This bugs me no end. I don’t care about the outcome of the Obamacare bill. Without it we’re screwed, but he made sure that with it we’re screwed as well. It’s a wash.

Justices Scalia and Thomas dined with the people litigating before them as they prepared to discuss the case. Not only is it improper, it’s flaunting. They are telling the world they don’t care about ethical conduct.

That demonstrates complete lack of integrity.

I think my mojo, my edge, my annoying self is returning. Don’t worry, fellow bloggers! I’m not going to go where not welcomed.

I set out this morning to write about this constant dialogue I am having with people about the importance and effect of voting. It’s a broad subject, but to sum it up, there is an old saying that if voting mattered, it would be illegal. Indeed, in Chile in the early 1970’s, voting was effective, so the US murdered the president and installed in power a man who then outlawed voting. The other example I used over at Intelligent Discontent* this morning was Father Jean Jacques Aristide, who came to power in Haiti in the early 1990’s by means of a popular movement that was then crushed by the Bush and Clinton regimes. Voting can indeed be effective, and in those two cases it forced power to come out in the open and use its only real sustaining device, violence.

What on earth makes people think that the leaders of the US, who so despise voting in other countries, respect it here? Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-il and Fidel Castro also sustain(ed) their regimes using the façade of electoral referendum. Somewhere between the a real referendum in Chile in 1970 and the fake one in North Korea in 2009 lies the US voter. We do have a system in which voting can be effective, but we are trained to use it in the most ineffective manner possible, choosing among candidates offered to us by the oligarchy.

For that reason, in the United States in 2011, voting does not matter. Voting for munchkins in a world run by Wicked Witches is not much of a choice.

In retrospect it appears that the Obama campaign was constructed with the knowledge that there would be a backlash against Bush. He was groomed, and did not appear out of the streets of Chicago by accident. He’s highly intelligent, but I am wondering now if he even wrote those books that made him famous, his profiles in courage. Now elected, he has assiduously worked to make sure that every major advance made under Bush is either maintained or intensified.

In other words, in terms of regime Change in 2008, our votes were as important as a vote for Fidel Castro in Cuba.

Hope on that.
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*I just realized as I wrote these words that Polish Wolf, who wrote the post over at ID, committed the fallacy of the missing middle, which I just wrote about below. Blew right by me!

Here’s a nice turn of phrase I ran across: crippled epistemology. I like it because it so nicely encapsulates Randianism. People become embedded in tightly controlled feedback loops, and suffer from information starvation.

Randianism/libertarianism (they echo one another) yield negative results when implemented. That’s abundantly clear. The fallback response is that the implementation was imperfect, in other words, not enough. So some years back when electrical deregulation produced a catastrophe in California, we were told that deregulation was not done properly. That’s all. Also note that even though tax cuts* are said to produce jobs by putting money in the hands of “job creators” (a PR term if ever one was dreamed up), current unemployment is reaching depression era proportions.

These people firmly believe that once implemented, their proscribed philosophy will yield positive outcomes. Evidence does not sway them. That’s not only defined insanity, but also religious faith.
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*I suspect one reason why the wealthy (and their intellectual stooges) so vigorously oppose even a modest tax increase from 35% to 39.6% is the Clinton lesson, when a tax hike preceded a robust expansion. That is evidence that taxes have far less impact on economic growth than we’re led to believe. Ergo, no tax hike of any sort is allowed, as it might again defeat their flimsy philosophy.

Two uprisings have occurred in the last few years, the “Tea Party” and the “Occupy” movements. One was spontaneous, the other orchestrated. Guess which.

(Hint) One had strong financial backing by oil oligarchs, and a TV network that showed up whenever two or more gathered. The other, not. (Just a hint.)

I am in a motel room today watching football, bored to tears. Glenn Greenwald is putting out his usual outpouring of insight that, due to the depth of thought control in this country, few can grasp. (Who was it who sang “You better free your mind instead”? I did not know what that meant at the time either.)

The US is, surprise to me, pulling out of Iraq on the Bush timeline. It turns out that the Obama Administration did not want that to happen, but the Iraqis insisted that if American troops stayed in Iraq, they would be subject to prosecution in Iraqi courts for their crimes. This, as with all of the Arab Spring, is fallout from Wikileaks.

In other words, whoever leaked that cable [about a massacre of Iraqi civilians by American soldiers and the attempted coverup] cast light on a heinous American war crime and, by doing so, likely played some significant role in thwarting an agreement between the Obama and Maliki governments to keep U.S. troops in Iraq and thus helped end this stage of the Iraq war (h/t Trevor Timm). Moreover, whoever leaked these cables — as even virulent WikiLeaks critic Bill Keller repeatedly acknowledged — likely played some significant in helping spark the Arab Spring protests by documenting just how deeply corrupt those U.S.-supported kleptocrats were. And in general, whoever leaked those cables has done more to publicize the corrupt, illegal and deceitful acts of the world’s most powerful factions — and to educate the world about how they behave — than all “watchdog” media outlets combined (indeed, the amount of news reports on a wide array of topics featuring WikiLeaks cables as the primary source is staggering). In sum, whoever leaked those cables is responsible for one of the most consequential, beneficial and noble acts of this generation.

