Monday, August 17, 2009

Liars, Crooks and Idiots: Who Wants Obama to Fail and Why

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

In the wake of Bush's utter failures, lies, and crimes, the left-wing, by rights, should be tucking tail and seeking cover! Not so --Rush Limbaugh, to be expected of a crooked idiot, has said he hopes Obama fails. Others have picked up the mantra!

It has been my experience in life, journalism and politics that two things among all others makes one miserable: 1) just wanting to stay alive, and 2) wishing failure or hardship upon someone else upon one's on evil, vile motives. My response: the GOP does not deserve to survive as a party, and, secondly, the GOP rose upon the backs of all those people for whom the GOP wished and, in fact, inflicted hardships.

The GOP shares this much with Nazis and other parties totalitarian inclined: the GOP cannot tell the truth that it does not represent the electorate but a shrinking elite which amounts --last time I checked --to just 1 percent of the entire population and shrinking. They make up the rest by lying about their real intentions. Even then, they are a minority of about 30 to 40 percent hardcore who share two characteristics:
  • They are unintelligent and/or uninformed of the fact that the GOP does not really represent them, lies to them and takes their support for granted!
  • This group is most certainly the 30 percent of any population referred to by Carl Jung who identified another distinguishing characteristic of them: their utter psychopathy
This is a 'class' of wannabes obvious for their lack of empathy, their disregard for every other group --the poor, the black, the Hispanic, anyone not a member of a country club or dubious or occultist fraternity! This group cheered the Bush attack on Iraq though Iraq had nothing to do with 911 and informed intelligent folk knew this to be the case at the time. Another sub-set was just a part of the fraud. This sub-set knew it was a fraud and supported it anyway. Both groups stayed onboard the Bush bandwagon even when it was clear that there were no WMD to be found. This group's support of Bush persisted despite the fact that it had been proven that not only were the memos dodgy, Bushco committed high treason by outing an agent of the US in the performance of her duty: Valerie Plame. Both facts meant nothing to this group of 'hard core' traitors!

A Man Who Does Not Know the Truth is Just an Idiot!

Bertolt Brecht said: 'A man who does not know the truth is just an idiot but a man who knows the truth and calls it a lie is a crook! Moderates were and remain stupid --falling for Bush's transparent lies. They are just idiots! 'He meant well', they say! But Bush qualifies for 'crookhood'! He did not mean well. He knew he was lying and he did so upon the very worst motives: he wished to enrich what he called his 'base'. They would engineer the commission of atrocities, war crimes and aggressions to satisfy their appetites. Moderates will claim that 'Bush believed what he did was right'. Utter nonsense! Bush did not and does care what is right. Bush's motives were as evil as his actions.

In the past, there were an albeit dwindling number of Republicans who may have been wrong but wrong in 'good faith'. Since the rise of Ronald Reagan, this group has become as scarce as hen's teeth! A growing number of GOP today are wrong and, if proven wrong, don't care! Being right means nothing! Winning is everything! This group will lie --knowing that it is a lie --if it gets them votes.

'Corporate fat cats' are a sub-set of this group! Nothing said by a corporation can be believed; they are 'artificial people' to whom laws and morality do not apply. An individual held responsible for the disaster at Bhopal, for example, might have been found guilty and sentenced for mass murder. Dow et al got only a slap on the wrist. A corporation is a 'legal abstraction', a mere piece of paper with a seal on it! The principles of ethics and morality mean nothing to them.

Was Mencken Right When He Said Most Americans Were 'Idiots'?

There remains a rapidly vanishing 'left wing' including what is derisively called the 'ideologically pure left'! The opposition of this ideological left vs the 'leave no crime uncommitted' right wing creates someone right of center in a yawning gulf of the near non-political 'un-washed' who failed to grasp the legal significance of Bush v Gore, has but a hazy notion of 'habeas corpus', and whose political views are an unholy amalgam of CNN and FOX! H.L. Mencken believed the people --the vast majority of Americans --to be 'idiots'!

