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American Dream or American Myth?


by ThePete 6:00 pm 2009-09-25
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Kid Rock has nothing to do with
this post. His knowledge of how
to treat the American flag is
mythical, however. :\

I’m a big believer in the power of myth. My only gripe is when people don’t admit that what they believe in is a myth in the first place. See, I don’t think aa story has to be true in order to learn valuable life lessons from it. So, I can be an Atheist and learn from Jesus, or not believe in the Federal Reserve and still earn and spend money. The thing is, I understand and admit that both are myths–fictions that don’t represent anything provable.

Now, the only reason I bring this up is because the other day, an Internet acquaintance of mine and I were talking about political party differences between my country and his (he’s in Germany) and naturally taxation came up (check the comments to see the convo). He referenced that little chestnut of historical Americana, “Taxation Without Representation” via the Boston Tea Party, and suggested it was our “founding myth.”

I did take issue with this, but only the part where he suggested that it was our “founding myth.”

Oh, I agree it’s a myth in that the “Boston Tea Partiers” were likely Freemasons who probably worked it out with the British East India Company (run by Freemasons) to let them throw British East India tea into the harbor, thus making it a kind of “false-flag operation,” and thus, a myth–but the idea that our country was founded on this myth? Nah, that’s not accurate to me at all. So, here’s how I replied (emphasis added for effect): More…

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Turns out Almost Everyone Will be Mandated to Have Health Insurance Under the Baucus Plan


by ThePete 5:36 pm 2009-09-18
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So, if you check out the screen cap from the web page for today’s edition Democracy Now story on Democrat Max Baucus’s bill for health care “reform” you’ll see the part I highlighted.

Yeah, we’ll all be forced to support the health insurance industry–you know the health insurance industry! They’re the fine folks that think it’s OK that the thousands of uninsured people die every year. Yeah, we will be forced to support these greedy-ass people if this bill passes. The good news is that this won’t pass–I’ve read a number of news sources that quote politicians on both sides of the party wall who say they won’t support it.

What’s disturbing here is two fold.

First, that the fact that statistically so many people are set to die this year due to a lack of affordable health care is not causing an nation-wide uproar. (Though later in an interview with one of the people behind the study that came up with the 45,000 number seemed to revise it down to 25,000 and just the other day I posted about the number being down around 18,000. The point is, tens of thousands of people are dying because the system has let them slip through the cracks.)

Secondly, this bill is a big fat gift to the insurance industry. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how this benefits them:

Mandate (force) most Americans to get health insurance and that means HUGE dollars for insurance companies.

There’s also a third aspect I already mentioned of not giving us an option to opt out of supporting the greedy-as-hell insurance industry. Thanks Baucus, you corrupt bastard.

Who cares about Tax-N-Spend Democrats? I’m more worried about Take-”Bribes“-N-Pass-Laws Democrats (and Republicans)!

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Obama Admin Wants to Hike the USG’s Debt Ceiling


by ThePete 9:00 am 2009-09-17
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One of the things I used to bag on George W Bush a lot for was hiking the debt ceiling. Back in 2004 he talked Congress into bumping it up to $8 trillion (FYI: the National Debt is now approaching $12 trillion) and look how much that helped us! We got to wage more war. YAY!

So, here comes 2009 and Obama needs more cash.

SIGH.

The Wall Street Journal seems to think Congress may not want to let him up the limit the USG can borrow from the Fed. Seems there’s been a lot of hubub in DC about overspending.

SIGH.

Where were these idiots when Bush was overspending on imaginary threats?

Regardless, the USG is going to keep borrowing whether Congress wants to or not. How do I know this? Because they always do. If we stop WHO KNOWS WHAT COULD HAPPEN?!?!

Look, I’m sure the USG can stop borrowing WHEN EVER IT WANTS.

Hey, it quit in the Clinton years. Why couldn’t it quit again?

“Quit again!

You don’t quit “again” and if we ever hope to slow down, stop, or somehow achieve the impossible and actually lower the National Debt, we need to get this government a fricken intervention, because CLEARLY it is NEVER going to stop borrowing on its own.

That’s it, I’m calling the UK.

“Britain? Yeah, hey man, it’s ThePete. You invite France and Germany over to Canada’s apartment. I’ll tell America that we’re just going to hang out and play Playstation. It’s time for some serious tough love.”

SIGH.

If only it were that easy…

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Republicans Accuse Dems of Hypocrisy over Joe The Heckler–oh the ironic PAIN


by ThePete 1:34 pm 2009-09-15
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I’m glad I wasn’t drinking anything when I read the below paragraph excerpted from an article today at Boston.com:

“In another stunning example of hypocrisy, congressional Democrats are wasting taxpayers’ time and resources on a legislative measure to censure Congressman Joe Wilson so they don’t have to talk about their exceedingly unpopular health care plan,” Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said in a statement.

I am almost speechless.

THREE WORDS FOR YA STEELE:

Osama bin Laden

You remeber him! He’s the guy YOUR PARTY was supposed to see captured “dead or alive.”

