There is NO "Third Way." It's Eco-socialism, or Else!

Unfortunately, it may already be too late for the former. But if you gotta hope, this is probably the only one you gonna get...Your New Homepage

It’s “Either/or”: eco-socialism or barbarism.The following is from an article by Joel Kovel:

We have no choice about the fact that the ecological crisis portends radical change. But we can choose the kind of change, whether it is to be for life or death. As Ian Angus puts it in his listserve, Climate and Capitalism, the choice is simple enough: “EcoSocialism or Barbarism: There is no third way” (To learn about and/or join this list, contact Angus at ecosocialism[at]gmail.com)...

This is a paraphrase of the great Rosa Luxemburg’s saying of the early twentieth century, that the real choice before humanity was between “Socialism or Barbarism.” This is quite true. The failure of the socialist revolutions (both immediately as in the case of Luxemburg and the Spartacist uprising in Germany, and later with the failure of the other socialisms of the twentieth century, especially those organized around the USSR and China), has been a condition for the present triumph of barbaric capitalism, with its endless wars, nightmarish consumerism, ever-widening gap between rich and poor — and most significantly, ecological crisis.

So the choice remains the same, except that capitalist barbarism now means ecocatastrophe. This is because the capacity of the earth to buffer the effects of human production has become overwhelmed by the chaos of its productive system. Any movement for social transformation in our time will have to foreground this issue, for the very notion of a future depends on whether we can resolve it or not.

For this reason, a socialism worthy of the name will have to be ecologically—or to be more exact, “ecocentrically”—oriented, that is, it will have to be an “ecosocialism” devoted to restoring the integrity of our relationship to nature. The distinction between ecosocialism and the “first-epoch” socialisms of the last century is not merely terminological, as though for ecosocialism we simply need worker control over the industrial apparatus and some good environmental regulation. We do need worker control in ecosocialism as we did in the socialism of the “first epoch,” for unless the producers are free there is no overcoming of capitalism. But the ecological aspect also poses a new and more radical issue that calls into question the very character of production itself.

Back to the 'means (and modes) of production, again. Keynes said something like: To believe capitalism's claims, you'd have to believe the wickedest people, doing the evilest deeds, will result in the BEST consequences for everyone.

What The Coming Climate Crisis Portends

Say goodbye to French wines, baseball and the Great Barrier Reef. Christmas trees. Fly fishing. Salmon. Gray whales.
Say hello to massive amounts of mosquitoes, the northwest passage and hurricanes. Bear atttacks (until they're hunted to extinction).

On Alternet, there's a list of the top 100 changes you may actually live to see, if you are, say, under 40 today. Maybe it's better if you DON'T read it; it'll just harsh your buzz.

We Are SOOOOOOOO Fuckin' FUcked, Int'l Edition: Dateline, India

Communities in the northeast Indian state of Bengal have descended into bloody, violent, sectarian/racialist, internecine strife over the outcome of a fucking television show. Indian Idol 3, for Christ's fucking sake.
Fookin Chuy, people. It's just bullshit!
From The Times Online:

"The army was called in to deal with violent communal clashes today after the Indian version of Pop Idol inflamed deep-rooted differences between the Nepali community and locals in the country’s north-east.

Members of India’s elite Rapid Action Force and Border Security Force cordoned off sections of the town of Silguri in West Bengal as police charged to quell rioting by thousands of people divided by their support for the winner and the runner-up of the global TV phenomenon.

Prashant Tamang, a 24-year-old former policeman of Nepali origin from Darjeeling, won Indian Idol 3 on Sunday night, beating Amit Paul, a Bengali singer from the small hilltribe state of Meghalaya and the judges’ favourite.

Tamang's surprise win sparked unrest in India’s troubled north-east region where supporters of Paul attacked Nepalese in Shillong town, the capital of Meghalaya. The violence was later exacerbated by a Delhi radio DJ who made allegedly “insulting” comments about Tamang and the Gurkha population from which he is descended.

Wie Sagt Mann "GyaaaAACK!" Auf Deutsch?

GyaaaAACK!!

(Translation: "Keep your creepy fucking hands to yourSELF, and NEVER touch me again, du anma(ss)end Aschloch!")

Stephanie Miller, this morning said that that's what Frau Merkel's expression and demeanor are shouting. It is an emotion known, according to Ms. Miller, to every woman who's EVER BEEN INAPPROPRIATELY, UNINVITEDLY MANHANDLED by some fatuous dickhead in a singles' bar.

The Daily Epigraph On The Peoples Voice dot Org For Today

Quote for 9/28/2007

'The Military Commissions Act became law in 'the land of the free' in 2006. The Act strips detainees of protections provided by the Geneva Conventions. The Act declares that no person 'subject to trial by military commission under this chapter may invoke the Geneva Conventions as a source of rights.' The Act also denies detainees the protections of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights: 'No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of' a detainee. Some language in the Act refers to detainees as 'aliens', but, ominously, other language does not limit the Act’s applicability to 'aliens.' - Paul Craig Roberts

These folks are fast becoming my favorite 2ndary source.
Paul Craig Roberts is almost the paradigm of the rugged, rich Republican with-a-heart-of-gold, served in Raygun's regime as Asst. Treas. Sec.

Their top post then follows:

(From Harper's)
President Bush sees himself as a divine messenger of freedom and liberty. On his watch, a great and ancient people have risen up to shake off the chains of oppression. They look to America and its leader for help and encouragement. And what do they find? He ignores them. He is too busy with his plans for wars–past and coming. The democratic moment is on the world stage now. It is played out in Burma. And Bush and his crew turn a blind eye on it.

It’s a day to remember the challenge of the tyrant. And a day to remember the words of W.H. Auden:

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
–W.H. Auden, Epitaph on a Tyrant (1939) in: Collected Poems p. 183.

It seems to be a blogging collective. There are a lot of vibrant voices.

On thing we can learn from the anti-regime demonstrations in Myanmar/Burma is that, whatever ELSE it may be, pacifism is not bloodless. I've always thought the thing is not to be the only target in the street. That's why all the fish turn together.

The Senate Recently Approved THe Tri-Partition of Iraq

Mark Hoback (does he have a relative usta live in Santa Fe, I wonder?) on the Aristocrats blog, put up a piece snarking on Joe Biden's pre-presidential foreign policy success, since Biden staked out the position about 18 mos ago.