It is fashionable to say that Bush did not fail. This position is not without merit. Certainly --like Reagan before him --he succeeded admirably in transferring vast amounts of wealth upward to the near infinitesimal 'base' which alone benefited. Among members of this group, Bush is a hero!

I consider Bush to have been a traitor to the US Constitution and the people. That he is celebrated by this ever shrinking group tells me that they have no allegiance to the Constitution, the principles of Democracy, the rule of law! The group becomes a power apart, a new oligopoly for whom you slave! If you believe otherwise, you have been lied to. Believe it, and remain deluded! If you are but a mere millionaire, you are NOT of this group and probably never will be! The Bush family's rise to prominence among this group, you can be sure, was an on-going Faustian bargain.

Bush Jr told us that terrorists 'attacked us' because 'they jest hate freedom'', but Bush should have added: 'I hate you because you are free but you will not be for long.' Moderates look at Bush's torture policy, and try to justify it ex post facto. They desperately seek an end to justify the torture means! The end, rather, is nothing less than the roll back of the Bill of Rights, the establishment of a right wing dictatorship. The means by which this is achieved are endless wars based on lies; the means are getting rid of the Clinton surpluses, getting rid of the economy, getting rid of the American standard of living. The 'end' is the more Authoritarian, perhaps totalitarian society!

The Result of Fascism/Nazism: A Nation of Slaves and Elites

This brings us to the ideological underpinnings of the GOP. A clue be found among what Bush himself called his 'base', specifically the richest one percent of the nation. How do they rationalize their positions of privilege and entitlement? A careful study --if it were possible --might reveal a panoply of claptrap from half-baked Hegel/Nietzche where the 'superman' meets the 'absolute state'. If one believes the state absolute, it is but a quantum leap to eugenics, concentration camps, genocide! It is but a quantum leap to dictatorship and aggressive wars!

The American industrialists who supported and who joined I.G. Farben, Fritz Thysen in bankrolling Hitler did so because they agreed with Hitler's agenda for Germany and the world. Many of these companies endorsed George W. Bush for same or similar reasons. Hitler would 'out-source' the murder of jews and might have seized the oil fields of the Middle East had he directed Rommel to forget about North Africa and attack east of the Suez.
Like Nixon, George Bush was deeply involved with supporting the Nazis in the Republican's closet. In fact, support for the Nazis was a Bush family tradition which goes back more than six decades and, once again, to Allen Dulles.

Loftus and Aarons write: "The real story of George Bush starts well before he launched his own career. It goes back to the 1920s, when the Dulles brothers and the other pirates of Wall Street were making their deals with the Nazis.

. . .

THE BUSH-DULLES-NAZI CONNECTION

"George Bush's problems were inherited from his namesake and maternal grandfather, George Herbert 'Bert' Walker, a native of St. Louis, who founded the banking and investment firm of G. H. Walker and Company in 1900. Later the company shifted from St. Louis to the prestigious address of 1 Wall Street.

"Walker was one of Hitler's most powerful financial supporters in the United States. The relationship went all the way back to 1924, when Fritz Thyssen, the German industrialist, was financing Hitler's infant Nazi party.

...

Randy Davis, Nazis in the attic
The "America First" movement in the US prominently included Charles Lindbergh but was, in fact, the very face of American 'fascism'. Lindbergh was a Nazi sympathizer. It must not be forgotten that Henry Ford's portrait occupied a place of 'honor' in Hitler's new Chancellery. Bush's grandfather led a failed coup attempt to unseat FDR. It was an act of treason!

A large and wealthy segment of the US did not wish a war with Hitler. Those who supported Hitler included William Randolph Hearst, Andrew Mellon and Irenee du Pont, a Hitler devotee who advocated a race of supermen. Major US companies had ties to Hitler. They aided and abetted the rise of the Third Reich. They included Alcoa, Standard Oil of New Jersey, Du Pont, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and many, many more.
WASHINGTON - After 60 years of inattention and even denial by the U.S. media, newly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking perative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his 'enemy national' partners.

"The documents also show that Bush and his colleagues, according to reports from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and FBI, tried to conceal their financial alliance with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a steel and coal baron who, beginning in the mid-1920s, personally funded Adolf Hitler's rise to power by the subversion of democratic principle and German law.