Yes, it’s the “Party of Life” that fights two wars, killings hundreds
of thousands, torturing, sacrificing our values, sacrificing both
domestic and international law in the War Against Terror which has yet to yield the guy who you people said attacked us eight years ago–and you have the balls to accuse ANYONE of hypocrisy?

Fuck you, Michael Steele and the Republican Party.

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Proposed Bill Would Allow President to Seize the Internet


by ThePete 9:00 am 2009-09-15
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Huh, this reminds me a little of a novel I wrote once.

Seems that there’s a bill that was introduced last spring in the US Senate that would allow the USG, specifically the POTUS, to disconnect private computers and/or networks from the ‘net. The bill’s been revised, but it still doesn’t sound so hot. Here’s how an August 28, 2009 article at Cnet.com explained it’s current form:

The new version would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for “cybersecurity professionals,” and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

So, now the government wants to license network IT guys. In other words, you’d need permission from the USG to run a computer network that extended beyond your house (by the sound of it, anyway). Juuust great–it’s vaguely possible that such a measure might cut down on spam or hacking-related crime, but it’ll make a lot of IT people’s lives harder. That’d be one less thing I would be able to do for a living since I’m broke and couldn’t afford a license.

But it’s the “do what’s necessary to respond to the threat” part that I love the most. What the hell does that mean?

Anything.

That’s what’s so scary. The original bill made it sound like they could come into your house, unplug your wifi router and walk off with it. I use Skype, talk about an abridgment of free speech!

But in the new version of the bill it sounds like literally anything could be done to your computer. I LOVE power grabs like this because people don’t think the worst of government until it’s too late (or if it’s about something irrational like death panels).

Back in the late Clinton years, the USG passed a law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In short, it banned the discussion of hacking digital copyright methods online. Think of it like someone telling you that you’re not allowed to talk about safe cracking.

Yeah, people didn’t think it would be a big deal back in the day because it seemed like the Internet might still be a fad. Well, it wasn’t.

Likewise, this S.773 bill scares me because it was developed behind closed doors and we don’t really know why it would even be necessary unless Senator Jay Rockefeller, the author of S.773, knows something we don’t.

I just love it when politicians think they deserve to know things that we don’t. It was a politician who once expressed that the Internet was “a series of tubes,” or “a truck” or something. I really don’t like trusting these besuited morons with our tax dollars, our country AND our Internet.

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Joe “The Heckler” Wilson Refuses to Apologize in the House


by ThePete 1:24 pm 2009-09-13
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This screencap comes from an article on Reuters.com. It reports on how the Republican Representative from South Carolina refuses to apologize on the House floor. Wilson was apparently on Fox News Sunday today (WHO SAW THAT COMING???) where he said that he is a person who believes in the truth and felt he had to say something when he heard the President of the United States make misstatements in a live, televised address watched around the world.

Fine–forget the massive show of disrespect, forget the message of disorder a House rep heckling the President sends other countries (AND AL QEADA! GASP!), forget that there’s plenty of time for him to be on Fox News after Obama was done speaking. I’ll ignore all of that and in exchange for the answer to just one question:

Where was this idiot over the last eight years? When Bush trumped up reasons to go into Iraq did Joe The Heckler call him George The Liar? When Dick Cheney spoke bald-faced lies about Saddam Hussein having connection with Al Qeada did Joe The Heckler hold a press conference where he called Dick out?

No, of course not. Why? Because Wilson is a liar, himself. I just proved it.

I really hope the Dems grow a pair on this one and censure Joe Wilson. Sure they were too spineless to even try to impeach Bush but this should be much easier.

It’s also a shame that almost nobody is calling Wilson and other Republicans out for their money-first/human-life-second (or third or fourth) attitude.

They recognize no hypocrisy when they call themselves "pro-life" but then fight for war and fight to bail-out the banks and corporations and now fight to make sure all Americans don’t have access to healthcare.

The fact that the Democrats don’t just put the smackdown on the Republicans pretty much proves that America is anything but "a culture of life."

I also wonder how long it’s going to be before people notice the Revolving Door politicians use to kiss corporate ass now in exchange for good corporate jobs later once they leave their cushy positions in politics (only to end up back as politicians or in appointed government positions later).

So in the end Wilson’s ego is now too big to allow him to apologize on the House floor and his brain is too stupid to realize that such an apology on the House floor would be a great opportunity to call Obama out again.

Duh.

On a side note, I’m wondering why Reuters put that article in their "Canada" section. Ah well…

EDIT: In case you missed it, I first posted about Joe “The Heckler” Wilson back on Thursday.

BTW: I keep calling him “Joe The Heckler Wilson” because I don’t want anyone to confuse him with outed-CIA-agent Valerie Plame’s husband, former diplomat Joe Wilson. THAT Joe WIlson was the Joe Wilson who suffered the wrath of the Bush administration when he told the truth about their being no evidence that Saddam was looking for uranium in Africa by having his under-cover wife’s status as an under-cover CIA operative blown.

Neat how both Joe Wilsons say they believe in the truth. Too bad only one of them really does.