"Holy Cow! They listened to me! This is the bomb! This is the bomb! Whoo, whoo, whatcha gonna do, gooooo Joe!"
So said Senator Joe Biden, pleasantly shocked by the fact that his resolution calling for the partitioning of Iraq into three sectarian dominated states actually passed in the Senate by a bipartisan 75-23 margin.

Snark aside, it has been evident, to me at least, since the very beginning--March, 03-- that the partition of Iraq was not only one inevitable consequence of the invasion, conquest, occupation, rape and pillage (ICORP) of Iraq, but also--being SO obvious--it had to be one of the goals of the operation.
For one thing, partitioning will make the Iraqi Oil Law, when it is finally implemented, all that much easier for the foreign oil interests to manipulate, setting region against region for the most favorable terms. That was--as no less a complicit fucknozzle as Allen Greenspan has admitted--the overarching purpose of the operation anyway: the oil. More specifically, control of the oil, to eliminate the signatories on the existing energy exploitation contracts and replace them with others more sympathetic to the needs and desires of Dick Cheney's and The Chimp's 'awl' buddies.

Partition moreover ensures future generations of divisive, bloody, inter-sectarian conflict--in a state and region and culture where blood feuds still are the dominant form of social justice. Which internal conflict will keep Iraq from being any active threat to Israel for the foreseeable future.

Partition also makes far more likely and sustainable the establishment of the new military bases in Iraq, most in the north, in the Kurdish regions, where they can be the most strategic land-locked aircraft carriers, extending their range of influence--that's what they call it--from the Black Sea to the Caspian. The bases are safest there, of course, because the autonomy of the indigenes will be protected trhereby from interfernce from anti-Kurd forces in Syria, Iran AND Turkey.

That, friends, is mission: accomplished.
A two-(or is it a four-)fer?

The Fucking Kyl-Loserman Amendment Was Not As Bad As It Could Have Been

But it was fucking BAD enough. I so loathe No-Mo-Jo that I cannot write his name with adulteration. I'd really like to take a baseball bat to him and see how much his wattles can flap.
I do NOT know, other than implicit/tacit agreement with and sympathy for his agenda, why Reid tolerates Ho-Joe.
This long piece from Huffpost today, by Gareth Porter, pretty much tells the tale.

The Kyl-Lieberman Amendment Passed, 78-22

Think Progress, via Buzzflash:

By a vote 76-22, the Senate passed the Lieberman-Kyl amendment, which threatens to “combat, contain and [stop]” Iran via “military instruments.” Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) called the amendment “Cheney’s fondest pipe dream” and said it could “read as a backdoor method of gaining Congressional validation for military action.

UPDATE Before the vote today, changes were made to the original amendment, with paragraphs three and four taken out completely. This paragraph was also added at the end:

“Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated on September 16, 2007 that “I think that the administration believes at this point that continuing to try and deal with the Iranian threat, the Iranian challenge, through diplomatic and economic means is by the preferable approach. That the one we are using. We always say all options are on the table, but clearly, the diplomatic and economic approach is the one that we are pursuing.”

Read the full marked up amendment here.

UPDATE II: The roll call for the vote is here. The following senators voted against the amendment:

Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Dodd (D-CT)
Feingold (D-WI)
Hagel (R-NE)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Leahy (D-VT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lugar (R-IN)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Sanders (I-VT)
Tester (D-MT)
Webb (D-VA)
Wyden (D-OR)

Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Barack Obama (D-IL) didn’t vote.

.”

If You See John Stossel On The Road, Beat the CRAP Outta Him!

Via FAIR:

ABC's 20/20 host John Stossel got an hour of prime time on September 14 to launch a one-sided attack on single-payer healthcare, and advocate for the so-called "free market" solutions that Stossel and his favorite sources prefer....as usual, Stossel relied largely on interviews with people who endorse the ABC host's platitudes about the virtues of the marketplace ("Private sector does everything better because they compete," for example). Except for an appearance by filmmaker Michael Moore, which serves to set up some of Stossel's complaints, the experts interviewed all share Stossel's vision: right-wing think tank spokespeople, a Harvard business school professor, a CEO who offers employees "health savings accounts" instead of insurance, a senior fellow at Manhattan Institute identified only as a "Canadian doctor" who criticizes his country's health system, and so forth.

Read the rest, then, if you happen upon him, just beat him like a wrestler, til his teeth roll like chicklets in the gutter.

Guess that bullying shoulder-rub payed off...

Germany drops extradition bid for CIA agents in kidnap case
German authorities confirmed Sunday that they have dropped their efforts to seek the extradition of 13 CIA operatives charged in the kidnapping of a German citizen in the Balkans four years ago. KBC.co.ke: Germany 'drops CIA extradition'.

Me Luv'm Barbara Ehrenreich Long Time!

When this lady speaks, it behooves anyone with a brain to listen (via: AlterNet.org)

Bow your heads and raise the white flags. After facing down the Third Reich, the Japanese Empire, the U.S.S.R., Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein, the United States has met an enemy it dares not confront -- the American private health insurance industry.

With the courageous exception of Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic candidates have all rolled out health "reform" plans that represent total, Chamberlain-like, appeasement. Edwards and Obama propose universal health insurance plans that would in no way ease the death grip of Aetna, Unicare, MetLife, and the rest of the evil-doers. Clinton -- why are we not surprised? -- has gone even further, borrowing the Republican idea of actually feeding the private insurers by making it mandatory to buy their product. Will I be arrested if I resist paying $10,000 a year for a private policy laden with killer co-pays and deductibles?

It’s not only the Democratic candidates who are capitulating. The surrender-buzz is everywhere. I heard it from a notable liberal political scientist on a panel in August: We can’t just leap to a single payer system, he said in so many words, because it would be too disruptive, given the size of the private health insurance industry. Then I heard it yesterday from a Chicago woman who leads a nonprofit agency serving the poor: How can we go to a Canadian-style system when the private industry has gotten so “big”?

Yes, it is big. Leighton Ku, at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, gave me the figure of $776 billion in expenditures on private health insurance for this year. It’s also a big-time employer, paying what economist Paul Krugman has estimated two to three million people just turn down claims.