"Furthermore, the declassified records demonstrate that Bush and his associates, who included E. Roland Harriman, younger brother of American icon W. Averell Harriman, and George Herbert Walker, President Bush's maternal great-grandfather, continued their dealings with the German industrial baron for nearly eight months after the U.S. entered the war.

--Nazi-Link Confirmed, John Buchanan, New Hampshire Gazette, Oct. 10, 2003
I have not been able to find on the net the famous picture of American Nazis at a funeral of German Hindenburg disaster victims. In procession by the caskets, they are all giving the departed the famous Nazi salute.
"Fascism is on the march today in America. Millionaires are marching to the tune. It will come in this country unless a strong defense is set up by all liberal and progressive forces... A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government, and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. Aboard ship a prominent executive of one of America's largest financial corporations told me point blank that if the progressive trend of the Roosevelt administration continued, he would be ready to take definite action to bring fascism to America.

---William Dodd, US Ambassador to Germany, 1938
All in the Fascist Family

Prescott Bush, Bush Jr's grandfather, was made rich by the business he did with Hitler --a trade that continued well after the US had entered the war. The death biz made the Bush family fortune!

After the war, the Nazis changed neither stripes nor swastikas. Many came to the US where they had careers in business or in the government --namely the CIA and the space program. Many of them were rocket scientists including Dr. Werner von Braun --the father of the US Space Program. He was a card carrying Nazi.
Despite being under constant surveillance and enduring relentless attacks on his character, von Braun had nothing but praise for his adopted country. When one person wrote him, suggesting that severe measures be taken with people who opposed national interests, he wrote back, “Years of direct exposure to the Hitler regime, and its excesses, taught me a few unforgettable lessons and made me solidly opposed to any form of government which would deprive man of human dignity.”

...

In private, however, von Braun was willing to talk. When an acquaintance wrote him about the accusations, von Braun replied, “... yes, I was a member of the Nazi party and the SS. I would appreciate it if you would treat this as confidential ... for the sake of NASA.”

A high official at NASA offered his view. “We lied when we brought von Braun over here, and then told him to keep his mouth shut. Can you imagine him holding a press conference to explain why he joined the Nazi Party? That would have been the end of him and the space program. The poor S.O.B., didn‘t have a chance! He just had to stand there and take it. People say von Braun used us, but the truth is ... we used him.“

--The FBI Files of Werner von Braun
Journalist Russ Bellant investigated how the GOP recruited and with help from convicted Nazi war collaborator, Lazlo Pasztor, created a 'network' of ex-Nazis cum Republicans. Pasztor, founding chairman of the Republican Heritage Groups Council was connected with the Hungarian Arrow Cross '... a group that helped liquidate Hungary's Jews'. He served as adviser to Paul Weyrich.
Two months before the November 1988 presidential election, a small newspaper, Washington Jewish Week, disclosed that a coalition for the Bush campaign included a number of outspoken Nazis and anti-Semites. The article prompted six leaders of Bush's coalition to resign.

According to Russ Bellant, Nazi collaborators involved in the Republican Party included:

(1) Radi Slavoff, GOP Heritage Council's executive director, and head of "Bulgarians for Bush." Slavoff was a member of a Bulgarian fascist group, and he put together an event in Washington honoring Holocaust denier, Austin App.

(2) Florian Galdau, director of GOP outreach efforts among Romanians, and head of "Romanians for Bush." Galdau was once an Iron Guard recruiter, and he defended convicted Nazi war criminal Valerian Trifa.

(3) Nicholas Nazarenko, leader of a Cossack GOP ethnic unit. Nazarenko was an ex-Waffen SS officer.

(4) Method Balco, GOP activist. Balco organized yearly memorials for a Nazi puppet regime.

(5) Walter Melianovich, head of the GOP's Byelorussian unit. Melianovich worked closely with many Nazi groups.

(6) Bohdan Fedorak, leader of "Ukranians for Bush." Fedorak headed a Nazi group involved in anti-Jewish wartime pogroms.

