I got a Democrats.com message about the triumph of the Party and with petitions to sign and comment upon. In the usual exercise in futility, I signed them, and I commented. Here are the comments
Petition number one, no more funding for Iraq.
I've been a Democrat all my life, usually voting for the lesser of two evils and hoping that things will come out OK in the end. The essay I have just been reading from the Democrats speaks of ending the war as a first priority.
Mr. Obama was selected to lead because this was his aim also. However, as son as he was selected, we have to widen the war in Afghanistan, continue leaving troops in Iraq until Hell freezes over, and must foster going to war with Iran, which has no nuclear weapons program, and has not invaded anybody for several hundred years. (They also have a first class modern military, so it will not be the turkey shoot that Iraq was, with no modern weapons to speak of, no air force, and what they had was running on ten years with no spare parts.)
I want Mr. Obama to stand up before the American People and say that the war will end with his election, that the war criminals in the White House will pay for their crimes and the Constitution and Bill of Rights will be once more returned to the Halls of Government, intact and functioning.
I want Mr. Obama to stand up before the American People and renounce "preemptive war" as government policy.
I want Mr. Obama to stand up before the American People and put the restoration of crumbling America on the front burner. Those billions going for new toys for the Pentagon to slaughter foreign civilians in the hope of getting a "terrorist" could rebuild New Orleans, put education back as an attainable goal for the American Family, provide health care, clean water and healthy food for people, not only in American, but around the globe.
My experience over the last eight years is that comments such as the above are either unread, or ignored by my alleged representatives, so I don't expect to hear from this one either.
Petition number two, impeach the war criminals
When my alleged Representative can write me and say he is "not convinced that the President has broken any laws," I find these petitions to be of no more use than the Constitution of the United States, which the Pre$ident says, is "just a God-damned piece of paper."
When and if the Congress awakens to do its duty under the above mentioned "God-damned piece of paper" and brings these thieving war criminals to justice, I will again begin to believe in the nation I grew up in.
Unfortunately, I find the Congress to be part and parcel of the whole thing, wanting only to inherit this criminal government for it's own use, so there is little hope left for the "Great Experiment."
I'm sure Cheney/Bu$h will go their way, pocketing the loot gained at the blood of innocent Iraqis, Afghans, and our own kids.
However, as usual, I sign and pray.
Note from my daughter:
Guess what -- the Right Wing GOP Headquarters of the Colorado Republican Party is proudly calling itself "The Ministry of Truth" -- and not even ironically. Weird, huh?
Lastly, my comment on the Rocky Mountain News story on the Veteran's march. (Which they will not accept, I'm not on their list.)
Sadly, a Pyrrhic victory at best. Notice that the result was to give the letter to an aide of Obama's, who agreed to show it to Obama. I will be very surprised if it is ever read to the delegates. Peace is not on the agenda of the Democrats, any more than the Republicans. Follow the money. ---------------------------------------------------------------
So, I guess that is enough of shooting off my big mouth for today.
Here's another interesting excerpt - that really shows a little different perspective of the times:
Roosevelt gave his annual sppech to Congress, American security was under threat, he said. Great numbers of secret agents were already in Latin America. The United States was behind schedule in building airplanes. We must make sacrifices to meet the present emergency. We must furnish our friends with "ships, planes, tanks, guns."
But wth all that, we had something to look forward to: four essential human freedoms.
Freedom of speech was one; freedom of religion was another; freedom from want was a third. And the fourth: "The fourth is freedom from fear - which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor - anywhere in the world."
This commendable goal - the worldwide reduction of armaments - explained why the United States needed to manufacture, as fast as it could, more ships, more planes, more tanks, and more guns.
The 2008 Democratic Convention in Detroit focused on a set of new freedoms they claim Americans need. They are many, but can easily be summed up as the freedom from struggle. They believe it is most important that we are free of struggles to survive, to have food, shelter, clothing, and a nice car running on air. They see the old freedoms cited in America's founding document, the Declaration of Independence, as undesirable in today's America.
The Declaration said our Creator gave us our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This implies only individuals have these rights, not communities. It further implies individual freedom is more important than community interests are, as defined by the few wisest, most caring among us who must guide the lives of those in community. The Democrats have challenged this belief and have suggested only the community has interests and rights, not the individuals who comprise community. Further, that they, not God, should be the ones who define human rights.
Under the Declaration, individuals have rights to choose their own way as long as they harm no one else. Under the Democrats, the few chosen to lead the many are the ones who make that choice, for the ultimate good of community. Under the Declaration, all men are equal before God and the law, and in all other respects are unequal in sex, age, thinking, interests, aspirations, skills, talents, experience, drive, desires, all those things and more that define a vital, growing society.
According to the Declaration, we are like speedboats, some making big wakes, rocking and rolling as we plow through the water at high speed. Democrats believe rocking, rolling and leaving big wakes, are a disturbance to the peace and stability of community and should not be tolerated.
The Democrat's 2008 Convention has defined a new America, based on the notion that they, the few wisest of Democrats, are entitled to rule the many for their own best interests, and that individual freedom is the cause of our problems, not the solution. Americans, they say, have the right to live free of struggle. The few loving elite should care for them as they see fit.
As near as I can tell, the Dems want to inherit the illegal, criminal, government of the Cheney/Bu$h regime, intact and functioning, for their own use. We the People don't even enter into the equation, except as taxpayers and cannon fodder.
In watching the "Imperial Storm Troopers in Action," I thought my article Brownshirts Dressed in Blue illustrated something outrageous in New York for the '04 Repug Convention, but the Democans in Denver makes New York look like Sunday School!
Phalanx's of black clad, helmeted, masked enforcers. Many riding bikes, and motorcycles, others inside and on the running boards of black SUV's. Streets lined with black clad, impassive storm troopers, faces covered with black visors, truncheons and weapons at the ready.
