It is both funny and pathetic to watch the neo Nazi wing of the Republican party bleed through the anus, as their own rank and file flatly reject them.
The right wing has been reduced to a scant few mouth breathing troglodytes who whine like bitches as they whine in political forums, moan on talk radio, and cry like bitches on the Nazi blogosphere.
Within a year we have seen 28 republicans ride off into the sunset leaving their pathetic, corrupt political careers on the ash heap of history.
Laughable AND Pathetic
The snake oil vending talk radio con men and bloggers and mounting a counter offensive, but are failing badly
Now see ?
If you nincompoops had listened to all the Fed Up Americans as we were telling you how out of step you have been, you would not be so shocked, and you wouldn’t be crying like bitches right now. You would have seen this coming.
Now understand right wingers, I am not saying the democratic party is for you.
That requires far more courage, brains, ambition, work ethic, critical thought and overall intelligence then you are capable of ever possessing.
You may however, want to confide in your minister and reflect on what you might be able to do to shed at least some of your fear, racism, and voluntary ignorance, so you can at least function in the 21st century
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Stupid Republicans
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Another One Bites The Dust
Democrat John Edwards is exiting the presidential race Wednesday, ending a scrappy underdog bid in which he steered his rivals toward progressive ideals while grappling with family hardship that roused voters’ sympathies but never diverted his campaign, The Associated Press has learned.
The two-time White House candidate notified a close circle of senior advisers that he planned to make the announcement at a 1 p.m. in New Orleans that had been billed as a speech on poverty, according to two of his advisers. The decision came after Edwards lost the four states to hold nominating contests so far to rivals who stole the spotlight from the beginning — Billary and Barack.
John ran a good campaign and vowed to stay in it all the way to the convention, but apparently that’s not going to happen. John’s populist message scared the daylights out of the wealthy elite and the corporate media, which ultimately hurt his coverage.
So it appears that with the two candidates left standing on the democrat side, we will get more of the same old same old, but to a lesser degree with one.
So it seems that Obama will get my vote on "super Tuesday" - reluctantly - and I can only hope there will be a strong independent candidate for the generals.
Perhaps a Kucinich/Paul ticket? Or an Edwards/Kucinich? As independents.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Is The Country Better Off?
I honestly cannot recall a State of the Union address which has received less hype.
Usually, even for lame-duck presidents, the state of the union is a pretty significant moment of political theater. I remember the last addresses for Reagan and Clinton drew quite a bit of attention, but going into tonight’s speech, no one, on either side, seems to care at all. I frequently get the sense the country is asking bush, almost in unison, “You’re still here?”
Of course, the state of the union invariably leads to some reflection and introspection.
For example, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Dana Perino a very good question: “Is the country better off now than seven years ago?” Given the response, I don’t think Perino was prepared for the question.
“Certainly seven years ago — well, seven years ago, right before September 11th, I think that people would say that the country certainly felt better off. There’s been — once we were confronted with terrorists who would fly jumbo jets into buildings and kill thousands of our citizens in an instant, it created a sense of fear and nervousness about our security. And that’s why the President decided to take on the terrorists head on and go on the offense.
“And we have done that around the world. We have been successful so far in preventing another attack on our country. But it’s not for their lack of trying. And that’s another reason why the President — tonight you’ll hear him call on Congress to pass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reauthorization. They have until Friday to do that, and the President sees no reason why they shouldn’t be able to get that done.”
Um, Dana?
The question was, “Is the country better off now than seven years ago?”
The fact that you couldn’t answer it — you barely tried — doesn’t exactly reflect well on bush’s presidency.
Of course, this shouldn’t come as too big a surprise.
What, exactly, could Perino say?
bush-enomics Part 2
Here’s your question, class:
In his State of the Union, the lying bastard president asked Congress for $300 million for poor kids in the inner city. As there are, officially, 15 million children in America living in poverty, how much is that per child?
Correct! $20.
Here’s your second question.
The dick head also demanded that Congress extend his tax cuts. The cost: $4.3 trillion over ten years. The big recipients are millionaires. And the number of millionaires happens, not coincidentally, to equal the number of poor kids, roughly 15 million of them. OK class: what is the cost of the tax cut per millionaire?
That’s right, $287,000 EACH.
bush said, “In neighborhoods across our country, there are boys and girls with dreams. And a decent education is their only hope of achieving them.”
So how much educational dreaming will $20 buy?
The $20 “Pell Grant for Kids,” as the White House calls it, will buy a poor kid about 35 minutes of this educational dream.
$20 won’t cover the cost of the final book in the Harry Potter series.
If you can’t buy a book nor pay tuition with a sawbuck, what exactly can a poor kid buy with $20 in urban America?
The Divided State Of The Union
A Democratic Congress is poised to heed President Bush's call to help save the economy, but may not give him much else after a State of the Union speech that recycled many of the administration's past initiatives.
A lame duck president called again for immigration reform, an end to lawmakers' pet projects, control of Social Security spending and making tax cuts permanent. Democrats have rejected those Bush initiatives before.
And, in a sign that the dominant political battles will not be in Congress, many in the House chamber kept an eye during the speech on Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton — bitter rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination. They sat close to each other, but managed not to shake hands.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who hours earlier had endorsed Obama over Clinton, reached out to shake Sen. Clinton's hand when she came near.
Bush is plunging into politics himself this week, raising money for Republicans from Wednesday through Friday at events in California, Nevada, Colorado and Missouri. Other appearances will promote the themes from his speech.
Delivering the televised Democratic response, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius urged Bush to work with a Congress controlled by her party.
"The last five years have cost us dearly — in lives lost, in thousands of wounded warriors whose futures may never be the same, in challenges not met here at home because our resources were committed elsewhere," she said. "America's foreign policy has left us with fewer allies and more enemies."
The president pushed hard for "a robust growth package" to jump-start the economy, asking Democrats to avoid the temptation "to load up the bill."
As he spoke, Senate Democrats already were planning to expand the package negotiated by Bush and House leaders from both parties, to include tax rebates for senior citizens and an extension of unemployment benefits.
Bush said allowing previous tax cuts to lapse would raise bills for 116 million Americans, but Democrats have cited the rising deficits as the war in Iraq has dragged on.
The president warned, as he has repeatedly, that pulling Americans out of Iraq too soon would aid al-Qaida and undermine Iraq's government.
"Members of Congress: Having come so far and achieved so much, we must not allow this to happen," the president said.
Bush is likely to keep winning that one. Democrats have tried again and again to set a timetable for withdrawal, but lacked the votes.
Congress has ignored Bush's proposals to deal with millions of illegal immigrants and to control Social Security spending.
"I ask members of Congress to offer your proposals and come up with a bipartisan solution to save these vital programs for our children and grandchildren," Bush said.
There's no reason to think that Congress will touch Social Security in an election year, and any immigration agreement would not involve comprehensive reform on an issue that has deeply divided the nation.