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article on the Bush team's inclusion of Nazis (David Lee Preston, "Fired Bush backer one of several with possible Nazi links," September 10, 1988.) The newspaper also ran an investigative series on Nazi members of the Bush coalition. The articles confirmed that the Bush team included members listed by Russ Bellant.

Journalist Martin A. Lee, has written for The Nation, Rolling Stone, The San Francisco Chronicle, and other publications. In "The Beast Reawakens," Lee confirms that during both the Reagan and Bush years, the Republican Party's ethnic outreach arm recruited members from the Nazi ©migr© network.

Lee says that the Republican Party's ethnic outreach division had an outspoken hatred of President Jimmy Carter's Office of Special Investigations (OSI), an organization dedicated to tracking down and prosecuting Nazi war collaborators who entered this country illegally. Former Republican Pat Buchanan attacked Carter's OSI after it deported a few suspected Nazi war criminals.

--Carla Binion, Government Investigated Bush Family's Financing Of Hitler
Over sixty years ago the US was plunged into World War II, a war remembered as one in which the US defended "freedom" against the horrors of fascism and Nazism. We must ask ourselves how this period in our history will be remembered in sixty years? Will the US have opposed the Nazi specter abroad only to embrace it at home? Every Bush/GOP victim says we did precisely that!

Near the end of the Cold War, as the Soviet Union was about to self-destruct, Boris Yeltsin made a very revealing comment to the US government. He said, "We are going to do something very terrible to you. We are going to deprive you of an enemy."

What did he mean? The 50-year long Cold War had proved extremely useful for both the Soviet and US elites. The "Soviet threat" justified gigantic military budgets and a world system of US military bases. It legitimized US attacks on popular revolutionary movements in Central America and Indochina and other places too numerous to mention and the installation of US client regimes by the CIA in Iran and Guatemala and elsewhere. The "Soviet threat" gave much-needed cover to repression in the US against militant trade unionists and against the early civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam war movement. The Soviets, of course, used the "capitalist threat" in similar ways, to justify anti-democratic repression in Hungary and Poland and throughout Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union itself. If the Cold War had not existed, Soviet and US ruling elites would have had to invent it.

The use of war by ruling elites for social control is hardly new. In a recent article in Le Monde, Philip Golub says, "Indeed, every war has both a foreign and a domestic agenda; Aristotle [writing 2400 years ago] reminds us that a tyrant declares war 'to deny his subjects leisure and to impose on them the constant need for a leader.''

The US has needed a new Cold War to take the place of the Soviet threat for over ten years. Sure, the government tried to pump up Saddam Hussein as "worse than Hitler," but how seriously can you take an enemy which is defeated in a few weeks with fewer than 80 American battle deaths? The government tried to scare us with images of "rogue states" like North Korea, but North Korea is on life support. Not a very credible threat.

--A New Democracy Editorial: 'Is it Realy a War on Terrorms?'
It should surprise no one that the likes of Rush Limbaugh want Obama to fail. Clinton was not impeached because he was crooked or incompetent but because he clearly was not! Clinton was targeted not because he failed but because he succeeded as NO GOP President had succeeded since World War II. The Limbaugh dominated GOP wants Obama to fail not because he might turn out to be a lousy President but a great one! A great Democratic President should, by rights, portend the demise of GOP bait and switch Nazism, stealth fascism, Trojan Horse dictatorships!

18 comments:

Grung_e_Gene said...

Another excellent post, Len.

Bush used his position and the Federal Government to steal 10 trillion dollars for his "Al Qaeda", sent Thousands of Americans and Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqis to their deaths.

Those, of course, being merely the worst of The Bush Regime's crimes.

I don't know how to debate these fanatics who act as though the last 8 years of murder and mayhem, death and theft never fucking happened.

Unknown said...

Grung_e_Gene said...

I don't know how to debate these fanatics who act as though the last 8 years of murder and mayhem, death and theft never fucking happened.

One cannot debate those who do not recognize reason, science, indeed, the products of civilization. A huge and alarming percentage of the GOP are fundamentalists, holocaust deniers, and other assorted kooks for whom the products of true civilization --truth and civility --mean nothing. I have given up debating anyone of the Nazi stripe. They are a clear and present danger not just to the American 'republic' for which they have no respect, they are a threat to Western civilization itself.