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Some Things to Think About on 9/11/9


by ThePete 6:13 pm 2009-09-11
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Taken from Brooklyn, September 11, 2008.

Firstly, we still don’t have bin Laden. Two wars, over a trillion dollars, countless dead and eight years later, we STILL haven’t caught the guy the USG says was behind the 911 attacks.

Secondly, the FBI has YET to update bin Laden’s “FBI’s Most Wanted” page to reflect his suspicion in the attacks of eight years ago today.

Thirdly, we still have combat troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan where democracy has yet to take hold (let’s be honest, folks).

Fourth, we still have huge problems at home , the failing economy, high-priced health care, cancer and climate change all seem like bigger threats to our lives than terrorism could ever be, yet we still spend an awful lot on the military in both money and men.

Some other things to consider:

My attack on People Magazine featuring scans of People’s 911 memorial issue which included print ads for things like Tide clothing detergent, V-8, and life insurance, opposite pictures of survivors being rescued from the rubble of the Twin Towers. Yeah, class act. Nice to see corporations have changed a lot since then–oh wait–they haven’t. SIGH…

My previous 911 memorial blog posts (some of the links may be broken):

2008: The Only 911 Memorial We Have
2008: 911 Memorial Post: Osama bin Laden in Custody (SIKE!)
2007: 911 MEMORIAL POST: BIN LADEN STILL FUGITIVE
2006: Happy 911 Day
2005: 300 IN AL QAEDA?
2004: MEMORIAL POST TO 911 VICTIMS
2002: MY 911 TRIBUTE

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#Obamacare and what Joe “The Heckler” Wilson Really Represents


by ThePete 1:53 pm 2009-09-10
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What a night! I can’t remember the last time I watched the guy in the White House talk and didn’t immediately feel like leaving the country right after. @siskita suggested the last time might have been 9 years ago.

But regardless of what you say about Obama and his plans for health care reform, one thing really bugged me last night and it was that moment where Republican “Representative” from South Carolina Joe Wilson heckled Barrack Hussein Obama in the middle of his speech.

No, it’s not the obvious disrespect the act showed the duly elected President of the United States that bothers me. I think Wilson had serious guts and passion to heckle the leader of the free world on international TV.

I don’t necessarily disagree with what Wilson was thinking when he blurted out “YOU LIE!” either. As I listened to Obama speak last night I was reminded of my deep distrust of all politicians. Just because he’s black doesn’t make Obama uniquely honest and of course it doesn’t make him a liar either. But where was the logic in accusing Obama of lying in the middle of him accusing Republicans of lying?

“I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I?” he might as well have yelled.

If Wilson had an actual point, that’d be one thing, but it seemed like passion and guts were all he had to back up his accusation and that got me thinking. What made an inside-the-beltway guy like Wilson think that it was OK to heckle the guy who currently resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave? Would he have done the same if Bush had been speechifying?

Or was the fact that Obama is black or that he has a Muslim-sounding middle name or that he’s so young and different, subconsciously make Wilson think that Obama didn’t deserve the respect of having a decent argument lodged against him?

Maybe that’s my mistake, expecting a decent argument from a bunch of frothing-at-the-mouth Republicans who would do anything to keep their jobs, even see people die in Iraq or at home (Iraqis and USGIs die in Iraq/Americans who can’t afford health care die at home). Because, to me, that IS the irony to all of this. Check out this WSJ.com editorial Karl Rove wrote from the future (check the date on the screencap below and compare it to the first sentence in the piece):

What’s more telling than the fact that Rove clearly wrote this editorial before Obama even gave his speech is that fun little subtitle there “Red-state Democrats are being asked to risk their seats.

So, let me get this straight:

1) Americans are dying because they can’t pay for the health care they need to survive

2) Political risk is more important than American lives

Clearly, Karl Rove hates America.


A screencap from today’s WashingtonPost.com main page. Click the pic to read
more. Hang on, though–is it me? Or does Wilson seem awfully tan for a guy
who spends most of the year in Washington DC???

Haha, OK, that’s an unfair statement, but clearly, when you react, preemptively, as Rove did, and when you react with such emotional, disrespect in the middle of your opponent explaining himself, it shows the level of fear the Republicans are dealing with right now.

I think America is starting to fall apart. Even putting the economy aside, I think we’re seeing a real “pulling aside of the curtain” here. The man behind said curtain hates the idea of equality.

He HATES it.

The idea that this guy, with a different opinion from him getting to stand up and speak to America without interruption was just too much for Joe Wilson.

The veil has come down and we’re looking at the rich, white face of “I’m better than you.”

That’s what this country is all about and it’s what it has always been about.

From Columbus’ journal entry way back in 1492 when he spoke of how perfect the natives would be as slaves, right up to the now where we modern-day wage-slaves blow the overwhelming majority of our lives working for other people barely finding the money to survive on our own.

God forbid we should have a system that keeps us healthy without us having to pay on top of everything else.

Oh no, rich white men who wear suits to work every day and alternate between private sector jobs and public sector jobs know what’s best for all of us.

Sorry, we can’t all work together to pay for health care for everyone.