--MORE--

The reason they're so powerful, and why the pols seem reluctant to confront these greedy, avaricious, bloody-minded motherfuckers, obviously, is that they insurance industry is a collecting point for all the (formerly discretionary) income that people now spend to preserve their health in the teeth of increasing threats compounded by the insurers' investments. But I like Ehrenreich's ultimate dissolution: Bombing raids on Hartford, CN. With ANY luck, they could probably take out Loserman, too

San Diego Mayor (GOPuke) Jerry Sanders Reveals His Change-Of-Heart, Signs Ordinance Recognizing Gay Marriage

I'm glad to see Hizzoner (finally) gets right.
As long as the "State" conducts and/or sacntions "marriages," then the right of same-sex couples to be married by the State is just a plain, old-fashioned 14th Amendment Slam-fuukin-DUNK.
No questions.
No doubts, no equivocation, no blather.
If the state recognizes 'marriages' between hetero couples--and bestows privileges in recognition of that status--it MUST ALSO recognize 'marriages' between same-sex couples and grant them the same privileges.
PERIOD!
Unless the Constitution has been revo...erm, errrr, oh, yeah, I forgot...

Low-Life, Neo-Fascist , Racist Scum-Site Publishes Addresses & Phone Numbers of the Jena 6, Relatives.

And the (Busheviki) FBI's "on the case," so you know they'll get to the bottom if this.
Won't they?

By BECKY BOHRER, Associated Press Writer, 9/23/07

NEW ORLEANS - The FBI is reviewing a white supremacist Web site that purports to list the addresses of five of the six black teenagers accused of beating a white student in Jena and "essentially called for their lynching," an agency spokeswoman said Saturday

Sheila Thorne, an agent in the FBI's New Orleans office, said authorities were reviewing whether the site breaks any federal laws. She said the FBI had "gathered intelligence on the matter," but declined to further explain how the agency got involved.

CNN first reported Friday about the Web site, which features a swastika, frequent use of racial slurs, a mailing address in Roanoke, Va., and phone numbers purportedly for some of the teens' families "in case anyone wants to deliver justice." That page is dated Thursday.

The Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement Saturday that some of the families have received "almost around the clock calls of threats and harassment," and called on Gov. Kathleen Blanco to intervene.

A Blanco spokeswoman said the governor had asked law enforcement — primarily state police — to investigate.

"These people need more than an investigation. They need protection," the Rev. Jesse Jackson said. He said his organization would be in touch with President Bush's nominee for attorney general, Michael Mukasey.

"This is a test for the disposition of the Department of Justice to serve as an intervenor and a deterrent" to hate crimes and discrimination, Jackson said. He said federal marshals should protect the families.

Carolas Purvis, whose number was among three listed on the Web site, said she did not feel in danger. Purvis is the aunt of Bryant Purvis, who has yet to be arraigned. She said she has received a number of calls, some from people who say nothing, others to let her know that her number had been put on the site. One, Friday night, used the N-word to her young son, she said.

A dispatcher for the LaSalle Parish Sheriff's Department said no one in the office Saturday could say whether any threats had been reported.

Of the two other numbers listed as "active" on the Web site, one was not answered Saturday; the other yielded a constant busy signal.

On Thursday, thousands of demonstrators marched in a civil rights demonstration in support of the so-called Jena 6. The six black teens were arrested after a December attack on a white student — the culmination of fights between blacks and whites.

Of the six teens arrested, five initially were charged with attempted second-degree murder; charges for four have been reduced as they were arraigned. Charges against the sixth teen, booked as a juvenile, are sealed.

Mychal Bell is the only one to have been tried so far. A state appeals court recently threw out his conviction for aggravated second-degree battery, saying he couldn't be tried as an adult. He remained in jail pending an appeal.

William A. "Bill" White, listed as the Web site's editor and commander of the American National Socialist Workers Party, did not immediately answer an e-mail to his address. Calls to one of the two William Whites listed in Roanoke were not answered; the other said he was not involved with the site.

Blanco said Saturday that harassing families involved in the case "cannot and will not be tolerated."

"Public attacks on private citizens done out of ignorance and hatred is appalling, and anyone who stoops to such unspeakable persecution will be investigated and subject to the full penalty of law," she said in a statement.

Wadda buncha knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing crackers, none of 'em with more than a single set of grand-parents!
The link was posted frequently in the comments under the YouTube vids for the Jena 6 (Update: All links to ANSWP sites are closed/blocked on Firefox as of 8:00 am, 9/23/07). There have been almost 180 THOUSAND hits on THIS PAGE and nearly 5 THOUSAND comments. I reckon that link's in there among 'em. I saw it yesterday, though I cannot recall where...
BTW: Here's a CNN vid reporting on these and later events.

For Lessons In Just How Low USers Can STILL Sink

Go to YouTube and search { Jena Six }...E.G.:
Read the comments under ANY of the entrants and revel in your countryfolks' sentiments. Do NOT, then, try to tell me that racism is dead, or even wounded, in the USofA.
And do NOT make the mistake of confusing black resistance to the NEXT century of oppression with any kind of 'racism.' In the USofA, only white folks may be legitimately named 'Racist.'

Life In The Corporate Suite: The Business Cycle

The mouse was lucky he caught a soft landing. Folks, cuz we're larger, have farther to fall and fall harder.

Why "Pajama Pete" Domenci Leads The List Of Most Corrupt Congresscritters

See about two posts below...
Senate Ethics Committee Intensifies Probe of Domenici

By Jason Leopold and Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report

Wednesday 19 September 2007

The US Senate Select Committee on Ethics has stepped up its probe of Pete Domenici, the Republican senator from New Mexico, who allegedly pressured David Iglesias, the former US attorney in that state, to return an indictment against a local Democratic official who was the target of a corruption investigation prior to the 2006 midterm elections.

Over the past couple of weeks, the Ethics Committee has been interviewing witnesses - including staffers from the US attorney's office in New Mexico - who were privy to a phone call Domenici made to Iglesias last November in which he asked the former federal prosecutor about the timing of an indictment against Manny Aragon, a prominent former New Mexico state senator and the subject of a federal corruption probe, according to the senior staffers. Congressional ethics rules prohibit lawmakers from contacting federal agency officials during ongoing probes.

Iglesias is one of at least eight US attorneys who were fired last December. He believes his termination was due in part to his staunch refusal to allow investigations he had undertaken to be politicized in order to swing the November 2006 midterm elections toward Republicans.