Anonymous said...

a recent eg of idiocy...

'Caught up in this unseemly squabble, the NHS has had to endure a number of slurs, ranging from the amusing to the frankly untrue. Investor’s Business Daily, for example, expounded the theory that Professor Stephen Hawking “would not have a chance” if he lived in Britain. Hmm. He’s a professor at Cambridge, En-ger-land (part of Britain), silly, not Cambridge, Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Senator Charles Grassley’s assertion that Ted Kennedy, 77, would be denied treatment for his brain tumour in Britain because of his age has triggered panic among older sections of the American electorate.'

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6798153.ece?openComment=true

Brian

Greg Bacon said...

Dems, Republicans, what's the difference?

One led us into two unneccessary wars while the other clapped and cheered on the death tolls.

Now Obama is leading us into another illegal and immoral war, against Pakistsan while still claiming it was al Qaeda and Bin Laden behind 9/11.

Both party's are completely corrupt and sleazy and both want nothing less than a 'New World Order' to please their international banker buddies who fund both classes of traitors.

And both are cheerleading for another war for Israel, against Iran, to be fought by American kids.

Neither party is worth a tinker's damn.

Unknown said...

Greg Bacon sez...

Dems, Republicans, what's the difference?

Plenty! EVERY Dem prez since WWII haws presided over better job growth, GDP growth and greater income EQUALITY!

Secondly, EVERY GOP Prez has begun wars when there were none! EVERY GOP Prez since 1900 has presided over an ECONOMIC DEPRESSION!

EVERY GOP Prez had presided over the transfer of wealth to the increasingly tiny group of elites which --in fact --OWN the country and dictate policy to WHOEVER is in Washington.

EVERY GOP PREZ has OPPOSED the Bill of Rights, indeed, the SEPARATION OF POWERS.

I have an article in the works with regard to R. Reagan. It will CURL YOUR HAIR. And there is NOTHING comparable to be found in the DEMS' record.

The difference are qualitative; my problem with DEMS are 1) they are NOT sufficiently liberal 20 THEY WILL NOT KICK THE GOP'S ASS AND SHUT THEM THE FUCK UP!

The MEME that there is no difference between the two most probably originated with the GOP.

It certainly works to the GOP advantage and given their moral paucity it may be the only advantage they would have --IF ONLY people would think rationally about it.

IF the GOP had not dominated the subject matter and the rules of debate since 1900, progressives might have created a multi-party system --BUT THAT WON'T HAPPEN AS A RESULT OF ANYTHING DEMS MIGHT DO IN CONGRESS.

The SYSTEM dictates that you should choose between two choices in which NEITHER is precisely what you want and the other is only slightly better.

Until that changes --vote DEM while working to TAKE OVER the party from within.

Revolution talk is too often just unrealistic.

If you want to FOMENT a REAL REVOLUTION do it from WITHIN the DEMS !! TAKE THEM OVER !!

CHANGE THE PARADIGM!

It is -in fact --out last hope!

Unknown said...

A final shot: INCOME EQUALITY/INEQUALITY is a CRUCIAL issue in this debate.

Clearly --it is the GOP which has transferred ENORMOUS WEALTH to its base, a mere 1 percent of the total US population.

It is on behalf of this 'BASE' that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and numerous others fought for OIL --a resource without which the US is finito!

Hitler invaded Poland for the coal.

Hitler was STUPID! Rommel was already in South Africa. Rommel MIGHT HAVE SEIZED EVERY OIL FIELD IN THE MIDDLE EAST. End of war! End of freedom anywhere in the world.

Cirze said...

Thank you, Len, and if there is a God/dess, then bless you for all you do for us.

And there are no moderates in this fight.

I love ya,

S

They would engineer the commission of atrocities, war crimes and aggressions to satisfy their appetites. Moderates will claim that 'Bush believed what he did was right'. Utter nonsense! Bush did not and does care what is right. Bush's motives were as evil as his actions.

Anonymous said...

