Wall Street Falls and our empire days are over

Fellow despairers of Bush/Palin/et.al. They are merely spokespeople of our chaotic times-- do not heap too much blame or time on them. Our true rulers are the Wall Street crowd. "Let the market rip," was their creed. And it did, for a while."Markets work; government don't," was another of their slogans.

The true villains of Wall Street's rise and fall are the Ponzi scheme alchemists who turned toxic junk mortgages into AAA rated securities. The rogues then leveraged each dollar of junk into 40-50 dollars of gold and along the way divvied up amongst themselves 50% of the profits (aside from their rather large salaries) their firms made. The leading rogues are the titans of Goldman-Sachs(Paulson, Corzine, Blankfein, Rubin, Thain), not to mention the hedge fund folks or the former masters of the universe at Lehman Bros, Merrill /Lynch, Fannie and Freddie, etc. These folks go back and forth into government and run the Treasury Department for Clinton or Bush or whoever happens to be president.

I think their freewheeling days are over for a while—our 2^nd Gilded Age (1980-2008) has just ended. Our only hope is to become a caring Scandinavian type country—our empire days are over.

Will anybody condemn Cheney's saber-rattling in the Caucasus?

Will anybody condemn Cheney's saber-rattling in the Caucasus? Both Clinton and Bush enraged Russia with NATO expansion into their back yard. Re-arming Georgia and placing our fleet in the Black Sea will hurt us more than them. Obama and McCain, please take note.

We need to cooperate with these guys over energy, terror, and a lot more. Are we ready to go down in flames because we only want things our way? ("full spectrum dominance") I hope not.

Dems lose it!

Obama starts to fade... Pulls a Kerry, even a Gore. Liberal activists lose interest in a party of the rich run by Wall Street and oil pipeline interventionists.

2008--end of Democratic Party as we know it.

2009 new party forms to take on Republicans.

From the looks of it the new party, as yet unnamed, will not be another party of the rich. Rule of Rich begins to fade in US as the truly rich move to China.

US in 2010 become a second tier power--emerges as happy and content Scandinavian country.

US and Russia tussle overr the Caucasus

Ah yes, the Great Game is up and running again.

Recall that the Brits and Russians fought over resources for many years. The Brits dropped out and now we have the US ogling Russia over oil and gas in the Caucasus. Hence the big dust up over the Russian Invasion to get the Invading Georgians out of majority Russian autonomous region in Georgia.

We already have wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention CIA insurgencies in Iran, Muslim China, The Philippines--and now it's back to the good ole USSR-- er, I mean Russia.

We also know that 2 out of 3 corporations don't pay income taxes, and the rest of the rich refuse to serve in the military and hardly pay their share of taxes...

In other words, we are stretched beyond our means but our incorrigible leaders, Pentagon people and future leaders want us to soldier on.

What's on our horizon? Decline, of course. It's happened to the best of empires, even many of the worst. Read the tea leaves fans--we're heading for a fall, er, decline.

And, Mr. Obama, drop your plans to reinvade Afghanistan again.

And, Mr. Obama, drop your plans to reinvade Afghanistan again. We've done it once, the British tried it as did the Russians. It's a lose-lose situation.

Work on building a more perfect union in the US. Forget about "helping" other countries under the guise of humanitarian intervention.

Simply put, Mr. Obama, there must be better ways to get oil and gas than through invading countries.

Big oil is back in Iraq, but trouble still brews for the empire

It was the oil, all along. The Times finally admits as 5 oil companies divide up Iraq's oil. After a long exile, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP are back in Iraq.

The dimshits that run/ruin our country were hoping to increase Iraq's oil production from 2.5 billion barrels to 6.5.(with the help of Exxon,BP, etc.) If that happened we'd be good oilwise/empire wise for another 30 -40 years.

But-surprise, surprise-Iraq oil production is still at 2.5 billion barrels and will be for quite a while with all the turmoil we created.

So, the best laid pipe dreams of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, assorted neo-cons are like the mythical Ozymandis--nothing, nada, gornicht...

Why we have no "public intellectuals."

The many public dunces (GW Bush,R Murdoch,J McCain, B O'Reilly, W Kristol,etc.) in our country soak up all the thinking oxygen and leave no breathing space for our public intellectuals.