According to some senior staffers working for lawmakers who sit on the Ethics Committee, the six-month preliminary investigation into Domenici has turned up enough evidence to open a formal, public investigation into the New Mexico senator, having determined that Domenici acted inappropriately and that he may have violated Senate Ethics rules when he called Iglesias to ask whether Aragon would be indicted before the state's voters went to the polls last year.

I STILL think the most pertinent question is "What did the USAttys who kept their jobs have to do to preserve their sinecures? How many innocent citizens did they fuck over? How many legitimate political gatherings were spied upon? How many pot-smokers did they have to railroad?

And then I wonder why none of 'em quit in disgust. Did they think what they were doing was okay?
Chuy!

56-43, w/6 Pukes voting Yeah

to restore habeas corpus...to end the 'filibuster'.

Don't be deceived. The Pukes voting to restore were safe, because the fix was always in. They weren't going to defeat the filibuster, ever. The vote gave Sununu, Smith, and Snow "moderate" cover in their forthcoming election campaigns. Hagel, Lugar and Spectre were able to burnish their 'statesmanly' credentials. Johnson's not back yet, so no-mo-Joe musta voted 'right' for a change.

The Dims, if they had the nerve, would attach an amendment to restore habeas corpus to every single bill passing through Congress. They should despatch flunkies to insert the amendment into already reconciled bills ready for signature. Spectre knows how to do that. Whassamatta widdem?

You don't win arguments with fascists; you win wars against them.

BOTH "Pajama" Pete Domenici AND His "Laptop," Heather Wilson, Made The List!

of the 22 most corrupt members of Congress, which also included Steve Pierce. That's 60% of our delegation.
Gotta be some kind of a record, innit? Only Alaska (with 100% participation) has a more corrupt delegation than that from New Mexico.
Via Alternet (and CREW):
(Most Corrupt) Members of the Senate:

Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-NM)

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK)

Members of House:

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA)

Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-CA)

Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL)

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA)

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA)

Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-LA)

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)

Rep. Gary G. Miller (R-CA)

Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV)

Rep. Timothy F. Murphy (R-PA)

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA)

Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM)

Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ)

Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY)

Rep. David Scott (D-GA)

Rep. Don Young (R-AK)

Rep. Jerry Weller (R-IL)

Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-NM)

Dishonorable Mentions:

Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID)

Sen. David Vitter (R-LA)

If'n thayt ain't enuff t'make a feller's hoart swail wi'prahd, I jis dunno WHAT is!

This is a test: The Fallujah Bridge

This image has been the object of more than 200 google-searches and hits over the past two days.

It's the bodies of the Blackwater mercenaries ambushed and killed in Fallujah in 2005, which attack was the proximate cause of the destruction of the city by US forces later that year.

New Robert Greenwald Video

1600 views in two hours on YouTube

"To laugh at the ridiculousness, to scream at the outrageous or to... Well Fox sank to new lows in their analysis of Petraeus' testimony last week. When our friends at Media Matters let us know that tthey had 7 to 1 analysts in favor of escalation, it was hard to believe, even for FOX! 22 minutes supporting the escalation and only 3 and half against it. They went to such great lengths, they even cut away to Ann Coulter when Democrats questioned Petraeus!

Atlas Gagged

Alan Greenspan: Was there EVER a more feckless (less feckful?) person?
He should suffocate, already: his long, lugubrious face engulfed in the gaping, feculent maw that is Andrea Mitchell's reeking twat, is all I'm saying. It's enough to make an orc puke, fer-christs'-fucking-sake.

Gates to Troops: "Tell It To A Chaplain, Assholes! You're in the Fucking Army, Now!"

Via Think Progress:

The Washington Post reported this morning that one of the “best opportunities” for war critics “to change policy” in Iraq is an amendment by Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), which would “mandate that home leaves for troops last as long as their deployments.” The measure failed in July to break a Republican filibuster, “but it appears to be gaining momentum in the Senate.”

On Fox News Sunday this morning, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said he would recommend that the President veto the bill should it pass. “Yes, I would,” said Gates when asked by host Chris Wallace, calling it a “well-intentioned idea” that would “pose greater risk to our troops...”

We're gonna be sending kids to get killed in Iraq as long as the oil lasts. NOBODY's coming home til the Iraqi Oil law is enacted and signed.

"General BetrayUs": Move-On Meme Sets The Hook

Via Buzzflash, one of the best minds on the Left, framester George Lakoff, admires the latest Move-On 'meme': Betrayal.

Betrayal is everywhere in the news. We learned from the Washington Post that Alan Greenspan said, in his new book, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." Not keeping our country safe, as the troops were told. Not democracy. Not Weapons of Mass Destruction. Not al Qaeda. Oil! All those lives and maimings about oil! Are you shocked, shocked? It is Betrayal of Trust of the highest order: "Politically inconvenient ... everyone knows..." Oil was not discussed at the Petraeus hearings. The silence in Washington has been polite.
MoveOn's "General Betray Us?" ad has raised vital questions that need a thorough and open discussion. The ad worked brilliantly to reveal, via its framing, an essential but previously hidden truth: the Bush Administration and its active supporters have betrayed the trust of the troops and the American people...

Lakoff is a must-read any time he proffers an opinion. Follow the link in the headline above.

When The Stake Are High Enough, EVERYBODY Cheats

Don't EVER think it is EVER gonna be ANY other way!
That's how we do it here in Murka!
We cheat at sports, we cheat at politics, we cheat at music, we cheat on tests: We Cheat!
USA! USA! USA! We ARE Number Fucking ONE!

What ONE Question Arises From The Ashes and Wreckage of IX/XI?

The question which occurs to me upon reflection on the horrific events 6 years ago and the subsequent/consequent international chaos, murder and purblind delusion whence ensuing is this:
Was/is our democratic system dependent on our (self-perception of) invulnerability? And that once violated so visibly, so unspinnably, so unequivocally, our smug 'democracy' was revealed to be as fragile as the structures the attackers brought down, which collapsed under the novelty of the attack?
IS this true? If so, how and why?

Seppuku Bush-u

As I consider the headlines in the SCUM which blithely announce that 'the NEXT President' will have to clean up Bush's mess in the Middle East while the smirking, shit-licking, strutting, swaggering, simian shitwhistles goes out on 'speaking' tours, harvesting millions of dollars, and I begin to consider salient alternatives, there is one that immediately suggests itself.

