tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63174392024-03-13T22:23:27.369-07:00Talk About AmericaMostly a political blog - dedicated to my point of view, not an entirely ignorant one at that - feel free to comment - I'm willing to engage in spirited discourseUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger116125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-89478752013868136872010-03-27T08:11:00.000-07:002010-03-27T09:41:31.353-07:00Lee Harvey Oswald?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0c/LHO14.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 171px; height: 196px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0c/LHO14.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:18pt;">Y</span>esterday, on the radio while driving to work a man, a teacher in Nashville TN, told the story of how, after picking up his 10 year old daughter from school was driving home when a right-wing fanatic rear ended his automobile because he had an Obama bumper sticker on the back of his car. The victim, I dislike that word - let's use survivor, the survivor of the incident recounted the horrible tale of how, after pulling over and exiting his vehicle to speak to the driver, this wingnut continued smashing his SUV into the back of his sedan to the accompaniment of his daughter's screams as she was still strapped into the back seat! If this wasn't enough, AT THAT VERY MOMENT as I was listening to what's become an all too familiar tale of right wing violence these days, a man drives by in a red pickup outfitted like a contractor's vehicle sporting a bumper sticker on the back that read "Where is Lee Harvey Oswald when we <i>really</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> need him?" </span> <p class="MsoNormal">Silence... pause... what? Let me look at that again...<br /><br />"Where is Lee Harvey Oswald when we <i>really</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> need him?"<br /><br />It doesn’t take but a nanosecond to understand what this man advocates. I was incensed as </span><i>any </i><span style="font-style: normal;">American should be. I drove by Mr. Bumper Sticker to see what sort of person would put such a hateful message on his truck for all to see and saw a man furiously biting his nails but otherwise appearing as normal as can be; middle-aged Caucasian, thin, fit and tan, with longish salt and pepper hair.<br /><br />After writing his license plate number on my hand I drove right on by and immediately upon arriving in my office called the Los Angeles field office of the Secret Service and reported what I saw. As we know, the agent said they take all threats against the president no matter how casual or veiled seriously, which in this case is a public statement that one wishes an infamous assassin would do to the current president what he was alleged to have done to a former president. As a card-carrying member of the ACLU I'm all for expressing one's views no matter how repugnant but advocating this in public is well over the line in my opinion especially in the current political milieu.<br /><br />Where does this hate get us? Paul Krugman, Nobel prize winning economist and columnist of The New York Times says it well when he writes "In the short run, Republican extremism may be good for Democrats, to the extent that it prompts a voter backlash. But in the long run, it’s a very bad thing for America. We need to have two reasonable, rational parties in this country. And right now we don’t." I would argue we need more than two but that’s a different post. See the link to his most recent column in the title of this post.<br /><br />How did the Nashville story end? Well the teacher obtained the license plate of the offender, called 911 and the man was arrested. Apparently he was drunk, which obviously is no excuse.<br /><br />Me thinks a goodly portion of the right wing is drunk too - drunk on hate whipped up by the likes of Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, Fox News et. al. and incredibly <span style="font-style: italic;">some</span> Republican elected officials like John Boehner. Disagreeing with a policy or legislation is as American as one can get but the bill passed by majority vote. Last time I checked in a democracy the majority carries the day.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: normal;">Please, my fellow American citizens that happen to be Republicans - the bill passed and is the law of the land. Get used to it. Get used to it like many Americans who happened to be Democrats had to get used to the fact that conservative Supreme Court justices appointed George W. Bush to be president. Its how the system works. We have rules that we need to follow or else we end up like the Balkans or Somalia.<br /></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-64674156844934914162010-03-25T08:47:00.000-07:002010-03-25T08:49:50.401-07:00And we are surprised?<object width="320" height="260"><span style="font-size:180%;">I</span>'ve been saying essentially the same thing for years now - chickens (as they always do) come home to roost. <param name="movie" value="http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/flash/player.swf"><param name="flashvars" value="config=http://mediamatters.org/embed/cfg2?id=201003230020"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="allownetworking" value="all"><embed src="http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/flash/player.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars="config=http://mediamatters.org/embed/cfg2?id=201003230020" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="260"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-86272021158192364052010-03-24T08:39:00.000-07:002010-03-25T08:52:57.845-07:00These neanderthals wouldn't know totalitarianism or socialism if it bit them on the fanny<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/03/21/health/protesters480/protesters480-blogSpan.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 282px; height: 171px;" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/03/21/health/protesters480/protesters480-blogSpan.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">(news flash to the sign holder at left and St. Ronnie - willful ignorance is the problem) </span><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:180%;">W</span>hat part of majority rule don't these people get? Totalitarian tactics? Socialism? Given the chance they would and have done the same thing. Hypocrites.<br /><br />This is one of my beefs with America. Ever since St. Ronald we've been pulled so far to the right that the center begins to look like "socialism." And I'd hazard a guess that 90% of America doesn't even know what these terms actually mean. Socialism is when the state owns the means of production or to put it simply; all private business.<br /><br />No serious national figure, least of all Barack Obama or even Dennis Kucinich and Barney Sanders advocates that. Socialized medicine is when the hospitals are owned by the government and all staff including doctors are government employees. Kind of like the Veterans Administration and the US Military. Kinda makes you go hmmm. If its good enough for the militarily and the Vets who the "support our troops" crowd worship why isn't just the modicum of reform that the bill represents good enough for the rest of the country?<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-63640738089287581072009-06-03T23:22:00.000-07:002009-06-04T00:05:33.358-07:00Rearranging the deck chairsProf. Walt's discussion (click above link) is over the Obama administration's recent pronouncements on the settlements. We essentially agree but he's more polite and erudite about it than I.