Max Blumenthal: Bravest "Mensch" In The Village

He ventured out among the 'faithful' at last week's Values Voters conference, sponsored by the vicious child-abuser James Dobson's Focus On The Family franchise, and actually got into the grill, a little, of the Christianist Fascisti. He returns hale and hearty, and with more priceless video. At least this time he did not find himself unceremoniously escorted from the place. It's a really dirty job (he had to get within arm's length of Phyllis Schlafly & James Dobson on the same day, without a change of clothes)
Go here for the viddie.
Go to Huffpost for the article.

ClearChannel has Forbidden Franchisees To Play "The Boss's" New Hit, "Magic"

Here we go again. The Dixie Chicks redux! Bruce has the #1 record in all the land called ” Magic,” but Clear Channel has sent out a memo saying:

Alas, there’s a hitch: Radio will not play “Magic.” In fact, sources tell me that Clear Channel has sent an edict to its classic rock stations not to play tracks from “Magic.” But it’s OK to play old Springsteen tracks such as “Dancing in the Dark,” “Born to Run” and “Born in the USA.”

Republican owned corporate media once again is attempting to silence progressive positions. I’m trying to contact Springsteen’s camp for a comment.

Howie Klein has much more…

Clear Channel is a big-time and very consciously right-wing power player with a goal of changing American pop culture. They have done all they could to stifle progressive voices and to dumb down and trivialize the culture…

I shall leave this thread with a single observation: A decent marksman with a little radio training can disable any radio tower with one shot. I do not recommend this course, do not advocate it, merely note it as a matter of passing interest.
PPS: Crossposted on Woody Guthrie's Guitar.

BlogWar Shocker ( Part II): Woody Concedes Dirk Gently's Points

Over on Dirk Gently's charming and idiosyncratic "Albatross" Dirk and madamab both assert the oiligarchs are willing to eschew their usual and expected election-thievery this cycle, and rely instead (as they did in 2006? I have made that assertion myself on occasion) on relinquishing a modicum of power to a selected, trusted avatar, to be elected from the Democratic Party.
The current front-runner and imho likely choice is Mrs. C., of course.

In my gracious concession speech, reproduced below, I acknowledged the superiority of their analysis to my own, which is that the oiligarchs may not feel sufficiently in control of circumstances to take a chance on relinquishing the Executive. Hence, if they trust, say, Mrs. C. as their surrogate, wouldn't it follow that here we have irrebuttable evidence of the claims by Chomsky, Nader, and others as to the synonymy of the Parties' interests? I am glad they pursued that logic to the conclusion i missed. Good on 'em.

It would be shrewed, no doubt (or your tinfoil's wrapped tighter than mine--quick, check!):
Hillary as a both the sacrificial lamb and the scapegoat.
not two, but three birds: escape responsibility for the crash to come, blame the Dims, and demonstrate once and for all the essential weakness of 'women/fems', their insutability for "real" responsibility...
yeah, thad'd by quite a coup...
and there's no doubt the oligarchs/elites are capable of
man, that's too damn likely to be true...spookily...
and i been called paranoid...

S/he would have to be trusted NOT to use her power to pursue justice for the crimes of the previous regime, for example.

Fearless Prediction: The Pukes will "win" the Presidency

Or perhaps I should say: The Pukes will "TAKE" the Presidency. They have learned that all that is necessary for them to stay in power is to preserve the appearance that they are 'competitive,' to keep it close enough to steal. And then to steal it...

With either Mrs. C. or Obama as the Dem nominee, that will be easier than even hitherto, because both are controversial, both are polarizing, and neither can be considered a prohibitive favorite.

Crooksandliars has a quote up from a Digby column:

I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but George W. Bush is being disappeared from the presidential campaign and everyone’s running against incumbent Hillary Clinton. Subtly, but relentlessly, the public psyche is being prepared to deny Junior ever existed. And it could work…

I certainly don’t blame the Republicans for trying to do it. It makes sense, since their boy is an epic failure and the original Clinton is still very present in people’s minds. It will be quite a trick to pull off, but I can see the press already helping them do it. (Naturally.) It’s an interesting phenomenon and one for which I hope the Democratic strategists are prepared. Their underlying theme seems to be, “If you want change, vote Republican!”

This outcome will be abetted by the occurrence during the campaign of several events, perhaps many, events designed to play into the militarist/GWOT Puke platform--which, of course, is all they have. That, of course, does not mean that it will not work; in fact it means that the GOPuke issues are precisely the issues that will matter come election time.

With that in mind, I shall therefore go out on the limb and here, confidently, for the first time in the blogosphere, predict that a Puke will be 'elected' President next year.

Gay-Ron-TEED, chers.

Farts & Darts, Bells & Whistles: THE FIRST EVER First W-iPoll!

Have Congressional Dems Sold The Country Down The River...to have their 'turn' at unlimited power?

Choose one; explain:
1. Does the Pope Wear Prada?
2> Maybe They'll Be Better At It.
3) Why Do You Hate America?

"Dems and Pukes Have Sold The American People To the Highest/Only Bidders"

From Crooks & Liars.
Yes, it's Ralph Nader. Who else would say it, hunh? He's RIGHT! Fucking Deal WIDDIT!

Even the most outspoken Media Tool is STILL a Media Tool

'The president of the United States didn't have the power to spy on Americans ... operate secret prisons ... suspend due process ... torture ... hide the conduct of the government from the public, it's not like anybody gave President Bush any of these powers -- he took them, as a brain-dead Congress just stood there and watched.' - Jack Cafferty

So saith the most 'controversial' talking head on CNN. He wins adulatory 'ooooohs' and 'aaaaahs' from the throngs of mostly brain-impaired (if not altogether moribund) media consumers for his occasaional outbursts of apparent honesty. But, in this case as in so many more, Cafferty's wrong, of course.

The brain-dead Congress did NOT just stand there and watch. A very significant number of the members of BOTH Houses of that august body actively, and even enthusiastically, shoveled power at the Executive, using both hands and a manure spreader. Only two of the Dem candidates for president acted responsibly to attempt to preserve the separation of powers: Kucenich all along, and Dodd, recently.

Congress was and is actively complicit in the castration of the Constitution for the benefit of the elites and hegemons. Why would it not be? How could it escape blame for this traitorous sell-out of the liberties of th People? They BELONG, bag and baggage, to those very interests, themselves. The CorpoRat media did their jobs, standing by and applauding the initiative of the 'Serious' folks.

I'm No Expert In International Law, But I Am Pretty Sure "Collective Punishment" Is A No--No

I guess it's okay if you are Israel, though:

Disruptions would be steadily increased and tied to any rocket attacks from the Palestinian territory.

Jerusalem - Israel approved Thursday a plan to start punitive disruptions of the Gaza Strip's scarce supplies of electricity in response to rocket attacks from the Palestinian territory.