Any "President" whose term expires on a military and social catastrophe the likes of the Iraq fiasco, for which she/he ALONE is responsible, probably should be required to commit ritual suicide under the grandstand upon which her/his successor is being sworn in.

Someone who so lavishly and so vainly sacrificed so many others' lives should have to at atone with their own.
At a minimum, have their tongue ceremonially excised, to prevent them from further misleading people with their fatal lies.

but tha'sprolly jist me, innit?

What Was The Price Of Gas This Date in 2001?

After the summer peaks, it had settled down to about $1.50/gal. Diesel was about $1.25.

Today, at the cheap gas joint on the corner, it was $2.89 (diesel was the same). It was at, or near $3/g most everywhere else. Diesel, too.

Now here's a strange thing: Nothing has changed with respect to the actual, physical costs of maintaining the chain of enterprises extracting, or refining or distributing gasoline, except perhaps for them to have become cheaper for reasons of efficiency, declining wages, and advances in technology. Yet the price has almost DOUBLED, in just six years? While the actual costs of extraction and refining have declined?

True, supply has decreased marginally, with the reduction in Iraqi oil production occasioned by the violence of the ICORP and the coincident destruction and disruption inflicted on the civilian infrastructure. But Iraq, while sitting atop a considerable percentage of the world's proven/known reserves, does not now--and really never did--pump a very significant fraction of the daily or yearly production figures. And Iraq never contributred very much to US supplies, most of which come from the southern Atlantic Basin, latin America and equatorial Africa. Nigeria supplies far more of Murka's awl than does Iraq.

And demand has risen too. And the underlying price of oil is a constant, excluding spot markets, across the global economy. That's the one thing OPEC made stick, reliably, and still does.

Still...DOUBLE? The only comparable to that return on investment is California beach-front acreage, or manhattan-anything-habitable.

And, one supposes, for the pretty much the same reasons: Cuz there ain't any more of it, they're not making anymore, and what there is is going fast. so take it, and take it while you can.
Did any of this ever show up in a Jared Diamond book?

(Non-)Trivia Quiz: In What Way Are Swaziland, Papua New Guinea, Liberia and the USofA EXACTLY Alike?

Out of 173 countries, only four have no paid leave for new mothers -- Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, Liberia and the U.S.A.

H/t to pal Sinfonian at BlastOff. He picked up on the original HuffPost diary, which goes on to recite these (by now well-known additional data points:

Our health care system is the most expensive in the world per capita, yet our child mortality rate is 37th. Paid sick days are not required, quality child care is hard to line up and often more than parents can afford.

Sinfonian concludes by asking:

Ultimately, I'm forced to ask: what is so bad about helping one's fellow man? What is so bad about paying taxes so that society can improve as a whole? I just don't see anything wrong with that ...

I of course replied: "Why do you hate Murka?"
You clearly missed the lecture on the difference between the deserving and the undeserving poor.
Everybody in Murka has the right to pull him or herself up by their bootstraps.
If they can afford boots with bootstraps.
If not, fuck 'em. If they were real Murkins, they'd have boots with straps in 'em with which to pull themselves up.
If we gave everybody everything they wanted, what would happen to the bootstrap makers? They'd go out of bidness, their children would starve, their women would have to sell their bodies on the streets, their homes would foreclose, their cars would be repossessed. It would be terrible.
I can't believe you don't understand this.
I am forced to ask: why do Ms Blades and the Blogger Sinfonian hate Murka's boot-strap makers?

"The Shock Doctrine" - - Promo for Naomi Klein's latest

The secret history of the "free market."

The secret of the fascisti successes: treating the populace like captured enemies whose will to resist must be broken.

The entire public relations/advertising industry--every jot and tittle=--is devoted to disorienting people, so as to prevent their cognitive apprehension of the real conditions in which they are imprisoned and confined, and to stimulate in them the need to cooperate with their jailers.

Quoth Ms. Klein: "When I finished The Shock Doctrine, I sent it to Alfonso Cuarón because I adore his films and felt that the future he created for Children of Men was very close to the present I was seeing in disaster zones. I was hoping he would send me a quote for the book jacket and instead he pulled together this amazing team of artists -- including Jonás Cuarón who directed and edited -- to make The Shock Doctrine short film. It was one of those blessed projects where everything felt fated." - Naomi Klein

War is NOT a "Natural" State. It is a cultural phenomenon.

(Note: This was composed initially as a Comment on the Pff (politicalfleshfeast.com) blog. I'm also gonna post it over on MyLeftWing )

War is NOT a "Natural" State. It is a cultural phenomenon.

Most (non-"civilized"; that is, non-domesticated) human cultures exist in a state of constant, but low-level, hostility with their neighbors. Deaths concocted between the groups in these relations are usually individual, and opportunistic. These are small groups, typically fewer than 200-300 individuals. Of that number, 40 percent are likely elderly or young children. Half of the remaining are women, so 70% are non-combattant; leaving no more than 60-90 men.

A "war" in the way the term is being used by pyhrro would mean committing all, or at least MOST, of the available man-power to the conflict, to slaughter or ruinous injury. 20-30% casualties could be expected in such head-on warfare.

But such a small group could not long sustain itself in a state of conflict that killed or or otherwise disabled 20-30% of its males. So, normally, tribal societies don't conduct full-scale "wars" in the scale of european/persian conflicts with armies on battlefields with formations and maneuvering, etc. Their conflicts are much more intimate.

There's an interesting (though possibly apocryphal, I cannot recall the source) story concerning the first encounters between the "head-hunters" of new guinea and european explorers. Attending in indigenous villages, the Euros were aghast by the sheer numbers of heads they saw displayed. "Instinctively," the Euros labeled the natives as murderous, bloodthirsty, savages.

What they were unprepared to recognize, however, was that the heads collected in the village included those taken over GENERATIONS, usually one or two at a time when, every year, each tribe sent its young men into the forest to test their manhood, live or die, kill or be killed--and leave your head on some OTHER tribe's trophy wall.

The Euros used their misapprehension of the cultural reality of indigenous practice of 'war' to justify their desire to colonize, to eliminate or enslave the inhabitants.

So, my point is "war" isn't the incidental conflicts between neighbors. "War" is an organized, systematic, culture-wide enterprise motivated by essentially an economic motive: to exterminate an 'enemy,' and seize dominion over his property, all of it, to kidnap his women, and kill his children. War requires surpluses, of population--principally of young males--but also of resources to raise, equip, dispatch and supply 'armies.'