Forget that we all work together to make capitalism work. Forget that the reason those rich white guys got rich is because we all agreed to buy their cars, their drugs, their line of crap in the first place.

So, we can all pitch in to keep capitalism going but try to encourage a system that takes a bit of cash from most and makes sure everyone gets health care and you’re as good as Karl Marx.

God bless America? Which America? The one in all the sales brochures? Or the actual one that says free health care is bad for everyone but the military and politicians.

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The Disturbing Truth: Our Government is Protecting Us from Nothing


by ThePete 1:38 pm 2009-08-26
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Dig that crazy redaction! It’s like the FOIA request from the ACLU that got this doc released got us
a whole lot of nothing–of course, despite appearances, it gave us enough rope to hang the Bushies
with… if only the Obamites will bother…

After reading today’s column from Andrew Sullivan at TheAtlantic.com, I have had my fears reinforced and have come to feel that the United States Government has been and continues to be a sociopathic entity. Sullivan’s column is called “The American Way Of Torture” and includes select quotes from the Office of the Inspector General’s report on how the CIA systemically tortured terror suspects during the Bush years. There are some disturbing truths that Sullivan’s piece forces us to consider:

1) this new OIG report pretty much damns the Bush Administration by proving they not only endorsed torture, but did so in writing.

2) this was definitely torture–what else do you call it when detainees are left in their own excrement?

3) Sullivan makes the point best:

In the past, the US was known for being a country whose soldiers would never mistreat prisoners; now, the US wants the world to know that US custody is something to be dreaded.

This is the same technique used by Grand Moff Tarkin in the original Star Wars movie–his exact line was “Fear will keep the systems in line…”

So yes, all those Daily Show jokes about Cheney were accurate: the United States was run by an evil, cartoonish bad guy.

Now this next part popped into my head thanks to Democracy Now, quoting one leader who spoke about Afghanistan:

The insurgency in Afghanistan didn’t just happen overnight, and we won’t defeat it overnight. This will not be quick nor easy. But we must never forget, this is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven, from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting; this is fundamental to the defense of our people.

That’s not an old quote from Bush–that’s Obama speaking at the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in Phoenix, Arizona, last week.

So, here comes Obama, explaining that we have no choice but to be in Afghanistan, mimicking the same rhetoric that came from the Bush 43 Admin for so many years. We did it because the Taliban were harboring Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. My question is, how big a threat is Al Qaeda to America? OK, fine, Obama, they’re plotting
against us–but how many of us can they really kill?

In 2008 34,017 Americans were killed in car accidents according to the DOT.

In 2005 (the most recent year numbers are available) 159,217 Americans died of lung cancer alone according to the CDC.

In 2007 around 2 million people worldwide were killed by AIDS according to Avert.org.

In 2007 terrorism caused 22,685 deaths worldwide according to the US National Counter Terrorism Center. The number of American civilian deaths by terrorism is almost non-existent since Americans have to leave the country to be killed by a terrorist.

What this all means is that terrorism is a tiny, tiny, tiny threat to the American way of life. Yet, the Bush administration and now the Obama administration thinks it’s worth ignoring our morals and our principles to stop the killing of less than 23,000 Earthlings while seven times that number die of lung cancer in America, alone. 53,005 died of colorectal cancer, 27,259 American women died of gynecological cancers, 41,116 American women died of breast cancer–and I could go on.

So, in the end, our government is “protecting” us from nothing. We’re spending over a trillion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan to stop this threat which does not even really exist. My only conclusion is that our government actually enjoys being horrible to people–it’s literally sociopathic. Either that, or our government is too addicted to fear, or rock-stupid, to check and compare the statistics, which took me about 30 minutes to do.

With all these people dying of Cancer in the US right now, wouldn’t it be nice to have a War on Cancer, instead of a War on Terror?

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Election Fun In Iran: Unrest of Citizens, Arrest of Loser & Oppression of Media


by ThePete 4:40 pm 2009-06-13
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I reeeally wish I had more time to cover this. Basically, Iran had a huge election and the main challenger, a dude called Mousavi lost. Protests have erupted as claims of election fraud have, as well. ABCNews has said that their footage of the scene of protests in Tehran has been confiscated and that the pictures/video coming out of the capital city of Iran were shot with cell phones (ironically, I watched this report on my iPhone).  Meanwhile, rumors are swirling that Mousavi has been arrested and, according to @SashaKane in a Twitter post he may have also been charged with: “…high crimes
and treason against then Country of Iran???”

The reason this is all worth following is because Iran is already on our “Would Like to Invade” list–I think it’s in the number one spot, if I’m not mistaken–Ahmadinejad claiming a victory when there are reports that almost no Ahmadinejad voters could be found in Tehran, followed by
oppression of the media, protests and rumors of his competitor’s arrest don’t exactly make Iran a less irresistible target for invasion by the USG.

In fact, as we all know, weaker justifications for invasion have been used in the past.  Iran becoming unstable might almost be seen as a good reason to invade.