<br /><br />In my view this is a lot of heat without much light. Big wow! The US is finally getting tough on the Israelis - woo hoo! What amounts to a simple reiteration of long standing US policy vis a vis the illegal Israel colonies (sorry, can't call them settlements - too dignified - lets call a spade an effing shovel) in the West Bank to generate this kind of twittering (not the electronic kind - the old fashioned OMG did you hear what he said cocktail party kind) just shows how low the bar has sunk. This is pitiful. The notion that the Obama administration is getting all steely eyed is nonsense. Look, the Israeli power structure of Labor/Kadima/Likud are no more interested in peace than Phillip Morris is interested in getting out of the tobacco business. The status quo is too profitable and besides making tons of money at US taxpayer expense the goal is to completely cleanse Eretz Israel of non-Jews leaving a democracy for one religious group. Tell me how that is so much different than Iran?<br /><br />It started in '48 with the official stated policy of Ben-Gurion and the Zionists to cleanse the land of Palestinians (mainly Muslim and Christians while enlisting the Druze for inside assistance) and <span style="font-weight: bold;">everything</span> that has occurred since has been in the furtherance of that goal. Witness the current cleansing of East Jerusalem and the presence of 300,000 rabid fundamentalists in the West Bank. I'll believe that the administration is finally getting tough on these right wing war criminals when we withhold a couple billion dollars of the several billion we ship over there each year. Now that would make front page news.<br /><br />And while he's at it he should get tough on our own right wing war criminals.<br /><br />Still its better than Bush - which is about the same thing as saying its better than nothing.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-61578689954360798532009-05-19T07:50:00.000-07:002009-05-19T07:54:34.564-07:00What's wrong with a Bi-National State?<div class="content"> <p>Two questions for Mr. Walt regarding his latest blog post - today at www.foreignpolicy.com<br /></p> <p>1) What's wrong with a bi-national democracy? Many believe its the only solution that's likely to last. True it would require that Israel not be a "Jewish" state, which on the face of it is as racist as making the US or any other democracy a "insert name of religion here" state. If you want to be a theocratic parliamentary republic, fine, you will engender much opposition - but don't call yourselves a democracy and claim to share American values.</p> <p>2) As the goal of the Israeli power structure and its allies such as AIPAC in the US and elsewhere is to continue the ethnic cleansing it began in 1948 what could conceivably entice Israel to make peace w/the Palestinians? </p> <p>The Israeli power structure has ever been interested in peace w/the Palestinians. Yes, they made peace w/Egypt & Jordan and would like a treaty w/Syria and Lebanon because these are existing nations with armies and land from which to launch attacks. But the goal has always been to drive the Palestinians out of Eretz Israel. Read Ilann Pappe's "Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine." Plan Dalet was conceived to force as many Palestinians out of Palestine as possible. There is an article in this month's National Geographic describing the Arab Christian exodus from the Middle East and specifically the West Bank because Israel makes life intolerable spurring emigration. Its working!</p> <p>Bibi will bide his time waiting for Obama's popularity to wane (which it will) and then launch a new attack on the Palestinians either in Gaza or the West Bank or both. He may even bomb the Iranians. Obama will be hobbled and unable to do anything. New settlements will be built, the wall will be longer and higher and generally magnify the defacto apartheid system in Gaza and the WB eventually passing on to the next government an Israel with fewer Palestinians than when he took over. This is the goal. Gradual depopulation leaving lebensraum for the Jews.</p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-13163629231805643402009-05-04T22:27:00.000-07:002009-05-04T22:37:29.016-07:00Newt Gingrich: neo-neo-conservative vs. Stephen Walt: of the realist school of foreign policy.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/images/081230_Walt_Head_Shot_sm.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 170px;" src="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/images/081230_Walt_Head_Shot_sm.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:180%;">I</span>n these two articles, (links below) one reporting on a speech Newt Gingrich gave to AIPAC just yesterday and the other from Stephen Walt (at left), a well known Harvard professor of international relations, both Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama are accused of endangering Israel. Just who are we supposed to believe?<br /><div face="garamond,new york,times,serif" size="12pt" style=""><br />Gingrich accuses Obama of endangering the security of Israel and says the Obama adminstration is "weak" like the Carter administration. No mention of course that Carter actually brokered peace with Egypt, Israel's most credible external foe, which is galaxies beyond what any Republican administration has accomplshed in the arena. In the latter Walt posits that Netanyahu endangers the security of Israel by being too intransigent and if this stubbornness continues will lead to a much less favorable outcome for the Israelis.<br /><br />If we look a little deeper, supposedly Newt is positioning himself for a run at the presidency in 2012 and one could be forgiven for thinking he's buttering some bread here and pledging fealty to AIPAC. Given the fact that the USA resoundingly rejected an intellectually and morally bankrupt not to mention failed right wing philosophy last November shouldn't that give us some kind of clue as to the validity of this particular argument? Walt, well known as one of the dynamic duo that penned "The Israel Lobby and American Foreign Policy" with John Mearsheimer, examines the case from an academicians perch with the freedom that his position allows.<br /><br />Newt labels Obama's policy of constructive engagement with Iran a "fantasy" and "very dangerous" for Israel. Newt goes on and likens "... negotiations with the current Iranian regime to negotiating with Adolf Hitler, and called for "enforcing the disruption of gasoline supplies until the Iranian economy broke, the ayatollahs were ousted and a new regime was in place without a single shot fired." That earned thunderous applause." Well of course given the audience. Shades of Cheney's "we don't want the smoking gun to be in the form of a mushroom cloud" Newt is just as dangerous, maybe even more so because he's really quite intelligent and well spoken.<br /><br />On the other hand Walt says that... "The prime minister [Netanyahu] and his allies keep harping about an "existential" threat from Iran, but this bogeyman is mostly nonsense. Iran has zero -- repeat, zero -- nuclear weapons today, and even if it were to acquire a few at some point in the future, it could not use them against nuclear-armed Israel without committing national suicide. Let me say that again: national suicide." Not to mention the fact that Iran hasn't invaded any countries lately unlike the good 'ol USA and its "coalition of the willing."<br /><br />Who in their right mind actually believes Israel faces an existential threat from anyone let alone from Iran? As Walt says... "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said some remarkably foolish things about the Holocaust and repeatedly questioned Israel's legitimacy (as in his oft-mistranslated statement about Israel "vanishing from the page of time"), but he's never threatened to murder millions of Israelis (and Palestinians) with nuclear weapons. Just last weekend, he even told ABC's George Stephanopolous that if the Palestinians reached an agreement with Israel, then Iran would support it. Moreover, as Roger Cohen has noted, there is no evidence that Ahmadinejad has any particular animus toward Iran's own Jewish community. Despite his many offensive statements, in short, Ahmadinejad is not Adolf Hitler and we are not living in the 1930s." Contrast that with what Newt said yesterday at AIPAC where he "called for a military strike to destroy missiles in Iran and North Korea." How many innocents does he think he will kill doing that and what unintened consequences will ensue? Just who are the aggressors here?