Not all cultures are capable of this. Those that are, do.
./

Hukt Awn Faunix - - A True Story

When my lil brother was growing up, the family lived in a semi-rural area north of Santa Fe (the Pojoaque valley, about 15 miles north of town), a locale in which everybody rode the school bus (until they could afford/promote/steal a car).
Bus routes and routines being what they are, it was customary for the bus to drop Pete--then perhaps 7 or 8 years old--off at a certain time every day. One day he was quite late getting home.
Mother, of course, asked him why he was so late. Whereupon Pete regaled her with the exciting details of the north-bound Greyhound with an axle-fire that burnt up the back of the bus and closed the road between school and home ahead of the school bus, and the attendant excitement as the volunteer fire department descended (a member of which was our Dad), with the state cops, and the frustrated truckers snarling in line behind. In summary, he told her, out on the highway it was "total chouse."
Which stopped Momma in her tracks for a second. "Chouse?"
So he spelled it.
I mean, really, when you're a (precocious) kid from north of Santa Fe, HOW ELSE would you pronounce "C H A O S"?

George Carlin: "The Call It The American Dream, Because You Have To Be Asleep To Believe It"

Politicians? Candidates? Bidness Leaders?
They DO NOT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU!

It's a big club, and you and I AREN'T IN IT.

The Sixth Anniversary of IX/XI Being Nigh, H/w My Informed Speculation

By the end of Summer, 2001, after being in (their stolen) office only 8 months, the Busheviks were ALREADY world-wide laughingstocks. The Chimp's visit to Russia, where he basically peed on the carpet in the Hermitage, had marked him as an international featherweight and an uncouth, unlettered, uncultured, drooling simpleton. Wheresoever he went, the strutting, swaggering, simpering simian was met with unleavened scorn.

Their power was shaky at home, too, because--amid, and at least in part because of, all the laughter and criticism--the illegitemacy of the regime's SCROTUS-mandated installation was starting to be an issue:

(T)heir popular support--such as it was;, since Bush was a 'minority' President--was dwindling because they were such evident morons, dolts and incompetents; there were office pools on which of the Cabinet members would resign first and when; there was a Rummie "death watch" on Slate; the AG had nothing better to do than write assinine, patriotic jingles, and cover the breasts of marble statues; their legislative agenda was in shambles/doa; the late-niters--even that drooling shitwhistle Leno--were dropping comic bombs on 'em: many, and every night; the economy was tanking; they'd had to suck major PRC cock to get their spy plane back, Israel was aflame over the intifada; etc. It was chaos.

Point?

The Busheviks needed--they absolutely HAD to have--some REALLY BEEG SUMBITCH distraction. "Bin Laden Determined To Strike Inside US" promised just such a relief.

I don't know how much they knew. I doubt the Chimp himself knew much if anything; a dry drunk, obviously he couldn't be trusted not to shoot off his mouth, so he wouldn't have been told. The dumb-struck expression on his face in that Florida classroom told that story.

But Cheney? Cheney fucking knew. I am as sure of it as I am sure of my own name.

Cheney, imho, knew everything about the pending attacks except (maybe) the dates, flight numbers, and exact targets. Intelligence was his particular portfolio. He/they were hoping whatever was coming wouldn't be too bad (and really, it wasn't). But they--Cheney, in particular--really didn't give much of a shit. Any amount of death/terror suited his/their purposes and those of the rest of the PNACabal in the ShiteHouse. It distracted the people from their doubts about Bush, and provided excellent cover--indeed, it could be used as an excuse--for their plans for the Middle East.

How can anyone look at their subsequent record of lies, deceit, prevarication, cover-up and denial and NOT know the Busheviks would tolerate anything, do anything, attempt anything to stay in, and add to, their power?

In service of that one aim and end, they committed the ONE universally acknowledged international sin: They took the country into an illegal, immoral, unprovoked, and unnecessary war of aggression, against an adversary which posed no danger or threat to the sovereignty or territory of the USofA. Whatsoever may or may not eventually be proven regarding their complicity in the IX/XI events, the ICORP (Invasion, onquest, Occupation, Rape & Plunder) of Iraq places the Bushevik regime in league with the bloodiest tyrants and international criminals of all time.

If post-Nazi Germany is an apt example, the fuckers deserve to hang for it.

The USer/Globalist Strategy For the Middle East

becomes clearer every day:

1. Plunge the region into deadly, sectarian strife.
2. Support all contestants with money and arms.
3. Retreat into prepared positions (i.e., the 14 NEW bases constructed or still a’building.
4. Enjoy the ensuing chaos, slaughter and mayhem, sallying forth occasionally to bomb or otherwise intrude upon the festivities and stir the pot when needed; then
5. When the antagonists have mutually exhausted one another, socially and militarily, emerge from the ’prepared positions’ with troops already in place to re-colonize the resources.

Yeah, I really DO believe they're ("we're") that cynical and bloody-minded.

Both Murray And Sticlker Should Be Under Indictment TODAY, For Involuntary Manslaughter, At A MINIMUM

Behind this raggedy shit:
‘What Is the Problem at MSHA? What the Hell Is the Problem at MSHA?’

Posted By Mike Hall On September 5, 2007 @ 4:49 pm In Legislation & Politics, Bush & Co. | No Comments

That query from Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) to Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) chief Richard Stickler was just one of dozens of pointed and critical questions from members of a Senate subcommittee looking into the deadly [1] Crandall Canyon Mine disaster that trapped and presumably claimed the lives of six Utah miners and killed [2] three rescue workers last month.
Much of this morning’s hearing centered on a controversial mining plan submitted by Murray Energy Corp. and approved by MSHA that called for the use of “[3] retreat mining“—a mining method most safety experts say is much more dangerous than conventional methods. That belief is boosted by the fact that the mine’s previous owner had ruled against its use because of safety concerns, says Mine Workers ([4] UMWA) President Cecil Roberts.
Stickler, Roberts and former MSHA administrator J. Davitt McAteer were among the witnesses at the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Labor, Health and Human Services subcommittee hearing. Murray Energy CEO [5] Robert Murray turned down the subcommittee’s request to testify and now may be forced to appear. Says Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.):

First he says he’s too busy and now he says he’s too sick. I’m personally convinced that we need and will issue a subpoena here.

