Obama: Neocon Lite

These two ladies touch on my earlier points of discontent so I thought I'd post it.

Center Politics

Obama and the gang are going to show everyone that we actually only have one political party but that it has two heads. Obama is shaping up to be Neocon lite. The Dems in congress are planning nothing at the moment to distinguish themselves from what has gone before. No war crime hearing are planned. No charges are intended to be filed against anyone for U.S. torture. Bush will simply walk out of office and the world will look the other way and ignore his eight disastrous years of criminal malfeasance.

Well, I got what I voted for: the one guy that might win that wasn't also a GOP asshole. Yay!

Obama is not the man we were waiting for when we dared to hope.

I am still planning exit strategies.

The Rats are Planning to Leave the Sinking Ship of State

I used to joke about this during long political rants to my friends and loved ones. Screeching in a high voice I would make doomsday pronouncements about the top 1% elite investor class burning American workers because they could "...float off on a golden parachute and go live in the United Arab Emirates!"

Oh yeah! You WANT to invite ME to your next dinner party!

Did I mention the screeching?

What I didn't know as a fact, something I had completely missed somehow, was this:
HALLIBURTON OPENS CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS IN THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
- Chairman, President and CEO Moves to Dubai to Focus Company’s Eastern Hemisphere Growth -
http://www.halliburton.com/default/main/halliburton/eng/news/source_files/news.jsp?newsurl=/default/main/halliburton/eng/news/source_files/press_release/2007/corpnws_031107.html

Yeah, that sounds great! Except that I think it has more to do with escaping prosecution for crimes against the people of the United States. Darth Cheney must have nice new digs in a luxury high rise located in Dubai.

Call me crazy but I think there are portions of the U.S. Constitution that attempt to prevent us from being ruled by people whose true personal interests are beyond our borders.

Tick...tick...tick...

Try $4.28 trillion dollars!

Source:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/27719011

CNBC brings the pain by tracking the numbers closely. And what does it all get you - the taxpayer?

Nobody knows!

Paulson, Bernanke and Kashkari must have lots of kids in need of an Action Jackson with a Kung Fu grip this Xmas season...

Where does it all go?

It's quite simple really. We are in the hands of foreign powers.

TV Advert Watch

Two out of three people suffering from depression like to go to public parks and look sad.

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Persuasive strategies:
"If you have a brain in your head...."

[For a product that induces an erection with a vacuum pump]

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Side effects:
"If you bleed out, discontinue use."

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By calling 1-900-OMG-UR-A-PIG you can meet exciting, beautiful people with interests similar to your own - FUCKING!

Olbermann: A Message of Love

Comment:

I don't understand how people's minds can be so small as to deny anyone else their own private happiness. The private happiness is de facto - you can't change it. At stake is the individual right to have those kinds of relationships legally recognized regardless of race, creed, etc.

I am optimistic that Prop 8 will be shot down as being unconstitutional - not because of some mere technicality of the legal process but because it is fundamentally discriminatory in its nature and therefore cannot stand according to the Constitution of the State of California.

And that's how minority rights stand up to the tyranny of the majority - because we've already written it into our system of governance.

Shame on those that force the system to correct the offenses of the benighted majority.

The Move to the Left

Obama, Be Progressive!
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/11/08/obama_progressive/print.html

To meet the challenge, Democrats have to abandon their worst habits.

They must, for instance, acknowledge their progressive mandate, rather than denying it as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did on Tuesday. "This is not a mandate for a political party or an ideology," he fearfully told reporters.

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America Is a Center-Left Country No Matter How Much the Corporate Media Say Otherwise
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/106276

As Robert Borosage of Campaign for America's Future, wrote of the his group's poll (PDF), "When asked why they voted for Obama, the leading reasons were his proposals for withdrawing troops from Iraq, cutting middle class taxes first, providing affordable health care, and his commitment to invest in education and make college more affordable. When those who voted for Obama were asked about their doubts about McCain, picking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin led the list, but fear that he would give tax breaks to the rich and big corporations came in second, followed by the notion that he would continue Bush's policies."

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Comment:

That bit above is just one of Holland's many sources in support of a progressive America - and all of his bullet points are worth a good read.

Obama needs to acknowledge the progressive mandate that has been given and steer well away from centrist bullshit if he is to accomplish what really needs to be done. If he succeeds on a progressive agenda he will continue to make history; if he fails by remaining too centrist he will give the GOP an opening in four years time to remake the U.S. yet again in a manner of their choosing.