Illegal immigration "must be resolved in a way that upholds both our laws and our highest ideals," Bush said. That line, which didn't propose a solution, was applauded on both sides of the aisle.
The president, speaking about one of his signature programs, urged Congress to continue the No Child Left Behind Act, saying, "no one can deny its results."
Republicans enthusiastically applauded. Several Democrats, who disagree, could be heard laughing at Bush's conclusion.
Monday, January 28, 2008
BUSTED!!!!!!!
From: Michael Moore's Website
Brattleboro residents will vote at town meeting on whether President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should be indicted and arrested for war crimes, perjury or obstruction of justice if they ever step foot in Vermont.
The Brattleboro Select Board voted 3-2 Friday to put the controversial item on the Town Meeting Day warning.
According to Town Clerk Annette Cappy, organizers of the Bush-Cheney issue gathered enough signatures, and it was up to the Select Board whether Brattleboro voters would consider the issue in March.
Cappy said residents will get to vote on the matter by paper balloting March 4.
Kurt Daims, 54, of Brattleboro, the organizer of the petition drive, said Friday the debate to get the issue on the ballot was a good one. Opposition to the vote focused on whether the town had any power to endorse the matter.
"It is an advisory thing," said Daims, a retired prototype machinist and stay-at-home dad of three daughters.
So far, Vermont is the only state Bush hasn't visited since he became president in 2001.
Daims said the most grievous crime committed by Bush and Cheney was perjury — lying to Congress and U.S. citizens about the basis of a war in Iraq.
He said the latest count showed a total of 600,000 people have died in the war.
Daims also said he believed Bush and Cheney were also guilty of espionage for spying on American people and obstruction of justice, for the politically generated firings of U.S. attorneys.
Voting to put the matter on the town ballot were Chairwoman Audrey Garfield and board members Richard Garrant and Dora Boubalis.
Voting against the idea were board members Richard DeGray and Stephen Steidle.
Daims said the names submitted to the town clerk's office were the second wave of signatures the petition drive had to collect, because he had to rewrite the wording of the petition.
He said he gathered nearly 500 signatures in about three weeks, and he said most people he encountered were eager to sign it. He started the petition drive about three months ago.
"Everybody I talked to wanted Bush to go," he said, noting that even members of the local police department supported the drive.
"This is exactly what the charter envisioned as a citizen initiative," Daims said. "People want to express themselves and they want to say how they feel."
He said the idea is spreading: Activists in Louisville, Ky., are spearheading a similar drive, and he said activists were also working in Montague, Mass., a Berkshires town.
The article asked the town attorney to "draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution and publish said indictments for consideration by other authorities."
The article goes on to say the indictments would be the "law of the town of Brattleboro that the Brattleboro police ... arrest and detain George Bush and Richard Cheney in Brattleboro, if they are not duly impeached ..."
Daims said people in Brattleboro were willing to "think outside the box" and consider the issue.
Daims had no compunction in comparing Bush and Cheney with one of the most notorious people in history.
"If Hitler were still alive and walked through Brattleboro, I think the local police would arrest him for war crimes," Daims said.
A Legacy Of Failure
As bush prepares to deliver his final State of the Union address, it’s worth revisiting the first speech he gave to a joint session of Congress.
His lies tonight will provide an opportunity to reflect on the kind of president bush was.
The speech delivered seven years ago points to the very different sort of president he might have been.
bush began his February 2001 address by hailing the new spirit of cooperation he hoped would characterize his relations with Congress. “Together we are changing the tone in the nation’s capital,” he declared. The new president’s top priority would be education. He intended to marry the liberal desire for more federal money to the conservative demand for higher standards.
The rest of the speech was similarly moderate in tone and substance. bush planned to use part of the enormous fiscal surplus he inherited for a broad-based tax cut. But he also wanted to expand Medicare benefits, preserve Social Security, extend access to health care and protect the environment. He concluded with an exhortation to bipartisanship — in Spanish. “Juntos podemos,” he said. “Together we can.”
bush seemed genuinely to want to be the kind of president indicated by that first address.
He meant to build a broad coalition on the model of his governorship in Texas, where he worked closely with Democrats in the Legislature, made his chief cause correcting racial disparities in education, and was re-elected in 1998 by an almost 40 percentage point margin, including 27 percent of the black vote and at least a third of Latinos.
What happened to this bush???
bush never completely abandoned the compassionate conservatism we glimpsed that night seven years ago. His second speech to Congress, nine days after Sept. 11, 2001, reflected his instinctive response to the attacks, which was to appeal for national unity in a non-partisan manner. bush’s third speech to Congress (his first formal State of the Union address, in 2002) is remembered for its reference to the “axis of evil.” But the president also boasted about his cooperation with such Democrats as George Miller and Ted Kennedy on education policy. His strongest emphasis was on public service. He proposed doubling the size of the Peace Corps and called on every American to commit at least 4,000 hours — two full working years — to community service.
The following year, in 2003, bush pressed his case for invading Iraq and uttered the infamous 16 words (“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa”). But alongside that disingenuous indictment, bush presented Congress with a new raft of centrist-minded initiatives: $450 million to minister to the needs of children of prisoners, $600 million to treat drug addicts, $1.2 billion for hydrogen-powered cars, $10 billion in new money to fight AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean.
And so on, in each subsequent speech. In 2004, bush used weasel words to describe the missing Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. He claimed to have disrupted “dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities.” But when he turned to domestic matters, the president unveiled a new science and math program for low-income students and a program to help former prisoners re-enter society. He included an eloquent plea for the kind of immigration reform that would “reflect our values and benefit our economy.”
To this day, bush’s compassionate conservatism has never vanished completely. Some of bush’s signature programs, like his initiative to provide AIDS drugs to Africans, have had meaningful effects. But others haven’t lived up to their rhetorical promise.
What about that special training for defense lawyers in capital cases (pledged in his 2005 State of the Union address)?
The initiative to encourage mentoring for at-risk children (2006)?
The grants to extend health insurance coverage (2007)?
Such gestures tended to linger in the air only as long as it took bush to make them.
So often with bush, compassionate government began and ended with the heartfelt public empty promise. He was too distracted by war and foreign policy, and too bored by the processes of government to know what the American people want.
And of course, bush’s left hand acted as if it didn’t know what his right hand was doing. After his first year in office, Democrats burned by his political strategy of polarization were disinclined to work with him on shared goals.
The Compassionate Conservative will surely pay us a final visit tonight.
He remains an appealing character, but a largely fictional one. I wonder how the last seven years might have turned out if he had actually existed.
In this, the final year of a failed presidency, I bet bush does too.
Are You A Fed Up American?
Are You A Fed Up American?
Whatever happened to our rights and freedoms? You know, the ones that we used to have that were protected by the U. S, Constitution. The same rights and freedoms We The People once enjoyed.