We are a country where the rich and dim rule. "Money talks, BS walks," as the saying goes.

Jon Stewart says that Bush is a moron!

Ok, he's not a moron, in fact, his mission is accomplished. Iraq's oil is now ours, and in spite of all the happy news that we're leaving soon, or in 2013--the truth of the matter is that we're leaving when the oil runs dry. Mission Accomplished.

So, hail to George Bush! Low approval ratings, the world hates us, Stalinist kill rates and he's off to Crawford. But I tell you one thing--he must have a lot of friends in high places and I don't see his horrendous legacy being rolled back.

Hillary vs. McCain--who gets the racist vote?

Hillary vs. McCain--who gets the racist vote?

It gotta be McCain. Old time working class, Klan inspired, racists, hate Indians, then women, then blacks in that order. How do I know? the Bible told me so. As well as our sordid history of race/sex relations.

As much as Hillary is using "Black Fear" as a campaign issue, she is giving votes to McCain.

Point goes to Obama for running a dignified campaign. He will take that dignity all the way to the White House.

Whether he is the "Great Black Hope" for ending the war, improving the lot of the poor and working class, I tend to doubt. Wall Street/Pentagon is a tough crowd to beat.

One party of the rich in this country: two branches: dems and repubs.

We have a ruling oligarchy--'twas ever thus-- from the 55 rich founding fathers who were intent on minority rule, on.

One party of the rich in this country: two branches: dems and repubs.

Dems need to reclaim status as the party of the working class!

How: Get rid of the Wall Streeters that run the party i.e. DLC, Rubin, Schumer, et. al.

Run a populist/working class campaign.

Class war--the rich use it all the time for their advantage. Wise up folks, follow their lead!

Wake up, reclaim Democratic party for Main Street.

And win the working class vote --80% of the electorate.

Let the Republicans have the rest.

Stop reading main stream media!

People should stop reading/listening to Pentagon/loving, corporate/fawning media! i.e., NY Times, Washington Post, The Economist, NPR, BBC, etc.

For a change try:

a) The Nation
b) The Independent
c) Democracy Now

Try these for 45 days, if you don't find yourself more alive, tuned in, deep down happy/unhappy, then go cold turkey. Keep away from the news. Try, instead,sex, drugs and rock and roll. Eventually you will find your niche!

Hillary Clinton, Please exit stage right! Dems, go Populist!

Enough! Get her off the stage quick. She's an embarrassment. Plus, she is stirring up race hatred.

Clinton has no claim to white working class votes--the so-called Reagan Democrats. They have been reliable Republican voters in the past.

McCain supporters who voted for her in the primaries did so because they feel she will be easier to defeat.

If the Democrats want to get these Reagan-Democrats back, they need to push a much more populist/working class message: The Democratic Party is the Party of the working class (80% of the electorate, let the Republican have the other 20% for they are the party of Wall Street.)

Everyone has a preacher problem!

Everyone has a preacher problem! Hill has a Bill problem, McCain a Hagee/wife/Bush problem and Obama-man is blessed with an old testament, doom and gloom prophet problem. (Does the name Jeremiah ring a bell? Or is that Pavlov?)

I'll tell you why that's good: we've been so ruined by the cheerful idiot in the White House that we'll need the corrective of a glass half full pessimist. On the preacher front, point goes to Pastor Wright!

Scientific Reading Instruction and George Bush!

Remember folks, it was the "The Pet Goat" that our president was reading on that fateful 9/11 day. Why? It was one of the "scientifically based" reading books developed by the king of scientific reading education, Carl Bereiter--he of the "teacher-proof" reading instruction world.

This book, this president, this Carl Bereiter have all been unmitigated disasters for education, our society and the world!

There are but two books in the new George Bush presidential library. The above mentioned "Pet Goat" and "Cutting Brush for Pleasure and Profit."

PS. I thought George Bush was a dim bulb but he stands heads and shoulders above John McCain, the dullest and oldest knife in the drawer.

Hillary Clinton is a Republican.

Hillary Clinton has no chance of winning--she will not win the nomination and if, by hook and by crook, she does, she will not win the presidency.

Why?