Either way, stuff to be concerned with for sure…

Screencap source: andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/mor…

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The Next Time Dick Cheney Opens His Fat Mouth Remember This


by ThePete 2:02 am 2009-06-02
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This is semi-old news, but with Cheney making the rounds again recently I felt this story would be good to conjure up–it’s from 2004 but important to think about when Dick Cheney goes on and on about "protecting America."

In an October 12, 2004 article on CommonDreams.org, Jason Leopold wrote about how Dick Cheney was helping Iraq break international law:

The report on Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, prepared by Charles Duelfer, a former U.N. weapons inspector and head of the Iraqi Survey Group, said Saddam Hussein used revenue from the oil-for-food program and “created a web of front companies and used shadowy deals with foreign governments, corporations, and officials to amass $11 billion in illicit revenue in the decade before the US-led invasion last year," reports The New York Times.

Sure, $11 billion is chump change compared to what we’ve actually spent on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, but that was, to use the old cliche, a lot of money back then. Leopold goes on, however, later in the article, to say:

But the one company that helped Saddam exploit the oil-for-food program in the mid-1990s that wasn’t identified in Duelfer’s report was Halliburton, and the person at the helm of Halliburton at the time of the scheme was Vice President Dick Cheney. Halliburton and its subsidiaries were one of several American and foreign oil supply companies that helped Iraq increase its crude exports from $4 billion in 1997 to nearly $18 billion in 2000 by skirting U.S. laws and selling Iraq spare parts so it could repair its oil fields and pump more oil.

Leopold cites UN documents in the article as his source for this story. While he doesn’t link to the docs themselves in his article, in the face of evidence like this, if true, it’s hard to give any credibility to Cheney at all and I find it very frustrating that the media gives a man like this, who is no longer in power, a voice on TV and on the radio. Frankly, it makes me question the entirety of mainstream media.

As if there wasn’t already enough reasons to mistrust the mainstream media.

One other thing about Cheney: this is more proof that our leaders are just corrupt businessmen who couldn’t care less about human life and just want to make money. If he really thought that Saddam was a bad guy, why did the company he was CEO of do business with him? Because he doesn’t care who is bad or not. It’s all about the green.

Democracy? Republic? Free country?

Nah, it’s called a Corruptocracy.

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Think Specter’s Switch to the Democrats Means Anything? You Need to Understand Our One-Party/Two-Head System


by ThePete 1:49 pm 2009-04-28
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Think about it: our system allows for legalized bribery. Every politician is pro-corporate because that’s where the overwhelming majority of their campaign contributions come from. To keep those contributions flowing (which allows them to keep getting re-elected) politicians will do anything these corporate donors ask. Does it really matter if one of them takes money from Coke instead of Pepsi? Or barters favors with agribusinesses instead of the oil industry? What happened to government for the people, by the people?

What’s worse is that some companies and industries will give to both parties to make sure that whomever wins, they’ll have influence.

Back on April 13, 2009 Noam Chomsky was on Democracy Now and he addressed this issue this way:

You can learn a lot from campaign contributions. In fact, one of the best predictors of policy around is Thomas Ferguson’s investment theory of politics, as he calls it—very outstanding political economist—which essentially—I mean, to say it in a sentence, he describes elections as occasions in which groups of investors coalesce and invest to control the state. And he takes a look at the formation of campaign contributors, and it gives you a surprisingly good prediction of what policies are going to be. It goes back a century, New Deal and so on. So, yeah, it can predict pretty well what Obama is going to do. There’s nothing surprising about this. It’s the norm in what’s called political democracy.

I know I’m quoting the infamous Noam Chomsky, but he’s quoting Thomas Ferguson and who cares as long as what they’re both saying is accurate?

Sure, there may be some slight ripples, but ultimately, the problems with our system will still be there no matter which side of the aisle Specter iss sitting on. Our system is built on corruption. Is it any less corrupt because companies you like get their way?

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Dems Debate Whether to Investigate Crimes of Bush Admin or: Why I Refuse Party Affiliation


by ThePete 11:06 am 2009-04-24
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Geh… This is just sad beyond words. WashingtonPost.com is reporting that the Democrats in Washington are torn as to whether or not to go after Bush Admin officials for approving torture.

So, FOR YEARS there have been loads of evidence that the Bush Administration committed crimes. The GAO actually found that they had violated federal law (go to the GAO website and do a search for "covert propaganda"). We all know that acts of torture were committed in Iraq, we know the Bush Admin misled us into war in Iraq and mismanaged our war in Afghanistan.

Yet, no investigation let alone impeachment hearings for any Bushites.

The excuse while Bush was in office was "We can’t impeach him now, there just aren’t enough votes."

Then, once the Democrats took the majority in Congress, the excuse became "Well, there’s not enough time left before Bush steps down."

For anyone who thinks the law should be enforced the last eight years have been very hard.

But it’s not getting any easier now. If EVERYTHING ELSE wasn’t enough for you, Obama just released memos PROVING Bush officials were down with torture–those of us with morals would THINK we’d finally see some criminal charges.

Maybe we still will–but not before the Democrats debate about WHETHER TO ENFORCE THE LAW.

