding up cross and Bible, spewing forth songs of freedom are defined as the selfish, irrational enemy of their caring and elite management of us all. Invite a vampire into your house and help the cause of America's surrender. Initially, it doesn't seem to hurt all that much.
It's time to raise the volume: "We're mad as hell and we ain't gonna take anymore!!!"
The ultimate goal is to restore the power of our Republic and renew the spirit of our Constitution. The first steps to accomplish these victories are taken in the precinct where we live.
Note: Your local media sends one of their reporters to check-out to see what you and your neighbors are doing. If, they approve of what you're doing they will report it. If they don't, you can put-it-in-the-bank; they won't. Therefore, it's up to us to encourage our neighbors to turn off the TV and get involved in their Precinct activities.
An article by Devvy Kidd is a clue to where and how to begin. Here's an excerpt:
Attend as many town hall meetings as you can between now and November and hold these incumbents and candidates to the fire. You have to attend city council, county board of supervisor and school board meetings. These are the elected public servants who are making all the decisions that affect your life locally. Yes, this requires giving up evenings, but only massive heat from the we the people will bring change and it does happen. It's been happening in counties all across this country....
When I went back to the "Thank You" article to post my own thank you, Nahida had written a comment and another poem. Here is her comment, and her poem, along with a link to the article. I think she is a remarkable lady.
Thank you all on this forum for your kind and positive reaction to my poem.
I certainly do not take pleasure in writing about the excruciating pain of my people and it pains me enormously that I find myself gripped by writing poignant, depressing and distressed poems instead of enjoyable and uplifting ones
I would rather be writing about my eternal love of my husband, about the wonders and endless magical moments of being a mother, the mysteries and splendour of autumn, and about the glory and majesty of spring
But our reality that I cannot escape has imprisoned me emotionally and grounded me in a world of ever-waiting for a moment of relief that has never arrived.
In this response, I primarily want to correct some historical misconceptions presented in the argument here. However, initially, I need to take exception to the rather tenuous distinction that is made between the religiosity of the New World and the superstitions of the Old World.
I, personally, see no difference.
In the case of superstitions, we can observe beliefs that entertain the existence of entities and forces that cannot be empirically substantiated. In the case of religion, we can observe faith in invisible entities and forces that cannot be empirically demonstrated to exist, but, rather, must be entertained through the deployment of faith that lacks rational justification.
I suppose one could say that superstitions can be disproved while faith lacks any test of falsification. However, both forms of irrationality result in the same consequence: the preservation of empirically uninformed beliefs.
Now, the original European inhabitants to the New World certainly did not prize individuality. In fact, the Protestant sect that we call the pilgrims formed a theocracy in which social difference was not tolerated and individuals who possessed unusual attributes were seen with suspicion and contempt. They certainly were not in possession of a limited government that was unobtrusive. Finally, the American State was not founded on free market capitalism.
This social condition was not developed until the latter part of the 18th Century. There are other problems with the ethnocentrism espoused in this essay, but the most salient problems have already been addressed.
Of course, the answer is very simple. First, the so-called capitalists and their corporations do not give a damn about free trade. They want markets they can manipulate. If they can achieve that, they will go after their next goal which is markets they can control. If they can achieve that, then they will try to achieve their ultimate goal which is markets in which they have absolute monopolies.
Next, they are interested in globalization because it serves their profit motive. To these ultimate powers in American society this is the only purpose it serves. With globalization they can obtain resources where they can plunder them with the lowest cost labor, and the fewest labor and environmental regulations. They can manufacture where they can exploit the local working class the most, and with the fewest labor and environmental regulations. Finally, they can sell their products wherever they can make the most obscene profits.
Given the aforementioned abundantly documented facts it is understandable that even those economists who are the most willing to prostitute themselves clearly have problems fabricating believable lies. In fact, they cannot fabricate believable lies. It is readily apparent that everything they fabricate to justify globalization, and the so-called capitalist class and their corporations desiring supposedly "free" markets, is pure bullshit.
McClellan reveals that he was troubled by the president's tendency to convince himself that decisions made to invade Iraq were right and necessary. And while this book sheds further light on the mindset of the war criminals currently in office, we are chillingly reminded of a line from the Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime:"There is not going to be some magical pendulum swing.. People who steal elections and believe they're on a mission from God will not go without a fight."