Nomination--she has to win the delegate count--that's all that counts. She's now behind, will continue to be behind. The Supers are not going for her--in fact, they're going for Obama. Mathwise, she's done for. Of Course, Huckabee , the Republican nominee also saw that mathwise he couldn't win. He claimed he was a religion major, not a math major, Alas, he was done in by the math and withdrew.

The presidential campaign: Hillary has high negatives. (Over 40% surveyed don't like her). Many of the people who vote for her in the primary are really Republican McCain supporters--they vote for her because they think she will be easier to beat than Obama.

Finally, she's bad news. Why? The deadly 3R's--

She's really a Republican! She's self-righteous, and she's ruthless.

More

I found Hillary Clinton out. I am not happy with what I found. The last straw came when she vowed to obliterate Iran if it attacked Israel. Then she attacked Move-On for being against the invasion of Afghanistan (they were neither for it or against it).

Sadly, the new Hillary Clinton has resurfaced as a born-again Republican. Ever since her days as a "Goldwater Girl," as well as being the president of Wellesley College Republican club, Hillary was a known GOP'er. Recently she bonded with Murdoch and the right-wing Scaife Foundation..

I say good riddance to her. Let her do shots with Lieberman, be in bed with AIPAC, slobber over big money goons, dance with Rahm Emmanuel and Charles Schumer and the rest of the DLC apparatchiks, I am through with her! I'm for a Democratic party for the everyday person, the regular people who do the 9-5 thing or whatever. Call it the poor people's party or the party of just plain folks--let Hillary join the Party of the Rich--which we all know as the Republican party (and, sadly, most of the Democratic Party).

McCain no Messiah

Is John McCain the new Mr. Rogers?

Or the new Christ?

Or, perhaps, the new Obama?

Will he have enough followers to get elected?

Some say no. On the downside we note:

McCain suffers from short-man syndrome (horrible, explosive temper), plus he never achieved what his father and grandfather achieved (4 star admirals), plus he latched onto a pill popping beer heiress of a wife who needs "disciplining." A dud of a pupil at the Naval Academy, a Keating Five scandal alum, for and against torture, for and against tax cuts, for and against immigrants--

In McCain's Favor:

Perhaps he is a perfect candidate in the George Bush mold.

PS. Mr. Rogers, Jesus and Obama were/are decent folks from what I hear. McCain, not so much.

So, to sum up, as the Democratic party (the slightly left of center wing of the Party of the Rich) self-destructs and the Republican party (the extreme right-wing of the Party of the Rich) also self -destructs with a McCain 100 year war presidency, I am hopeful that a new political alignment will occur--and a party of the regular folks (includes Mr. Rogers, Obama and Jesus) will emerge ...

Bitter People for Obama

(Everyone's ganging up on Obama because he said people were bitter because of the bad economy and were turning to guns and God. Memo to Obama: you should have said people are bitter because the damn Democratic Party, just like the Republican Party, is a friend to the rich and hostile to the poor and middle class.)

Sure I'm bitter...bitter about Clinton's millions, McCain's beer heiress trophy wife, Obama's boyish good looks and gift of gab.

Then there's the bitterness I have about the billions CEO's have accumulated and spend on crazy luxuries life Lear jets, and 400 million dollar yachts, and Bush's insane war which will cost 3-5 trillion and, yes, I'm bitter because I can just about afford my cat food diet and now I worry that Purina might be bought out by some hedge fund. But, please,don't mourn for me, organize.

Heck, I'm bitterness incarnate. But, I decided to move on. I started a group supporting Obama for president. It's called "Bitter People for Obama." Bitter as I am, I think he would be the best president ever.

China the new Iraq?

Ah, China, is beginning to have the look and feel of an Iraq type scenario. The Dalai Lama is our Chalabi, The Tibetans our Shiites and the CIA/AID/NED pumps money like mad into Tibetan exile groups as it did to the Iraqi fundamentalist exiles training in Iran.

The US always deals harshly with threats to its hegemony. China and Russia alternate as the perceived evil empires that want to do us in. Indeed, both of these countries have severe issues around human rights and battling people who don't agree with them but so does the USA. Fellow sinners, don't be so quick to toss the first stone.