Often when one talks politics in the U.S. the Democrats are spoken of as the "left" and Republicans as the "right." The Republicans are to the right. I'd put the Neocon faction of the Republicans at the far-right. But the Democrats are hardly the left if viewed from an international perspective. The Democrats can more fairly be described as the true center of American politics - and that's why American politics lean right: because things are either at the center or to the right, that's the available part of the political spectrum as things stand right now. A true left really would be a communist or Marxist party of some kind, and the Democrats are certainly not that by any stretch of the imagination. When Neocons tried to paint Obama as a Marxist any thinking person just laughed at such a suggestion as absurd on the face of it.

Personally, I'd like to see the rise of a true left in the U.S. It's not precisely that I want a far left party to assume power here but rather that I want such a political perspective to inform the ongoing political discourse of what is possible and what should seriously be considered. To dismiss leftist ideas as automatically beneath the threshold of consideration damages our political discourse very severely.

I want the whole rainbow of political possibilities from which to choose the best solution to a given problem.

The Foxes Guarding the Hen House II

The New Trough
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/24012700/the_new_trough/print

It didn't have to be this way. Five days before Paulson struck his deal with the banks, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown negotiated a similar bailout - only he extracted meaningful guarantees for taxpayers: voting rights at the banks, seats on their boards, 12 percent in annual dividend payments to the government, a suspension of dividend payments to shareholders, restrictions on executive bonuses, and a legal requirement that the banks lend money to homeowners and small businesses.

In sharp contrast, this is what U.S. taxpayers received: no controlling interest, no voting rights, no seats on the bank boards and just five percent in dividend payouts to the government, while shareholders continue to collect billions in dividends every quarter. What's more, golden parachutes and bonuses already promised by the banks will still be paid out to executives - all before taxpayers are paid back.

No wonder it took just one hour for Paulson to convince all nine CEOs to accept his offer - less than seven minutes per bank. Not even the firms' own lawyers could have drafted a sweeter deal.

...[skipped]...

sense and should be immediately scrapped - a move that would also handily get rid of most of the crony contractors. As for purchasing equity in banks, the next round of deals - and there will be more - has to start from the premise that the banks are bankrupt and will therefore accept whatever terms we choose to impose, including real regulatory oversight. The possibilities of what could be done if a chunk of the banking system were genuinely under public control - from a moratorium on home foreclosures to mandatory investment in green community redevelopment - are limitless.

Because here is what George Bush and Henry Paulson are hoping we won't figure out: When a society no longer has enough money to pay for its most pressing needs, there are worse things than discovering you own the banks.

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Comment:

I hate to repeat myself endlessly but all I can do is wonder why we are bailing these assholes out instead of filing charges against them. I think all we are doing is postponing the inevitable. I suppose that must seem like a worthy goal to some, but I'd rather just get the inevitable over with first and then get onto the good stuff. Kind of like saving dessert for last, if you know what I mean.

Get Your War On: New World Order

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

About 50 Percent Bigots!

The saddest thing about American politics is the Republican party.

During this last election cycle there wasn't any significant attempt to quash the bigoted agendas of many party members. The Republicans actually intended to use that bigoted rage to get out the vote for their side of things. It wasn't until McCain's concession speech that he ever laid down the law on making peace with the winner of the election - you know, the black American that was called a terrorist, a Muslim, and a Marxist during the entire Republican campaign. Not all of those things had to be true; but enough people had to believe them so that just maybe some lonely nut-job would just go ahead and kill the opposition. Hey, it's one way to win an election.

So, these crazy ass bigoted windbags were kept loose and vocal on purpose! The media covered it and no one did anything. There was some small talk about the secret service looking into it, but I have my doubts on that one. Of course, now it's the full time job to protect that black American. Maybe the secret service will wish they had done more before the big win.

This bigoted aspect of Republican politics really should amaze everyone. But it won't for the simple reason that such people actually represent about half of the U.S. population.

How do I know this? How can I make such a bald assertion apparently absent any hard facts?

Actually, the facts are there. The gay marriage bans are proposed in the full light of day - bans that effectively institutionalize bigotry. It's impossible that anyone really cares what other people do in the privacy of their own homes; but it's still there - a catch all kind of hatred against the supposed "others" that live among us. It's just another way to whip up the vote. Maybe you won't come out to vote McCain, but you might if you have to stop the gays from taking over your once precious Christian culture.

If they can't make you hate everyone else, maybe they can get you to hate just some of them. It's useful to have enemies right here at home. It's a useful part of accepted political rhetoric on the far right of the spectrum.

And so it goes.