All this to see that no Democrat invades or disturbs the four day infomercial that the Conventions have become, paid for by million$ from Big Busine$$ (their rewards come later, after the election)
And then there is the warehouse full of wire cages for those who insist.
Where is Leni Riefenstahl, to make it all official?
Heil Obama, heil McCain, heil whoever is running things, for the United States is no more.
, by Nicholson Baker, is in my opinion, one of the best "anti-war" books available. It's quite unique in style, and an easy and compelling read for anyone - whether you're familiar with details of the era or not.
The entire book is written in little snippets, or short stories that give a flow from the pre-war years, through the end of 1941 - and some of what this well-researched book will show you might be a huge surprise. I thought this little excerpt was a good one:
Henry Morgenthau called up the president and told him he needed to have a meeting - he'd gotten a very secret message from Chiang Kai-shek saying that Chiang wanted to attack Japan. It was December 18, 1940.
"Is he still willing to fight?" asked President Roosevelt "That's what the message is about," said Morgenthau. "Wonderful," said Roosevelt. "That's what I have been talking about for four years."
This site is very interesting because it has a collection of news articles dating from the start of the fascist Bush regime. They are divided into topics relating to each of the fourteen points of fascism.
My objection to the article, though, is that it conveys the message that the Bush regime and its Republican supporters in Congress are the only fascists to be concerned about. The reality is that the fascist Bush regime has had the support of the very strong, pro-fascist faction in the Democratic Party on many important issues.
A few examples are the wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the destruction of the Constitution via the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act.
The fact that the Democratic Party is under the control of a very strong pro-fascist faction in the Democratic Party should be of concern to all loyal Democratic Party supporters. This is because to vote for most Democratic candidates is not a vote to resist fascism.
To vote for most Democratic candidates is merely to vote for the Democratic Party's form of fascism instead of the Republican Party's form of fascism.
For those interested in watching modern Democracy in action, the below video is interesting.
Obviously nothing (small d) democratic is going to happen in Denver, but this kind of suppression is becoming increasingly common throughout the US. Of course the alleged news is too busy broadcasting the four day infomercial called the "Democratic" Convention to give any press to the concerns of We the People.
If you insist in your First Amendment rights, you can exercise them in a locked wire cage in a warehouse, closely guarded by Imperial Storm Troopers, to make sure you are not heard. So sad.
If you missed this amazing interview by Mr. Moyers on his 8/15/08 Bill Moyers Journal show, of Andrew J. Bacevich, a Gold Star dad, a West Point graduate and retired colonel with 23 years in the Army, and the author of several books, including. . . The Limits Of Power: The End Of American Exceptionalism, (just released this week,) then you should do yourself a favor, and check it out now:
I just went to the home site of the Democratic Convention. Take a look. They have the schedule for each day. It's not a convention, it is a four day commercial! No discussion, just a line up of politicos passing gas for four days!
Now that they have the protest cages in place in Denver, you can't tell the difference between the Democans and the Republicrat Conventions. Kind of like the end of Animal Farm, when the animals looked through the window and couldn't see any difference between the pigs and the people.
Not a sacred warrior, Nor with a bayonet blessed by God.
Not even a human being, Just a simple peasant, a surrogate, A sacrificial lamb, a frightened child, Chosen by the rich to be an instrument of war.
A cold-blooded, battle-trained beast, A mindless savage ordered to kill.
A molded piece of steel, an object, a gear, A very small cog in a far-reaching engine of death, An insignificant fleck in the overall fabric of life.
A negligible notch on the handle of an enemy's gun, A mere afterthought for those who extol the wonders of war, An unkempt grunt, A lonely gutted, blood-spattered corpse lying on the ground, Something like the trivial crush of dead dog on a lonely country road, Dead meat with a tin tag.
A sacred breath of life having been stripped from its mother's womb, A father's pride, his very best friend, Someone whose name is Abdul, Mohammed, Ishmael, Ibrahim, or Hassan, Or then again perhaps even Mike, John, Mark, Eddy, Ben, or Bill, A world diminished by the loss of another precious child!
Speaker Pelosi's inane explanation as to why the fascist Bush regime should not be impeached certainly must be extremely repulsive to many Democrats.
As a result, even though few Democrats will publicly admit how totally disgusted they are with the Democratic Party, I expect that in the privacy of the voting booth, many Democrats, in order to retain their self-respect, will vote for minor parties or independents such as Nader.
With regards to elections, our only "choice" is to refrain from participation in the usual election charade by not voting or using the other "protest vote" option of voting for an anti-Establishment candidate from the Libertarian, Constitution, or Green party.
The system has been rigged for a lot longer than most of us have been alive.
If we hope to reverse or slow the current trajectory, we must focus our work outside the system and begin the process of untangling ourselves from its long tentacles. Models of community and individual independence, like the one Catherine Austin Fitts has championed, are a place to start. National boycotts are a another good option, a good tool especially in a corporatocracy.
Forget protesting in "designated areas" - that's a waste of time - not to mention Orwellian. Also watch out for left-wing and right-wing Gatekeeper organizations; they routinely steer activists into dead ends.
A great podcast of Lew Rockwell interviewing Tom Woods on his new book, Who Killed the Constitution. I just finished reading it myself and give it an enthusiastic recommendation.
Listen to the podcast here
For a good review of this compelling book, see David Gordon's Mises Review - here's an excerpt:
The question posed by the title of this book raises a further question, as the authors are well aware. If the Constitution is indeed dead, why does this matter? American conservatives have in past days been accused of "Constitution worship": why should we care whether actions of the government conform to this particular legal document? Woods and Gutzman respond that the Constitution provides a way to limit the government. It is far from the best conceivable arrangement; but while we stand under its legal authority, we should use it as a weapon against the state's continual grasp for power.
During his long presidential campaign when he also had responsibilities and duties as a United States Senator, John McCain found the time to make three separate trips to the nation of Georgia, a country of less than 5 million people, whose main claim to importance was a pipeline carrying oil from wells owned by western companies in the Caspian Sea basin.