<br /><br />According to the US government and the IAEA Israel "possesses between 75 and 400" nuclear warheads and chemical and bilogical wepaons capability as well.<br /><br />See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction<br /><br />The myth of an Israel facing destruction from 40 million Arabs every day is just that. Who would attack it? Egypt is at peace with Israel and Jordan, brokered by the Clinton administration, made peace in 1994. Lebanon is powerless and Syria is not a credible military threat. The USA guarantees Israel's security and Iraq conveniently neutralized. The occupation is a cancer that eats at the soul of Israel.<br /><br />So what does Obama really want? I don't think anyone could find anything that suggests anything other than he (and the rest of the international community) wants is for Israel, as the far more powerful actor in this drama, to be a mensch and honor its many commitments and implement the central platform of the seemingly dozens of peace plans it has signed up for in the last 40+ years, which of course, is the oft mentioned two-state solution. As for Netanyahu his disdain for the plan is well known and in order to prevent an open split with the USA he prevaricates and obfuscates imposing new conditions on the Palestinians.<br /><br />Me thinks Mr. Gingrich & Mr. Netanyahu engage in some garden variety right wing prestidigitation in an attempt to distract our attention from the real issues.<br />Here's the Jerusalem Post article on Newt:<br /><br />http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1239710853666<br /><br />Here is Walt's post on the Foreign Policy magazine website:<br />http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/28/the_treason_of_the_hawks<br /><br />Read them both and let me know (if you wish and can take a few minutes) which is the more logical argument of the two. <div style="font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: garamond,new york,times,serif;"> </div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-14281078690011741472009-04-24T07:49:00.000-07:002009-04-24T07:53:05.223-07:00The Reason for Torture - looking for justification to invade Iraq<p><span style="font-size:100%;">Wonder why <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1240584240_0">Khalid Sheikh Mohammed</span> was waterboarded 183 times in one month? What could he have possibly told us on the 180th time that he didn't on the 100th time? (BTW - that works out to over 6x a day for a month). Turns out the administration; Bush, Cheney, Rice, Tenet etc. were looking for reasons to invade Iraq and hoped <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1240584240_1">waterboarding</span> KSM would force him to say al-Qaeda and <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1240584240_2">Iraq</span> were in cahoots. After 183 times in one month he didn't. This despite the well known proclivity for persons under torture to spill whatever beans they think the torturers want to hear just to stop the pain. 183 times!<br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">So after looking for 6 years and going through millions of Iraqi documents no evidence has ever been found that indicates there was operational cooperation beteen Iraq and Al-Qaeda. Not to mention the massive efforts to find the proverbial WMD. But that didn't stop the Bushites from the messianic, illegal and immoral crusade to find non-existent evidence and when none was to be found to simply manufacture it.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">From a McClatchy story on the Senate report released just yesterday. "A former U.S. Army psychiatrist, Maj. <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1240584240_3">Charles Burney</span>, told Army investigators in 2006 that interrogators at the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1240584240_4">Guantanamo Bay, Cuba</span>, detention facility were under "pressure" to produce evidence of ties between al Qaida and Iraq. "While we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq," Burney told staff of the Army Inspector General. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link . . . there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results." <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/66622.html"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1240584240_5">http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/66622.html</span></a><br /></span> </p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">Why "pressure to produce ties?"The <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1240584240_6">Downing Street Memo</span> states "the intelligence and facts were being fixed" around the policy. <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://downingstreetmemo.com/"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1240584240_7">http://downingstreetmemo.com</span></a><br /></span> </p> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br />The news here is that, finally, US Government documents are coming to light that prove the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1240584240_8">Bush Administration</span> deliberately and with <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1240584240_9">malice aforethought</span> fabricated evidence to support its rationale for invading Iraq; thereby killing 4000+ (and counting) Americans (more than the 9/11 attacks) and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, displacing 2m+ of them in the process. If this is proved and I predict it will be beyond a shadow of a doubt, this is the crime of this young century and in my opinion ranks with the 9/11 attacks.<br /><br />We have no choice but to follow all the evidence wherever it leads. If not we encourage more of this behavior by Democrats and Republicans, it doesn't matter which party, what matters is the abuse of power, privilege, position and the breaking of laws. This is not about retribution or revenge, its to reaffirm the Constitutional principle that no person is above the law. We have a chance to redeem our republic. If we don't we take several more steps down the slippery slope to despotism. "When the president does it its not illegal." That's a dictator (or a crook) speaking, not a president.<br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-38497070996014238092009-02-22T10:14:00.000-08:002009-04-24T07:55:24.950-07:00Forget all about the poor and homeless we've got to set the market freeThe title of this post is a line from a song I wrote during the Reagan years the title of which is also the name of this blog: "Talk About America."<br /><br />I really hope Chris Hedges is wrong but there's a 50-50 chance he isn't.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">The next time we feel like scapegoating poor Mexican or Central American laborers or one of our fellow citizens who bought too much house with a loan their bank told them they "qualified for" just dust off this little treatise. Some choice passages include:<br /></span> <p style="font-family:garamond,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Hints of our brave new world seeped out Thursday when Washington's new director of national intelligence, retired Adm. Dennis Blair, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. He warned that the deepening economic crisis posed perhaps our gravest threat to stability and national security. It could trigger, he said, a return to the "violent extremism" of the 1920s and 1930s. It turns out that Wall Street, rather than Islamic jihad, has produced our most dangerous terrorists. We will see accelerated plant and retail closures, inflation, an epidemic of bankruptcies, new rounds of foreclosures, bread lines, unemployment surpassing the levels of the Great Depression and, as Blair fears, social upheaval.