When subcommittee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) asked Stickler if he “stands behind” the mining plan MSHA approved, Stickler refused to say “yes” or “no.” He told the panel he would have to wait until the MSHA investigation is further along before answering.
However, he did say the coal company did not inform MSHA of [6] a series of “bumps” and “bounces”—when extreme pressure causes the walls of a mine to explode—in the area near where the retreat mining was to take place and near where the six were working. McAteer said Murray Energy’s withholding of that data:

…suggests an effort not comply or coordinate with MSHA.

Both he and Roberts unequivocally said Murray’s mining plan should never have been approved. Said McAteer:

Retreat mining, generally speaking, is the most dangerous type of mining. So you take the most dangerous type of mining in and around areas prone to bumps and bursts, with 3,000 feet of mountain above….Now, you’ve created an ultra-dangerous circumstance.

Roberts said the mine’s previous owner, Andalex Resources, already had extracted all the coal that could be mined safely.
In essence, the only coal remaining in the mine was the barriers and pillars necessary to support the roof of the mine’s main entrance….There can be no doubt that the mountain over the mine was exerting extreme pressure on the remaining coal, which was supporting the mine roof. Murray Energy was extracting that coal, using the pillar extraction method [retreat mining], at the time of the catastrophic collapse.
Before Murray Energy took over the mine, according to Roberts’ testimony, Andalex filed a report with the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining that said:

Although maximum recovery is a design criteria, other considerations must be looked at in the final analysis in the extraction of coal. These factors include the insurance of protection of personnel and the environment. Solid coal barriers will be left to protect the main entries from the mined out panels and to guarantee stability of the main entries for the life of the mine.

Said Roberts:

Despite this assessment, Murray Energy submitted a plan to MSHA for approval to mine all remaining coal reserves, including the barrier pillars. The agency took just seven business days to approve the request….MSHA’s best chance for saving the miners was on June 15, not Aug. 6 or 7. But when MSHA approved the Crandall Canyon mining plan on June 15, that chance was lost.

Article printed from AFL-CIO Weblog: http://blog.aflcio.org
URL to article: http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/09/05/what-is-the-problem-at-msha-what-the-hell-is-the-problem-at-msha/
URLs in this post:
[1] Crandall Canyon Mine disaster: http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/08/20/utah-miners-may-be-trapped-forever/
[2] three rescue workers: http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/08/17/rescuer-deaths-compound-tragedy-at-utah-mine-search-for-six-trappe
d-men-halted/

[3] retreat mining: http://www.sltrib.com/ci_6618171
[4] UMWA: http://www.umwa.org/homepage.shtml
[5] Robert Murray: http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/08/11/crandall-canyon-mine-owner-murray-nuts-over-talking-squirrel/
[6] a series of “bumps: http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/08/14/danger-signs-at-crandall-canyon-mine-raised-five-months-ago/

"The REAL Rudy": A Film by Robert Greenwald

Democrats and others may have the liberty of selecting the lesser of two evils. Not the Pukes. They have to choose among the worst of the worst.

ZeFrank, Redivivus.

"The Show" ended March 17 of this year, after a single, solitary year..
However it's available in archives. They've aged remarkably well.

Lewis Black On Why Fear Still Sells So Well

Attack On Ramstein!!!!! They're Coming!!!! Oh, NOOOoooo...

From what I've read, mainly in the euro press, I cannot see what damage these three 'terrorists' could have done at Ramstein. Mebbe killed a couple hundred people, max. Bomb a movie theatre on base on Sunday afternoon? Okay. But the place itself is FARKING HUGE...hectares upon hectares of runways, and bunkers, and hangers, and forest...
Yeah, a couple of hundred dead and injured GIs and families on an airbase in Germany would be a bad thing.
so is a coupla thousand dead iraqis in fallujah; the 24 slaughtered in haditha...
you point?

A Couple of "Terrorist" Plots Uncovered Lately.

Apparently/allegedly there have been two more 'terror' plots uncovered, one in Denmark, another in Germany. A total of somewhere between 10 - 13 "perps."
Search [Terror Plots].
The headlines (at least in the US and Australia) are full of the reports.
One thing you notice: to the extent that the charges are plausible--three guys wanna attack Ramstein AB? waddarya, fucking KIDDING me?--the folks 'fighting' terror are NOT fucking soldiers, they're fucking COPS. Now, it's true that COPS are becoming (and behaving) more and more like para-militaries all over the world.
Still, it's not a troop surge, or an invasion or a conquest or an occupation. Like the man (John Kerry, remember) said, preventing terror is a fucking POLICE matter, not a military one..

The Iraq Oil Law: Get It Signed, And Mohammed And All His Wives Can Go Pound Sand

All the complaints about the political inabilities of the Iraqi regime of the moment would vanish in an instant if the Malichi govt could get the so-called "Iraqi Oil Law" through the Parliament. This is the Iraqi legislation which, when passed, will stipulate to the conditions and institutions of collecting, allocating, and distributing the wealth of Iraq's oil, both domestically (in Iraq), and internationally, through the "global economy." Sounds pretty straight forward, innit? Who gets what? Why can't we all just get along?
Well, primarily, cuz it's not as simple as all that. From a source devoted to discussing the issue, IraqOilLaw.com:

According to the Bush Administration, the notion that the occupation of Iraq was a means to gain control over that country’s vast oil reserves is “nonsense” and “a myth.” However, in February, 2007, the proposed draft of a new law to structure Iraq’s oil industry was leaked, and it is now being considered by the Iraqi parliament. Several key features of the law would:

• Allow two-thirds of Iraq’s oil fields to be developed by private oil corporations. In contrast, the oil industry has been nationalized in every other major Middle Eastern producer for over 30 years.
• Place governing decisions over oil in a new body known as the Iraqi Federal Oil and Gas Council, which may include foreign oil companies;
• Open the door for foreign oil companies to lock up decades-long deals now, when the Iraqi government is at its weakest.

Overall, the law would secure the agenda of ExxonMobil, Chevon, and the other majors, robbing the Iraqi people of their most basic source of wealth. Much is at stake. With 115 billion barrels of proven reserves ($7 trillion worth at $64 per barrel) and another 215 billion possible or likely ($14 trillion), there’s nearly a million dollars of oil for every Iraqi citizen. It’s a vast and precious national resource—but only if Iraqis are allowed to control it themselves.