It's money down the drain, anyway. The USSR collapsed after being bled dry in Afghanistan...could happen to us as we spend our last oil dollars supporting another medieval, fundamentalist, "lord of the serfs" in the guise of the Dalai Lama. It seems that the George Bush crowd and assorted neo-cons are hell-bent on going down fighting and taking the rest of us with them.

In Iraq it's hard to keep the players straight without a scorecard.

All the Shiite militias in Iraq (except for Sadr's) trained in Iran. There, they were helped/armed/trained by our CIA. Badr militia (trained in Iran) is really the Iraq Army as well as the fiefdom of the ruling Iraqi political party. And it was Iran that brokered the peaceful resolution of the Maliki /Sadr battle in Basra.

When the President of Iran visited Iraq the other week it was a state visit and the man was kissed on both cheeks by al Maliki.

So...to review..CIA /Iran trains all Iraq Shiite militias except for the Sadr one. Our man in Baghdad (that would be Patreaus) says the Iranians are troublemakers and are behind Sadr, AQ and the roadside bombs.

Our other man in Baghdad (al Maliki) loves the Iranian ruling party.

So, sometimes the Iranians are our allies and sometimes they are our enemies. Confusing ? Big Question: Why did we build such a deadly house of cards in Iraq?

Possible answer:

There's no logic to what Team Bush does. As the crazy but smart like a fox Chalabi noted to author Mark Danner: "The American tragedy in Iraq is that your friends in Iraq are allied with your enemies in the region, and your enemies in Iraq are allied with your friends in the region."

General Petreaus Speaks

Theater of the Absurd! General Petreaus, based on his collection of data, says things are going well in Iraq. Could be better, mind you, but we're on the right track. Deaths are down, bombings are down, mortar attacks are down, now up...

Problem 1: There is no independent collection of data in Iraq. Knowing how the Bush team operates, it is probable that the facts were fixed around the policy

Problem 2: The Bush Administration is already on record for creating its own reality.

Problem 3: The Dick Cheney Doctrine–if something has a 2% chance of being true, then by God –it is true.

Petreaus-Crocker follies–just like the fictitious war reports stemming from General Westmoreland in Vietnam, not to mention the fictitious Weapons of Mass Destruction data reported by Secy of State/General Colin Powell, Pentagon views on reality are rose colored.

It seems George Bush is trying to keep his house of cards (Iraq) upright until he leaves office and if the Dems win the presidency and the US leaves the place, he can blame the ensuing chaos on them, --if they do leave and if there is, indeed, chaos.

Time to say "sayonara" in Iraq

Another mortar attack in Baghdad, this time killing 3 American soldiers and wounding 31, according to the New York Times online story of April 6^th. Our man in Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, the top commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, noted of the battle ''where we have criminal elements that are threatening the security and peace of the people of Iraq, we take action.” It’s mind-boggling that the country that invaded the place (that would be the US) is complaining about the locals taking up arms against us. Hasn’t out presence in Iraq become rather hopeless? In a few days time General Petreaus comes to tell the Congress what a splendid little war we have. Hasn’t it become obvious that this country cannot repair the pottery that was once Iraq and by staying is only creating more chaos? The time is long past for us to leave.

The NY Times is the NY Post for college grads

The New York Times is the New York Post for college grads. It titillates: it posts lurid pictures of Spitzer's hooker, hires Kristol just to piss people off and send off piles of letters-the editor,and, finally, selects pro-war crazies to review the Iraq war and why, you ask?

Clicks, fans, Yes clicks. You click the page and the neo-con Sulzberger gets ad money. Seems like some hedge fund wants to buy the Times and they like the digital version of the paper. So, the more crazies Sulzberger puts on your screen, the more clicks, the better the Times does.

You want reality, good reporting, screw it, just click and shut up!

Oligarchy 'R Us

The Clintons are rather rich, don't you think? Remember, Bill started out dirt poor, became the governor of Arkansas-- which paid diddly-squat and now they're both raking it in. Is it any wonder that Hillary refuses to be pulled off the feeding trough? Can't we have a government without the rich ruling? This oligarchy got to go! Perhaps we can have democracy. You know, basically a house of representatives that represents the people. No Senate --it lopsidedly represent small states better than large states andplease out with the life appointed supreme court and please get rid of that vestige of monarchy, the president.