Now I’m sure our Founding Fathers were not concerned with simple things like wearing a seat belt, excessive volume on my car radio or wearing baseball caps backwards, like my towns version of a mini Gestapo seems to think. They were more loose in the sphincter than today’s lawmakers seem to be.
The Founding Fathers were more concerned with protecting ones rights and quite frankly, had more pressing matters to attend to.
Which is why Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and the rest are no doubt spinning in their graves. To see their efforts to protect theirs and generations to come citizens from the tyranny they left behind with King George, revert back to the good old days when people had no rights and were excessively taxed.
Just like we are now.
True patriotic Americans have revolted from the tyrannical rule of a “King George” once and we can, and will, do it again. We The People are reaching our limits. We will no longer just sit back, uncaring of that red, white and blue dick being shoved up our ass.
We have become Fed Up Americans and will not take it any more.
We object to your wireless wiretaps of our private phone calls. We object to your eavesdropping of our private emails. We object to excess taxation and runaway inflation and we object to a livable wage that does not keep up with it.
We are tired of losing ground economically because of corporate greed. We are tired of corrupt politicians that will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to get a job that only pays $400,000 per year. That’s just not common sense but this is what America does every four years in electing its president.
I want my America back. We The People have the power to take it back.
And we will.
Become a Fed Up American if you’re not already.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
A Modern Day Patriot
We’ve been waiting for one of the presidential candidates to take the lead on the FISA issue and are pleased to see John step up for the American people.
From John Edwards’ Blog: http://blog.johnedwards.com/
When it comes to protecting the rule of law, words are not enough. We need action.
It’s wrong for your government to spy on you. That’s why I’m asking you to join me today in calling on Senate Democrats to filibuster revisions to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that would give “retroactive immunity” to the giant telecom companies for their role in aiding George W. Bush’s illegal eavesdropping on American citizens.
The Senate is debating this issue right now — which is why we must act right now. You can find your Senators’ phone numbers here or call the Senate Switchboard at 1-(202)-224-3121.
Granting retroactive immunity is wrong. It will let corporate law-breakers off the hook. It will hamstring efforts to learn the truth about Bush's illegal spying program. And it will flip on its head a core principle that has guided our nation since our founding: the belief that no one, no matter how well connected or what office they hold, is above the law.
But in Washington today, the telecom lobbyists have launched a full-court press for retroactive immunity. George Bush and Dick Cheney are doing everything in their power to ensure it passes. And too many Senate Democrats are ready to give the lobbyists and the Bush administration exactly what they want.
Please join me in calling on every Senate Democrat to do everything in their power -- including joining Senator Dodd's efforts to filibuster this legislation -- to stop retroactive immunity and stand up for the rule of law. The Constitution should not be for sale at any price.
Thank you for taking action.
John Edwards
January 24, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
The Clinton Legacy.....
.....seems to be a legacy of death.
When the republicunts keep bringing up Bill's hummer in the oval office, I am AMAZED that ANY of the following doesn't come up.
Can we expect more of the same if Billary gets elected?
1-James McDougal - Clinton 's convicted Whitewater partner died of an apparent heart attack, while in solitary confinement. He was a key witness in Ken Starr's investigation.
2 -Mary Mahoney - A former White House intern was murdered July 1997 at a Starbucks Coffee Shop in Georgetown . The murder happened just after she was to go public with her story of sexual harassment in the White House.
3- Vince Foster - Former White House counselor and colleague of Hillary Clinton at Little Rock 's Rose Law firm. Died of a gunshot wound to the head, ruled a suicide.
4- Ron Brown - Secretary of Commerce and former DNC Chairman. Reported to have died by impact in a plane crash. A pathologist close to the investigation reported that there was a hole in the top of Brown's skull resembling a gunshot wound. At the time of his death Brown was being investigated, and spoke publicly of his willingness to cut a deal with prosecutors. The rest of the people on the plane also died. A few days later the air Traffic controller committed suicide.
5- C. Victor Raiser II- Raiser, a major player in the Clinton fund raising organization died in a private plane crash in July 1992
6-Paul Tulley - Democratic National Committee Political Director found dead in a hotel room in Little Rock , September 1992. Described by Clinton as a "Dear friend and trusted advisor".
7-Ed Willey - Clinton fund raiser, found dead November 1993 deep in the woods in VA of a gunshot wound to the head. Ruled a suicide. Ed Willey died on the same day his wife Kathleen Willey claimed Bill Clinton groped her in the oval office in the White House. Ed Willey was involved in several Clinton fund raising events.
8-Jerry Parks -Head of Clinton's gubernatorial security team in Little Rock . Gunned down in his car at a deserted intersection outside Little Rock . Park's son said his father was building a dossier on Clinton . He allegedly threatened to reveal this information. After he died the files were mysteriously removed from his house.
9-James Bunch - Died from a gunshot suicide. It was reported that he had a "Black Book" of people which contained names of influential people who visited prostitutes in Texas and Arkansas
10-James Wilson - Was found dead in May 1993 from an apparent hanging suicide. He was reported to have ties to Whitewater.
11-Kathy Ferguson- Ex-wife of Arkansas Trooper Danny Ferguson, was found dead in May 1994, in her living room with a gunshot to her head. It was ruled a suicide even though there were several packed suitcases, as if she were going somewhere. Danny Ferguson was a co-defendant along with Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones lawsuit. Kathy Ferguson was a possible corroborating witness for Paula Jones.
12-Bill Shelton - Arkansas State Trooper and fiance of Kathy Ferguson. Critical of the suicide ruling of his fiance, he was found dead in June, 1994 of a gunshot wound also ruled a suicide at the grave site of his fiance.
13-Gandy Baugh - Attorney for Clinton 's friend Dan Lassater, died by jumping out a window of a tall building January, 1994. His client was a convicted drug distributor.
14-Florence Martin - Accountant & sub-contractor for the CIA, was related to the Barry Seal Mena Airport drug smuggling case. He died of three gunshot wounds.
15- Suzanne Coleman - Reportedly had an affair with Clinton when he was Arkansas Attorney General. Died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head, ruled a suicide. Was pregnant at the time of her death.
16-Paula Grober - Clinton 's speech interpreter for the deaf from 1978 until her death December 9, 1992 . She died in a one car accident.
17-Danny Casolaro - Investigative reporter. Investigating Mena Airport and Arkansas Development Finance Authority. He slit his wrists, apparently, in the middle of his investigation.
18- Paul Wilcher - Attorney investigating corruption at Mena Airport with Casolaro and the 1980 "October Surprise" was found dead on a toilet June 22, 1993 in his Washington DC apartment. Had delivered a report to Janet Reno 3 weeks before his death.
19-Jon Parnell Walker - Whitewater investigator for Resolution Trust Corp. Jumped to his death from his Arlington , Virginia apartment balcony August 15, 1993 . He was investigating the Morgan Guaranty scandal.
