Viva Egypt

This is an email from the good folks over at MoveOn organization.

I see that The Virgin MOMCOM is getting all rogue and mavericky over in pyramid land.

You know, peddling her "wares" to those who "preserve the peace" ... wink wink ...

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Dear MoveOn member,

Massive pro-democracy protests are spreading quickly across Egypt. Protesters are bravely speaking out against a repressive regime that has ruled the country for more than 30 years. The protesters are demanding the right to free speech, an end to government corruption and brutality, and free and fair elections. Link

Today we're joining an international grassroots movement to send a message of solidarity via radio and television to the people of Egypt and the Arab world.

So far, the protests have been overwhelmingly non-violent but the Egyptian government is cracking down hard. They have already arrested nearly a thousand protesters, declared a nationwide curfew, and cut off the internet. (Link) The regional media is one of our last ways to reach out to the people of Egypt.

So we're joining with our friends at Avaaz.org — an international MoveOn-style organization—to build a massive wave of support from people around the world to stand in solidarity with non-violent protesters in Egypt.

Avaaz will be spreading the statement of solidarity via radio and television across North Africa and the Middle East, where the Egyptian people can hear it.

You can join by signing the solidarity statement here: Move On

We enjoy the rights to free speech and peaceful assembly in this country, and we ought to use them to support others who hope for the same freedoms.

We must support those in Egypt who are choosing to stand up for democracy. The response by the Egyptian government has been needlessly brutal so far. Security forces are firing at protesters with live ammunition, beating people on the streets, and cutting off nearly every means of communication in an effort to maintain control and suppress the calls for democracy.

The situation on the ground is volatile and our hope is to support those in Egypt who are choosing peaceful protest as the means by which to push for change.

Our show of support could help not only bring newfound freedom to Egypt but possibly catalyze a chain reaction of reform across the Middle East unlike anything we've seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Last week the people of Tunisia peacefully deposed a long-ruling dictator, inspiring the people of Egypt to stand up. Now, calls for reform are spreading to other countries including Yemen, Jordan, and Lebanon.

Right now our voices, in a show of unwavering solidarity with people non-violently calling for change, could potentially help bring fundamental human rights and democracy to millions of people. Add your name to the global statement of solidarity to be broadcast by radio here: Link


Thanks for all you do.

–Justin, Robin, Duncan, Peter, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1."Egyptians' Fury Has Smoldered Beneath the Surface for Decades," The New York Times, January 28, 2011

2. "Egyptian military deploys in Cairo under curfew," MSNBC, January 28, 2010

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Thankfully there are some "original Americans" still in the world who resist the "advancements" of MOMCOM, if you know what I mean.

The next post in this series is here.

The States of War Budgets - 4

In this series we have been taking a serious look at the reality that imperialistic warmongering is bringing to the world, and to the nation at home.

We have stated several times that the USA spends more on militarism than all the rest of the nations combined.

People believe that or not based upon their concept of "militarism".

Some do not realize that "militarism" includes not only wars, it includes spy ops, psychological ops, propaganda networks, tax breaks for the weapons industry, a war college system, and campaign financing at home and abroad where the military needs to "grease the palms" of "patriotic" politicians.

Any resource exerted toward advancing the warmonger effort is a part of the vast system of militarism, including preparations for detainment camps when the American people get all roguish and mavericky like the Egyptians:

A new report by the U.S. Army War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks.

“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” said the War College report.

The study says economic collapse, terrorism and loss of legal order are among possible domestic shocks that might require military action within the U.S.

(The Government of the Government). The grotesquely misnamed "Homeland Security" is part and parcel of those expenditures.

For another example, we have pointed out that there are more people in military marching bands goose stepping to warmonger tunes than there are employees in the State Department employed for the purpose of advancing pro-American diplomatic interactions in the world around us.

A world that we increasingly invade, destabilize, and otherwise offend.

Dredd Blog is not the only place that makes the assertion that we spend more on militarism than the rest of the world combined:

The essential facts remain: U.S. military outlays today equal that of every other nation on the planet combined, a situation without precedent in modern history.