McCain chief policy adviser Randy Scheunemann and his business partner lobbied McCain or his staff on 49 occasions in a 3 1/2 year span while being paid $830,000 dollars by the government of Georgia. Scheunemann stopped lobbying for Georgia this March but retains an interest in the lobbying firm that signed a new $200,000 agreement with the Georgian government.
McCain's time spent in Georgia is noteworthy because it affected his campaign: he has not found the time to visit a number of states in the US whose votes he will need to be elected president. Clearly he was not seeking votes in nation Georgia but perhaps he was looking for campaign contributions. Contributions from foreign governments and citizens are illegal but American oil companies may have shown their gratitude.
On August 13, McCain told reporters, "In the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations," as he denounced the Russian invasion of Georgia. The irony of that statement was not lost on the rest of the world given the US invasion of Iraq after the United Nations refused to authorize US invasion of Iraq. The US invaded on its own. So much for the McCain version of history.
McCain insists that the Russian invasion was a "setback for democracy" because President Saakashvili had been elected twice. But he doesn't tell that that president declared martial law in Georgia last November using tear gas and rubber bullets on Georgian citizens, shutting down an opposition television station too.
US officials have stressed that the White House and State Department repeatedly warned President Saakashvili and his government against responding to Russian military provocations in ways that could spark a broader conflict. A Georgian official confirmed this. But Saakashvili took the Russian bait and made the first military move in South Ossetia, responding to small-scale local violence with heavy handed military. Saakashvili was conferring with McCain by telephone virtually every day. What kind of advice did he receive? That "We are all Georgians?" That the US would ride to the rescue?
McCain has some explaining to do. Did his interest in Georgia promote campaign contributions? Is his foreign-policy basically run by lobbyists and in some cases lobbyists for foreign governments? Does that put him in direct conflict with the US State Department and even the Secretary of Defense? How reliable is his judgment? Is he a risk taker whose first instinct is to use the military? Or promise it when he shouldn't?
Wow, this thing is really neat. "The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth"
BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog's legs are articulated like an animal's, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule, measuring 1 meter long, 0.7 meters tall and 75 kg weight.
Of course DOD is funding it, so it will go for destruction instead of something useful, but click here to watch the video. This thing is more surefooted than I am.
I read of your report on the subject indicated above via Richard Volaar's commentary piece published on OpEdNews. I, therefore, tried to go to the source, but find that this article is only available to paid WMR subscribers. As a struggling writer myself I understand the need to earn a living from one's writing, and that a subscription-based service is perhaps the best available option for those of us whose writing is likely to be ignored by the mainstream media.
However, I also think that if such an NSA list of journalists and bloggers does exist as alleged -- particularly in the context of the one-line description included above on the WMR site, that is, in the context of a sentiment within the NSA that "journalists [and presumably bloggers given the headline] should be killed" -- well, it would seem to me that you would want to openly share such a list with the public.
This would help to expose the program to greater public scrutiny, help to publicize to society at large the dangers which are inherent within extralegal intelligence operations (and that perhaps we do not have a free press), and help to minimize the likelihood that such an assassination, or intimidation, program will or could occur.
Given the recent threats which have reportedly been made against Information Clearing House editor, Tom Feeley, and his family, it would seem that such a program may in fact be underway already.
Regardless, if such a list does exist and you have it in your possession, public interest would seem to warrant that you make the full list -- not only of particularly well-known journalists and bloggers -- publicly and freely available.
Hobson's Choice \HOB-suhnz-CHOIS\, noun: A choice without an alternative; the thing offered or nothing. It is an apparently free choice in which there is only one real option.
I've been trolling the news and the blogs, searching for hope. Haven't found a thing.
Let's see now, the Republicans have chosen a senile old fool who parrots the last thing he's heard, needing someone at his shoulder to prompt him (shades of deja vu). He wants war and more war, and to drill, dig and cut anything that hasn't been pumped, mined or logged before, all in the name of corporate profits. They are all ready for their rubber stamp Republican Convention.
On the other hand, we have the Democrats, who have a bright young man, annointed and chosen. This bright young man stood for principle, for an end to the wars, to cleaning up the DC cesspool. Sounded good! Now that he is the chosen one, we need a wider war in Afghanistan, which has been swallowing up foreign armies since the time of Alexander. We need to keep troops in Iraq apparently until Hell freezes over, for their own good, of course. We need to drill, dig and cut anything that hasn't been pumped, mined or logged before, all in the name of corporate profits, though clothed in greener terms.
We are shown the protest cages awaiting anyone who gets out of line and exercises their first amendment rights at the Democratic Convention, especially if they get within seven hundred feet of the convention doors.
There is little or no freedom left in the United States, regardless of party. The only thing protected in the United States is corporate profit. As happened in '06, with whomever is elected it will be business as usual; with We the People struggling to survive until the next clone is elected in 2012 and corporate profits and power continue to soar.
Someday, the rulers of the United States Empire will overstep themselves and the world will rise up to smite us, as it did the Axis in the 1940's. Either we will then be brought down and the world will breathe easier, or it will be the end of civilization as both the US and Israel have nuclear weapons and have declared their willingness to use them. Israel has the "Sampson alternative" which is to take the world with them if they are defeated, and we have authorized the use of first strike nuclear weapons against even non-nuclear nations, if deemed expedient.
Having chosen the "lesser of two evils" repeatedly and found that the evil still grows, I have run out of choices.
If I cannot find a candidate who believes in peace and diplomacy, with war as a last, defensive action if attacked, if I cannot find a candidate who believes that the Constitution of the United States is more than a "god-damned piece of paper" and wants to see it restored, intact and functioning, to the halls of government, if I cannot find a candidate who feels that We the People does not mean corporate entities, that government has a contract with the people and that contract is the Constitution and Bill of Rights, then I shall just have to exercise my dwindling right to choose and write in, a large, resounding NO!