</span></p> <p style="font-family:garamond,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="font-family:garamond,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;">The economic collapse has exposed the stupidity of our collective faith in a free market and the absurdity of an economy based on the goals of endless growth, consumption, borrowing and expansion. The ideology of unlimited growth failed to take into account the massive depletion of the world's resources, from fossil fuels to clean water to fish stocks to erosion, as well as overpopulation, global warming and climate change. The huge international flows of unregulated capital have wrecked the global financial system. An overvalued dollar (which will soon deflate), wild tech, stock and housing financial bubbles, unchecked greed, the decimation of our manufacturing sector, the empowerment of an oligarchic class, the corruption of our political elite, the impoverishment of workers, a bloated military and defense budget and unrestrained credit binges have conspired to bring us down. The financial crisis will soon become a currency crisis. This second shock will threaten our financial viability. We let the market rule. Now we are paying for it.</span></p> <p style="font-family:garamond,new york,times,serif;"><span style="font-size:130%;">The corporate thieves, those who insisted they be paid tens of millions of dollars because they were the best and the brightest, have been exposed as con artists. Our elected officials, along with the press, have been exposed as corrupt and spineless corporate lackeys. Our business schools and intellectual elite have been exposed as frauds. The age of the West has ended. Look to China. Laissez-faire capitalism has destroyed itself. It is time to dust off your copies of Marx,</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-30723206094819175032009-02-15T10:07:00.000-08:002009-02-15T10:11:13.050-08:00does this mean prices will go down at Fry's?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-02/45053628.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 167px; height: 210px;" src="http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-02/45053628.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:180%;">A</span>nother capitalist crook bites the dust, now if we only had the guts to go after the bankers.<br /><br />"One company, Phoebe Micro Inc., sold Fry's $80 million worth of goods between 2003 and 2008. The firm gave Fry's a $4 million discount, the IRS said, but paid Siddiqui's company $24 million."<br /><br />If the $76m worth of merchandise can be further discounted $24m then by my reckoning Fry's can discount the product (this one anyway - others maybe more maybe less) another 30% and maintain margin. Should be a class action suit to force Fry's to rebate their customers who suffered economic loss due to this fraud? Apparently it failed to provide sufficient oversight to their management employee - among other things this is what Sarbanes-Oxley was created to do.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-86705572950846935952009-02-02T07:54:00.000-08:002009-02-02T07:58:40.772-08:00Israel's Lies: By Henry SiegmanHenry Siegman writes in the London Review of Books: <span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /></span><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Israel’s government would like the world to believe that Hamas launched its Qassam rockets because that is what terrorists do and Hamas is a generic terrorist group. In fact, Hamas is no more a ‘terror organisation’ (Israel’s preferred term) than the Zionist movement was during its struggle for a Jewish homeland. In the late 1930s and 1940s, parties within the Zionist movement resorted to terrorist activities for strategic reasons. According to Benny Morris, it was the Irgun that first targeted civilians. He writes in <em>Righteous Victims</em> that an upsurge of Arab terrorism in 1937 ‘triggered a wave of Irgun bombings against Arab crowds and buses, introducing a new dimension to the conflict’. He also documents atrocities committed during the 1948-49 war by the IDF, admitting in a 2004 interview, published in <em>Ha’aretz</em>, that material released by Israel’s Ministry of Defence showed that ‘there were far more Israeli acts of massacre than I had previously thought . . . In the months of April-May 1948, units of the Haganah were given operational orders that stated explicitly that they were to uproot the villagers, expel them, and destroy the villages themselves.’ In a number of Palestinian villages and towns the IDF carried out organised executions of civilians. Asked by <em>Ha’aretz</em> whether he condemned the ethnic cleansing, Morris replied that he did not:</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote style="font-family:verdana;"><p><span style="font-size:85%;">A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on.</span></p></blockquote></div><p style="text-align: justify;font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">In other words, when Jews target and kill innocent civilians to advance their national struggle, they are patriots. When their adversaries do so, they are terrorists.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-37708870927178738142009-01-31T07:20:00.000-08:002009-01-31T07:30:54.543-08:002 state or bust?Probably the most cogent analysis of the situation I've read in a very long time. I'm especially taken by this passage:<br /><br /><p> <span style="font-family: verdana;font-size:85%;" >"Particularly misguided and damaging has been the oft-repeated demand that Palestinians offer territorial concessions that match the "painful concessions" Israel's leaders have said they are prepared to make. It is a formulation that reveals a profound misunderstanding or deliberate distortion of the history of this conflict, one that will inevitably produce a one-sided outcome that is unjust and untenable. Palestinians have not asked Israel to make territorial concessions--i.e., give up any of the territory Israel controlled between the armistice agreement of 1949 and the 1967 war--nor has Israel ever indicated it would under any circumstances consider doing so. What Palestinians have asked is that Israel return Palestinian territory on which Israel has illegally established settlements and to which it has transferred its own population, in violation of treaty obligations and international law. To describe the return of illegally expropriated Palestinian territory as Israeli "concessions" is to compromise the Palestinian case before negotiations even begin. </span></p> <p style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> Indeed, it is only Palestinians who have made painful concessions. As a condition for Israel's acceptance of the Oslo Accords, the PLO formally agreed to recognize the legitimacy of territory acquired by Israel in the war of 1948. It is a concession that reduced by fully one half the territory originally assigned to the Arab population of Palestine by the UN partition plan of 1947. Given that major Palestinian territorial concession, any new initiative that does not provide that negotiations begin at the pre-1967 armistice line and expects Palestinians to relinquish (other than in equal land swaps) even more of the 22 percent of the territory that has been left them will be stillborn."</span></p><p style="font-family: georgia;">And before dismissing this fellow as some fanatic antisemitic raver on the order of say er uh... Jimmy Carter... know that the author is:</p><p style="font-family: georgia;">Henry Siegman, director of the U.S./Middle East Project in New York, a visiting research professor at the Sir Joseph Hotung Middle East Program, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is a former national director of the American Jewish Congress and of the Synagogue Council of America. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-23376949239307872112009-01-27T07:28:00.000-08:002009-01-27T07:34:21.729-08:00"Israel needs its version of Al Jazeera"<span style="font-size:180%;">A</span>s if PR were the answer. If the IDF hadn’t killed so many innocent civilians over the years Israel wouldn’t need a “special” media outlet to put lipstick on its policies. Truthful objective reporting would be all that was necessary. “Buying” the Hamas line has nothing to do with it. Stop the killing, the oppression and close down the illegal “settlements” and the negative stories will stop. It’s simple. To paraphrase Bill Clinton “It’s the Occupation Stupid” and until Israel truly ends it, not like the ersatz “pull-out” from Gaza, the world will increasingly view Israel, as it did South Africa, as a pariah nation. America, the last bastion of uncritical support for Israel is slowly waking up to the horror that is the illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel: get out while you still have time.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-2839217764559543492009-01-13T23:55:00.000-08:002009-01-14T00:04:21.105-08:00IDF Targeting Civilians"Israeli soldiers fired on a group of residents leaving their homes on orders from the military and waving white flags, according to testimony taken by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem."<br /><br />"Meanwhile, Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, declared that he would press forward with an "iron fist"."<br /><br />That's obvious... and the assertions of the IDF apologists that the IDF goes out of its way to avoid killing innocent civilians wear more thin with each passing day.<br /><br />The report continues...<br /><br />"In Gaza, Munir Shafik al-Najar told B'Tselem that members of his extended family started trying to leave their homes after the Israeli army began demolishing buildings in the area of Kuza'a, close to the Israeli border with south-eastern Gaza. Mr Najar said the Israeli soldiers were using gunfire to signify that residents should leave, but then started shooting "indiscriminately".<br /><br />He testified that his relative Rawhiya had stepped out of the family-owned building, one of whose walls had been destroyed by a bulldozer, expecting her family to follow, but she was shot. The military subsequently attacked another group escaping leaving two more of his relatives dead. The military said late last night that it had found the claim to be "without foundation".Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-20746311950150300692009-01-11T13:03:00.000-08:002009-01-11T13:10:01.548-08:00Why do they hate us?<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://portail.islamboutique.fr/forum/liban_massacre_fichiers/pwarlb12.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 136px; height: 151px;" src="http://portail.islamboutique.fr/forum/liban_massacre_fichiers/pwarlb12.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.thecatgallery.com/images/World%20Trade%20Center.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 136px; height: 133px;" src="http://www.thecatgallery.com/images/World%20Trade%20Center.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:180%;">=</span><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-63966212420084904522009-01-11T12:44:00.000-08:002009-01-11T12:50:59.401-08:00The Cost of War<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://portail.islamboutique.fr/forum/liban_massacre_fichiers/warlb35.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 377px; height: 253px;" src="http://portail.islamboutique.fr/forum/liban_massacre_fichiers/warlb35.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Disturbing photos of the innocent victims of the conflict. Sensational? Yes, but we are so desensitized we need to be reminded every so often of the horror. We wonder why they hate us? See these photos and wonder no more.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-68145246250175761422009-01-11T08:39:00.000-08:002009-01-11T12:53:28.348-08:00There is no existential threat to Israel yet thousands of innocent Palestinians die each year<span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" ><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://portail.islamboutique.fr/gaza2008/09-01/image013.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 270px; height: 169px;" src="http://portail.islamboutique.fr/gaza2008/09-01/image013.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">I</span><span style="font-size:100%;">ts mystifying to me how great numbers of American Jews who self-identify as liberals and honestly espouse liberal causes in the USA and around the world (vote or campaign for Obama, support the ACLU, oppose apartheid in South Africa etc.) yet when it comes to the Palestinian question make a hard right turn and parrot a right wing closet fascist like Benjamin Netanyahu and his terrorist turned politician mentor Menachim Begin.<br /><br />Robert Scheer a great American (and Jewish) liberal writes in his latest piece on Truthdig.com (click on the above link for the full text)<br /><br />"Where are the voices that reflect the uncompromising morality of Einstein’s generation of Jewish intellectuals willing to acknowledge fault and humanity on both sides of the political equation?"<br /><br />In a letter to the NYT Eistein clearly stated his views on Begin and his organization the:<br /><br />“Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.” The letter urged Jews to shun Begin, arguing, “It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents.”<br /><br />The standard rejoinder as to why the hard right turn is that the Arabs want to destroy Israel and drive the Jews into the sea. Scheer writes:<br /><br />Why is it that there is such widespread acceptance, beginning with the apologetic arguments of President Bush, that whatever Israel does is always justified as necessary to the survival of the Jewish state?<br /><br />It is not.<br /><br />While the Hamas rocket attacks are reprehensible, they are also an ineffectual challenge to Israel’s enormous security apparatus, and the severity of Israel’s response to them is counterproductive. Clearly, the very existence of Israel is not now, nor has it ever been, seriously challenged by anything the Palestinians did. Not back in 1948, when Israel was established as a state with insignificant Palestinian military resistance, nor at the time of the 1967 Six-Day War when Egypt, Syria and Jordan fought Israel."<br /><br />Israel has nukes and America to back it up. No Middle Eastern group or country can defeat Israel as long as this is true. Fuggedaboudit. Killing innocent Arabs only makes the situation worse and creates more terrorists. How many Islamic terrorist attacks were there in the west before the 1967 6-Day War?<br /><br />There is a much more robust debate in Israel over this question than there is here in the USA. One has only to look to groups such as Peace Now, the Ha'aretz newspaper and B'Tselem to see that. But try to have the same level of debate in the USA as Jimmy Carter or John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt did and the charges of antisemitism and being pro-terrorist inevitably follow. Its intellectually and morally bankrupt to stifle debate like this. A few voices like Scheer do exist but they are relegated to the fringe and rarely does on hear them in the mainstream media.</span><br /></span><p style="font-family: georgia;"> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-63729046783528405772008-12-30T13:00:00.001-08:002008-12-30T13:01:11.206-08:00Hamas: The Next Generation<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00107/gaza_reuters_107289a.