The Asia Times reports thatBush regime is poised to attack Iran by August. Please forward this article by Ken Theisen on worldcantwait.org: U.S. to Attack Iran Within Two Months - Former Diplomat.Too many are still being lulled into a false sense of comfort by the election, putting all their hopes and dreams into the democratic candidate who they hope will put to an end this nightmare. Yet, Obama, while criticizing Clinton for using the word "when she spoke of how she would handle Iran, assured his own audience that he to would also be forceful in dealing with Iran.
How horrifying for the people of the middle east and the world to hear two candidates who are supposed to represent change argue about the use of a word as they both threaten a country which the National Intelligence Estimate revealed last fall has no present program to develop nuclear weapons?
A report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which consistently claimed, correctly, the Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, is expected June 2.
The people of this country who hate so badly the Bush program of endless war and torture should not accept these terms. The people of this country should resist the carrying forward of the Bush regime program and fight for the kind of world they want to live in.There is not going to be some savior from the Democratic Party. This whole idea of putting our hopes and energies into "leaders"who seek common ground with fascists and religious fanatics is proving everyday to be a disaster that actually serves to demobilize people.
World Can't Wait calls on people to act now with courage and conviction to spread the resistance to war crimes and crimes against humanity. We are determined to provide the people with both the moral clarity and a way to act to bring to an end the Bush Regime and its program.
An airstrike on Iran in the next two months? This would be wrong!
Hold meetings and forums everywhere schools are still in session this month.
Organize Emergency response networks to act in case of a US bombing of Iran.
Get out a basic fact sheet which the whole movement can use.
Times have changed tremendously over the past 40-plus years since Dylan and PP&M (as well as Joan Baez, The Seekers, Odetta, and others) made "The Times They Are a-Changin" something of an anthem for a generation. For one thing, these days protest songs ain't exactly the thing nor are they looked on with favor or at least with tolerance as they were back in the days when the country was a lot freer than the conservative movement has made it.
For instance -- in late 2004 radio talking heads in Colorado were in a tizzy over a local punk band's plans to perform Dylan's "Masters of War" at a Boulder High School talent show. That led to calls to the Secret Service because of ill-perceived threats against George Bush. The "threats" consisted of the song's lyrics:
"Let me ask you one question / Is your money that good? / Will it buy you forgiveness? / Do you think that it could? / I think you will find / When your death takes its toll / All the money you made / Will never buy back your soul.
"And I hope that you die / And your death will come soon / I will follow your casket / In the pale afternoon / And I'll watch while you're lowered / Down to your death bed / And I'll stand over your grave / 'Til I'm sure that you're dead."
The corpse was a metaphor for the Cold War-era U.S. military, but people in Colorado fretted that the lyrics were about doing in Bush. But in "Masters of War," Dylan was echoing President Dwight Eisenhower's parting words to the country in 1961 -- his blunt warning about the military-industrial complex. Ike's words were still an important part of public conversation when Dylan wrote his song in 1963. The song wasn't particularly radical and was pretty much a distillation of conventional wisdom:
"You fasten the triggers / For the others to fire / Then you sit back and watch / When the death count gets higher / You hide in your mansion / As young people's blood / Flows out of their bodies / And is buried in the mud."
Nowadays, most Americans prefer to let yellow ribbon magnets on their cars and loudmouths on radio and television debate the issues. "Support the Troops" has meant "Don't Ask Questions." In the context of politics today, "Masters of War" sounds radical and prophetic.
So, before the talent show, Secret Service agents visited Boulder High School, where the principal vouched for his students' characters. The agency did what it didn't have to do and should not have thought it had to do and did the unnecessary in a country where there is supposed to be freedom of speech: It cleared the band.
"How much do I know / To talk out of turn? / You might say that I'm young / You might say I'm unlearned / But there's one thing I know / Though I'm younger than you / Even Jesus would never forgive what you do."
But maybe the country is facing some new changin' times -- and the first one now will later be last.
I dislike the terms liberal and conservative, as used in America. They are meaningless. I find Old World and New World gives a better description of the two systems of governing existing on Earth.
The oldest began when man first walked the earth, forming families and tribes to suit their main interests of defense and survival. The systems growing from these beginnings are the most established and experienced forms of government. Tribes grew into nations, each with its own chief or king, with basic superstitions needed to glue people together. The common ingredient was the elite few governed the many. The elite define and enforce the interests of the governed. They promote equality of outcome for all but themselves. Most of the world, with eighty percent in poverty, starving and illiterate, still lives under this system.