Below is the body of an email I just sent, via the NYT web-based email facility, to Steven Lee Myers, who wrote last week's headline piece in response to which I wrote my article, All the Propaganda That's Fit to Print.
Your propaganda piece - Bush, Sending Aid, Demands That Moscow Withdraw - inspired my taking the time to write an article in response. The original URL follows immediately below, followed by online reprints which have thus far been published elsewhere.
And I see from your follow-on headline piece that you and your colleagues' shamelessness, of course, continues.
I don't know if you consider yourself, first and foremost, a journalist or a propagandist. If the former, you are a disgrace to what was once an admirable profession. If the latter, you're a terrible one at that as well.
We have memorials for heroes Who have fought in wars and died For great generals and others To express our nations pride.
From the American Revolution Until the wars we fight today Where we honor those people For, the ultimate price, they pay.
We have statues of politicians And the leaders of our land Monuments for almost everything Some small, some huge and grand.
They are made of stone - cast in bronze Carved in mountainsides and wood Some are fanciful, some somber As we celebrate all those, we should.
But, if you just think about it And if you search, everywhere You will see that one is missing And sadly, so many don't seem to care.
Where do we credit all those folks Who stand for peace and good will Who speak out against those wars That maim, destroy and kill?
Some will say, "It's unpatriotic!" To try to find a different course To resolve the worlds conflict With sane and rational discourse.
"They don't support the troops!" "They want to give up and surrender!" "They don't want to fight for freedom!" "It's just passive words, they tender!?
That could not be further from the truth It's because, they, honestly do care What's wrong with peaceful resolution Especially, when it is just and fair?
Let us all honor those peacekeepers Who would strive to find a better way To resolve the worlds differences And end, the terrible price we all pay.
They deserve their own monument For their valiant fight against all war Striving for world peace and freedom Isn't that, what America stands for?
So, let's build the US Peace Memorial For people of the world to come and see The people of our nation, long for peace Across every land, where all live free.
The Bush Regime imbeciles don't know when to stop. With the world still rolling in laughter from John McCain's claim that "in the 21st century nations don't invade other nations," the moronic US secretary of state declared: "This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten a neighbor, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed."
This from Condi Rice who is "proud" of the Bush Regime's invasion of Iraq.
This is not 1968. It is 40 years later, and roles have reversed. In the 21st century it is the United States that invades countries, occupies capitals, overthrows governments, and gets away with it.
The criminal Bush Regime has sent out its flunkies to huff and puff because Russia put its foot down against American hegemony on its border. Take your aggression elsewhere, the Russians said. We did not free constituent parts of our empire in order for them to become constituent parts of an American empire.
For years the Bush Regime has been fodder for the Daily Show. Condi Rice's inane statement will keep the laughter rolling.
The town of Postville, Iowa, population 2,000, has been turned into an open-air prison. Jerry Johnson, who works at nearby Luther College, called it something out of a bad science-fiction movie or the kind of thing a 1930s totalitarian regime might have cooked up.
"This was not only a grievous injustice but a shame on the state of Iowa and the federal government," said Mr. Johnson. "These were good, decent people who were also the most defenseless."
On May 12, immigration officials swooped in to arrest 400 undocumented workers from Mexico and Guatemala at the local meat-packing plant, a raid described as the biggest such action at a single site in U.S. history. The raid left 43 women, wives of the men who were taken away, and their 150 children without status or a means of support. The women cannot leave the town, and to make sure they do not they have been outfitted with leg monitoring bracelets.
"The women are effectively prisoners," said Father Paul Ouderkirk at St. Bridget's Roman Catholic Church. "The difference between them and anybody who is in jail is that in jail the government pays for them, but if they're on the streets we pay for them.
"What kind of a government makes prisoners of 43 mothers who all have children and then says, ?You can't work, you can't leave and can't stay?' That boggles the imagination."
Want to learn a little of where out of control executive power came from? Then read Thomas DiLorenzo's "The Great Gold Robbery of 1933"
Here's an excerpt:
It's been 75 years since the federal government, on the spurious grounds of fighting the Great Depression, ordered the confiscation of all monetary gold from Americans, permitting trivial amounts for ornamental or industrial use. This happens to be one of the episodes Kevin Gutzman and I describe in detail in our new book, Who Killed the Constitution? The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush. From the point of view of the typical American classroom, on the other hand, the incident may as well not have occurred.
A key piece of legislation in this story is the Emergency Banking Act of 1933, which Congress passed on March 9 without having read it and after only the most trivial debate. House Minority Leader Bertrand H. Snell (R-NY) generously conceded that it was "entirely out of the ordinary" to pass legislation that "is not even in print at the time it is offered." He urged his colleagues to pass it all the same: "The house is burning down, and the President of the United States says this is the way to put out the fire. [Applause.] And to me at this time there is only one answer to this question, and that is to give the President what he demands and says is necessary to meet the situation."
Among other things, the act retroactively approved the president's closing of private banks throughout the country for several days the previous week, an act for which he had not bothered to provide a legal justification. It gave the secretary of the Treasury the power to require all individuals and corporations to hand over all their gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates if in his judgment "such action is necessary to protect the currency system of the United States."
The American news media keeps Americans in complete ignorance on how bad the American economy really is and how badly people are being affected by it.
This article explains how bad economic conditions are for many Americans. Here's an excerpt:
Hard Times For Hollywood, Florida. With the US housing market in freefall, Jonathan Franklin visits the former Florida boomtown where repossessions are at an all-time high, pawnshops are thriving and residents predict an economic meltdown to rival the great depression
It is easy to conclude from reading this article that what they are experiencing, right now, may be the opening days of an economic depression at least as bad, and probably worse, than the 1930s depression.
The great threat this global depression presents to our society is that too many of these desperate and scared people will fall victim to the propaganda of both of the major political parties and vote for either the Republican Party's form of fascism or the Democratic Party's form of fascism.