Israeli officials, noting that Palestinian militants fire rockets across the border almost daily, said the sanctions could start anytime. The plan calls for initial power cutoffs of 15 minutes, followed by increasingly longer ones each time more rockets fall.

Gaza's 1.5 million people get 60% of their electricity from Israel, which pulled its troops and settlers from the territory in 2005 but still controls Gaza's borders. Although many buildings have backup generators, power cutbacks would add to the impoverished coastal strip's hardships.

Since Israel's government began debating the sanctions, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and numerous international organizations have warned against what they say is unfair collective punishment.

Yet Israeli leaders defended the planned cutbacks in the hope that Gaza's ruling Hamas movement would respond by reining in the militants, whose crude, short-range rockets have terrorized Sderot and other border communities in Israel. The Israeli military has proved unable to stop the assault.

So Sue Me, You Fascist Fuck!

Joe Arpaio is the Sheriff of Maricopa County, Az.
He alleges that the Phoenix New Times committed a felony by publishing his home address:

Last week, Phoenix New Times' founders Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin were arrested and jailed after the paper published a story about the grand jury and subpoenas they had received that demanded detailed internet records of any person who had visited the newspaper's website since 2004, as well as all notes and records from any reporter who had written about the sheriff in the preceding three years.

After Larkin and Lacey were arrested an outpouring of shock and anger accompanied widespread media coverage of the case. The response created a groundswell of support for New Times. The charges were dropped less than 24 hours later after Thomas admitted that his office had made "serious missteps" in the case.

Arapio has been treading on the thin edge of the fascism in his dusty, hot bailiwick for almost 20 years. Here, courtesy of the Phoenix New Times, is a site chronicling Arpaio's excesses.
By the way:
Joe Arpaio
12808 North Via Del Sol
Fountain Hills, Arizona,
U.S.A.

So fucking sue me, Joe, you fascist fucking pig./!

Take a look at these two maps and understand:. The US WILL NOT abandon all those resources, guaran-fucking-teed, chers.

There are eight, king-hell, big bases now in operation in Iraq; 10 'foreward ops' bases; 75 Burger King, PizzaHut, and KFC outlets (Pepsico owns ALL the on-base franchises).

The dirty secret of Operation Iraqi Liberation (that was the first name assigned to it, no shit!) emerges when you lay the two maps over one another, and see the relation of "oil" and "occupation." Those little dots we usta call 'firebases.' "We" can and will walk away from all the firebases sites; we can always re-establish them. We will NOT walk away from the rest, which either sit astride oil pipelines or guard major oil production and distribution facilities. The two north-eastern-most of them are there to provide bases of operation to extend 'influence' (that is, military force) across the oil and energy-rich trans-Caspian region.

We've Come A Long Way, Baby: The World Now Regards USer "Special Forces" As International Death-Squads

Robert Parry posted the following almost a month ago at his Consortium News blog. It was picked up by ThePeoplesVoice dot org:

On a global level, the world reads about trigger-happy Blackwater “security contractors” mowing down civilians in Baghdad, the U.S. military killing unarmed people under loose “rules of engagement” in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and the CIA “rendering” suspected Islamists to secret prisons or to third-country dungeons where torture is practiced. Inside the United States, too, a police-state mentality is taking hold.

After more than six years of having dissent against President George W. Bush equated with disloyalty, police from Capitol Hill to college campuses are treating vocal disagreement as grounds for violently “taking down” citizens, while bouncers at campaign rallies hustle away prospective hecklers and police preemptively detain protesters or stick them in faraway “free-speech zones.”

On Sept. 17 at a University of Florida public forum with Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, journalism student Andrew Meyer asked an animated question about Kerry’s hasty concession after Election 2004.

Meyer then was accosted by several campus police officers who dragged him away and wrestled him to the ground. Despite pleading with police “don’t tase me, bro,” Meyer was “tasered” with powerful electric shocks as he screamed in pain.

Overseas, it now appears that Bush has authorized “rules of engagement” that have transformed U.S. Special Forces into “death squads,” much like those that roamed Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s identifying “subversives” and murdering them.

According to evidence emerging from a military court hearing at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, U.S. Special Forces are empowered to kill individuals who have been designated “enemy combatants,” even if they are unarmed and present no visible threat.

The hearing involves two Special Forces soldiers who took part in the cold-blooded execution of an Afghani who was suspected of leading an insurgent group. Though the Afghani, identified as Nawab Buntangyar, responded to questions and offered no resistance when encountered on Oct. 13, 2006, he was shot dead by Master Sgt. Troy Anderson on orders from his superior officer, Capt. Dave Staffel.

"We identified him, and we killed him."

Follow the link in the hed to Consortium News and read the rest. It is an appalling catalogue of murder, mayhem and manipulation.

I reiterate: NO US Soldier on duty in Iraq or Afghanistan will EVER be convicted of murder for any deed committed there.

Jindal's LA Victory Due Mainly To Post-Katrina, Black Hiatus/Diaspora

On Commonsense dot org (link in the hed) Bill Scher FUUKIN NAILS it:

Conservative movement favorite Bobby Jindal cruised to victory in Saturday's Louisiana gubernatorial election, winning 53% of the vote in a multi-person race, far ahead of the pack and avoiding a runoff election against a single opponent.

But Jindal got roughly the same amount of votes as four years ago, when he won only 48% of the vote and lost the governor's race.

The difference, Scher shows, is in the numbers of New Orleans and other South Louisiana voters, mainly black, mainly Democrat, who were displaced, dispropirated, dislocated, and thereafter effectively disenfranchised in the aftermath of the murderous flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina.

It is no accident that the Bush cabal HSA has devoted no resources to restoring the displaced poor of New Orleans--many who owned their properties, meager though they might appear. I believe Bobby Jindal intends to preside over the wholesale gentrification of New Orleans.
Another Mission: Accomplished.

Naomi Wolf: "10 Classic Steps To Close An Open Society"

45 minutes to understand the fall of the democratic state! Listen the fuck up, folks.1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy.
2. Create a gulag. 3. Develop a thug caste. 4. Set up an internal surveillance system. 5. Harass citizens' groups. 6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release. 7. Target key individuals. 8. Control the press. 9. Conflate/equate dissent with treason. 10. Suspend the rule of law.

Are the Bushits TOO Dangerous To Impeach?

I posted this on PFF this morning:

Something like 60 percent of USer citizens want to see BusCheney impeached. (Only a slightly smaller number want to see their heads on pikes outside the WhiteHouse.) But there is an enormous amount of inertia weighing down the process in Congress.

Ideally, of course, members of Congress should apply the same standard to themselves that they like to apply to members of the Executive and Judicial branches—namely to honor their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. That Oath is supposed to transcend political calculations. But of course it doesn't. So the question is "why not?"