20-Barbara Wise - Commerce Department staffer. Worked closely with Ron Brown and John Huang. Cause of death unknown. Died November 29, 1996 . Her bruised, nude body was found locked in her office at the Department of Commerce.
21-Charles Meissner -Assistant Secretary of Commerce who gave John Huang special security clearance, died shortly thereafter in a small plane crash.
22-Dr. Stanley Heard - Chairman of the National Chiropractic Health Care Advisory Committee died with his attorney Steve Dickson in a small plane crash. Dr. Heard, in addition to serving on Clinton 's advisory council personally treated Clinton 's mother, stepfather and brother.
23-Barry Seal -Drug running pilot out of Mena Arkansas , death was no accident.
24-Johnny Lawhorn Jr. - Mechanic, found a check made out to Bill Clinton in the trunk of a car left at his repair shop. He was found dead after his car had hit a utility pole.
25-Stanley Huggins - Investigated Madison Guaranty. His death was a purported suicide and his report was never released.
26- Hershell Friday - Attorney and Clinton fund raiser died March 1, 1994 when his plane exploded.
27-Kevin Ives & Don Henry - Known as "The boys on the track" case. Reports say the boys may have stumbled upon the Mena Arkansas airport drug operation. A controversial case, the initial report of death said, due to falling asleep on railroad tracks. Later reports claim the 2 boys had been slain before being placed on the tracks. Many linked to the case died before their testimony could come before a Grand Jury.
THE FOLLOWING PERSONS HAD INFORMATION ON THE IVES/HENRY CASE:
28-Keith Coney - Died when his motorcycle slammed into the back of a truck, 7/88.
29-Keith McMaskle - Died stabbed 113 times, Nov, 1988
30-Gregory Collins - Died from a gunshot wound January 1989.
31-Jeff Rhodes - He was shot, mutilated and found burned in a trash dump in April 1989.
33-James Milan - Found decapitated. However, the Coroner ruled his death was due to "natural causes".
34-Jordan Kettleson - Was found shot to death in the front seat of his pickup truck in June 1990.
35-Richard Winters - A suspect in the Ives / Henry deaths. He was killed in a set-up robbery July 1989.
THE FOLLOWING CLINTON BODYGUARDS ARE DEAD:
36 -Major William S. Barkley Jr.
37-Captain Scott J . Reynolds
38-Sgt. Brian Hanley
39-Sgt. Tim Sabel
40-Major General William Robertson
41-Col. William Densberger
42 -Col. Robert Kelly
43-Spec. Gary Rhodes
44-Steve Willis
45-Robert Williams
46-Conway LeBleu
47-Todd McKeehan
Quite an impressive list don't you think?
If you're voting for Hillary, apparently you're not.
The Time Is NOW!
As we all know, Nancy Pelosi's "Capitulation Congress" will do absolutely everything it can to avoid a battle with bush over his utter contempt for the Constitution, the rule of law and even Congress itself.
Remember Pelosi's 2006 campaign reason No. 1 for electing a Democratic Congress?
"Subpoena power."
So what about all those subpoenas bush flagrantly and illegally defied in 2007?
Never mind, says Pelosi.
House Democrats will postpone votes on criminal contempt citations against White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, while congressional leaders work with bush on a bipartisan stimulus package to fend off an economic downturn, according to party leaders and leadership aides.
Yet another bush smoke screen.
Senior Democrats have decided that holding a controversial vote on the contempt citations, which have already been approved by the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, would "step on their message" of bipartisan unity in the midst of the stimulus package talks.
Ah, "bipartisan unity." If that phrase means anything, doesn't it require compromise by both parties? So why is it that since Reagan came to Washington in 1981 -- including the eight years of President Clinton -- "bipartisan unity" has always meant Democratic capitulation to Republicans?
Every progressive knows what Republican Grover Norquist famously said: "Bipartisanship is another name for date rape."
At the moment, the Washington establishment -- and Democratic "leaders" -- believe the slightest hint of constitutional conflict would terrify financial markets and trigger a depression. (ANOTHER bush smoke screen)
So if "bipartisan unity" is the issue above all other issues, why doesn't the Washington establishment demand that bush show some bipartisanship by respecting lawful and entirely justified congressional subpoenas?
American business leaders arrogantly tell foreign leaders that economic growth is impossible without the "rule of law." Well, without the basic legal tool of subpoenas, there is no rule of law.
Just imagine what bush would say if Vladimir Putin defied subpoenas from his parliament. By refusing to hold bush in contempt, Congress is allowing bush to be more of a dictator than Putin.
Personally, I believe the single most important thing Congress could do to prevent a depression and restore the pillars of our legal-economic system is to get to the source of all White House legal obstruction by starting impeachment hearings for Dick Cheney as advocated by Rep. Robert Wexler.
Why?
First, consider the alternatives.
Financial markets around the world think a $150 billion economic stimulus is utterly useless in the context of the massive collapse of the U.S. mortgage industry and the banks that tried to milk it. That's precisely why global markets plunged 5 percent to 10 percent on Monday.
Why did the mortage industry collapse?
Simple: bush's government stopped regulating it and let the banks create a gigantic bubble by offering reckless and even criminal mortgages to people who could not afford them.
Who in the White House waged war against all forms of economic regulation?
Dick Cheney, of course.
And speaking of war, another major reason for our profound economic problems is Iraq. After predicting a cost-free war, bush's disastrous occupation has already forced him to borrow $500 billion from China and the Arab oil monarchies, driving down the dollar and discouraging foreign investment.
Who demanded the war in Iraq?
Dick Cheney, of course.
Speaking of oil, the indirect economic costs of Iraq have dwarfed the direct budget costs. Oil was under $30 per barrel before bush's invasion, but the political instability caused by the invasion has helped drive oil near $100 per barrel. This has driven up costs throughout the economy, cut business profits and slashed consumer spending power.
Another drag on the U.S. economy is hard to measure but still large -- corruption.
bush and his huge donor "Rangers" brought crony capitalism to Washington and killed competitive bidding in favor of corrupt no-bid contracts. The result was predictable -- massive waste and cost overruns.
Who was the driving force behind bush's crony capitalism?
Dick Cheney, of course.
bush's disastrous and failed policies in all three areas -- economic regulation, foreign/military policy and government waste -- have driven the U.S. economy to the verge of another Great Depression.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Now I Have To Vote For Edwards
It is a sad day for Fed Up American.
Democrat Dennis Kucinich is abandoning his second, long-shot bid for the White House as he faces a tough fight to hold onto his other job — U.S. congressman.
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In an interview with Cleveland's Plain Dealer, the six-term House member said he was quitting the race and would make a formal announcement on Friday.
"I will be announcing that I'm transiting out of the presidential campaign," Kucinich said. "I'm making that announcement tomorrow about a new direction."
Kucinich is focusing on and ramping up his impeachment efforts against the current batch of criminals holding America and the white house hostage, bush and cheney.