My nomination for Time Magazine man of the year: Prisoner Bradley Manning, whose newest crime is to force the US to be good to its word for once.

OK. Our family has endured much sadness lately, and out of that came a desire to avoid the incessant negativity of blogging. I’ve followed the usual haunts, and nothing changes. Ever. I continue to admire the work put out by Lizard and JC at 4&20, and will live vicariously through them. 

How to deal with loss? We’ve all experienced it, the knowledge that someone we love is just plain gone from our lives. It could be a romantic breakup or death. The feeling is the the same. As I saw bodies lowered into graves these past few weeks, I had uncontrollable sadness. Our family is closer now, more supportive of one another. We share pain, and that makes us stronger, more compassionate.

Does religion help? Do all the people who say that our loved ones are now somewhere else help the wounds heal? No. I don’t believe it, nor do they. Faith is unwavering belief in things we know are not true. Death is the end of a person, never to be hugged or heard again. 

Oddly, from death comes from within me a desire to give more of myself and expect less back. It is maturity. I was once told by a wise man that we don’t really become adults until our parents die. Perhaps he meant until we experience profound loss.

So my writing here is no longer offered to induce endless and unproductive political debate. I want more substance. I offer this forum to anyone who wants to share a positive outlook. No sympathy. We’ve had plenty of that. Just positive thoughts.

One lesson learned: The need for, and the healing power of forgiveness  – while we are alive. Life, as we all know, is short. We were repeatedly told that hearing is the last sense to go. Maybe so, but is there comprehension? I doubt it. Reconcile with them during life. I am saddened by the loss of two brothers, but gratified that we were friends at the end, all issues long since rectified.

Democrats will always be Democrats. Because they do not fulfill their role, and are as often con artists as leaders, they are the problem.

People who think Atlas Shrugged had deep significance will always assume they know more than us.

99.9% of Americans will never penetrate the cloud of propaganda that envelops them.

Meaningless elections that change nothing will continue to absorb our good energy, assuring the owning classes that their wealth and power will not be threatened by public opinion.

Things are shaking a little on the ground. The occupation of Wall Street might be the beginning of a movement, might not. It might be infiltrated, the bankers might send in agents provocateur to break some windows or burn a flag to discredit them. It’s a tried and true tactic.

But maybe change is in the air. It is long awaited.

This is the end of the blog as we know it. I’ve said everything I have to say at least seven times seven. It is fun to write, and I will continue to do so, maybe even here. But a wise man once told me that life is about making decisions, moving forward. This blog is a sideways place.

See ya. Been fun. And check the date. It is not April 1st.

From Friday’s Democracy Now! interview with Glenn Greenwald regarding the murder or Awlaki:

JUAN GONZALEZ: Glenn, what can people who are concerned about this extraordinary extension of the powers of a president to basically ignore any kind of due process with our American citizens, what can they do?

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, one thing that is obvious, is that voting for Democrats as opposed to Republicans doesn’t help. In fact, if you read The New York Times article from 2010 confirming that Awlaki is on the hit list, it makes clear that there’s been no instances where George Bush ordered American citizens targeted for assassination, that this is extraordinary and perhaps an unprecedented step under the Democratic president. What people in the Arab world did, when their leaders did things like imprison them, let alone kill them, and their fellow citizens without trials, is they went out into the streets and protested and demanded that it stop. Continue reading “It’s a question of whether we actually even believe in that piece of paper” →

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. (Taken from some quaint document)

Anwar al-Awlaki is dead, murdered by Barack Obama. There was no due process, no burden of proof. Just a cold-blooded murder. Obama now sits aside Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld as a state terrorist. He too deserves to be at the business end of a rope, feet a-twitching their final twitches.

It’s so much worse than just killing one man – it’s the whole of this nonsense of American victimhood. “Al Qaeda” is insignificant, hardly something to lose sleep over. Whatever they were before 9/11, and that wasn’t much, they (along with thousands of innocent Afghans) were wiped out in October of 2001. But their threat is deliberately overstated to keep the premise for American terror and aggressive war alive and well. An American citizen is far more likely to drown in a bath tub than die by the hand of a “terrorist.”
Continue reading “And you thought Bush was a bad dude?” →

Has anyone else noticed that not one American news outlet has referred to the two Americans released from Iranian prison yesterday as anything other than “hikers”?

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not conspiracy theorizing. But the idea that they might be spies when our government says they are hikers … during a time of high tension when the US is openly threatening Iran and running covert ops and having recently spent $400 million to disrupt their elections … well, the notion that these might just maybe not be hikers … well … that notion never even occurs to them. That’s kind of their job, like good puppies, never pottying on the carpet.

And they might really be hikers. It’s just an odd place to trek. It’s fishy. It would not hurt to be a tad suspicious but that quality does not exist in American journalism. It’s been bred out. The ones left really think that lack of curiosity is a virtue. That’s quite an accomplishment.