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 640px; height: 456px;" src="http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00107/gaza_reuters_107289a.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-39949628893540958382008-12-30T12:22:00.000-08:002008-12-30T13:06:25.667-08:00A Jonestown bucketful of political kool-aid<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3pe1k5Tjtsc/SVqE6cMXXUI/AAAAAAAAAB4/5lc8TOieKJU/s1600-h/jonestown.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3pe1k5Tjtsc/SVqE6cMXXUI/AAAAAAAAAB4/5lc8TOieKJU/s320/jonestown.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5285683252208033090" border="0" /></a><br />This post was originally published on 11/17/08 but I had trouble getting the text to display. So I deleted and re-published it today. Hence the date change.<br /><br /><br /><br />"George W. Hoover?" Bill Kristol, the arch-conservative, writes In today's (11/17/08) New York Times: "There’s nothing conservative about letting free markets degenerate into something close to Karl Marx’s vision of an atomizing, irresponsible and self-devouring capitalism." Something close? No Bill, it might not be "conservative" but anyone with a pair of eyes can see its just plain greedy, self-serving, stupid, and short sighted. And Bill, BTW - there are millions of real people out there suffering from the pipe-dream that was supply side "economics." Just like in the 30s. Just like collectivism and national socialism - its a dead duck. George W. Hoover, George HW Hoover, Ronald R. Hoover, Newt Hoover, John McCain Hoover, Alan Greenspan Hoover - the whole lot are nothing more than the historical heirs of Herbert Hoover (and Ayn Rand). Let's face it - Republicanism is morally, intellectually and philosophically at the endgame. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls; like Yasser Arafat and Michael Eisner its hung around far too long and outlived whatever usefulness it may have once had and its time to go. Hasta la vista baby! All that's left is a party with a focus group (and a mascot) searching for a marketing message to sell to Joe the Sixpack Plumber because what it had, proved to be an Edsel, an "Ishtar" a "Heaven's Gate" and a Jonestown bucket full of political kool-aid that's failed miserably and ruined America in the process. ps.. apologies to Herbert Hoover (because he was actually a pretty good guy he just didn't have any business being president), the Edsel (which is now a collectors item) and "Heaven's Gate" (which was actually a pretty good movie).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-24221055141542833462008-12-30T11:06:00.000-08:002008-12-30T12:13:38.787-08:00Bernie Madoff or Hamas?<div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00107/RTR22WIP_107442a.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 411px; height: 279px;" src="http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00107/RTR22WIP_107442a.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:180%;">I</span>ronically, Bernard Madoff may end up doing more damage to the Zionists than Hamas. $50bn is a lot of money and much of it was invested by Jewish charities.<br /><br />Speaking of Hamas... Israel, Hamas, America and the UK do not want peace. As Country Joe said..."There's too much money to be made supplying the army with the tools of the trade." To be sure there are peace-loving Israelis, Britons, Palestinians and yes Dorothy there are peace-loving Americans too. But there aren't enough of us to tip the balance. We need more truth tellers like Robert Fisk (see link above) and the late Edward Said to enlighten the world. Who is there among the Israelis to fill this role? Is he/she on the talk shows of Israel, the UK and America? Does he/she write op-ed pieces for major newpapers? Is he/she a Nobel prize winner? Please let me know for I wish to hear the voice of peace from Israel because thus far the only voice I hear is the voice of apartheid, bigotry and oppression.<br /><br />The resisters of the Warsaw ghetto are now martyrs. Gaza is an analogue to the Warsaw ghetto. Squeeze Gaza until it erupts into violence and then kill its innocents because (predictably) it erupts in violence; its Newton's law.<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-24431364401459406462008-11-11T08:21:00.000-08:002008-11-11T08:36:27.258-08:00Republicanism is dead - lets bury it and get it over with<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images.findlaw.com/writ/john.dean.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 90px; height: 120px;" src="http://images.findlaw.com/writ/john.dean.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:180%;">J</span>ohn Dean discusses authoritarian conservatism. One more and perhaps, the main, reason to consign Republicanism to the ash heap of history. It's a party that has outlived it's usefulness. It, like Zionism, should join "Communism," Fascism, The Whigs, The Know Nothing Party, ( to which today's Republican party bears a striking resemblance) The Bull Moose Party etc. etc. etc.<br /><br />To do any less would only invite it to resurrect itself and some day another ruinous Republican administration will "fool all of the people some of the time" and take the reigns of power in Washington digging this country into a hole and another Democrat will have to ride to the rescue of the nation.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-87941785590870447772008-11-04T06:46:00.000-08:002008-11-04T06:47:06.247-08:00Day of Reckoning<span style="font-size:180%;">H</span>ere's my take on what's at stake.<br /><br />McCain/Palin = policies that continue to benefit the rich and <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_0"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_0">Fortune 500</span></span> corporations, especially the oil and arms industries<br /><br /><ul><li><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_1"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_1">Endless war</span></span></li><li>More socialism for the rich (trickle down voodoo economics & tax cuts for people and corporations that don't need it) & corporate welfare (see $700bn bank & <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_2"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_2">Wall Street</span></span> Bailout, deregulation allowing the fox to guard the henhouse) & corporate lobbyists running government; in fact most of his top campaign staff are lobbyists and are likely to go back to lobbying after the campaign. Those that don't will likely join his adminstration and do favors for their buddies in the private sector - that's the way it works folks... we all know that. </li><li>Continued erosion of our <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_3"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_3">Constitution</span></span> i.e. spying on innocent Americans without a warrant, continuing Bush's policy of torture and illegal detentions & renditions. McCarthyite tactics to stifle legitmate dissent. (See the mass arrests of legitimate protesters and credentialed journalists at the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_4"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_4">Republican Convention</span></span>) the possible end of a woman's reproductive rights! </li><li>Continued belligerence and bluster in international relations - see "bomb bomb bomb bomd bomb <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_5"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_5">Iran</span></span>." He has a military mind that favors force over diplomacy.<br /></li><li>The least qualified VP candidate in history. I shudder to think that a someone who can't even name a Supreme Court decision (besides <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_6"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_6">Roe v. Wade</span></span>) or a single newspaper or magazine she reads to keep current could be one 72 year old heartbeat away from having her finger on the nuclear trigger! What are we thinking? Electing a potential spokesmodel-in-chief? A Vanna Whitehouse? Please let's get serious here folks.