Right! The revolution must come from within each of us. Stop consuming all this stuff. Buy less, eat less, drive less. Buy smaller houses, cars,etc. We'll all be happier, healthier and more alive spiritually. The rich are suffering from a mental illness.

Unknown said...

Suzan sez...

And there are no moderates in this fight.

Indeed! If we are to 'conquer' the minions of deception, we must become FANATICS in pursuit of truth.

Brecht put this way: "A man who does not know the truth is just an idiot but a man who knows the truth and calls it a lie is a crook!" Despite Nixon's famous protestation --'I am not a crook!' --the GOP ARE CROOKS to a person! Truth for this ilk is whatever you can get away with!

Thanks for your post.

Anonymous sez...

The revolution must come from within each of us. Stop consuming all this stuff. Buy less, eat less, drive less.

Or --as we said when the world itself seemed young: 'Tune in and drop out!'

I advocate, as you obviously do, a PRO-ACTIVE 'drop out' in which we not only boycott the evil fuckers, we actively support the viable alternatives that will make the corrupt establishment obsolete.

Again --thanks for the comments, folk.

kcfoodtruckgroupie said...

Cowboy,
As usual, you are right on. I love your exclamation points; they remind me of my favorite all-time author, Kurt Vonnegut. He knew when a period was appropriate and when only an exclamation point would do!
We are stuck at a point in time when our usual methods are not going to produce any results, i.e. there is no way to compromise with uninformed, delusional idiots. We can't solve anything by compromising with them and the more we try to force on them, the angrier they get. I foresee some truly ugly times ahead.
As a liberal, I have always been sort of on the fence about the right to bear arms. I believe that the framers meant for the citizens of this country have a right to form militias in order to defend themselves from tyranny. And I think that liberals (or progressives, if you prefer) might want to really think about what that means right now, because if the nutjob right has it's way, they are going to shoot their way into power and create a totalitarian theocracy. And they aren't kidding!

Unknown said...

Some more thoughts about a pernicious myth that there are no differences between Democrats and GOP.

More accurately, the GOP is often right, even EXTREME right.

The differences between the two parties is dramatically illustrated and proven to be very, very real by a fact that is often found hidden deep inside GOP 'Campaign Manuals' and that fact is: the GOP always benefits from a poor turnout. The GOP GAINS when Dems stay home and don't vote. The GOP gains whenever voters of BOTH parties skip an election.

That the GOP benefits from low voter turnout and, in fact, sometimes 'encourages' it, is proof that there are essential differences between the two parties.

I know this because I once 'infiltrated' a couple of GOP campaigns as a 'consultant' and a very highly paid one at that!

Surely, one of the lessons of election 2000 was that the GOP worked mightily to prevent the counting of minority, elderly or progressive votes. It is hard to believe that they would have gone to so much trouble were there no differences in the 'bases' and there would be no differences in the 'bases' of either party if there were no differences in the parties.

If Democrats or progressives are demoralized, the GOP wins.

The GOP can always play spoiler and win! The DEMS have never had that luxury. Progressives, therefore, must take the offensive by sending shockwaves throughout the DEMS. Only then can the DEMS mount a full-court press from which we just might take back the nation!

Anonymous said...

Why leave out the Demonrats? "Both" parties are two heads of a corporate fascist party, and that's all, folks.

Mencken was right, by the way. The average American is an a**hole, an idiot, and a coward.

As for Gasbag wanting Osama to "fail," I want all of DC to fail. Who needs the District of Criminals? Who "needs" a President?

I sure as hell don't, and neither does anybody else with any brains or self-respect.

Unknown said...

ksliberal sez...

As a liberal, I have always been sort of on the fence about the right to bear arms. I believe that the framers meant for the citizens of this country have a right to form militias in order to defend themselves from tyranny. And I think that liberals (or progressives, if you prefer) might want to really think about what that means right now, because if the nutjob right has it's way, they are going to shoot their way into power and create a totalitarian theocracy. And they aren't kidding!

Good point and very, very timely! I have been involved in some very, very HEATED exchanges about the meaning of the 'Second'. The 'gun nut' vote thinks that fully TWO THIRDS of the amendment can be ignored. Madison was just being literary, I am expected to believe.