I think it might be for something like the same reason Congress bailed out Chrysler, the Bush-ravaged S&Ls, etc.: As Chrysler/ElDorado S$L/etc. was 'too big to be allowed to fail, the Buscheney Cabal is too evil to sink without bringing down the whole house of cards.

Could it be that the Dims think that Bush and Cheney are so dangerously out of control that a serious impeachment drive in Congress would provoke the Deserter-in=Chief and his chickenshit chickenhawk puppe-master to fabricate a military emergency, strike Iran or otherwise generate a crisis, based on their continual fulminations about the “war on terror,” that would engulf the whole country, weaken the Dims, and throw them BACK on the defensive for 2008?

In short, do the Democrats regard BusCheney as being so defiantly, aggressively impeachable on so many counts that they are in effect, practically speaking, unimpeachable? That is, with the White House harboring so much political nitroglycerine, would ANY attempt to clean house be to dangerous to even try to remove it?

Sounds plausible...Just askin...

I Read ANYTHING By Chris Floyd

Here's the Terror War ethos in action: when the security forces are caught red-handed in a flagrant act of, literally, overkill -- in this case, the totally unprovoked, multiple shooting to death of an innocent man in a London subway -- they will resort to any measure to avoid the consequences for their action.

Why did the Brits put 7 bullets into the head of a young Brazilian guy at a Tube station in London a couple of years ago?

Simple: He "looked like" a known terrorist. Or so they say. But they could be lying.

No, really:

Police have been accused of manipulating a photo of Jean Charles de Menezes so it could be compared to that of one of the 21/7 bomb plotters. The image had been "stretched and sized" to form a composite image of the Brazilian and Hussain Osman to show the jury, prosecutors told the Old Bailey.

Mr de Menezes was shot dead after being wrongly identified as one of the men who targeted London's transport system. The Metropolitan Police denies breaking health and safety laws. Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times in the head on a train at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July 2005, after being wrongly identified as Osman. The Met Police said the composite picture was created to illustrate the difficulties officers would have had in differentiating between the two men.

But Clare Montgomery QC, prosecuting, told the court it had been altered "by either stretching or resizing so the face ceases to have its correct proportions". Forensics consultant Michael George told the court that the police composite appeared to have a "greater definition" than the two images used to produce it.

He produced an alternative composite, which was shown to the jury, in which the two faces had different skin tones and their mouths and noses were not aligned.

But that couldn't happen here...

What's Your "Share"?

I was invited to post the Question of the Day, over on MyLeftWing. This was my offering:

Over a beer the other day, a buddy of mine and I were shooting the shit; I asked him if he was getting any on the side. He laughs, says: "Hey bubba, I ain't had any in so long I didn't even know they moved it. On the side? Ha! Which one?
"But, seriously, bubba, that's changing shortly."

His eyes had lit up. I knew he was gonna tell me, so i didn't ask. And he did:

"Just a little over 9 years ago, a woman came into my life. An amazing woman. Suddenly. For her I felt the most intense emotions of love, and lust, and the greatest affinity mentally, physically, and spiritually that I ever experienced, til then or since. We had the MOST incredible affair.

"But about a year later, that woman left my life. Just like that, it was over. There was a message on my phone one day: "Something terrible has happened and I can't see you again.' It sounded like forever.

"I sent messages. She blocked me. I tried to call, but she ignored the phone. She lived 1000 miles away, and my life was totally chaotic in about a dozen other ways--I was losing a job, my parents were dying, and I was going home to take care of 'em--and there was no way, if she didn't want to, that I could carry it any further. So that was it. Nunca mas!

"But of course, I couldn't forget her. How do you forget someone like that? For a while, I looked for someone like her. And of course there was no one else.

"But back in the back of my mind, I always harbored the faint hope that what there was for us in one another other might find a way to resurface. I thought about her, and I always thought--well, no, hoped--we'd meet again. Sure, it was a pipe-dream, realistically, but you know how that is....

"Until, about 6 weeks ago, pretty much out of the blue, I got an form e-mail from Facebook, inviting me to join her Facebook group. There followed a message, and we exchanged messages, and then phone numbers, and then late one Saturday night, she called.

"We talked until dawn, 3, maybe 4 hours. So long I had to hang up to recharge my calling card. We picked up our conversation just about where we'd left it, 8 years before. There was no awkwardness, no embarassment.

"So the upshot is, she's gonna come see me in December, when her school's over for the semester.
"For a week.
"Or maybe 10 days.
"Then we'll see."

He looked happy. He went on: "I'm over 60, an' mostly I've been lucky in love. At least, I've been lucky enough to be loved by a fair number of damn good women.
"Probably more than my share."
Then he changed the subject.

But that got me thinking, and so, ladies and gentlemen, the Question Of The Day:
What is your "share" of happiness, of love, of passion?
How do you know?
By what index do you measure?

Is the Fix "In" on Mukasey for AG?

Short Answer: "Does the fucking Pope wear Prada?"

Even before confirmation hearings for the next Attorney General were scheduled, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee gave signs that Bush's nominee--former federal Judge Michael Mukasey--would sail through the process. "My view [is] that Judge Mukasey has the potential to be a consensus nominee," said Senator Charles Schumer. Mukasey may have more of an independent streak than former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, but the Senate cannot afford to treat Mukasey's nomination as a done deal. The next Attorney General will inherit a severly damaged Justice Department, embroiled in the Attorneygate scandal and controversies over torture, rendition, wiretapping and other "war on terror" tactics. The Nation magazine polled some of the brighter lights in the "left/lib" universe to find out what questions they thought it would be germane to put to the Bushevik nominee to replace Abu Gonzales.
There are 10 of them in the article linked above, including:

1. As Attorney General, will you independently review the constitutionality of ongoing programs, such as electronic eavesdropping and CIA rendition camps? If so, what will you do if you conclude that they are unconstitutional?
Erwin Chemerinsky, professor of law and political science at Duke University

2. At the present time, the Justice Department's Inspector General has commenced several investigations into the conduct of the former Attorney General of United States Alberto Gonzales and others with respect to testimony given before the US Senate and the firing of US Attorneys. With respect to these investigations, would you promise (a) that you would not in any way interfere with, hinder or obstruct these investigations--including promising not to fire or remove the present inspector general until he completes these investigations--even if you were so instructed by the President of the United States or anyone acting at his behest, and (b) would you promise to appoint a special prosecutor who is a nonpartisan and well respected law enforcement official to handle any finding by the inspector general or any other office in the Justice Department of possible criminal conduct by Mr. Gonzales?
Former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, author of The Impeachment of George W. Bush.

The rest are just as pointed and insightful. Go! Read! Then when the hearings for Mukasey's confirmation occur, listen. And if you don't hear any questions from the Congress which have the same sharpness of focus, you'll know (what I already sustect) that the FUCKING FIX IS IN!