This is why I refuse to be in either political party. The Democrats are wondering if international and US law needs to be enforced and the Republicans feel the law can go to hell if the cause is just.

The most depressing thing of all is that Obama was supposed to change all of this. Now we see that Democrats and Republicans, alike, believe that the law is to be enforced on the little people and that for the rich (mostly white) folks in government, the law is simply not a concern if one’s motives are pure.

I said mostly white, above, because now, apparently, Obama is in violation of the law too–international law demands that war crimminals be prosecuted.

So while I’ll never call him "King Barry," Barack Obama is, and will continue to be, above the law until he goes after the Bush Administration.

Progress?

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Stateside Secretive Prisons for Mostly Muslims (Questionably Guilty, too)


by ThePete 6:09 pm 2009-04-17
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Damn, I wish this didn’t make me feel so gross. Let me quote from the post on DemocracyNow.org that the included screencap comes from:

While President Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo and the secret overseas CIA prisons, calls are increasing for him to reexamine the treatment of prisoners detained as part of the so-called war on terror being held inside the United States.

With little public scrutiny, the Bush administration opened two secretive prisons in Indiana and Illinois, known as Communication Management Units, or CMUs, that are designed to severely restrict prisoner communication with family members, the media and the outside world. Dozens of Muslim men are still being held at the CMUs, as well as other prisoners, including environmental and animal rights activists.

Man, do we really think America is so weak that it can be threatened by folks fighting Global Warming and trying to free monkeys from labs? No wonder we think Al Qaeda are so bad-ass and killing a bunch of Somali pirates is something to be proud of (come on, they’re pirates… from Somalia).

Here’s a bit more from the DN transcript:

Prisoners held inside the special unit include Dr. Rafil Dhafir, the Iraqi-born doctor from upstate New York who is serving a twenty-two-year sentence for violating the Iraqi sanctions by sending aid to Iraq through his charity Help the Needy; Yassin Aref, the Kurdish-born imam from Albany, New York, who was convicted in a controversial FBI sting operation; and also the environmental activist Daniel McGowan. He’s serving a seven-year sentence for his role in two acts of arson.

Some critics have suggested McGowan and other non-Muslim prisoners are being held in the CMU, because the federal government wants to avoid accusations that the CMUs are designed to only hold Muslim men.

And from a bit further on lawyer for one of the prisoners of a CMU prison, Kathy Manley says:

Well, yeah, it’s unconstitutional to treat people more restrictively in a prison context because of their race or religion. And they’re clearly doing that. I mean, the CMU in Terre Haute is almost 90 percent Muslim.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: New boss (almost the) same as the old boss.

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All of Your Paranoia about Government and Corporations is Accurate (and then some)


by ThePete 5:41 pm 2009-04-07
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Above: money doesn’t make the world go ’round–but it does keep the system moving.

Yeah, pretty sad when things in the real world happen like they would in a novel–you know when the people you trust betray you in a way you would never have expected? Let me get more specific.

Remember that thing called “government” that’s supposed to protect your rights and help organize society in a way that allows humanity to have an easier, more enjoyable time?

How about corporations? Remember them? They’re the groups of smaller businesses that team up to help better provide for the communities they exist in.

Well, that’s the way both were originally supposed to work, anyway. Alas, they’ve supplanted those wonderful ideals with concerns only for themselves. Corporations have the same rights as we individuals and, while they can’t vote, politicians make sure big businesses are more than equally represented in government.

Capitalism is dead and probably has been for years–it’s only recently that we’ve discovered its body. See, Capitalism too, has been supplanted by the system of Corruptionism.

The basic idea is that our leaders (both political and corporate) tell us that they care about all humans, our rights, the environment and our morals, but all they really care about is taking from us and giving to themselves. We give our money to corporations in exchange for products and services we don’t need (but are literally brainwashed to believe are necessary) and the corporations take that money and pay off politicians to make laws that make it easier for corporations to make even more money off of us.

Politicians are corrupt because they take money for favors. We are corrupt because our money comes from corporations that we then use for things we don’t bother realizing we don’t need. Corporations are corrupt because the people who run the corporations take money, ignore their own morals, and keep the corporate interests going.

Everyone is corrupt in this system.

Maybe the Corruptionist system (like most systems) can actually function to make life easier for us. However, take it to the extreme and we get what we have now.

Last month Matt Taibbi wrote an amazingly in-depth piece that you can find at RollingStone.com that covers the bail-out, the AIG mess, corrupt politicians and most importantly how this whole thing has functioned as a non-violent coup meant to wrest control of government (and therefore us) from our elected leaders. Of course, I’d suggest that our elected officials haven’t had any substantive power for years. Regardless, the reality seems to be that now they don’t. Here’s a bit from Taibbi’s article:

People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they’re not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d’état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

The crisis was the coup de grâce: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same insiders first wrecked the financial world, then cunningly granted themselves nearly unlimited emergency powers to clean up their own mess. And so the gambling-addict leaders of companies like AIG end up not penniless and in jail, but with an Alien-style death grip on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve — “our partners in the government,” as Liddy put it with a shockingly casual matter-of-factness after the most recent bailout.