The Democratic Party's form of fascism will offer the working class the minimum number of reforms and concessions required to buy the cooperation of the working class. The Republican form of fascism will offer the working class extremely belligerent nationalism, militarism and scapegoats, such as Mexican workers, on which they can vent their anger.
Bottom line: In the depths of the looming global depression the great threat to American society is many scared and desperate Americans will embrace either the Democratic form of fascism or the Republican form of fascism.
Pursuing one's own legitimate self-interests is an American condition. Freedom to chase dreams and be successful at achieving them is the source of America's prosperity. While people in other nations struggle to stay alive in their holes, Americans are out trying out all that life has to offer.
The idea of community interests being superior to individual interests is the limiting political cocoon nations, other than America, have experienced since they formed. The idea that a person can focus on something greater than himself and chase after it is foreign to the people of those nations.
However, in America, since it was a frontier, almost 400 years ago, people had to struggle to survive as individuals and families. They knew, from their religious values, as individuals, they could do it. They were not dependent on any earthly beings to save them.
The result was obvious. Creativity, inventiveness, hard work, the many who achieved, and the many who followed in greater achievements, defined America. Americans, their families and their communities prospered at a rapid rate. While the rest of the world slept in their holes of depression or warred upon one another, Americans grew a great and independent nation.
Either most people did not have the time to be depressed, or they saw how easy it was to get out of their holes. The American personality, if it could be measured, must have been a happier, smiling and more interesting than their Old World counterparts were. One of the best observers of the Americans, contrasted with Europeans, was Alexis deTocqueville in his Democracy in America.
Americans should have no excuse for depression or being down. If they do have bouts with being down, they should take advantage of what is American, and rise above it. Just fall in love with something better than loving ones own self. It really works. America proved it.
What I found interesting is that Israel has been supplying (for a price, of course) military hardware to the tune of hundreds of "millions of dollars" to Georgia, not to mention military training.
We the People of the United States have been giving Israel billions in weapons and hardware, which they then sell to others for a profit. (Or they might use the resources they would use to build their own, to produce new toys for consumers) God, I wish I knew of some big company that would give me everything I needed and more, so I could sell the surplus for big bucks, especially when I could be sure that if I oversold my stocks, the American taxpayers would pony up to replenish me.
Yet, nobody gripes about it and if you do protest, you are (Horrors!) an "antisemite!"
Anyway, thought the article might be of interest. Here's an excerpt:
From the moment Georgia launched a surprise attack on the tiny breakaway region of South Ossetia last week, prompting a fierce Russian counterattack, Israel has been trying to distance itself from the conflict. This is understandable: with Georgian forces on the retreat, large numbers of civilians killed and injured, and Russia's fury unabated, Israel's deep involvement is severely embarrassing...
The question remains as to why Israel was involved in the first place. There are several reasons. The first is simply economic opportunism: for years, especially since the 11 September 2001 attacks, arms exports and "security expertise" have been one of Israel's growth industries. But the close Israeli involvement in a region Russia considers to be of vital interest suggests that Israel might have been acting as part of the broader US scheme to encircle Russia and contain its reemerging power.
Democrats? Republicans? What's the difference? Both parties and their heirs apparent want to expand the wars, attack Iran, drill, mine and log anything that hasn't yet been pumped, dug, or cut in the holy name of corporate profit.
We have the educational system and health care of a third world country, our social services are going down the tubes, but corporate profits are up, as is unemployment. The nation is bankrupt. We are approaching the NeoCon ideal of a nation of sick, starving beggars who will do anything for a few pennies to stave off starvation for their families. They've been pissed off ever since Roosevelt managed to turn it around in the thirties.
We'd better find a lot of people like Cindy Sheehan, who believe in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, power of the people, peace and diplomacy, and vote them into power.
Otherwise, I fear we shall get what we truly deserve and it will take another generation to cure the problem as it did in the forties.
A U.S. District Court judge ruled last week in Denver that, even though protesters' free speech rights will be damaged, "national security" justifies the government's plan to restrict parade permits to end 3 hours before the Democratic Party convention begins. Thousands of police and 400 national guard will be on duty, in a city where, four years ago, activists exposed and fought a widespread, illegal, program of local police surveillance on political activists.
Further, protesters will be kept away from the convention center, allowed only into chain link fenced cages 700 feet from the center's door. Reportedly, the cages won't be wrapped over the top with barbed wire, as they were at the last DNC in Boston. The "freedom cages" will be ringed by police and concrete barriers, and, as of today, huge media tents are being erected between the cages and the convention. Some comments on recent blog posts about the suppression of protest:
"Watch them almost break all of the rules, and get down and dirty! Order now and get your free AT&T/telecom immunity tote bag!"
"'Protest Zones?' I'm an unabashed Obama supporter, but as much as I like him, I like the rights to free speech and free association even more. The Dems should've rejected the idea of free speech zones outright, as a symbol of the Constitution-hating Bush."
"What about the 'security concerns' of the protesters? They want to secure the bill of rights, they want to secure peace and an end to foreign occupations, they want to secure themselves from arrest for bullsh*t crimes...I guess these are the rare cases where the freedom to tyranize trumps 'security'."
We have all watched George Bush express indignance about the suppression of protest in China, while justifying increasing repression in the "land of the free". Now we have the Democrats attempting to hold a political convention with dissenting opinions blocked by barricades.
World Can't Wait will be joining thousands of people in the Denver protests who want to send a different message to the world. Bring the whole Bush program of lying to start illegitimate wars, and threatening other countries, spying on citizens, justifying torture -- to a HALT!
My sweet lovely son, Sperm of my sperm, Bone of my bone, Blood of my blood, Gouged out, From the heart, And soul, Of my very own being.
Oh, That I could hold your hand, Be at your side, That I could enter into, The very center of your soul, That I could give you shelter, From the perils of this world, Even that I could take your place.
But alas, I cannot. We cannot. Like young pups, Having been released, Thrown into the wild.
Innocent children, Having been forced, To make their way, Into a world of thorns!