A Very Amusing Suggestion

Via Lambert @ Correntewire:

How to get Senator Jay Rockefeller's office to hang up on you
Submitted by lambert on Tue, 2007-10-16 11:32.
Just call (202) 224-6472 and ask the simple, courteous question:

Is this the number I call to get retroactive immunity for illegal acts?

Call now! And again, be courteous!

Just good, clean fun…

NOTE Numbers via FDL. I mean, I can well imagine that many of us could use retroactive immunity for one thing or another. So if the telcos get it, why shouldn’t we?

A Damned Good Question, though the answer is that they bought and paid for it with currencies to which you and I have no access.

Could "The Environment"/Climate Crisis Become The Next "War On Terra"?

(Even paranoid DFHs have real enemies)

It is a problem soooo fraught peril and beset with so much emotion/ideology that it is RIPE for the picking by some opportunistic demagogue with enough charisma and the appearance of a plan to hijack it. (Cross-posted at Correntewire and My Left Wing...

It is not impossible to imagine conditions under which such a leader might appeal to the "planetary good" to suspend certain provisions of the Constitution in the name of reducing emissions: highway check-points, for example, at which not only would your car's emissions be tested, but--since you're stopped anyway--the passengers might be searched for illicit/contraband commodities, say. Or have a dog just sniff the car, for "explosives." It requires no particular perspicacity to envision the reduction of green-house gasses, for example, becoming the (or even one) rationale for draconian restrictions on liberties and freedoms, and make it the pretense for the imposition of authoritarian/totalitarian measures to assure 'compliance'.

Particularly if penalties might include dispropriation.

Defining the "climate crisis" as a 'national security issue' opens the door for these kinds of abuses (see Homeland Security/torture, e.g.), as sure as I'm a 60-something, dope-smokin' DFH*.

(*DFH = Dirty Fucking Hippie)

"In the Corporat State...

Who IS Kevin Zeese?Zeese for yourself, (Valid in Maryland, only)

Om Gevalt!

If there is no self,
whose arthritis is this?
++++++++++

Be here now.
Be someplace else later.

Is that so complicated?
++++++++++

Drink tea and nourish life.
With the first sip... joy.
With the second...satisfaction.
With the third, peace.

With the fourth, a danish.
++++++++++

Wherever you go, there you are.

Your luggage? That's another story.
++++++++++

Accept misfortune as a blessing.
Do not wish for perfect health
or a life without problems.

What would you talk about?
++++++++++

The journey of a thousand miles...

begins with a single oy.
+ ++++++ +++

There is no escaping karma
In a previous life, you never called,
you never wrote, you never visited.

And whose fault was that?
++++++++

Zen is not easy.
It takes effort to attain nothingness.
And then what do you have?

Bupkis.
++++++++++

Breathe in. Breathe out.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Forget this and attaining Enlightenment
will be the least of your problems.
++++++++++

Let your mind be as a floating cloud.
Let your stillness be as the wooded glen.
And sit up straight. You'll never meet the
Buddha with such rounded shoulders.
++++++++++

Be patient and achieve all things
Be impatient and achieve all things faster.
++++++++++

To Find the Buddha, look within.
Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers.
Each flower blossoms ten thousand times.
Each blossom has ten thousand petals:
You might want to see a specialist.
++++++++

To practice Zen and the art of Jewish
motorcycle maintenance, do the following:
get rid of the motorcycle.

What were you thinking?
++++++++++

Be aware of your body.
Be aware of your perceptions.
Keep in mind that not every physical sensation

is a symptom of a terminal illness.
++++++++

The Torah says,'Love thy neighbor as thyself.'
The Buddha says there is no 'self.'
So, maybe you are off the hook.
++++++++++

The Buddha taught that one should practice loving kindness to all sentient beings. Still, would it kill you to find a nice sentient being who happens to be Jewish?
++++++++

Though only your skin, sinews, and bones remain,
though your blood and flesh dry up and wither away, yet
shall you meditate and not stir
until you have attained full Enlightenment.
But first...a little nosh.
++++++++++++

The Tao does not speak.
The Tao does not blame.
The Tao does not take sides.
The Tao has no expectations.
The Tao demands nothing of others.

The Tao is not Jewish.
++++++++++

(h/t to friend LN, upstate)

After the GM & Chrysler Contracts, The BIG Question Remains:

The BEEEG, still unanswered question is this: "WTF Do The WORKERS Get Outta The Contracts As Announced?"

Read this, for a provocative and interesting, albeit incomplete, analysis.

To me, it looks like a gigantic, life-long, 'voluntary' ass-fucking, including:

1) a huge, and growing, liability. The companies will transfer to the unions about two-thirds of the funds necessary to support the retiree health care plans for the future. Where is the rest supposed to come from, pray tell?

2) a bifurcated pay-scale plan that is GUARAN-fucking-TEED to irritate and alienate current and future workers and weaken the Unions.

3) NO assurances that the companies will NOT outsource further jobs and production.

Looks like WIN-fucking-WIN-fucking-WIN for the Bosses.

Or, did I miss something???

Gore Won The Nobel Peace Prize, The Academy Award, and the Presidency (once).

But I really don't think he's gonna run.
Indeed, I'd bet on it.
Surely not this time.
Mebbe next time, after the dust from the forthcoming 'failed' presidency settles.
Why?
The next 'president' cannot win, anything, at all, ever, period. None of the problems we face are in any way 'soluble' in terms of one presidential term under the best of circumstances, at peace, with a convivial Congress, and full coffers.
But if s/he is a Dem, the next 'president' will be called upon--will be expected--to solve them (if he's a Puke: "Just go shopping.") WITHOUT those advantages. The expectations will be astronomical, and the obstacles (imho) insurmountable. Unless there is a national concensus, and I cannot in any way foresee the GOPukes abandonning their corpoRat masters for the good of the 'country,' since they no longer NEED the 'country,' per se. They're 'global', after all, and the US 'market' is declining, relative to the rest of the world...
In the first place the next 'president' will be blamed for 1)'losing' Iraq (since there is no way to 'win' there, but no real blame will attach to Bush--IOKIYAAR), no matter what happens--unless nothing changes, which of course has been the Bushevik strategy. Whether some USer troops are withdrawn, either to the CONUS to peripheral States, or just sequestered on 5 mega-bases scattered around the country, they will still be in Iraq, which will both continue to exacerbate tensions in the region and NOT mollify the folks opposed to the whole thing in any case... The only winners are anglo-american oil cabals. (well, the Israel, too).
2) The climate crisis will intensify, as all the projections appear to be too conservative by half, and wide-spread disaster looms, diseases spread, and whole ecosystems appear on the verge of extinction.
3) The health-care crisis will escalate as Boomers, weakened by life-long exposure to the toxic ingredients in the products of our 'culture', will sicken but not die, for a long time. It will be in the interests of the for-profit 'illness' industry to extend life, no matter its quality.
4) The economy is going to tank, as our entire infrastructure collapses, for lack of maintenance, while the commons are more and more privatized/profitized, jobs go overseas, and the US middle-class gets sucked dry by 'commerce' which will already have moved on to China.
And that's just the shit we already know about.
Plus: A Dem--any Dem: Hillary, Obama, Gore, Richardson, any of 'em--will almost CERTAINLY be challenged by a 'terra' attack, which will test their fitness by whether or not they indiscriminately kill uppity brown people.
Get ready. It's coming. I wouldn't wanna be president, either.