The mistake most people make in looking at the financial crisis is thinking of it in terms of money, a habit that might lead you to look at the unfolding mess as a huge bonus-killing downer for the Wall Street class. But if you look at it in purely Machiavellian terms, what you see is a colossal power grab that threatens to turn the federal government into a kind of giant Enron — a huge, impenetrable black box filled with self-dealing insiders whose scheme is the securing of individual profits at the expense of an ocean of unwitting involuntary shareholders, previously known as taxpayers.

That article has been sitting in a tab in Firefox since last month and is so incredibly long I still haven’t finished reading the whole thing. It’s a pretty good read, so far, though.

As much as I’d like to be wrong about this, the moral of the story seems to be that, ultimately, every ounce of stereotypical paranoia any of us have had about politicians and businessmen being liars has been accurate.

Politicians and businessmen are all lying–all the time. They may not even be aware of their own dishonesty, but the reality sure seems to be that eventually, any corporation and every politician will sacrifice what ever it/he/she needs to in order to make as much money as it/he/she can.


Click here to see visit my Disgusting People (Magazine)
page which I set up just days after 911.

One good example of this is when People Magazine put out their 911 Memorial Issue, just a few days after 911. They ran ads opposite pictures of the disaster. My “favorite” was a picture of a man on his knees, mouth agape, seemingly staring across the gap between the page his picture was on and the page facing him which featured an ad for State Farm life insurance.

I emailed the editor and complained. She replied with a bunch of rationalizations and apologized only for my offense. Members of an email list I was subscribed to at the time seemed nonplussed by my offense at People Magazine’s behavior.

“They have to make a living don’t they?” said one person on the list.

Here we are 8 years later and things have only gotten worse. We’re all just fodder for the machine of Corruptionism–we seem generally OK with that and so do our political leaders. So much so that, morals are put aside in favor of bringing in the cash so we can buy our iPods, pay our bills, and feed our kids. Our government takes our money (both directly through taxes and indirectly by having the Fed inject new cash into the system) and gives it to these corporations to keep them going and to quite literally reward them for their horrible behavior.

Just keep doing what you’re doing, the government seems to be saying.

But “corruption” is the right word for it, isn’t it?

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You Really Have to See This: Comparing Bailout Funds to Government Spending Over the Years


by ThePete 4:39 pm 2009-03-09
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Here’s another reason Republicans should shut their fracking GOBS about how the Democrats are wasting spending our tax dollars.  Check out that chart.

Can you believe that shit?

Look at the absurd difference between how much the moonshot ran us, compared to the Bailout.

$237 billion vs. $4,616 billion.

Dude, our leaders are unbelievable fools.

Just to add to that chart, I did a quick bit of Googling and found the Cancer.gov’s numbers on how much was spent by our government on cancer research in 2007: $1367.1 million–not even a billion-and-a-half dollars were spent on cancer research.

So, if my math is right, to save our banks the outlay was 3,000 times the amount spent on cancer research in 2007. (That’s 4,616,500,000,000 ÷ 1,367,100,000 = 3376.85612, according to my Mac’s calculator widget–actually, I had to lop off the bottom six zeroes because it couldn’t handle anything with so many zeroes.)

So, this is our lovely government. Charged with keeping us safe, yet more willing to keep bad banks afloat than to keep our lives, uh, alive.

Incidentally, according to Cancer.org, in 2007, Cancer killed just short of 1.5 million Americans (1,444,920 is the exact number, FYI.) The current estimated population of America is just short of 306 million people. That means that around 1 in 300 people die of cancer in a year. How many people die of bad banking?

Special thanks to my good friend Katabasis at http://i-squared.blogspot.com for pointing me at a VoltageCreative.com blog post written by Wade who made up the chart above based on numbers from a post by Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing.net.

Posted via email from thepete’s posterous

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Job Creation Chart Makes Me Wonder Why Anyone Votes for Republicans


by ThePete 2:19 pm 2009-03-03
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I nicked this image from a post by Devilstower at the loco liberal website DailyKos.com but if the job numbers can be trusted it tells a sad story about Republican
voters.

The chart tells us, first, that Democrat presidents are statistically better at job creation than Repub presidents. Second, it tells us that Republican voters are morons to vote for Republican presidential candidates because invariably a Republican in the White House means fewer jobs for Americans. What is more important to our strength as a country than jobs?

So, why does anyone vote for Republicans if they mean less jobs for Americans?

Is Al Qaeda that scary?

Posted via email from thepete’s posterous

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Rush Limbaugh Talks for an HOUR+ and Reminds Us How He’s Full of Hot Air


by ThePete 2:09 am 2009-03-02
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Seriously, what better a way to remind us you’re a big, fat, lying
windbag than by spinning a web of misleading crap so vast that it
takes you LONGER THAN AN HOUR TO SAY IT.