Kucinich Makes It Official
Is Kucinich the only one of the presidential candidates that actually is doing the job he's being paid for?
It's a shame the Hillary and Obama think that the paycheck they are receiving is for campaigning.
Is that the change they keep singing about?
The Fall Guy
The political calendar indicates that in one more year – on Jan. 20, 2009 – the presidency of bush will come to an end.
However, the worst consequences of his disastrous reign, including the Iraq War, may be nowhere near ending.
Today’s presidential frontrunners, John McCain and Hillary Clinton, were early prominent supporters of the Iraq War and appear to have suffered little political damage for lining up behind Bush in 2002 when he was at the peak of his power.
For his part, McCain – who campaigns with neoconservative independent Sen. Joe Lieberman – has no plan to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq, indeed talks about keeping U.S. troops there for centuries. Clinton, who was a late convert to an anti-war position, now vows to “start withdrawing” U.S. troops by early spring 2009.
So, it seems a sure bet that a McCain presidency would continue Bush’s Iraq policies indefinitely. And it looks like a gamble whether Clinton would press ahead with her “hope” of bringing “nearly all the troops out by the end of” 2009 – or revert to the neocon-lite position that she embraced from 2002 until the start of the Democratic campaign in 2007.
Might Hillary Clinton be to George W. Bush on Iraq what Richard Nixon was to Lyndon Johnson on Vietnam, a President who continued a war for years while gradually moving to wind it down?
Ironically, the politician taking the most heat on the Iraq War today is Barack Obama, who opposed the war resolution in 2002. In recent days, he has come under harsh criticism from former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Clinton for not consistently joining with the staunchest war opponents in the Senate.
Bill Clinton has called Obama’s anti-war position a “fairy tale,” and Sen. Clinton, who helped make the Iraq War possible, has attacked Obama for not immediately supporting a cutoff of funds for the war when he entered the Senate in 2005, even though that was a position he shared with Clinton.
Amazingly, it looks like – if any politician is going to be held accountable on the Iraq War – it may be Obama, who was an early and vocal opponent.
bush's Economic Smokescreen
The rhetoric surrounding George W. Bush's economic stimulus package, as boastfully "bi-partisan" as it is (we are, after all, in an election year), indicates a complete lack of comprehension of the difference between this 'national' economy and the 'people's' economy, and the extent of the gap between the two.
The unveiling of his plan was classic bush bullshit. State something ambiguous about a $140 billion adrenaline shot, then have your cronies act as wingmen. Hence, at last Friday's press conference, Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs CEO, Hank Paulson was left fending off uncomfortable questions like: would the plan help "elderly people on fixed incomes?"
His answer: "The Christmas season has come and gone."
The national economy, as measured by large scale figures simply does not represent individual citizens' economic circumstances. That's why debate over whether we are in a recession or not misses the point of everyday financial realities for most of the population. According to the standard definition of recession (two quarters or more of a decline in GDP), we're not there. In which case, Bush and Paulson are technically right in saying the economy is simply 'slow'.
But, that's been far from the case if we consider the people's economy (the people - as in all the American citizens who don't fall into that upper percent of the nation's wealth bracket). And very little in the President's, or in most of the presidential candidates' plans, will change this.
The highest bidder mentality of Wall Street and its elite private equity groups has exacerbated the sub prime and regular housing market crisis. As investment banks stuffed loans into packages of toxic speculative waste, actual people lost their homes, hurt further by media attention on those declining home values, which didn't thrill new buyers.
In the process of trying to keep up escalating payments on their homes and home equity loans, backed by falling home values, people increased their credit card balances, suffering requisite late fees and higher rates, and ravaging 401K plans in desperation, during a time in which the values of those plans shrunk along with the falling stock market.
Don't get me wrong. No one would scoff at an $800 tax rebate check in the mail, but at best, it may provide a month of relief. Meanwhile, it does nothing strategically to fix the barrage of corporate gouging that continues unabated and unregulated by the Washington powers that be, including those running for office.Home prices fell by a record over the year and with legions of unsold homes on the market, they won't be rising any time soon. The largest mortgage lenders are trying to sell themselves to the banks that once funded them. And banks keep writing down loan values on their books faster than you can say "class action lawsuit." Credit card companies are starting to see the late payment and defaults that happen when people have maxed out their cards to pay their rising mortgages.
Unemployment has jumped to 5 percent, or 2001 'recession' levels. And, if more firms fire more employees to 'cut expenses', that number will rise. This means people will buy less, which will hurt corporations, who will then fire more people.
We can debate forever whether the average $300 tax rebate in 2001 that the administration claims stimulated the economy did or not. (We can debate whether a similar rebate will or will not this time around.)
But whatever it achieved for the national corporate economy, it did not halt the rise in basic living expenses, health care costs or tuition.It did not put a leash on credit card companies. American credit card debt has tripled in the past two decades, with African American and Latino households carrying a higher percentage of debt than White ones. Americans over 65, targeted by predatory credit card companies, experienced the greatest increase in debt carried. Meanwhile, industry deregulation means there are no rate or fee caps. Credit card issuers raked in $8 billion of fees between 2004 and 2005. To cope with the rising credit card debt, Americans raided the equity in their homes, whose values seemed to be only rising - until they stopped. From 2001 to 2006, homeowners cashed out $1.2 trillion in equity. Those loans will need to be repaid.
It did not halt the increase in the wealth gap. Over the past two decades, wealth in the top 2 percent of the country has doubled; in the bottom quarter, it has declined.
It did not halt the fraud or questionable lending practices of the housing market players. The list of investigations has just begun.
It did not halt the decrease in average American wages per hour.
It did not halt the unemployment gap between white and black Americans. In general, the black unemployment rate is twice that of whites, more in recessionary times. The black prison rate also rises with the unemployment gap.
It did not halt the life expectancy gap. The rich live longer than the poor by 6 years.
It did not halt the deletion of employee retirement plans. Only one out of five private sector workers has a traditional pension.
It did not replenish the Social Security system. None of the candidates has addressed pensions or social security in any meaningful way. Saying 'we'll fix it' is not meaningful.
So, once again, the rich will get richer and the poor will remain poor.
Is there ANY presidential candidate that will look out for the common man? Who will be concerned for the "average" American?
I can only think of two candidates.
John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich.
You see, the average American is the one with the most power. They just forgot that. There are strength in numbers and I'm NOT just talking about the numbers in a persons net worth. WE THE PEOPLE need to take OUR country back. There's STILL time.
Become a Fed Up American.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
From Creditor To Debtor: The Legacy Of The bush Regime
The military mis-adventurers of the Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups of men thought that they were the "smartest guys in the room," the title of Alex Gibney's film on what went wrong at Enron.
The republicunts in the White House and the Pentagon outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination.
As a result, going into 2008, the United States finds itself in the position of being unable to pay for its own elevated living standards or its wasteful, overly large military establishment. Its government no longer even attempts to reduce the ruinous expenses of maintaining huge standing armies, replacing the equipment that seven years of wars have destroyed or worn out.