CF: Jim Hightower, who tends to fulminate, but is relaible
also: Amy Goodman does a good job.
It is the "failure" by the Iraqi Parliament to pass this law that is what is at the root of all the complaints about the Malichi govt there.
The Busheviks talk about pacifiying, and cooperation, and development, and painting schools and having the Iraqis 'standing up', but all they really mean is "Sign on the dotted fucking line, Mohammed!" The Busheviks aren't really concerned about the security issue, except as it effects the exploitation of the oil.
Because it must be obvious to even the Busheviks that the 'inability' to pass the Oil Law is as much or more an act of resistance than an illustration of incompetence, Malichi'll be replaced soon enough w/somebody more able to do the will of the neo-colonizers. I still think Ahmad Chalabi--he of Judith Miller/NYT fame--if he lives, eventually will become the next Iraqi strongman.
That said, Allawi, they guy Malichi replaced, was reported to have executed 6 'insurgents' personally, on his first day as interim prime minister, a couple years ago. Search [Allawi Kills Prisoners]. Chalabi, on the face of it, appears to have some catching up to do, but I'm sure he's capable.
It won't matter a lick, if whosoever gets in there is able to do the bidding of DC/London and lock down the oil deal. Nothing else matters.
(Photo: The Beeb.)

WASF, Installment--Post Mortem: Requiem

This is depressing, as depressing as only the unvarnished truth can be. I have always known the 'liberal' system of USer democracy was fragile, and increasingly--with the advent of the EisenhowerDulles National Security State--diseased.
But I never dreamed I'd out-live it.
Chris Floyd sez:

The Republic you wanted -- and at one time might have had the power to take back -- is finished. You no longer have the power to keep it; it's not there. It was kidnapped in December 2000, raped by the primed and ready exploiters of 9/11, whored by the war pimps of the 2003 aggression, gut-knifed by the corrupters of the 2004 vote, and raped again by its "rescuers" after the 2006 election. Beaten, abused, diseased and abandoned, it finally died. We are living in its grave.

Where does that leave us? Up Shit Crick, without a paddle, friends.

(We) must also recognize that the kind of civil disobedience that Thoreau preached – and practiced – is immensely more difficult today, because the power of the state is so much greater, far more pervasive, more invasive…and much more implacable, more inhuman. No one would have dared put Thoreau in "indefinite detention" without charges, or torture him, or delegate some underling in intelligence apparatus (which didn't exist then) to kill him as a "suspected terrorist." Of course there were many egregious suspensions of Constitutional liberties and draconian measures during the Civil War; but these occasioned fierce fights in Congress, investigations, lawsuits, and outraged protests on the streets – the worst, by far, in American history, dwarfing the urban riots and war protests of the Sixties. But only the most ignorant fool – or devious liar – could compare these short-lived, ad hoc, inconsistently applied, frequently reversed and much-disputed depredations, carried out in the midst of a massive insurrection by fully-fledged armies on American soil, with today's thorough-going, systematic creation of an authoritarian state, on the basis of a zealous ideology of an unrestricted "unitary executive," operating in a nebulous, self-declared "state of war" that we are told will last for generations.

Thoreauvian/Gandhian/MLK-style "pacifism" is as impractical, as impossible today, as alchemy.

The technology available to the government today amplifies the scope of repression immeasurably, both in the pinpoint, surreptitious targeting of individuals and in larger-scale operations.
In a land crawling with armed – and armored – SWAT teams, with operatives from innumerable federal agencies packing heat and happy to use it, a land where more than 2 million people languish in prison (many of them captives of an endless "war on drugs" that has done nothing to curb substance abuse but has greatly augmented the power of the state and the criminal gangs whose laundered money enriches Establishment elites), a land where almost every transaction is wired up to some national grid, where national ID cards are now being imposed – a land where you literally cannot exist without placing your liberty, your privacy, your very life at the mercy of a government apparatus besotted with violence, coercion and intrusion, there is no place left for the kind of action that Thoreau advocated. His way – and that of Gandhi and King, who took so much from him – envisions a state opponent which one could hope to shame into honorable action by the superior moral force of principled civil disobedience. But the very hallmark of the present regime is its shamelessness, its utter lack of any sense of honor or principle, its bestial addiction to raw power...
...(D)espite the deep unpopularity of the regime, there is still a widespread reluctance to recognize its true nature, and what it will require to restore our constitutional republic. And truth to tell, there are a great many people uninterested in doing so. As long as the diversions keep pouring through the latest gadgetry, the monthly paycheck manages to cover the bills, and their own bodies are not subjected to the tyrant's evil, many people are happy to accept the authoritarian system. (This is not unique to Americans, of course; it is a constant in human history.) But even where there is an interest in discerning the reality of our times, and a yearning for change, again there is no broader movement to leverage an individual's dissent into a form large enough to thwart the tyrannical machine. And there is no American Sakharov on the horizon, someone to arise from the very center of the machine to denounce its workings and call for genuine liberty, genuine democracy, genuine economic and social justice.

There's lot more, much of it reiterating--albeit more elegantly--what I've been saying since "we, the People" acquiesced to Bush v. Gore. (H/t to "fortytwo" at MLW)

Bush In Anbar? Then You KNOW The War's Moved On

Cuz that miserable, scampering, simpering, strutting, smirking, simian, chickenshit little fucknozzle would NEVER go anywhere there was the SLIGHTEST danger to his manicured nails and $5000 'camo' suits...

Who Among (You/Us) Truly Believes The "People" Would Actively, and Strenuously, Resist the Imposition By The Right of Martial Law?

In other venues this morning--the 63rd anniversary of the surrender of Japan and the end of WW II, btw--talk is about the forthcoming assault on Iran, and the (possibly parenthetical) imposition of Martial Law to quell such protest and resistance against it as might arise.

It is my opinion, stated oft and bluntly, that I think the "People" would roll over, show their bellies, and crawl back to their 60" plasma screens, to munch pizza, slurp budweiser, and vote on talent shows for the Duration. I doubt that obese, diabetic, drunk, sugar-sated, fat-enlarded Murkins would trade a single chinchilla of their comforts for the whole array of their (putative) liberties.

If you have a contrary opinion, I would be glad to read it, and the reasons