Naive fledglings, Schooled in the flag-draped, Blood-spattered, Bush-laden, No child left behind, Walls of academia.
Expendables, Having been taken hostage, By a confederation, Of Napoleonic minions, Jack-booted jingoes, Fabulists, Wagering that, Our children, Have been blinded, Into accepting, The rather grim reality, Of monetary exchange. Lads and lassies, Mere striplings, Seduced into, Selling their souls, To that of. The highest bidder.
Military recruiters, Hawkers, Peddlers of death, Cash signing bonuses, Forty thousand dollars.
Thirty fucking, Pieces of silver.
Ready-made, Soldiers of fortune, Hired guns, Slayers of men, Women and children, Throughout the world. Patriots all, Each one, Nothing more, Than just, Another mercenary child.
If I call you and offer to buy your car, and you agree, and I pay you something and you give me the car, it is plain and simple free trade, the actions of free people in a free market. If, however, the DMV decides it must first approve the transaction, evaluate the car, agree on the price, and add, say, 10% to it as a tax one or both of us has to pay, that is a managed market.
When the DMV steps in, they place us on a list of transactions they must review. The review may take months, perhaps a year or so. After all, they must allocate both the time and the people to the case. In the meantime, the interest and the value changes, and the deal may not go through.
America started with free people, each able and not prevented by anyone from making their own decisions, as long as they did not cause an injustice to someone not involved. Trades went on and on until America turned out to be the most prosperous and productive nation in the world. No experts got in the way.
When Virginia City, Nevada, burned down in late 1875 at over six thousand feet up on the side of a snow-swept mountain, the people in the city got together and rebuilt it better than before it burned. It took two months to replace two thousand of the four thousand structures, and nobody froze, starved or died during the process.
Compare that to New Orleans today, where DMV-types get in the way of the rebuilding so they can delay and have their say, and the taxpayers foot the bill.
Do you want to sink a well in search of oil today? No can do!
It's not like the old days where, if you owned the property, you could risk your fortune to prove a well. Now, you are blocked by ignorant bureaucrats, even though people are paying through the nose for gasoline because the supply has shrunk, relative to the demand, those DMV-types know best what is good for us and will delay drilling for ten years or more.
That is because we are no longer free to trade amongst ourselves as long as the DMV elite are in control, as they know best.
Those elite who get in the way, for our "benefit," have repealed the free market, which served us so well in the past 400 years.
Unprovoked Russian aggression, U.S.-backed proxy war, or something else? It's probably best to assume it's NOT what's being told to us by US government officials. Here's another perspective that's worth listening to:
This is an interesting article. Perhaps worth buying the book, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule.
Here's an excerpt:
Fantastic misgovernment of the kind we have seen is not an accident, nor is it the work of a few bad individuals. It is the consequence of triumph by a particular philosophy of government, by a movement that understands the liberal state as a perversion and considers the market the ideal nexus of human society. This movement is friendly to industry not just by force of campaign contributions but by conviction; it believes in entrepreneurship not merely in commerce but in politics; and the inevitable results of its ascendance are, first, the capture of the state by business and, second, all that follows: incompetence, graft, and all the other wretched flotsam that we've come to expect from Washington.
As I've said before, if we don't excise this cancer before it metasticizes, it will kill this country. The question; Is there more time? Is it too late?
They stole two elections, killed Paul Wellstone, lied to invade some country to steal some oil ... they torture, spy on us, lock people away in secret prisons, sent the anthrax ... and they attacked their own country ... .
Because they are lying, filthy, sons of midgets and musk ox ... a super de dooper secret Mafia that actually runs our country and our world.
Have you read the best-selling book from a few years ago, What's the Matter with Kansas? - or a synopsis or some excerpts from it?
Well, if you're not familiar with the book or have forgotten what it's all about, in a nutshell, it's this --
It's an analysis of one of the of the poorer states, Kansas, and its continually voting for politicians who back corporations and the wealthy instead of the interests of the majority of its own citizens. Kansas native son and former Young Republican Thomas Frank marvels in his book that his state's farmers and wage-earners dig their own economic graves at the ballot box year after year, riled up by hot-button social issues that the politicians they elect have little power (and probably no inclination so that the issues remain for the next election) to change.
Another book that was recently published (June, 2008) may very well have a bottom-line answer not only to the question of what's the matter with Kansas, but the answer to the question of what's the matter with America.
Think about it. In 1972 (Nixon's re-election), 1984 (Reagan's re-election), 1988 (Bush I's election), and 2004 (Bush II's re-election), wage-earners, salaried middle-class, and small businesspeople throughout the country joined with Kansans in digging their own economic graves. They also were riled up (especially in 1984 and later) by hot-button social issues and (in 2004) worried about bogeymen manufactured by the so-called Republicans to scare the electorate into voting for them as their only possible protectors. (Does that seem similar to what John McCain and his handlers are doing now on the heels of George W. Bush and his handlers?)
The recently published book is Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter. The author is Rick Shenkman, an associate professor of history at George Mason University and the founder and editor of History News Network. It tells us a lot about what's wrong with our collective selves. And like what Frank tells us in his book that followed Kansas, which is entitled What's the Matter with America? - it ain't pretty and it sure is worrisome.
What's ugly and worrisome is that too many Americans are largely ignorant, shortsighted, and swayed by meaningless phrases and phantoms. Shenkman and his book tell us how a nation that is misinformed and accepts the misinformation as fact (in large part due to corporate television and right-wing radio "hosts") ends up pursuing failed policies. Shenkman thinks things could get better if we start dealing honestly with the problem.
Of course, the question remains: Will that happen if not making things better profits and keeps in power the politicians who gain the most from the status quo?
No matter how bad the American economy may be today, tomorrow will be much worse.
The important point to keep in mind is that the very people that have grossly mismanaged American capitalism for almost eight years are now expected to miraculously, at late in the eleventh hour of this crisis, somehow come to their senses and do everything required to save us from an economic disaster that will make the 1930s depression look pale by comparison.