Instead, the bush administration puts off these costs for future generations to pay.
This utter fiscal irresponsibility has been disguised through many manipulative financial schemes, such as other countries lending us unprecedented sums of money, but the time of reckoning is fast approaching. America under bush is NOT the promised ownership society but we are now the OWNED society.
There are three broad aspects to our debt crisis.
First, in the current fiscal year, 2008, we are spending insane amounts of money on "defense" projects that bear no relationship to the national security of the United States. Simultaneously, we are keeping the income tax burdens on the richest segments of the American population at strikingly low levels.
Second, we continue to believe that we can compensate for the accelerating erosion of our manufacturing base and our loss of jobs to foreign countries through massive military expenditures. The mistaken belief that public policies focused on frequent wars, huge expenditures on weapons and munitions, and large standing armies can indefinitely sustain a wealthy capitalist economy.
The opposite is actually true.
Third, in our devotion to militarism, despite our limited and rapidly diminishing resources, we are failing to invest in our social infrastructure and other requirements for the long-term health of our country. These are what economists call "opportunity costs," things not done because we spent our money on something else. Our public education system has deteriorated alarmingly. We have failed to provide health care to all our citizens and neglected our responsibilities as the world's number one polluter.
Most important, we have lost our competitiveness as a manufacturer for civilian needs, an infinitely more efficient use of scarce resources than arms manufacturing.
Countdown And The Economy
On Tuesday’s Countdown, Keith looks at the market meltdown and how the failed policies of President Bush and the Republicans made it possible by deregulating the institutions that led us to where the economy is today, and by borrowing money from other countries to pay for massive tax cuts here at home.
Rachel Maddow joined Keith and talked about John Edwards, who was the first presidential candidate who talked about the impending crisis and suggested an economic stimulus package to head it off — and as long as the topic is the economy, he has the upper hand.
Not only was Edwards the first one talking about the stimulus package, as you mentioned, but he’s also been the populist guy on economics. He’s the guy whose been most willing from the very beginning to actually identify bad guys in the economy. To say, let’s be patriotic about something other than war, let’s be moralistic about something other than sex, let’s talk about corporate irresponsibility and corporations that don’t serve the people who work for them, or the consumers. Let’s actually identify un-American bad behavior in the economy and that kind of, I think, real forceful approach to the issue, is going to place him in good stead right now.
Not The First Time Bill Caught Napping
The first time was when him and Hillary were nodding off at Ronald Reagan's funeral.
Lets take a brief look at politicians taking untimely naps.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Meet The Clintons
OK, Bill. If you want to play in the public eye again, prepare to have your life dragged through the mud, along with your fucking Woody Woodpecker wife - the current Clinton/bush dynasty presidential candidate.
Now when Bill WAS president, I think America was in far better shape than it is under asshole bush's reign of terror but what I discovered about the Clinton's past is rather enlightening and disturbing at the same time. The entire series of video's is about two hours long but it is worth the time spent seeing what Hillary represents.
I leave it to you, the Fed Up Americans that are reading this, to decide for yourselves:
Is THIS what you want as America's president?
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Crazy Like A Fox
Insiders speak and tell of their experiences within FNC and the manipulation of the media.
The advent of the internet is to news, what the Atomic bomb was to weapons ... expect attempts to break up our little party and see control of the web tightened over the coming years, it is more than government can bare.
So now we are in a time when the US Government is waging open warfare on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The only venue of mass communication not yet under total control of the state is the internet, which functions as a modern day descendant of the "Samizdat"; the network of fax machines and copiers that allowed the citizens of the former USSR to expose the corruption of their government, leading to its collapse. And just as the Stalinists wanted to shut down the Samizdat, so too does the government of the United States, fearful of having its own corruptions exposed, search for a way to close down the free and open internet; to bring it under control of the state much as the mainstream media has been.
Do You Feel A Draft?
The Universal National Service Act of 2007 was introduced to the 1st Session of the 110th Congress on 10 January 2007.
Inducted as H.R. 393, the bill is currently sitting in the Committee on Armed Services. If enacted into law, the bill would obligate every Citizen to 2 years of national service with the following intent.
“To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to make permanent the favorable treatment afforded combat pay under the earned income tax credit, and for other purposes.”
To see the bill:
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h393_ih.xml
Contact your Representative and Senators today and let them know of your dissatisfaction for this attempt at another draft. Also, write or e-mail Members of the Armed Services Committee. With Depleted Uranium being used in the middle east, tens of thousands of soldiers coming home sick, wounded for life and dying while warmongering Global elites hell bent on planning WW III this is absolutely ridiculous!
Click on these links to locate and correspond with your Congressional Representatives.
US House of Representatives:
https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
US Senate:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Contacting the Congress
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
House Armed Services Committee Website:
http://armedservices.house.gov/
Members of the House Armed Services Committee:
http://armedservices.house.gov/list_of_members.shtml
Kucinich Fires Back
A GREAT BIG FUCK YOU goes out to NBC, its affiliate stations and ALL of its sponsors!
After being excluded by General Electric/NBC from the Las Vegas "debate", Congressman Dennis Kucinich joined Amy Goodman the following day for a re-host of the event.
Democracy Now! deserves major kudos for attempting to right the irreversible wrong committed by NBC. Due to this crime, NBC, the sponsors of the debate, and Howard Dean have received an overwhelming response of emails and calls on why we're boycotting them permanently.
Dennis Kucinich has shown once again that he is hip to rights which most Americans don't even know they have. This time it was about the right of the American public to our airwaves.
The airwaves are public property which private corporate media conglomerates have no right to control. General Electric has a vested interest in this election. The company has over $2 billion in military contracts, and uses the absolute power it shares with a handful of other corporations to expel all undesirable opinions from public discussion.
Private corporations skew information to the benefit of their shareholders. They are plain and simple tyrannies which make a living out of violating the first amendment, and frankly do not have the right to exist. No other industrialized nation has handed over their airwaves to private powers as we have. American television companies currently have the power to promote war, make money off of said war, and silence all opposition to it.
The time to end their reign is now, while the internet is still in public hands.
Let us not forget that radio and television were once public property as well. If we do not resist the ever-pervasive presence of private power to purchase everything public, this "alternative media" will cease being a device for information and interaction, and turn into just another propaganda tool.
However, if we make the choice to stand together, America just might become a democracy.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Monday, January 21, 2008
Drug Pushers
The irony of visiting your doctor.
You sit in the waiting room and you see all these sharp dressed sales reps come in from different drug companies. Once you got back to the exam room, the walls are plastered with posters from drug companies, as well as pictures, little models of different parts of the anatomy and anything else you can think of. All the mugs would be from a drug company and even the office supplies would bear their names.
All the sudden I would get a prescription and it would be for the same drug that is engraved on the side of the pen the doctor was writing the script with.