The Pentagon presently spends more in constant dollars than it did at any time during the Cold War -- this despite the absence of anything remotely approximating what national security experts like to call a “peer competitor.” Evil Empire? It exists only in the fevered imaginations of those who quiver at the prospect of China adding a rust-bucket Russian aircraft carrier to its fleet or who take seriously the ravings of radical Islamists promising from deep inside their caves to unite the Umma in a new caliphate.

(Andrew Bacevich, Huffington Post). The exceptionalist's addiction to what they perceive to be the glory of all this escapes many people, perhaps even the majority.

Bubble on Babylon - 2

A "Dyson Grid"?

In the first post of this series, we linked to articles about some interesting "galaxies" in space.

The photo to the left is one such "galaxy".

The scientist Dyson predicted them years ago, which makes me appreciate those who can see far ahead to where we are going.

All that while our government is Driving Miss Crazy by keeping both eyes on the rear view mirror (except for the always upcoming election).

So, who else would have expected galaxies that appear as a large bubble of the type the kids make with their bubble juice and bubble wand in the summer time in the city?

No one except those watching our current economists, who think the economy is bubbling right along as it should be, because Wall Street hot air is expanding so much that the DOW is approaching 12,000.

WoooHoooo ... so Obama hires them to come over to the White House:

How convenient to ignore the fact that this bubble of prosperity, which has failed the tens of millions losing their homes and jobs, was floated by enormous government indebtedness now forcing deep cuts in social services including state financial aid for those better-educated students the president claims to be so concerned about.

His references to education provided a convenient scapegoat for the failure of the economy, rather than to blame the actions of the Wall Street hustlers to whom Obama is now sucking up.

... all of the world’s economies are suffering grievous harm resulting from the irresponsible behavior of the best and the brightest here at home. It wasn’t the students struggling at community colleges who came up with the financial gimmicks that produced the Great Recession ...

(Robert Sheer). Meanwhile, the clueless elite work at expanding the bubble, which has caused many interesting economic perils over at the EU.

The ally bubble seems to be popping as well, even as USA machinations in the middle east (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) have led to a view of the USA that has even unhinged some "stable" (USA controlled) allies like Egypt.

Meanwhile the Keystone Cops say they are getting rid of the Somewhere Over The Rainbow "turrrisstttt" color scheme.

The previous post in this series is here.

You're Doin' A Heckuva Job Browner - 2

In the first post of this series, we explored the campaign promises concerning what were supposed to become the environmental policies of candidate Obama.

We pointed out how he had promised that those environmental policies would be paramount, because at that time candidate Obama really, really wanted to become President Obama.

To do that he had to consider the reality of good environmentalism that was harbored within those who were supporting him then:

In Barack Obama’s primary-campaign victory speech, in St. Paul, Minnesota, he said that his election would be a historical turning point on two pressing issues: health care and climate change. “We will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick,” he said. “When the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” During the campaign, he often argued that climate change was an essential part of a national energy strategy. “Energy we have to deal with today,” Obama said in a debate with McCain. “Health care is priority No. 2.”

(You're Doin' A Heckuva Job Browner). Looking back, we see that not only were we taken aback by Deepwater Horizon, we were falsely taken in by Barak.

That post also pointed out that Browner had been EPA head during the Bill Clinton presidency, but that her Obama Administration policies had become as different as night and day.

She had become a turncoat in order to convince Obama to open up deep water to the drug peddling oil barons:

The strategy had risks, including the possibility that expanded drilling off America’s coast could lead to a dangerous spill. But Browner, the head of the E.P.A. for eight years under Clinton, seemed to think the odds of that were limited. “Carol Browner says the fact of the matter is that the technology is so good that after Katrina there was less spillage from those platforms than the amount you spill in a year filling up your car with gasoline,” the White House official said. “So, given that, she says realistically you could expand offshore drilling.”

(Id.). We pointed out that she persuaded him to do the opposite of what he indicated he would do when he was only a candidate.

Then came his infamous "offshore drilling is cool you left wing jerks speech" followed six weeks later by the fireworks of Deepwater Horizon, the greatest and still ongoing ecological disaster ever.