Whacha Gonna Do When They Come For You?

Cusack (HuffPost, today): So apart from getting obscenely rich, what are these private security and other contractor companies doing with this tsunami of public money that is being thrown at them?

Naomi Klein:

Well, unlike the government, which has allowed the public infrastructure to erode so that we now have collapsing bridges and levees, these guys are making serious and sturdy capital investments. They're planning for the future, building infrastructure -- in Blackwater's case, paramilitary infrastructure. Founded in 1996, the company has used the steady stream of contracts during the Bush years to build up a private army of twenty thousand on-call mercenary soldiers and a massive military base in North Carolina worth between $40 and $50 million. They have armored vehicles, helicopter gunships, manmade lakes, a Boeing 767, a Zeppelin.

If you hadn't already guessed, We are SOOOOOOOOOO Fucked! Citizens? for-fucking-GET It. Internees? You fuckin' BETCHA.

Meta-Blogging: A Colloquy On The Bushevik's Middle-Eastern Nekkid Belly-flop

An exchange on Correntewire this morning:

Cramping our style
Submitted by vastleft on Wed, 2007-10-10 10:04.
* Armenia
* Turkey

Turkey — and George W. Bush who relies on Asia Minor as a transportation hub in his war on logic — is up in arms about a pending Congressional vote declaring the massive, early 20th-century killings of Armenians a genocide.

“I have been trying to warn the (U.S.) lawmakers not to make a historic mistake,” said Egemen Bagis, a close foreign policy adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

How dare some foreigner ask the U.S. Congress to stop making historic mistakes in a time of war!

As to the genocide/not-genocide and resolution/no-resolution debate, I’ll defer to those better-informed than I. Anyone care to educate?

Reply:
This is an "appeasement" measure/vote.
Submitted by Woody--Tokin Librul on Wed, 2007-10-10 10:32.

Xians are desperate to reclaim ’genocide’ from the Jews. Until the 1930s Xians had clung—through the institution of ’martyrdom’—the label of most durable, most persecuted religion. They see the Jews as having usurped their crown-of-thorns.

Armenians were/are (mostly Eastern Rite) “Xians.”

By condemning Turkey (it was the “ottomans” —no, not the footrests) for “(Xian) genocide,” the measure appeals to both the persecutionist Xians (and that’s most of ’em), who need to reclaim ’genocide’ to reclaim the moral ’high ground,’ and the anti-islam xenophobes who just detest Levanters on principle, they appeal to two essential constituencies.

Add to this, there’s a pretty good chance that Turkish military unit are already chasing renegade Kurds over the border into Iraq. It’s only a matter of time until there’s a fatal clash between Turkish and US units. Not “if,” “WHEN.”

SO this is really dangerous, cuz the Turks are 1) numerous, 2) nationalists, 3) well-armed with (top-of-the-line-minus-1) USer/NATO equipment.

The ripples of the Bushevik bare-nekkid plunge into Iraq are spreading and growing.
We won’t know the full extent and reach of the damage these fuckers have caused—with the compliance/complicity of BOTH political parties—for 30 years, if EVER…

Me? A Quick Study, But A Slow Learner

If there are any subsequent postings, I'll add 'em.

Unbelievable! Un-fucking-Believable: Israelis Grab Palestinian Lands Ahead Of Summit

Just the other day, Israel apparently signalled the Palestinians that they--the Israelis--might make concessions on Jerusalem, ahead of the forthcoming "MIddle East Summit" now in the planning stages, and set for next month.

Today--well, yesterday--the Israeli high command has ordered the IDF to assume control of as much Palestinian land around Jerusalem as possible, for the only possible, plausible purpose of locating Israeli settlements which would isolate Jerusalem should it become part of the Palestinian arrangements.

Nobody could have EVER imagined such a scenario, right?

Arguing With Xians About The Bible Is EXACTLY Like

...Arguing with fucking FAIRIES about the relative effectiveness of different admixtures of pixie dust.

It is an exercise in utter, meaningless futility. Because, in both situations, there are no intelligible truth conditions, no standards of performance by which to judge the validity of assertions against empirical results. One eye of newt, or two? Leviticus? Mattheus?

Though why anyone today would attach themselves 'spiritually' to a bunch of religious myths, propaganda, and genealogical codswallop invented by a bunch of apparently pretty lame, late neolithic-early bronze-age shepherds to explain their pretty much universal bad fortune I cannot fathom. It is the sort of thing which offers me an a priori reason NOT to take seriously any 'scholarly' claims they might undertake.

But, in the spirit of 'fair play,' today Thom Hartmann conducted about a 20 minute colloquy with one of those smarmy, oleaginous preacher types, the ones who have a "doctorate of divinity" from some Xian "university" in the Appalachians somewhere, and it was just a waste of time...it did stir up several flurries of calls from other 'believers' who called in to rebuke Thom for his agnosticism. When one of their number is in the media somewhere, these folks have seemingly infallible antennae, and track the movements of their hive queens assiduously.

Hartmann's main--or at least his first--point was to take the Xian dude--"Dr." Bell, I think the guy's name is--to task on EXACTLY WHY claims of the theistically inspired injunctions against one "abomination" in one book, consisting of nothing but lists of "abominations" and their ultimate rewards, by some delusional, desperate, illiterate, psychotic late-neolithic/early bronze age 'prophet' against homosexuality, should be taken more seriously than that SAME prophet's raving invectives against shellfish and mixing cotton and wool in a garment. The remedy is always the same in this book: death. The malefactors ALL must die.

And, after 20 or so to me laboriously painful minutes of this, the long and the short of it is/was that, for Thom and me and anyone with the functioning equivalent of the brain of an amoeba, such claims are not suitable for the governance of a secular society.

But "Dr." Bell, when he signed off, was of course undaunted. He couldn't see any inconsistency in insisting he and his co-religionists 'really loved' gay people, but could not endure gays expressing their "lesser' love for members of the same gender (as it were). The message, all too frequently with these folks, is you can BE gay, but you cannot ACT gay. Or God (who coincidentally acts through us) will hurt you. And his followers and apologists were legion, insistent, and dead certain. I'm sure he's praying for Thom and me right this minute.

I am not a gay man. Hell, I'm not even very happy, most of the time. But the purblind injustice embedded in that kind of stark, stupid hypocrisy is outrageous, and indefensible. You cannot negotiate with people who want, and have the means, to kill you.