Red to Blue

I used to look at the election maps and wonder how and why so many people voted red. Here's a gross generalization:

Republicans are of two kinds: wealthy, bigoted WASPs; and other conservatives that are willing to vote against their own economic interests in order to favor their extreme religious views.

So why are the reds going blue and seemingly all of a sudden?

The answer is so simple and obvious. Look at John McCain. I mean really, seriously look at him. Do you see it? No one likes to talk about it, but it's there. Painfully there.

Death.

He's going to die a lot sooner than most of us. The red vote is losing it's foundational base of voters to death. Everyone else is either moderately religious or even more sensibly agnostic.

They said the youth vote was instrumental in tipping the scales for Obama and the Democrats. Don't they really mean that older folks simply died and were no longer counted?

I give the world to those that inherit it!

Bail Out Main Street

This hits the highlights of what's wrong and what's a more sensible approach.

The Voting Process is Broken

That's a very good point being made there. Time is money, bastards!

Voting requires transparency of process and I therefore remain deeply concerned over the use of voting machines the code to which remains the proprietary secret property of the generally Republican leaning companies that manufacture them. Voting machines should not be privatized nor outsourced. What we need are open source voting machines every process of which can be tracked and accounted for as need be. I can't see why we aren't making state manufactured machines with open source code behind them - that's the only way to be sure of what is going on should problems arise. An alternative might be to buy not only the voting machines but also the rights to the code that run them - I am willing to go there if we have to.

Maybe the U.N. needs to come in to secure the vote in future U.S. elections. That would be an embarrassing but necessary next step.

Post Election 2008: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Well, Obama is going to get his shot at fixing things. The country is currently one big shit sandwich and he gets the first big bite of it. I worry that he is far too centrist to be the change we "HOPE" for. The Obama win was the best possible result, but my faith in the Democratic party has been shaken too frequently to have anything to show for it but an internal sea of doubt that fills my mind to the brim. I do believe that Obama is an intelligent, skilled politician capable of making all the right moves - but whether he will remains the open question. He's going to be hearing a lot of from naysayers and he's going to have to turn that around to make the big win. It's worth noting that Obama will have a significantly "blue" congress to back him up. Can he make it happen? Will he move further to the left to make the changes that are so necessary?

Speaking of congress...when I see this election result I wonder about folks like Nancy Pelosi. I am extremely angry that the Democrats didn't push much harder for a) a much earlier departure timetable on Iraq and b) the impeachment of Bush and criminal charges against many members of his administration. At the same time I have to recognize that maybe she very aptly and very cynically played the perfect hand to a big blue victory for 2008. In truth, I am still too angry to accord her that kind of shrewd, Machiavellian victory - but perhaps she deserves it. I hope it serves us well because it was bought at the price of real human blood and misery.

I am extremely disappointed in the people of California, Arizona and Florida that decided to institutionalize prejudice by making gay marriage a subject of continuing controversy. We are a country of majority rule with minority rights. Get with the program, you are all looking very backward today.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention my pride in Californians recognizing the rights of livestock to decent lives before they are sent to the slaughterhouse. We need to see a new day in food production; a new day that will bring with it sustainable ranch to farm rotations as pioneered by the likes of Polyface Farm and as documented by Michael Pollan in his book "The Omnivore's Dilemma." Two links:

http://www.polyfacefarms.com/default.aspx

http://www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php

The future of food is slow and sustainable. Eat it!

Realtime Electoral Vote Predictor

When Assholes Play Monopoly...

...they land on Free Parking and demand all of the fines paid during the game even though the rule is optional and they never mentioned it before the game began. Now in the middle of playing they want an advantage that they shouldn't fairly receive.

Sound familiar?

The game of Monopoly actually has an interesting origin. The first version was created in 1904 by a Quaker named Elizabeth J. Magie Phillips and was called "The Landlord's Game." The purpose of the game was to illustrate the negative aspects of concentrating land in private monopolies - a purpose still served in the final version of the game we play today. Anyone that plays Monopoly will quickly learn that the way the game economy is set up in its essentials is predicated on two factors: luck and the fact that whomever gets the upper hand early in the game tends to destroy his opponents. See more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlord's_Game

Capital is like gravity, once it attains a certain mass it just keeps attracting more capital to itself as by an unseen force. The unseen forces of capital are profit (which is reasonable depending on the circumstances) and usury (which is not). There are other techniques at work too, like the gaming of the system that exists when currencies are devalued by those issuing them or when stocks are manipulated so that they rise or lower at the whim of the bigger players.

When you play Monopoly you become aware of certain inherently unfair aspects of the game, and yet our lives are played out within an economy the rules of which the game attempts to emulate.

Food for thought.