In actuality we have a monarchy/oligarchy. Certainly Bush has taken on Kingly powers.

ML King and American Violence

The “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.” MLKing

Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam
Delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
April 4, 1967
At Manhattan’s Riverside Church

That’s all there is; that’s all you need to know on this the 40th anniversary of his death.

US Elections and Israel

• All the candidates have spoken on Israel-Palestine: They are all AIPAC supporters.

  
  Senator Obama addressed AIPAC in March, 2007. He voiced continued support for military assistance to Israel and for not pressuring the Israeli's on negotiations with its neighbors. Obama in his Pastor Wright speech castigates the Palestinians for the troubles in the region and notes that Wright mistakenly ," sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam. " Obama was also a Lieberman supporter in the Lieberman/Lamont battle.

  McCain travels around the world with Lieberman. Enough said?

  Clinton --ever since she was called on the carpet for embracing Arafat's wife she has been pro AIPAC all the way.

• Furthermore, every day Israel builds more settlements in the occupied territories. Any sane person could see where this is going--the creeping erasure of the Palestinians. Or as former Israeli Premiere, Golda Meir said long ago--there are no Palestinians.

• Moreover...

  Foreign policy-wise not much will change with Obama or Hillary. We still have the axis-of-evil who run US foreign policy: Wall Street/Pentagon/Florida Cuban exiles--stick in AIPAC for a quartet-of-evil.

  
  

Cheney Runs Iraq

"Did Cheney's visit have anything to do with al Maliki's attack on Basra?"

Of course. Cheney/Bush are the rulers in Iraq--Maliki a puppet and Sadr, someone who wants us out of there. Hence the battle. Cheney saw Sadr gaining influence and a strong contender to win upcoming vote in Iraq. Cheney doesn't want to leave the place. Along with McCain he'd stay for 100 years. Plus, he doesn't care what people think. He's the guy who said “so" when told most people want us out of there.

To that I can only say what I said yesterday:
Hamlet-like in Iraq! Should we stay, should we leave??? Oh ghost help me!

Fellow imperialists, Max Boot fans, assorted neo-cons and oil users--look at it this way:

We're getting sucked dry by the fight in Iraq--3 trillion down the tubes! Our military uses more oil there then Iraq is sending back. We're just like the old USSR who went broke fighting in Afghanistan. And who is benefiting from our empire's decline? Why Russia, China, India.

Wise up saps! It's time to end the Hamlet stay/go paralysis and leave the joint.

As for our prospects for leaving, I do not have much hope:

Foreign policy-wise not much will change with Obama or Hillary. We still have the axis-of-evil who run US foreign policy: Wall Street/Pentagon/Florida Cuban exiles--stick in AIPAC for a quartet-of-evil.

I think the Iraqis themselves will settle this one and boot us out, just like it was the Vietnamese that got us out of Vietnam.

Iraq is hell

Iraq is hell and the surge is one of the seasons of hell-- a slight change of scenery, a costume change between acts. The Surge is part of the selling campaign, it's the 2007-8 model of the long stay in Iraq.

And we stay and stay. Why? The place would revert to chaos of we were to leave. Revert? Chaos is US. We stay because we broke the pottery and now we need to fix it. Fix it? Not in a million years. Asking the US to fix Iraq is like asking Michael Jackson to babysit you children. So we stay, for what? What does the place have of value? Oil. That's why we stay. Simple question: why don't we go to Darfur? Simple answer, No oil.

The surge will come and go. Next season there will be a new hope: perhaps Chalabi will return and bring peace. And then the denouement-Chabali summarily killed and revealed as a fraud and on and on, more plots, sub-plots, pipedreams which will last 50 more years when the oil will run out.

The British took over Iraq when the Ottomans were defeated in WWI. They needed oil for their fleet which was switching over from coal. Pro-Council Gertrude Bell thought the Shias were not to be trusted, so she went with the Sunnis. Churchill's RAF gassed the Kurds and after that everyone kept pretty much in line.

The country was turned over to CIA station chief Kermit Roosevelt (Teddy's grandson) in the 50's and the oil became US corporate property. Saddam nationalized the oil and tossed out the Enrons of the time. Bush tossed out Saddam and now we have chaos but also some oil.

A ghastly tale, I'm sure you'll agree.