SundayOpen
thread
DNC pressures Obama to accelerate Afghanistan withdrawal ...
Libyan "government" goes Brand X nuts ...
The Pentagon, in propaganda mode on steroids, inspires pseudo science that threatens the lives of billions
Is the Obama Administration reading the tea leaves?
(now open to prosecuting war crimes?)
Wisconsin demonstration (now spreading around the us)
is what the propaganda persona cannot do ...
That is a scary story about using nuclear weapons to cure a climate problem. We heard that during the flame fanning of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. Some people actually think we can destroy something in order to save it.
ReplyDeleteThe Pentagon is surely behind the madness of considering that a "limited" nuclear war would aid prevention of global warming.
Get off the oil drug idiots. Treat the cause not the effect.
Great links today.
ReplyDeleteRE the DNC and Obama: The DNC and RNC both must be really be in a snit these days, as NoBama seems to have adopted a hybrid position that attempts to usurp both of their territories. While clearly moving so far right that he's effectively the voice of the true conservative mainstream (thereby allowing the rest of the party to claim the extreme right, giving us the T-Baggers, Bitch McConnell and the Great Orange Boner), he's also the sole remaining vestige of the "Liberal Left," an anachronism of 20th century politics that's actually been dead, gone, and completely forgotten for at least 50 years now (even JFK and LBJ were prisoners of MOMCOM, and LBJ's civil rights legislation, while heroic, was actually merely an attempt to claim a legacy for a career politician who couldn't get elected president on his own, never mind muster the balls to keep us out of the quagmire that was Vietnam).
RE NoBama and his "new stance" on torture prosecutions: We now know that NoBama's "stance" on ANY issue is merely an affectation devised by his political handlers with one overriding goal in mind: GETTING REELECTED! NoBama's moral compass is a vacuum, waiting to be filled by whatever opportunistic whim of the day holds sway. He's the thinking man's Bush (black, fit and trim, articulate, seemingly "smart" in a superficial kind of way), who's also the consummate politician (bought and paid for, deferential to his masters, makes fantastic speeches full of empty platitudes).
Whether or not his administration ever allows prosecutions of the Bush bunch (they won't), you can be sure of three things: 1. The trials will be for show only. No one except possibly some exceedingly low level functionaries will be in any danger of conviction whatsoever. 2. "Security" concerns will be cited by both the defense and the prosecution as reasons to prevent or greatly abridge the trials, and... 3. NoBama will distance himself politically from the trials as necessary to preserve his reelection prospects in whatever manner he can.
In actuality, I think he has no intention of ever allowing prosecutions, and this is just another shameless attempt at political damage control in light of recent events in the Middle East, and an open acknowledgement that just maybe he FINALLY realizes that his former liberal left "base" has deserted him for good. NoBama's every bit as shallow and vacuous as Bill Clinton and W ever were, with none of the endearing personality quirks that made either of them even moderately tolerable. NoBama's got to go, and the sooner the better!
Wisconsin is perplexing, a dichotomy, in the sense that a 100,000 strong band of protesters could not claim a real victory.
ReplyDeleteWisconsin is perplexing, a dichotomy, in the sense that a 100,000 strong band of protesters could not claim a real victory.
ReplyDeleteDredd,
Not really. Walker realizes three things: 1.) He got elected by embracing a conservative, big money agenda, and he's got the votes to enact what he wants. He'll be paid handsomely for his efforts later whether or not he ever gets reelected, the chances of which will be greatly enhanced by that same big money in any case. 2.) Allowing the protests effectively takes the steam out of the dem resistance and reduces the likelihood of real political reform/resistance, and... 3.) It makes for great political theater for Walker's base, the FOX News crowd, for whom the protests merely confirm their biases of the left (and teachers especially) being a bunch of unhinged state welfare addicted radicals.
Absent the protests actually threatening meaningful change (and the threat of violence that doesn't get immediately quashed has to at least be minimally credible), Walker will merely rely on the state apparatus to defend him and press on with business as usual. If he makes good on his promise to begin mass layoffs in response - as I'm absolutely sure that he will - the protests will cave in short order. This is all straight out of the Reagan-PATCO/ATC playbook of 30 years ago. Absent a real threat of a recall vote or impeachment, Walker holds all the cards here.
One can only wonder if the MOMCOM crowd has switched into one-term-candidate mode.
ReplyDeleteIf so, no politician really has to care about what they do once they get into office. The rewards come under the table after office.
That means democracy is broken because they can select anyone to run in a throw the bums out election, to thereby keep the bums in.
It is not intelligent it is traitorously criminal.
Watch the Tom Delay case to see if it works out in the long run.
Dredd, in my opinion, they are all in denial. For so long they have blamed others for their failed "policies," that they cannot realize that they are on a train far down the wrong track. Someone needs to stop the train, and backtrack, literally.
ReplyDeleteFor eaxmple, both Repub abd Dem administrations have supported falsifying inflation stats, so as to limit the "cost" of Social Security due to COLA increases. This resulted in a cool trillion dollars saved over a decade. it also resulted in lower pay in both the public and private sector, while true inflation roared towart the cliff.
In addition, since GNP is based on inflation stats, which are now unreasonable low due to cooking the numbers, our GNP has been phony for years now!
Therefore, it really isn't China's Yuan, just like it wasn't Japan's Yen. Off course, you all know that, but what is plaguing our "head" officials, is that behaving like Mubarak no longer works.
The bears didn't die off when the snows came, they are just hybrinating!
One can only wonder if the MOMCOM crowd has switched into one-term-candidate mode.
ReplyDeleteI think that's a reasonable assumption in tumultuous times. And with the dems becoming increasingly politically irrelevant, especially considering their actual policies when they are elected, elections become a mere formality of rubber-stamping the latest and greatest corporate shill.
I think we're entering the final death spiral for the republic. God only knows what comes next.
Interesting article here:
ReplyDeleteNew Jersey governor Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee stand up for Michelle Obama in food fight
The gist of the article is that some of the Republicans are now willing to concede common ground to NoBama on something(!), even if its only his wife they're conceding to, and its an issue that's so patently obvious that only a fool or a died-in-the-wool T-Bagger could possibly miss it.
Smart politics here, and definitely a sign of things to come, where "new breed" conservative candidates match triangulation strategies with the dems blow for blow. I have no doubt that either Christie or Huckabee - both lifetime fatties - actually believe what they say either - I hate to say it it, but they're two of the more genuinely principled conservative pols of recent vintage - but this is also an exceedingly good political strategy that will be deployed in force over the next two years, as the GOP attempts to counter NoBama's appeal to the few remaining "reasonable" people left out there.
Kathy,
ReplyDeleteI hear you, they are all in denial. They understand that to accept the reality we argue as the reality means destroying their play pretend universe.
But they are destroying their universe for real anyway, for everyone, so all we really want to do is stop them from that.
They suffer a bit under our plan, but we all come out of it in better shape than otherwise.