When a Duluth-based operator of hospitals and clinics purged the pens, notepads, coffee mugs and other promotional trinkets drug companies had given its doctors over the years, it took 20 shopping carts to haul the loot away.
The operator, SMDC Health System, intends to ship the 18,718 items to the west African nation of Cameroon.
The purge underscored SMDC's decision to join the growing movement to ban gifts to doctors from drug companies.
SMDC scoured its four hospitals and 17 clinics across northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin for clipboards, clocks, mouse pads, stuffed animals and other items decorated with logos for such drugs as Nexium, Vytorin and Lipitor.
Trinkets, free samples, free food and drinks, free trips and other gifts have pervaded the medical profession, but observers say that's starting to change.
"We just decided for a lot of reasons we didn't want to do that any longer," Dr. Kenneth Irons, chief of community clinics for SMDC, said Friday.
So SMDC put together a comprehensive conflict-of-interest policy that, among other things, limits access to its clinics by drug company representatives. Employees suggested the "Clean Sweep" trinket roundup, Irons said.
Ken Johnson, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, had heard of hospitals and clinics banning promotional items before, but said SDMC's purge was unprecedented.
"I've never seen nor heard of a systematic roundup of pens and coffee mugs before," Johnson said. "It's a bit draconian. But the onus is on us now to do a better job of explaining the job and the importance of marketing representatives. Unfortunately there are a lot of cynics in America who want to think the worst."
SDMC's effort was motivated by a desire to show patients that its 450 doctors were serious about keeping prescription drug costs down and making unbiased medical decisions, Irons said.
The backlash against the cozy relationships between doctors and drug makers gained steam from article in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2006. It said research had shown that even cheap gifts, such as pens, can affect doctors' prescribing decisions.
The Prescription Project, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, was founded to promote the JAMA article's recommendations for countering aggressive marketing to physicians by the pharmaceutical and medical device industries.
Marcia Hams, assistant director of the project, said she too hadn't heard of a roundup like SDMC's, but hopes other health organizations follow its lead.
"This seems like a pretty aggressive way to kick off a policy like that," she said. "It sends an important message, I think, for how a strict policy can be implemented in an effective way."
Kaiser Permanente, the country's largest HMO, Veterans Affairs hospitals and medical centers at several universities have recently adopted strict conflict-of-interest policies, such as gift bans, Hams said.
Many of SMDC's items will be going to the health system of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Cameroon, which has three hospitals, and several rural health centers, and no drug salesmen.
Edwards Snubbed
So, now, Survey USA, which conducts an influential state-by-state poll, has decided that John Edwards is not sufficiently "viable" to be included in their head-to-head match-ups for the general election.
This is in keeping with a major theme of campaign 2008: our media and political establishments narrowing the field before most Americans get to cast a vote.
Nothing new there -- our electoral choices are always limited to a few candidates whom the Beltway establishment finds "palatable" -- who raise a lot of cash from large donors and who won't disturb the status quo. But this cycle, they appear to be doing so with unusual intensity. Why? Because they're terrified -- this is an election in which voters are pissed off, and many appear ready to reject the anointed front-runners in favor of candidates they believe will shake up Washington's business-as-usual ways.
That volatility scares a lot of people who do quite well under the status quo, thank you, and the attacks on candidates like Mike Huckabee -- a heretic for questioning the GOP's unquestioned fealty to Wall Street's investor class -- have been particularly striking. As have been the efforts to narrow the larger political debates, with Fox sidelining Ron Paul and NBC rewriting its own rules in order to uninvite Dennis Kucinich to Tuesday's Dem show-down in Nevada.
John Edwards, with his explicit and sharp critique of the ways in which corporate power distorts our political discourse, is in a special category. Unlike a Paul or Kucinich, Edwards was the VEEP on the Dems' last ticket, and therefore can't be marginalized as easily. But they've tried to marginalize him nonetheless, both by focusing on his haircuts and failing miserably to engage the actual messages of his campaign.
I think this offers as good a picture of what a lot of the Villagers are feeling as any …
The short version of the story is that SurveyUSA told Lane that they had made a "judgment call" in deciding that Edwards had no shot at the nomination. Lane took issue with the inclusion of Giuliani in the head-to-heads, as Giuliani trails Edwards in both national polls and delegates. But I think that misses a few points.
First, we don't have national primaries, so national polls are meaningless. The next state is all that counts, and that's Nevada. And while several polls show Clinton pulling ahead of Obama and Edwards trailing, others have the race as a virtual three-way tie. The media creates its own self-fulfilling prophesy with their breathless reports about the shifts in "momentum" after each primary. If Edwards were to pull off an (admittedly highly improbable) win in Nevada, the story would be about his resurrection from the ashes, and that would impact the race down the line. Only four states have weighed in on this race, and the rest of us are waiting for our shot, SurveyUSA is making a judgment call that he doesn't have a shot, based on nothing but their own fallible polling.
Secondly -- and I think this is a the bigger issue -- SurveyUSA is stripping the Edwards' campaign of one of its best selling points: the fact that he does better than the other Dem candidates in theoretical match-ups with everyone in the GOP field. In fact, against the GOP's strongest candidate in head-to-heads, John McCain, only Edwards among the top Dems wins comfortably.
So, by not including him in head-to-heads, they're effectively obscuring one of the strongest rationales for nominating Edwards. The fact that he beats up on the GOP is inconvenient, so they're simply excising it from the discourse surrounding the Democratic primary.
If you'd like to contact Survey USA and ask them why they left Edwards out of their polling while Giuliani was not, you can call them here:
1-800-786-8000.
You can email them here at their news tip line: thenews@katu.com
Democracy My Ass
How can this be called a democracy when someone running for president isn't even on the ballot?
The Supreme Court on Friday allowed Texas to print presidential primary ballots without Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich's name.
The court refused to step into a dispute between Kucinich and the Texas Democratic Party over a loyalty oath all candidates must sign to make the ballot.
Kucinich and singer-supporter Willie Nelson objected to the party oath that a presidential candidate must "fully support" the party's eventual nominee. Kucinich crossed out the oath when he filed for a spot on the primary ballot.
A federal judge in Austin ruled against Kucinich last week.
U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel ruled the state party has the right to require the oath. Kucinich and Nelson argued it violated Kucinich's First Amendment right to free speech.
King's Dream
The honoring of Martin Luther King, Jr. today is a time for those of us within the activist movements he energized to pause to reflect on Dr. King's vision of universal freedom and opportunity for all.
His dream is no less than the American dream, a dream that lives on and impels us to constantly ask ourselves the question:
We all know Dr. King because of his historic impact on civil rights, but many don't realize that later in life he fought just as passionately for the rights of workers and against the entrenched institutions of injustice.
"Equality means dignity. And dignity demands a job and a paycheck that lasts through the week."