I doubt very much if there really is any hope that America is going to be saved by anybody from this disaster. More to the point, I doubt if America is going to be saved by the fascist Bush regime or its fascist supporters in the two major political parties in Congress.
Fascist regimes come into existence to preserve their economic and political power. Our present de facto American fascist state is no exception.
What I expect to happen is for the economy to continue to deteriorate. Probably, rather quickly. With only a few very ineffective attempts to stave-off what will probably be a global depression.
Long ago, the men who discovered how to make fire and the wheel were probably burned at the stake. They discovered those new tools to ease man's burdens, but frightened them with the change they created. Great thinkers, artists, scientists and inventors were curious and stood apart from their communities. Every creative thought, act and new invention was denounced. The men of courage and vision moved ahead in spite of the headsman's ax.
No creative individual was motivated by a desire to please community. Community despised and feared what he offered. His passion and curiosity were his only motives. His dream became his only goal. His dreams and genius drove him, not the benefits community derived from them. He held his interests above all things and against all men. He moved ahead whether others agreed with him or not. He lived for himself. By living for himself, he achieved great things. Man cannot survive except through his mind, his interests, aspirations, through his skills and talents exercised freely.
No such thing as a community brain exists. Individuals think and act on their own. Reasoning minds cannot conform to the interests of community under any form of compulsion for the needs, opinions and wishes of others. The creative individual stands by his own thoughts and acts; the envious, angry parasite lives in the opinions of others. The creative thinks while parasites copy. The creative invents and produces while parasites take. The creative are concerned with conquering nature, while the parasite's concern is the conquering men. The creative individual needs independence, neither serving nor ruling. He deals with others by free exchange and his choice. Parasites seek power to bind all men together in community and slavery. They claim man is a tool for the use of community and must think as community, living in selfless, joyless servitude to any need but his own.
Throughout history, everything we have, every achievement came from the work of some independent mind. Every destructive horror came from force individuals into a herd of brainless, soulless robots, with no personal rights, aspirations, will, hope, or dignity. It is an ancient conflict. It has another name: ?Individual interests against the interests of community. America was based on the principle of individual freedom and man's inalienable rights to his own life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In America, individuals were free to seek gain and produce, to prosper, not starve; to achieve without plunder; to have personal value and self-respect. Look at America and know this is what the politicians are asking you to change.
I think people miss the fact that there are two parallel oppressions happening in this country.
First, there's an oppression of non-native and minority groups aimed at keeping white people from having to compete with or even see people that remind them that the whole world doesn't look like them. Those are the people that meet in the camps, whether they're Japanese living in California post-Pearl Harbor, or Jews living in the wrong neighborhood in Poland, or Mexicans who happen to be born on the poor side of the border.
The two most noticeable incarnations of this first oppression are the War on Terror (or rather, War on Brown People) and the War on Drugs (War on Black People).
Guantanamo Bay is the most-talked-about manifestation of the War on Terror, but other manifestations include the outcry against selling Unocal to a Chinese company and pompous talk about the "national security implications" of America's not-so-impenetrable border with Mexico.
National security? My ass.
Unless it's a threat to national security that your kid's best friend might be bilingual. The horror.
And the "War on Drugs" is almost geonicidal in its focused destruction of African American communities. Sure, drugs can be dangerous when people get out of control with them, but so can anything else. And instead of trying to create an intelligent (i.e. non-criminal) response to modern drugs, white America has pushed all the negative consequences into the inner city ghettos.
It's fine for white people to smoke their crack in the suburbs, but God save you if you happen to be the black man handing baggies of powder into the Priuses cruising through your neighborhood.
On the other hand, the oppression of citizens looks so much more benign -- a big car, a big television, a Big Gulp, and a big ol' "whatever you say" response to what comes out of Washington D.C. I don't even think it's a conspiracy -- people would quit voting for it if they didn't want it.
Fortunately, America is going to run out of foreign creditors before the latter comes true. Unfortunately, that's just going to make the former case so much more likely, as the natives get ever more bitter about how little their worthless dollars can buy.
In short, if you read the inscription on the base of the Statue of Liberty, and think that phrases like "your huddled masses" might apply to you, start thinking hard about real estate in Canada.
Now comes the information that George Bush personally ordered a faked document to support a reason to invade Iraq. Ron Suskind's "The Way of the World" accuses the Bush Administration of paying former Iraqi Intelligence Chief, Tahir Jalil Habbush a Five Million dollar bribe as "Hush Money".
Seems that the Bush Bunch had written a letter in the fall of 2003 to create a handwritten letter, dated July, 2001, from Habbush to Saddam saying that Atta ( one of the 9/11 hijackers ) trained in Iraq before the attacks and that Saddam's man was buying yellow cake for Niger with help from a "small team from the Al-Qaeda organization."
But that's not what the hush money was about. Habbush had been supplying Bush and Blair (Prime Minister of Britain) with Intelligence, but it wasn't the Intelligence that Bush and Blair wanted to hear. The word from Habbush was that there were no WMD, eliciting a statement of F...That from Bush, so at Bush's direction, the United States moved Habbush to a safe house in Jordan and paid him five million dollars to keep quite.
And Bush and the boys went on about leading the United States into an unnecessary, immoral war, using their own doctored Intelligence. A war that would require the sacrifice of over four thousand American soldiers lives, and over a million Iraqi lives. The war cost has indebted you and me to over three trillion dollars. The deaths and the monetary cost continue to mount as long as we continue to occupy Iraq.
But if what has been charged, that hush money was used to keep the truth silenced, and that silence was the cause of all the death and destruction in Iraq, then don't we have a monster to deal with?
Why won't Congress consider impeachment? Why won't the Justice Department consider War Criminal charges against the Bush Bunch? Is it because they don't think the charges are true? Shouldn't the charges be investigated and either the charge be proven to be false or proven to be true? And if the charges are proven to be true, what then?