In fact, there is all kinds of case law which supports my position that the modifying phrases --'A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state ...' --may NOT be simply ignored.

But your post speaks to the issues of militias which, as I recall my history, were, in fact, well-organized in opposition to what the colonists were growing to believe was a TYRANNICAL oppression.

I am coming 'round to that position though I would have preferred that MY government, representing as it is supposed to do under the Constitution, protect my rights. That is the governments only real job! The NEOCONS have it the wrong way 'round.

In the world apres-Bush, all is changed. I am still SHOCKED that Bush having 'successfully' challenged and flouted the US Constitution would simply walk away from his de facto dictatorship, a 'unitary executive' on steroids.

I have a theory: the GOP saw the crunch a' commin'! Let Obama assume the White House, they growled among themselves at the coven meet! Let Obama take the fall, they chanted to the Owl God!!

Hold on to your ass and grab your gun! The GOP is plotting as we write!

Unknown said...

Anonymous sez...

As for Gasbag wanting Osama to "fail," I want all of DC to fail. Who needs the District of Criminals? Who "needs" a President?

A recent article in 'Foreign Affairs' exposed better than anything I've read yet the symbiotic, possibly criminal, relationship between the Pentagon, K-Street and Congress. Among numerous mere questionable practices is the possible TREASONOUS position that is accorded FOREIGN LOBBIES.

FOREIGN LOBBIES!!!

Few realize the extent to which foreign governments are bypassed, their embassies made redundant and irrelevant! FOREIGN COUNTRIES have, like the evil NRA and the equally evil tobacco lobby, learned how to BUY INFLUENCE in DC.

It's not bad enough that China now OWNS the US and dumps its crap here via Wal-Mart, now the very SOVEREIGNTY of the US is up for auction.

Same thing happened in Rome. It was the Praetorian Guard (the MIC of its day) that sold the ROMAN EMPIRE to Didius Julianus for some 12,000 Drachmas ---GREEK CURRENCY, not worthless Roman sesterces! Didius thought it was a bargain until he was murdered for it some two weeks later, as I recall.

Clearly --the US has already been sold to China for YUAN, not worthless bucks.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry , but capitalism SUCKS. When was the last time you could let your kids go play outside all day. Remember the fields and creeks? The dirt roads and swimming holes? The country stores, bakeries, butcher shops? Remember when your mom stayed home all day ironing, cooking, sewing, and singing while she did it? Remember sewing machines and ironing boards? Remember picking fruit off the tree? A whole way of life is gone, and in its place is mindless consumerism... and war.

Omyma said...

Great, insightful post, Len. I've been out of sight for awhile, but there's nothing better to get me back in a rebellious mood like reading your blog. Thanks

Anonymous said...

Wholly related: Still, “The debate over the effectiveness of subjecting detainees to psychological and physical pressure is in some ways irresolvable. . . .” And, “Critics say waterboarding and other harsh methods are unacceptable regardless of their results. . . .” Yes, some critics say “psychological and physical pressure” to the point of false confessions, insanity, and death is wrong - like War Crimes. To others, the area is “irresolvable” - for specific reasons.

The Washington Post is (also) an Asset:
http://seaclearly.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/the-washington-post-is-also-an-asset

Unknown said...

Omyma sez..,.

I've been out of sight for awhile, but there's nothing better to get me back in a rebellious mood like reading your blog.

I had hope that an Obama victory would cure my own 'rebellious mood' but I was wrong for two reasons: 1) Obama is several hundred percent better than Bush but short of the REAL revolution that it will take to reclaim the nation and restore legitimate government; 2) the GOP opposition to Obama is even STUPIDER than Bush's occupancy of the Oval Office.

Re: seaclearly and the issue of 'torture', waterboarding et al.

Generally, the so-called 'debate' in the MSM just misses the point at either end of the spectrum.

What this country needs iS what Joselph Schumpeter called a 'GOOD DOUCHE'. This nation needs to think differently about almost EVERYTHING but --mainly --it needs, first, to learn HOW to think.