A "Real" Young Turk Asks An Embarrassing Question

When has Hillary Clinton led her side to victory?

By: Cenk Uygur (of AAR's "Young Turks")
Oct 8, 2007 07:37 PM EST

The case against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is easily put. Where is the leadership? She has been one of the most prominent and powerful senators while the worst president in history has been in office. And what has she done about it?
I’ll give you time to think about it …

Come up with nothing? There’s a good reason for that. Because the answer is nothing. Did she stop the Iraq war? I’ll give you time to stop laughing. Did she stop the surge — after four awful, miserable years of the Iraq war had already taken place? No.

Worse yet, did she even try? She had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to vote against funding the war. And finally she relented and voted the right way after she checked all the polls and all of the other candidates’ votes and looked to see which way the wind was blowing.

Remember the vote in May for funding the war, where she wouldn’t publicly disclose her position and sneaked in a couple of minutes after Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) voted to cast her ballot the same way he did? Does that sound like leadership to you? Not exactly a profile in courage.

But even if you grant that she has been voting the right way the past couple of months, that still doesn’t prove leadership.

When has she led her side to victory?

When has she marshaled the forces, taken a courageous stand and held her ground? Forget courageous stand, when has she ever simply led the Democrats into any fight or any action at all?

I’m still waiting...Please tell me about how you don’t have the numbers to win cloture votes. A real leader argues for her position, either convinces her colleagues or the American people, uses the levers of power, puts pressure on her opponents and allies — and gets the job done. Is she even trying?

I see her campaigning all the time. I see her focused on Democratic primary rivals Obama and John Edwards. I understand she has a job to do — avoiding mistakes on the campaign trail. Boy, I’m inspired.

Don’t get me wrong, Obama is no gem, either. He claims he has enough experience to lead the country but not enough to lead his fellow senators. They won’t listen to him because he is a junior senator. Well, then, how do we know they’ll listen to you when you’re president?

How many votes can Obama hide from while claiming to be an inspirational leader? With leaders like this, we have the audacity of hopelessness.

I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m not impressed by any of them. I’m also not impressed by Al Gore running for Oscars and Nobel Prizes instead of running for the White House. You could get into the fight and risk your reputation while trying to help your country. That would be brave. Or you could take the easy way out and sit on your couch and bellyache about what the Bush administration is doing to the Constitution.

If I seem down on Democratic leadership, I have excellent reasons. Because there is no leadership. In August, they lost a fight on the FISA bill (actually, what fight?) giving the government new powers to spy on Americans. They just allowed Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman to pass two bills that threaten war against Iran — again, without a fight. They just lost votes on withdrawing troops from Iraq — again.

And all of these losses are against the most persistently unpopular president of our lifetime. If you’re not down on these Democratic “leaders,” then you’re not paying attention.

But above all of them stands Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. She is comfortably leading the race for her party’s presidential nomination. She has the bully pulpit. The press will listen to whatever she says. She can make an impact. She is in a position to lead.
And what has she done with that?
I’m still waiting …

Please tell me about how you don’t have the numbers to win cloture votes. A real leader argues for her position, either convinces her colleagues or the American people, uses the levers of power, puts pressure on her opponents and allies — and gets the job done. Is she even trying?

I see her campaigning all the time. I see her focused on Democratic primary rivals Obama and John Edwards. I understand she has a job to do — avoiding mistakes on the campaign trail. Boy, I’m inspired.

Don’t get me wrong, Obama is no gem, either. He claims he has enough experience to lead the country but not enough to lead his fellow senators. They won’t listen to him because he is a junior senator. Well, then, how do we know they’ll listen to you when you’re president?

How many votes can Obama hide from while claiming to be an inspirational leader? With leaders like this, we have the audacity of hopelessness.

I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m not impressed by any of them. I’m also not impressed by Al Gore running for Oscars and Nobel Prizes instead of running for the White House. You could get into the fight and risk your reputation while trying to help your country. That would be brave. Or you could take the easy way out and sit on your couch and bellyache about what the Bush administration is doing to the Constitution.

If I seem down on Democratic leadership, I have excellent reasons. Because there is no leadership. In August, they lost a fight on the FISA bill (actually, what fight?) giving the government new powers to spy on Americans. They just allowed Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman to pass two bills that threaten war against Iran — again, without a fight. They just lost votes on withdrawing troops from Iraq — again.
And all of these losses are against the most persistently unpopular president of our lifetime. If you’re not down on these Democratic “leaders,” then you’re not paying attention.
But above all of them stands Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. She is comfortably leading the race for her party’s presidential nomination. She has the bully pulpit. The press will listen to whatever she says. She can make an impact. She is in a position to lead.
And what has she done with that?
I’m still waiting …

I cannot find the source for this. I got it, sans link, in E-mail.

Can You Say "Show Trial?" I knew you could!

Via HuffPost today:

One of the US Attorneys NOT fired by Alberto "Abu" Gonzales, a certain Richard Gregorie, is ploughing ahead with the trial of the six or seven homeless Miami men accused of planning to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago. So you KNOW the fucker's a reliable Bushevik: If he wasn't fired or questioned, he's one of Abu Gonzo's 'good boys,' willing to do his masters' bidding, no matter whom it fucks. This is the Bushevik "Justice" Dept, so it's obvious already that this is designed as a political spectacle, reinforcing the "Danger-Danger-Fear-Fear" meme which is ALL the fucking Pukes have in the way of a platform.

The seven homeless defendants in this affair were loosely associated with a mentally unbalanced man who, according to the Los Angeles Times, "paraded around Liberty City in flowing robes and a head wrap, carrying a shepherd's staff. He called himself a sheik, and preached against drugs and domestic violence at a corner park on Sundays and, with the other six defendants, formed a Miami chapter of the Moorish Science Temple, a sect that blends Christianity, Islam and Judaism and claims autonomy from the U.S. government."

Building on this solid foundation, Mr. Gregorie outlined the planned attacks which included poisoning salt shakers in restaurants, blowing up the Sears Tower, and flooding secret tunnels which the sheik claimed knowledge of, which could be flooded from "Lake Toronto." Fortunately, these plans were stopped in the nick of time by the FBI. Most of the plans, as well as weapons and other equipment were provided by the informants, who were paid more than $100,000 for their work and expenses. The defendants themselves provided a little marijuana.

The good news here is that if the FBI, the Justice Department and DHS can find nobody more threatening to our Republic than this bunch, we can relax a little. Like maybe it's time to turn the color-coded Fear Alert System down to yellow. At least until the next election.

Of course the "next election" is already here.
An Aside: I cannot imagine why there is a single employee still in the so-called Justice Department. The ones who have any scruples at all should long ago have quit, and the rest should have been fired, on the spot, when they lined up with the Bushies.