The newest began in America almost 400 years ago, which is the least experienced system having established itself in one small spot on earth. It is the one providing the greatest happiness for the greatest number, the greatest prosperity and the most individual elbowroom ever experienced on earth. It grew out of the teachings of the Judeo-Christian Bible, that each man and woman is an individual responsible for his or her own thoughts and actions. The Pilgrims landing in New England brought it to America.
In the New World, each human individual life is valued highly and no man or woman could be the slave of another. Abortion, euthanasia and slavery, a devaluing of life, are against the laws of nature and God. As free people, they found their differences in interests, aspirations, talents and skills, when pursued, free of the restrictions others might apply, gave them happiness and prosperity. Family was the center of their universe and communities grew prosperous as the families in them grew. Governments were limited and always close to the governed. They honored free commercial exchange and laws preventing injustice. Inequalities proved proper.
What we call conservative today is New World, conserving how things began in America. What we call liberal today is Old World, where a few elite rule the many. Five percent of the world's people live in the New World, America, with twenty-five percent of the world's wealth. America demonstrates the value of freedom, while a world steeped in poverty lives under the Old World, where a few elite rule the many. Which is the best system, and which is the best label?
Today my wife and I received a letter from our Drug Prescription provider. They were informing me that they could no longer provide a particular medication to my wife because of a decision by Medicare and the Government. This is a treatment (Long Term) that is seriously needed, but the information was scant - just they could no longer provide the medication!
So I thought I should check it out. See I'm paying out the kazoo for Medicare, Medigap, and Drug coverage, something like $7500 per year for the two of us. So I went to the local Pharmacy to see if they could help tell we what the deal was. And they could. It seems that congress is planning to, or is already going to, try to eliminate Neighborhood Pharmacies from the Drug business. All this is to ostensibly save money. What I see is another application of BOHICA (Bend over, here it comes again).
Just think, we're going to have to go to mail order drugs. Even worse is a thought that we might have to travel to a dispensing store, say for example one outlet every 50 mile square. So if you had to rive 25 miles to an outlet, and back, those 50 miles would cost you about a minimum of $10 just for the gas. Think Drugs will get cheaper? I just can't help but believe, we are going to wind up paying more. But if my insurance pays all, why should I worry? I don't have a drug plan that pays all. Does anyone? Just the Government practicing BOHICA once more.
Will Big Business and their illicit partner, Government, do what is in the interest of the people? Lets examine a case of lost opportunity.
Last night as I was reading about what is causing the Honey bee die off in Germany, seems that the Germans have traced the culprit to a chemical made by the German Chemical Giant, Bayer. It is a pesticide applied to corn and rapeseed. Interestingly I noticed that Bayer is part of the old I G Farben and its affiliates in the United States (Been having Bee die offs here too, right?), well anyway, I decided to do some research on I G Farben and Standard Oil of New Jersey because I seemed to remember there was some malfeasance by these two before, during, and after WWII.
Sure enough there it was, I G Farben (Bayer) and Standard Oil of New Jersey (Exxon ) teamed together to work against American interests during the war. They were joined by several other American Companies in supplying the NAZI war machine, and the American war machine. They made a pact that which ever won the war, the winner would save the other from harm and they would merge their interests so that no matter how it turned out, those companies would enrich themselves. At Nuremberg the I G Farben owners and high management avoided any prosecution. And so did Standard Oil. BOHICA was alive and well even in those times. Seems a whole like today's Business/Government relationship doesn't it. Do you believe the Government and Big Business will provide for more affordable drugs for the elderly, or anyone?
I ask every one who reads this, to first check with your pharmacy, they will know what's going on, then help spread the word, tell everyone about the big drug policy change being planned, and how detrimental it can be. Call or write your congressman and tell them that you want to continue to use your neighborhood pharmacy. Look for an action page highlighting this event and use it to register your opposition to this BOHICA event.
Most Americans do not have any idea how far down the road America has gone towards being a fascist military/police state. Also, most Americans do not understand the extent of the collusion between the pro-fascist faction in the American elite class and their pro-fascist corporations, and the fascist Bush regime.
Keep in mind that all of this is happening before the looming national economic/financial crisis in which martial law very well may be declared, and a military/police state imposed.
I do not know the movtivations of the European governments to restrict Iran, and they are probably varied. But I know, and have followed closely, the pattern of the United States threats on Iran, coming from the Bush regime. Since 2006, VP "Dick" Cheney has been mobiilzing for a military attack on Iran, with what is more and more clearly, the goal of regime change through airstrikes.