To top off the collapse of either his soul or his front, he publicly baptized his little girls in the Oilah Akbar waters of the Gulf of Mexico so all could see his faith in big oil.

Some in the media don't get it, because they are exclaiming that her leaving signals a change in policy:

Carol Browner, the president's top energy and environmental adviser will be stepping down in the coming weeks. Her departure is just the latest amid a virtual makeover of Obama's staff as he moves closer to the center and positions himself as more business-friendly.

(Public Radio). It is easy to say "good riddance turncoat", but can we say that no one who will replace her could be worse, the way Obama is spiraling out of control into the bedrock of right wing lunacy?

I would not be surprised to see the head of BP replacing Browner, since Obama is steering full steam into the W direction, taking us to oblivion as the right wing cries and complains about him not doing it fast enough.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

The State of The Onion Script

Gummit

The Script Of The Union, or SOTU, is going to once again try to pat little R and D on the head for doing such a good job this past decade of imperialism induced economic calamity.

But of course "the condition our condition is in" will not be called the era of criminal insanity, the era of no-accountability, the era of too big to jail, the era of federal, state, and local government insolvency, the age of homelessness, 10-25% unemployment, the age of ultimate environmental pollution, nor will it be called what it is: more propaganda of denial.

It is like the Hollywood script that no one remembers exactly where it came from, exactly who wrote it, or exactly what it is all about (e.g. "not exactly").

It ends up being a doctrine of "stay on message", but no one knows what the message is or ought to be, but they do know to read it just as they are told:

According to dozens of sources who have read some version of the script in the past 75 years, the film concerns a soldier coming home from war and, depending on which version of the script sources saw, is either a "seriocomic love story," a "brooding psychological thriller," a "wild cinematic joyride for the post-Tarantino generation," or "a propaganda film financed by the War Department."

(The Onion). The funny part is that everyone knows, except them, that the charade is so open that WiggyLeeks is not even needed to discern the source of the script:

Wall Street's takeover of the Obama administration is now complete. The mega-banks and their corporate allies control every economic policy position of consequence. Mr. Obama has moved rapidly since the November debacle to install business people where it counts most.
...
Mr. Obama last week obediently recited the Chamber of Commerce's liturgy about governmental regulation being the cause of what ails the American economy in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. This public oath of allegiance signaled his now admitted complicity with those who supposedly had been his opponents.
...
Let's make one thing perfectly clear. These actions were not imposed on Obama. They are not the inescapable outcome of political circumstances. He chose this path.
...
The Wall Street plutocracy is in control -- their power reinforced and reconfirmed. Their brothers in the business world are crowing. The poor are cut loose, middle America is squeezed, public services are under the knife. The country is in a time capsule hurtling crazily through the 1920s hell bent for the Gilded Age of the 1890s. We've lost; we've lost with barely a fight. We've lost again even when given the chance of a lifetime. All the pieces were in place to restore a decent society, to cast the discredited Republicans into political oblivion. A godsend became a curse. Our champion might as well be one of them. Deep down he is.

(Huffington Post, Michael Brenner). See, Dredd Blog is not so radical.

The SOTU is the flight side of the national amygdala on display, trying to gloss over the fight side of the national amygdala, while both are united bound in a struggle for script supremacy (a.k.a. "law").

The next post in this series is here.

Open Thread

Monday
open
thread

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Olbermann out at MSNBC for getting on MOMCOM's nerves
and of course Comcast had nothing to do with it

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Evidently Keith had been fired once before in 2008

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The scuttle-butt is that he left to start a new media empire, that he was not fired ... expect a link to Keith Blog on a browser near you soon

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Robert Reich says run when you hear the term "improving American Competitiveness" ... does it mean that MOMCOM wants everyone to be paid minimum wages so we can "compete"?

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Just Us Clarence Thomas failed to disclose as much as a million dollars of his wife's income from conservative groups ... a clear and present violation of law

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Professor Jonathan Turley explains why Thomas and Scalia are a problem in our legal system

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New words for the future of the planet

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TSA loses court case against citizen who raises Kane

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