<br /></li></ul>In short a McCain/Palin adminstration would continue the most egregious, ruinous excessive laissez fair capitalist policies that created this mess we're in today. With <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_7">poverty levels</span> and income equality not seen since the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_7"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_8">Great Depression</span></span>, unbelieveably high deficits, state bankruptcies, high unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, wasteful, useless spending in the arms sector, corporate pork & erosion of Constitutional rights; McCain's policies will solve very little beyond palliative measures and exacerbate the decline of the USA while plundering the resources of the people to continue a quest for some kind of world-wide <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_8"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_9">American Empire</span></span>. <span style="font-style: italic;">Why</span> do we need 750 military bases around the globe? <br /><br />Obama/Biden = polices to help the middle class, working folks and the poor - the rich and the Fortune 500 don't need it<br /><ul><li>Two self made men, family men, that have risen up to the highest levels of our society through hard work and talent. Nothing was handed to them. Unlike <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_9"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_10">George Bush</span></span> and <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_10"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_11">John McCain</span></span> they came up the hard way by earning it and represent the best of our country.<br /></li><li>End the occupation of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_11"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_12">Iraq</span></span> responsibly - we've already won the war folks, victory is ours - Saddam is dead. Its over. Continuing to stay is just Cheney's and the neocon's plan for American Empire dominating militarily the Middle East, Central Asia and its oil reserves. If Iraq can muster an $80bn surplus while we spend $10bn a month they are well enough along for us to begin a significant but measured withdrawal down to a force to protect our Embassy. Without deadlines people don't perform. Its human nature.</li><li>Domestic economic policies designed to help the people that actually need it. McCain/Palin call this socialism? If that's socialism I've got a bridge to nowhere for sale. When <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_12"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_13">FDR</span></span> created the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_13"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_14">New Deal</span></span> it was called good government. When <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_14"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_15">Teddy Roosevelt</span></span> busted the trusts and reduced the power of big corporations it was called reform. The <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_15"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_16">GI Bill</span></span>, <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_16"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_17">Social Security</span></span>, Medicare, roads, bridges and other infrastructure, good schools, firefighters, police, National Parks; all these cost money. The rich, having suckled at the breast of America, need to pay their fair share to help those that aren't as fortunate as they. Republican policies since <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_17"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_18">Ronald Reagan</span></span> have systematically redistributed wealth to the wealthy by cutting taxes and deregulating corporations while starving programs for the people and attempting to tear down these basic social safety programs. Aren't you glad that Bush wasn't successful at <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_18"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_19">privatizing social security</span></span>? Can you imagine trying to retire at this point in history with the worst stock market meltdown since 1929? Using a socially conservative agenda to trick the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_19"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_20">American people</span></span> into thinking they represented the common folk while in reality the Republican power structure cares no more for the people than did <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_20"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_21">Marie Antoinette</span></span>.</li><li><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_21"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_22">Fair trade</span></span> - let's stop the outsourcing of our jobs. <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_22"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_23">Ross Perot</span></span> was right. There has been a giant sucking sound of jobs leaving the country. Its just business folks, its completely amoral, money like water seeks it own level. If you can make your automobile or refrgerator or TV set in a country where you can pay workers $100 a month with no environmental controls or <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_23"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_24">social rights</span></span> instead of $100 a day, and shield your profits from US taxes (which are the lowest effective <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_24"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_25">corporate tax rates</span></span> in the industrialized world - which McCain wants to reduce even more) then you'd be a fool not to take advantage of these enormous loopholes.</li><li>Respect for work - allow people to organize without fear - which is a right enshrined in law in this country just as healthcare should be </li><li>A benevolent healthcare system so peope aren't held hostage to their jobs and are covered regardless of their health status. A government takeover of healthcare? If only, Medicare spends 3% of its revenues on adminstration while the fat cats at United Health, <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_25"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_26">Aetna</span></span> etc. suck up 30% of revenues for administrative overhead. Obama will not nationalize healthcare just make it nearly 100% accessible and reduce its cost.<br /></li><li>Diplomacy first - force as an extreme last instead of a first resort - rebuild our alliances and regain respect and our moral standing in the world - cooperate not dominate<br /></li><li>Respect for the Constitution and appointment of Supreme Court Judges that will as well</li><li>End torture - illegal wiretapping - illegal renditions - close <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_26"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_27">Guantanamo</span></span> - end the "War" on Terror - treat it as the criminal problem it is <br /></li><li>End the quest for Empire and go back to being a Republic</li><li>Capture <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_27"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_28">Osama Bin Laden</span></span> and go after the people who actually attacked us instead of those that had nothing to do with it. Osama still has a job - do you?