Racism: Every So Often This Needs Repeating

I did this lecture once per semester, per class. It never got old, because what I discussed was newly minted in the awarenesses of my students, without fail. I went through it again in a series of posts on My Left Wing, last night and this morning.

Mary Scott had discussed how, after an attempted rape by a black man, she had begun to experience fear of ALL black men--but not of ALL men. I replied:

Honey, no white person who denies their racism (7.50 / 2)
is being wholly--or partly, or even remotely--honest with themselves. There is not a white person alive who has not--albeit possibly unknowingly, unconsciously--benefited at the expense of non-white citizens.
The hardest thing for white folks to come to grips with is the possibility that they DIDN'T do it all on pure merit, talent and hard work.
Can't say I blame 'em. It was harder'n shit to actually inhabit that knowledge. I am a racist asshole. It was how I grew up, how I knew the world in very formative times. A Genteel Racist, I hasten to add, but a racist asshole nonetheless. I grew up bourgeoisie, top and bottom, through and through. I speak the language, I lived the discourse.
So: A mebbe recovering asshole? I hope???I have some hope: I quit tobacco 14 years ago.
I wish it had been that long since I had known a 'racist' sentiment.

If You're "White," You've Participated In and Benefitted From (0.00 / 0)
the forms and practices of racism.
You cannot avoid it; you may regret it, and you may work to try not to be a part of it in future, but you have been a beneficiary of it, because USer culture, fundamentally and essentially, is racist through and through.

It's like this: If you "KNOW" yourself be BE "White" (0.00 / 0)
if that term is part of your social self-definition, then you've been defined--defined yourself-- as a participant in racist discourse.

"Whiteness" is not a neutral signifier, you see. (0.00 / 0)
it has meaning as a social descriptor; the meaning occurs in a relationship with other terms--brown, black, red, yellow--none of which have the 'preferred position' of whiteness, the default 'lack of color' (against all optics, of course) against which all 'color' is defined.

In physics, 'white' is the color of all colors (0.00 / 0)
In culture, it is the absence of (despised) colors...
Interesting, n'est pas?

This is the heart of the matter: "The hardest thing for white folks to come to grips with is the possibility that they DIDN'T 'earn' all their advantages, that they DIDN'T get "all this" on pure, unadulterated merit, god-given talent, and hard work.
Now imagine how those "whites" must feel when, with all the advantages they have in culture and society, they are still dismal failures, clerking at Walmart, and flipping burgers at Mickey Ds? That CAN'T be a good feeling, when feeling superior to 'colored' folks is all that keeps you alive.
I wanna repeat this:
I wanna repeat this: Racism does NOT consist in INDIVIDUAL (0.00 / 0)
acts of bigotry, prejudice or bias.
Racism is the system of laws, concords, and social arrangements which makes the doer of bigoted, biased, and/or prejudiced deeds believe she or he can--on the basis of cultural assumptions about superiority and inferiority based on nothing so much as skin color or other morphological distinctions--act out of bigotry, bias or prejudice, to deny 'social goods' to despised minorities, and (because of the culture, community standards, etc.) be immune from the consequences of those acts.
.

This Usually Is Hecate's Gig, But As A MAJOR Fan Of Boobs, I Figgered It Was The Least I Could Do

A Favor for a Friend: it only takes a minute.... Clickit! To Support Mammogram Donations:

Then, please tell ten 10) friends to tell 10 MORE today!
The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on "donating a mammogram" for free (pink window in the middle). You get to look at a couple of ads in the process. It's worth it.

This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammograms in exchange for advertising.

Again, Here's the web site! Pass it along to people you know.

YO! PLEASE TELL 10 FRIENDS TO TELL 10 TODAY

The Clenis Speaks

He said a lot more during his sojourn in Britain, but this is memorable:

"I want the American people to stop rewarding the ideological wing of the Republican party, so we can have a centre-left party and a centre-right party and they can have real debates about real things."

Like that 'debate' the Clinton prez had over removing the social safety net and 'ending welfare as we know it?" Like that furious confrontation over NAFTA/CAFTA? Yeah, that one was fierce. How about de-regulating Media?: "(W)e will support removal of judicial and legislative restrictions on all types of telecommunications companies: cable, telephone, utilities, television and satellite. Market forces replace regulations and judicial models that are no longer appropriate."

How do you triangulate between a 'centre-left' and a 'centre-right' party? Bi-partisanship is easy, since they're both merely occasionally competitive scions of the same Uber-Party, aptly named, by Harry Truman (who surely knew) the Party of Property and Privilege. Just do what your CorpoRat funders want...

Considering Milton Friedman, a month from the anniversary of his final wretched breath

I do not know who "Stephen Lendman" is, but his longish (near 5000 words) excoriation of the ghost, the legend, and the myth of Milton Friedman is a bracingly factual account and truthful interpretation of the career of the man responsible for more misery on Earth in the prime of his influence--which still persists--than any dozen dictators you'd care to name.
Friedman was an implacable foe of Social Security:

"...he called "The Biggest Ponzi Scheme on Earth" in an article with that title. He described the current system as "an unholy combination of two items: a flat-rate tax on earnings up to a maximum with no exemption and a benefit program that awards subsidies that have....no relation to need (forgetting it's our most successful poverty-reducing program) but are based on (criteria like) marital status, longevity and recent earnings."

He wanted it privatized, abhorred the "tyranny of the status quo," and agreed with Barry Goldwater that it be voluntary which, of course, would kill it. He added it's "hard to justify requiring 100% of the people to adopt a government-prescribed straitjacket to avoid encouraging a few (many millions, in fact) 'lower-income individuals to make no provision for their old age deliberately (even though most cannot), knowing they would receive the means-tested amount.' " Addressing only eligible retirees, he ignored millions of others getting Social Security benefits. They include disabled workers and spouses and children of deceased, retired or disabled workers. They comprise around 37% of all recipients, are left out of Friedman's calculation, and would get nothing under a privatized system.

For Friedman, we're on our own, "free to choose," but unequally matched against corporate giants and the privileged with their advantages. The rest of us are unequally endowed and governed by the principle, "To each according to what he and the instruments he owns produces," in a savage world where economic freedom trumps all other kinds. This was right from Friedman's 1962 laissez-faire manifesto, "Capitalism and Freedom," that's long on free market triumphalism and void on its effects on real people.

The millionaire Friedman, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and rabid critic of any "unearned" largesse from the State, collected and cashed his own Social Security checks til the day he died.
For these and a whole catalog of other offenses--which Lendman assembles with admirable comprehensiveness--committed either by him or in his name, his is another grave site I would be pleased to sweeten with the fruits of my bowels.

Bumper-sticker

Libertarians Are Aynal Compulsives

Did You Know That ClearChannel Fucking OWNS "The Rush Limbaugh" Show?