Remember if the charges are true, then our President is a mass murderer. If the Congress and Justice Department won't bring an investigation to determine the truth of these charges, are they Co-conspirators in a possible mass murder crime cover-up?
If you doubt what I have said, maybe we should consult Mace Hutchinson, the 16-year-old boy in Ozark, Missouri, who fell from a bridge, broke his back and then was tasered 19 times by the police. Why was a child with a broken back tortured by electrocution? Well, he REFUSED TO COMPLY WITH THE POLICE OFFICERS' ORDERS! A high offense to be sure, as we all know police officers are second in holiness only to U.S. soldiers. But why did these heroes in blue feel that an unarmed, obviously injured boy was a threat to them? Well you see, he apparently mentioned something about killing police officers according to the spokesman for the Police Department. (Before or after they started electrocuting him? We aren't told).
And another:
Maybe we can sit down with the family of Cheryl Noel, a 44-year-old mother who was executed in her own bedroom by a member of the group of criminals who call themselves the "Baltimore County SWAT Team" who invaded her home with no just cause whatsoever at 4:30 in the morning. The reason for this brutal slaying? They had found "trace amounts" of drugs in her trash can and when they busted into her home she had the audacity to have had a gun in her hand in order to defend herself! Silly woman, that's what the cops are for! (And who defends us from the cops, you ask? Just move along, nothing to see here....) And of course, as usual, the State's Attorney General's Office called the shooting justified. You are not supposed to ask, of course, whether eradicating drugs is so important that we need to let the Government's goon squads break into our homes at will and murder us as they see fit.
These are just two of the many, many injustices that people are dealing with all the time. Sadly, this is becoming more and more of the rule, rather than just the exception. Something's definitely rotten here.
Your inequalities, like your signature, fingerprints and DNA, are unique to you. No one else has exactly what you have, which makes everyone unequal in physical ways. What are the nonphysical factors that make us unequal? Certainly, age, body stature, appearance, sex, education and experiences make us different.
Our values differ to some extent, and our interests, aspirations for the future, our skills and talents, the way we dress, speak and move, our temperaments, such as introversion, extraversion, depth of intuition and artistic expressions, and way of confronting life, all make us different. How is it possible that we can be equal, other than at birth?
In America, from the early 1600's on up until today, our inequalities were applauded as well as rewarded; to the extent useful to everyone around us. This is what made America the most prosperous shining city on the hill. In America today, however, under the new worldview, only equality is applauded. The average is the star, he or she who is the best of the worst and the worst of the best is qualified for recognition and acceptance.
We are to be ashamed if we stand above our fellows. If we focus on objectives beyond the herd, get better grades and achieve great breakthroughs, the herd must hammer and sickle-cut us down to the community level. Equality of outcome has become the new ideal of America, led by the n'er do wells and envious among us who want only to share the wealth created by the unequal.
With all of our unique inequalities, Americans today are expected to sink their identities into the community, the herd, and move as a managed group in the directions defined by the few elite called upon to rule. It has always been the task and responsibility of the ruler to pacify the herd, to prevent them from stampeding beyond their control.
The elite are destined by birth to rule over the many. Inequalities must be limited, as the task of social management is made too difficult even for elite. It is the appeals of the modern elite that people adhere to their visions of what is best for our nation in a world of enslaved and poverty-stricken people, with whom we must become compatible.
Equality of outcome, in all respects, is the newly desired way of life.
"Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed."
The policies cover:
"any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form," including hard drives, flash drives, cellphones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover "all papers and other written documentation," including books, pamphlets and "written materials commonly referred to as 'pocket trash' or 'pocket litter.' "
In April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco upheld the government's power to conduct searches of an international traveler's laptop without suspicion of wrongdoing.
All I can say is Adolph and Uncle Joe would be proud of these guys, and of the United States, whose government abandoned their Constitution and Bill of Rights for Hitler's Enabling Acts with some new, even more draconian twists.
I fear the day will come when we'll meet in the camps.
When America began, almost 400 years ago, widely experienced prosperity was something new in politics and history. Individual freedom was unheard of in the days before our founding. People were never free of the threat of punishment by using their own thoughts, following their own interests and aspirations, using their own skills and talents to create, innovate, build, make and sell what they made to others.
Government and the elite ruled, and they did not appreciate anyone with a new idea that could disturb the status quo and make managing society more difficult.
In America, we did not have big government or elite to rule. Nothing and no one got in the way. The result was an unheard of prosperity shared among a greater number of people, and a growing inequality that allowed everyone to be different and enjoy the blessings of their difference.
We did not have any compassionate elite trying to stuff square bocks into round holes and provide equality of outcome and position. Prosperity was only realized with individual freedom and small government tasked to provide protection only against injustice, not to provide justice.
Things changed, however. Politicians today are crying out for more change. Change to what? Change to add more pitfalls and walls around free people to stop them from exercising and enjoying their inequalities.
A small minority of Americans, who have no belief in the American way of life, want equality of outcome as well as care and feeding by elite. They envy those who have more, so they want them pressed down to their level and equality without having to endure the creative, innovative trouble making that comes with being around free people.
Inflation, long promoted by the US government - and it's central bank, the federal reserve - acts like a tax on all of us. Over a long term, prices go up, our real wages go down, and there's a transfer of wealth from the great majority to the politically-connected few.
Henry Hazlitt, in his great book, Economics in One Lesson, gave a brilliant overview of the effects of inflation. Here's a brief overview:
It acts to determine the individual and business policies we are all forced to follow
Discourages all prudence and thrift
Encourages squandering
Often makes it more profitable to speculate than to produce
It tears apart the whole fabric of stable economic relationships
Its injustices drive people to desperate remedies
It plants the seeds of fascism and communism
It leads people to demand totalitarian controls
It ends invariably in bitter disillusion and colapse
Does it all sound pretty fanciful? Well read the book, and get a better understanding of the basics.