</li></ul><br />And finally - competence - after 8 years of the most incompetent, morally and intellectually bankrupt presidency in history it will be a relief to get things working again. Stop the flight of qualified people from government. One reason we're in this economic mess is that the organs of government have become so politicized by Bush/Rove that many of the best people just left; leaving us with political cronies and hacks without any experience to run things. (see <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809184_28"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1225809931_29">Alberto Gonzales</span></span>) John McCain can't even run his campaign without lobbyists and his campaign has been a disaster swerving erratically from one extreme to the other. What makes us think he will run the country any better? Obama's campaign has been a model of organization and efficiency. Its brought millions of new voters into the democratic process and we finally have an opportunity to elect a leader who inspires hope instead of fear; competence and intelligence instead of crony capitalism and intellectual dishonesty; reason instead of superstition.<br /><br />We can't let the fearmongers scare us. We're Americans, we're not scared of anything! When the going gets tough America gets going! We've done it before and we'll do it again. Obama is the absolute right choice at this crucial moment in our history. He isn't perfect but he's miles ahead of McCain/Palin who are a throwback to fear, superstion and the dark ages. Its time to evolve....Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-31276839784283714532008-10-06T22:38:00.000-07:002008-10-06T22:44:51.960-07:00What the bailout does is help those concerned about the healthcare reform...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3pe1k5Tjtsc/SOr3QP2YenI/AAAAAAAAAA0/IteEFeFoMgk/s1600-h/mccainsays.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3pe1k5Tjtsc/SOr3QP2YenI/AAAAAAAAAA0/IteEFeFoMgk/s320/mccainsays.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5254283773785700978" border="0" /></a><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/L8__aXxXPVc&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/L8__aXxXPVc&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-82094623624596193992008-10-06T22:34:00.000-07:002008-10-06T22:37:05.802-07:00The US Americans the Iraq and like such as....<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6EUtngD2f9E&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6EUtngD2f9E&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-35897494593957733852008-09-27T09:43:00.000-07:002008-10-10T07:42:32.807-07:00Is the Reichstag burning?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://worldatwar.net/event/reichstagsbrand/fire.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 211px; height: 283px;" src="http://worldatwar.net/event/reichstagsbrand/fire.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:180%;">S</span>o - we're concerned about America are we? Then why threaten to veto the package that extends unemployment benefits helping those who really need it while touting a $700bn plan to bail out the Wall Street vultures??<br /><br />As a good friend of mine said "The Republicans have wrecked America." How stupid do they think we are? The Bushites are trying to stampede Congress into another disaster. After Iraq you'd think that they'd wise up. There is glimmer of hope the Dems and a few sane Republicans might fight off this coup d'etat of unprecedented proportions. No oversight? No challenge in court? This amounts to Congress giving the power of the purse to the executive branch. Reichstag fire anyone? The parallels are uncanny.<br /><br />I predicted the Bushites would come up with something before the election to perpetuate their power. This may be it. What would really roil the country is another terrorist attack... October surprise? I believe Bush and Co. knew an attack was coming on or around 9/11 and chose to let it happen so they could institute a national security state, and carry out the plans embodied in the "Project For a New American Century" which included invading Iraq. Look it up and then tell me I'm just paranoid.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6317439.post-23281387935730710972008-09-10T16:32:00.000-07:002008-09-10T17:37:29.394-07:00Of pigs, fish & lipstick: Bravo Andrew!<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3pe1k5Tjtsc/SMhakcpnLWI/AAAAAAAAAAs/buBsBLfVCRg/s1600-h/E1_091008R-1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244541348285459810" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 181px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 116px" height="176" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3pe1k5Tjtsc/SMhakcpnLWI/AAAAAAAAAAs/buBsBLfVCRg/s320/E1_091008R-1.jpg" width="183" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-size:180%;">A</span>ndrew Sullivan of the Atlantic Monthly, an a-typical conservative rather than a typical conservative opines on the charade that is the McCain/Palin candidacy.</div><br /><div></div><div> </div><div> </div><div>I must admit I cribbed the "a-typical conservative" line from one of the comments in the above referenced Truthout article. </div><div> </div><div>The outright lies of Republicans are "Beyond the Palin!" </div><div> </div><div>Cribbed that one too - from Keith Olbeman's show. :-) </div><div> </div><div>Choice quotes:</div><div> </div><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">"And when the Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to condemn and end the torture regime of Bush and Cheney in 2006, McCain again had a clear choice between good and evil, and chose evil." </span></div><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:georgia;">"Yes, McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things about him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who knows nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because she polled well with the Christianist base."</span></div><div> </div><div>I've predicted for many months the right wing <strong>Pavrovian</strong> (made that up myself) smear machine would go into overdrive because it has nothing substantive to run on. By just about any measure this country is worse off now than it was 8 years ago; unless of course you're part of Bush's base and are in the $1m+ income bracket. The Republicans have trashed our economy through laissez-faire robber baron style capitalism, trashed our military with the neo-con wet dreams that are the invasion of Iraq and the quasi-war with Iran, trashed our Constitution with warrantless wire-tapping, the end of habeas corpus and signing statements, the government itself has been trashed so that it has a hard time performing basic governmental functions. As Obama said "they campaign well and govern poorly." That's the understatement of the century. And don't give us that tripe about a do-nothing Democratic Congress that Fred Thompson et. al. spewed - the Dems majority is too slim to pass the important things like cutting off funding for the war and certainly too slim for a veto override.</div><div> </div><div>And McCain/Palin expect us to believe they are change agents???? A religious fundie in the White House - that's change? A campaign run by lobbyists - that's change? </div><div> </div><div>She was for the bridge to nowhere before she was against it? If thats what you mean by change then, OK, works for me. Keeping the money after the bridge was nixed by Congress that's pretty cynical especially when you use it to build a road right up to the water where the nowhere bridge was supposed to be. Billing the state $40K in per diems for living in your own house is even worse. Road to nowhere is right - let's hope this candidacy is on a road to nowhere. </div><div> </div><div>Actually real change would be Ralph Nader or Ron Paul in the White House but I'll be very happy to see <strong>O'Biden</strong> at the inauguration. (that one is courtesy of a slip of the tongue by Chris Matthews during his convention coverage) </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0