The War on Greed is exactly this kind of fight. The livelihoods of families have been directly attacked by the actions of buyout billionaires like Henry Kravis putting Wall Street's special interests ahead of his 800,000 employees... and pocketing $51,000 an hour in the process.
The first step must be taxing these buyout billionaires at a fair tax rate.
It will not solve all the problems, but it is a strong and forceful beginning.
With the presidential campaigns underway, it is the perfect time to force this issue into the campaigns the way Robert Greenwald did with his other movies "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of a Low Price" and "Iraq for Sale."
People are hurting, badly, and we must take beginning steps to bring the issue of corporate greed and economic equality to the nation's attention.
The days of slave ownership are over and the slave owning corporations and even small business owners need to realize that. It is the American worker that makes them their money.
Its time to hold them accountable and every business owner in America needs to realize that just because you work for them, for the small scaprs they give you each week, they DO NOT own you.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The Boy Who Wanted To Be King
bush's woefully misguided invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, carried out under false pretences, has not only drained the United States treasury, but reduced Washington's standing in the Middle East in a way not yet fully grasped by most Americans.
Whereas Washington once played off Tehran against Baghdad, while involved in a superpower zero-sum game with the Soviet Union, the bush administration is now engaged in a zero-sum game, as a virtual equal, with Iran.
That is, America's loss has become Iran's automatic gain.
To grasp the steepness of Washington's recent fall, recall that until Saddam Hussein's disastrous invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the zero-sum doctrine in the region applied only to Iraq and Iran, two minor powers on the world stage.
Having emerged in a self-congratulatory mode as the "sole superpower" after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. now finds itself competing with a secondary power in the Middle East. This humbling realization seems to have finally penetrated the minds of top policy makers in the bush administration, causing concern.
More than anything else, that explains the sudden spurt of presidential interest in healing the long-running Israeli-Palestinian sore by holding a Middle East conference in Annapolis, Maryland. The real objective of the Bush team had more to do with mollifying Arab leaders in order to hold them together in its ongoing confrontation with Tehran than realizing a genuine urge to create a viable, independent Palestine within a year.
With his invasion of Iraq in 2003, bush diverged wildly from the policies of his two Republican predecessors: his father, papa bush, and Ronald Reagan. Both of them had proved erudite enough to maintain the zero-sum game between Iraq and Iran.
While the United States and the Soviet Union vied for supremacy in the oil-rich, strategically important Middle East, the rivalry between Baghdad and Tehran was long submerged in the Cold War between the two superpowers.
After the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, a zero-sum doctrine came to dominate that global "war." From then on, each Soviet gain was automatically seen as a loss in Washington, and vice-versa in Moscow.
This status quo held for 30 years. In April 1978, a Soviet-inspired military coup in Afghanistan toppled the regime of Daoud Khan -- who had earlier overthrown his cousin, King Zahir Shah, and founded a republic -- replacing it with a pro-Moscow republic. That alarmed the administration of President Jimmy Carter. The turmoil that ensued in Afghanistan would last two decades, at the end of which the Taliban movement would seize control of almost the entire country.
In the Middle East, meanwhile, a historic zero-sum game had prevailed between the pro-American Shah of Iran, re-installed after a CIA coup in 1953, and the Soviet-leaning regime of Arab nationalist officers in Iraq that followed the overthrow of the pro-British monarch in 1958.
In the eight-year war between the two neighbors, started by Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in 1980, President Reagan maintained a pretence of neutrality, while covertly supporting the Iraqi dictator, as some "rogue" officials in his administration sold weapons secretly to Iran's regime that had toppled the Shah in 1979.
In the mid-1980s, when Saddam's defeat became a real possibility, the Pentagon introduced the U.S. Navy into the conflict. While the ostensible purpose was to escort tankers, carrying Kuwaiti oil, through the Persian Gulf to foreign destinations, this was an overt U.S. tilt toward Iraq. The war ended in a stalemate, leaving the regional zero-sum equation intact.
Following the expulsion of Saddam Hussein's occupying Iraqi forces from Kuwait in February 1991, President George H. W. Bush, leading a coalition of 28 nations, called on Iraqis to rise up against Saddam. Both the Kurds in the north and the Shias in the south answered his call. Bush senior came to the rescue of the Iraqi Kurds under the guise of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 (relating to "the repression of Iraqi civilian population"). By contrast, he allowed Saddam's forces to deploy helicopter gun ships to mow down the Shia rebels in the south. Why?
Bush and his top officials, including then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, understood that Saddam's overthrow would end the classic Iraqi-Iranian zero-sum game. Once the long-suffering Shia majority in Iraq was in the driver's seat in a post-Saddam Iraq, it would naturally ally with predominantly Shia Iran.
The coming to power of the anti-Shia Taliban government in Afghanistan, culminating in its killing of a dozen Iranian diplomats in the regional capital of Mazar-e Sharif in the summer of 1998, raised Tehran-Kabul tensions to an explosive point. Tens of thousands of Iranian Revolutionary Guards gathered along the international border with Afghanistan for "military exercises."
Although the two governments pulled back from the brink of war, Iran continued to regard the Taliban as an intensely hostile entity.
Contrary to Iran's public posturing, including protests against the Pentagon's aerial strikes on Afghanistan between October and December 2001, its government actually shared intelligence on the Taliban with Washington, using back channels. Like its politicians, the Iranian public was glad to see the Taliban defeated, and Iran's diplomats cooperated with their American counterparts to install Hamid Karzai as the leader of the post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Then, in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Shia-dominated government feared by the first bush administration came into existence. The overthrow of its enemies to the east (in Afghanistan) and to the west (in Iraq) – wrought by junior to advance his own blinkered agenda -- had now prepared the ground for Iran to assume the regionally dominant role its leaders consider their right.
Iran has the largest population in the region, is four times the size of Iraq, shares land and water borders with nine countries, and has a coastline that runs along the whole Persian Gulf as well as part of the Arabian Sea, not to mention the land-locked Caspian Sea. It also has the second largest reserves of oil, as well as natural gas, in the world.
In its regional policies, it does not differentiate between Sunnis and Shias. It has taken the lead in offering aid, material and moral, to Hamas, even though it is a Sunni Palestinian movement.
Iran's stance is in line with popular sentiment among Arabs. Hassan Nasrallah, Ismail Haniyeh, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- respectively, the heads of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, the Palestinian Hamas movement, and Iran -- now top opinion polls as favorite leaders in Arab countries. That is, ordinary Arabs generally ignore sectarian differences, except when it comes to occupied Iraq.
Worried by this fact, Arab rulers have resorted to stressing their sectarian, rather than ideological or policy disagreements, with Iran. The Bush administration has encouraged them to do so. Eager to counter rising Iranian influence by any means, its top officials are now trying to rally Arab rulers as Sunnis against Shia Iran, forgetting that a hasty and unnecessary invasion of Iraq was what has brought about this wretched mess in the first place.
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