WASHINGTON (Faux News) — The owner of the company that airs Rush Limbaugh's show has come to his defense, telling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that while he isn't certain to whom Limbaugh was referring when he used the term "phony soldiers," the radio talk show host has a long history of supporting U.S. troops.
Mark P. Mays, president of Clear Channel, the parent company of Limbaugh's broadcast, on Tuesday responded to a letter signed by 41 Democrats that called on the network "to publicly repudiate" comments made by Limbaugh "that call into question" the service and sacrifice of troops who oppose the war in Iraq.

Only 41 Dumbocraps? Who wasn't aboard? Recalling that 22 of the cowardly, shit-sucking, ass-licking, pee-drinking pond-scum voted to censure MoveOn over "Gen. Betrayus", I guess this is an improvement.

At the very least this should be enough to get the pederast/pill-popper pulled from AFRTS. We should be IN-fucking-DIGNANTLY calling our Senators and Reps asking how someone who regards US combat troops as "phony soldiers" because they contradict the bloated malingerer's wargasm gets a privileged and exclusive spot on the Official US Government, Tax-payer Funded, electronic "air" of the United States Armed Forces abroad. Simple question, really.
He said it. There's tape. He's toast. Fuck him.

A recent, frightening epiphany: A "Defeated' Military Is NOT necesarily a 'bad' thing

...for the indigenous fascisti.

The 'defeat' of USer arms in the occupation of Iraq can actually be used to buttress the claims for the necessity of MORE private security apparati, both domestically and overseas. It's not unlike the observation that the Pukes run and 'win' by claiming Govt cannot work and then prove it...

There was a story the other day about the Busheviki plans to hire Blackwater or its like to prosecute the increasingly militarized 'war on drugs.' There were almost 1 Million pot busts last year. Over 1,000 police home invasions per week, nation-wide, the bulk of which were driven by drug warrants for contraband cannabis. Blackwater on the Border? Shoot first...then shoot again.

So it occurred to me that the Busheviks are using Iraq (and Iran, if Iraq is not enough) to destroy the Army and the Marines as potential bulwarks FOR THE PEOPLE against the in-roads, private and public, of the fascists and CorpoRats in undoing the Constitution enough to drown the Govt in Grover Norquist's bathtub (the Air Force is reliably xianist, at least in the officer corps, and the navy is ALWAYS the repository of the aristocracy)…

With the official US Military paralyzed by personnel and supply problems, budget and recruitment shortfalls, etc, the members of the IPOA (International Peace Operations Association), the private 'security' forces will cooperate with the now-militarized cops and become the defacto Army of the Interior.

Every good authoritarian/totalitarian state needs one of those. The Nazis had the SA, the Soviets the MKVD; in China, it's the whole People's Army. How appropriate that in the ultimate Kapitalist State, ours should be indigenous mercenaries.

This is part and parcel with the whole trajectory of the Bushevik regime agenda to as much as possible reduce to impotence and ruin any public instrument or institution that might interfere with the final, wholesale appropriation of the USer 'Commons" by the Corporat State.

We should never indulge in the conceit that these slime-bag thieves, crooks, and gunsels are stupid, or clueless, or bumblers, or incompetents. They're none of those things.

What they are is "Untouchable," to tweak the etymology of the term a little.

Did You Know That Shit-whistling Fucknozzle McCain Claims The US Is A "Xian" Nation?

Reported on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now, Oct. 1.

McCain: I Prefer a Christian President
In campaign news, Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain has suggested he only wants to see Christians elected to be president. He said "I admire the Islam. There's a lot of good principles in it. But I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith." McCain's comment came during an interview with the website BeliefNet in which he also claimed the Constitution established the United States as a Christian nation.

Somebody needs to smack Ol' Squirrelly with sumpin that'll get his fucking attention. Hey McStain, you dumb, fascistic, blood-soaked, motherfucking asshole: Eat shit and die!

Wayne Madsen: "Insurgents" In US Military Blew Whistle On "Secret" Nuke Transfer

Air Force refused to fly weapons to Middle East theater
By Wayne Madsen, Sept. 24, 2007

WMR has learned from U.S. and foreign intelligence sources that the B-52 transporting six stealth AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles, each armed with a W-80-1 nuclear warhead, on August 30, were destined for the Middle East via Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

However, elements of the Air Force, supported by U.S. intelligence agency personnel, successfully revealed the ultimate destination of the nuclear weapons and the mission was aborted due to internal opposition within the Air Force and U.S. Intelligence Community.

Yesterday, the Washington Post attempted to explain away the fact that America's nuclear command and control system broke down in an unprecedented manner by reporting that it was the result of "security failures at multiple levels." It is now apparent that the command and control breakdown, reported as a BENT SPEAR incident to the Secretary of Defense and White House, was not the result of a command and control chain-of-command "failures" but the result of a revolt and push back by various echelons within the Air Force and intelligence agencies against a planned U.S. attack on Iran using nuclear and conventional weapons.

The Washington Post story on BENT SPEAR may have actually been an effort in damage control by the Bush administration. WMR has been informed by a knowledgeable source that one of the six nuclear-armed cruise missiles was, and may still be, unaccounted for. In that case, the nuclear reporting incident would have gone far beyond BENT SPEAR to a National Command Authority alert known as EMPTY QUIVER, with the special classification of PINNACLE.

Just as this report was being prepared, Newsweek reported that Vice President Dick Cheney's recently-departed Middle East adviser, David Wurmser, told a small group of advisers some months ago that Cheney had considered asking Israel to launch a missile attack on the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz. Cheney reasoned that after an Iranian retaliatory strike, the United States would have ample reasons to launch its own massive attack on Iran. However, plans for Israel to attack Iran directly were altered to an Israeli attack on a supposed Syrian-Iranian-North Korean nuclear installation in northern Syria.

WMR has learned that a U.S. attack on Iran using nuclear and conventional weapons was scheduled to coincide with Israel's September 6 air attack on a reputed Syrian nuclear facility in Dayr az-Zwar, near the village of Tal Abyad, in northern Syria, near the Turkish border. Israel's attack, code named OPERATION ORCHARD, was to provide a reason for the U.S. to strike Iran. The neo-conservative propaganda onslaught was to cite the cooperation of the George Bush's three remaining "Axis of Evil" states -- Syria, Iran, and North Korea -- to justify a sustained Israeli attack on Syria and a massive U.S. military attack on Iran.

WMR has learned from military sources on both sides of the Atlantic that there was a definite connection between Israel's OPERATION ORCHARD and BENT SPEAR involving the B-52 that flew the six nuclear-armed cruise missiles from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale. There is also a connection between these two events as the Pentagon's highly-classified PROJECT CHECKMATE, a compartmented U.S. Air Force program that has been working on an attack plan for Iran since June 2007, around the same time that Cheney was working on the joint Israeli-U.S. attack scenario on Iran.