I thought about doing a quipfest to Rush Limbaugh’s speech at the CPAC conserv-o-rama conference which took place over the weekend in some very Caucasian part of America (made that way by all those Republicans attending the conference). The thing is, the transcript to Rush’s speech is too long–it would literally take me weeks to post the entire thing with my quips in small enough chunks that you’d actually want to read it.

So, I’m not going to bother. Rush doesn’t deserve to have his words repeated AGAIN. I will repeat a few of them in the interest of being critical of him.

Now, the guy behind the website Donkelphant.com, was covering Rush’s speech for his blog that generally tries to be middle-of-the road. He was not pounding on Rush, but he was suggesting that Rush might not be the best person for conservatives to use as their unelected leader. He caught a bit of flack for these comments and that got me thinking once again about, what I think is, the absurdity of being Republican in today’s day and age. I thought I had covered all of my bases on Friday with my post “Rant Time: Why are their Still Republicans?” However, after reading some of what Rush had to say, I decided I had to jump back in the ring.


I’ve never read the book,
but I love the title!
Click to buy it now!

As I said, the transcript to Rush’s speech is HUGE but CNN.com posted some of his comments in an article (see the cap above–I LOVE how Monsanto is sponsoring the article!), so I’ll refer to some of those those. From the article:

“We conservatives have not done a good enough job of
just laying out basically who we are, because we make the mistake of
assuming that people know. What they know is largely incorrect, based
on the way we’re portrayed in pop culture, in the drive-by media, by
the Democrat party,” the conservative talk show host told a mostly
young crowd of energized supporters.

Uhhh, which part of “we don’t think gays should marry” did we not understand?

How better can you explain it when Republicans tell us they don’t think women should be allowed to have abortions? I mean, John McCain, during the 2008 campaign, seemed to think there was a “pro-abortion” movement. He referred to it in one of the debates with his own mouth. Is he part of the drive-by media?

And now that I mention it, aren’t YOU part of the drive-by media, Rush? I love the tactic being used by MANY Republicans these days of accusing others of doing the exact same thing they, themselves, are doing. The Daily Show had a thing recently where they pointed out how Bill O’Reilly hated the paparazzi but was OK when his own camera men hounded politicians with cameras. Same thing here–oh, it’s the media’s fault America doesn’t know who conservatives are! But Rush, you work in the media.

Duh.

More from the article:

“We want every American to be the best he or she
chooses to be. We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and
revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of
Independence. We believe that the preamble of the Constitution
contains an inarguable truth, that we are all endowed by our creator
with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, freedom —
and the pursuit of happiness,” he said, pausing several times for
enthusiastic applause.

You want every American to be white and male and all others can be sub-humans. Seriously, Republicans think women should make less than men for the same work done. Republicans think women should not have control over their bodies. Republicans think gays should not be allowed to have state recognized marriages. Republicans think Islamo Fascism is some sort of threat to America (it isn’t). So, I guess the definition Rush and fellow Republicans have for “being the best he or she chooses to be” is an odd one since the above is true. If Republicans really wanted every American to be the best he or she chooses to be, then shouldn’t women get paid the same amount, gays be allowed to get married and women be allowed full control over their bodies?

And hey, wait–”the best he or she chooses to be”? Doesn’t that mean I can screw up my life on purpose and not suffer for it? If I intentionally choose to have a very low standard of “best,” doesn’t that mean I can not get a job, get free food, housing and entertainment compliments of the Republican party? Rush says that’s what he wants–HIS WORDS. ;)

Oh yeah, Rush, if you “loved and revered our founding documents” you would not have been allowing George W. Bush and pals pee all over them for 8 years. Do you even know what “habeus corpus” means? You are a lying bastard to say that you revere the founding documents for anything but their ability to serve as your toilet paper. Extraordinary renditions? Torture? Unfounded wars based on lies? Are those the things the founding documents protect and support?

More from the article:

“He wants people in fear, angst and crisis, fearing
the worst each and every day, because that clears the decks for
President Obama and his pals to come in with the answers, which are
abject failures, historically shown and demonstrated. Doesn’t matter.
They’ll have control of it when it’s all over. And that’s what they
want,” Limbaugh said.

It’s like he thinks we’re all morons–in fact, I think Rush Limbaugh is one of the most cynical assholes who ever lived. Does he think we have not been paying attention to the “abject failures” that have been running the USA for the last 8 years? Does he think we haven’t noticed the way the Bush Administration has trumped up Al Qaeda as some big, bad threat when they’re just a bunch of extremists in the desert?

While we were all being told we could be blown to hell by an Extremist Islamic Nuke, our economy was beginning to show the signs of imminent failure. Funny, AQ hasn’t done shit to us since 911.

Yet, our way of life is dying all the same.

And Rush is telling us Obama’s answers are abject failures.

What GOT US HERE, dipshit?

Proven by history, my ass. OH YES and the Republican answers have been proven successes??

It’s literally like Republicans are vampires–incapable of holding up a mirror and seeing themselves reflected in it.

“They see these inequalities, these inequities that
capitalism produces. How do they try to fix it? Do they try to elevate
those at the bottom? No, they try to tear down the people at the
top.”

“Elevate… at the bottom?” I think you hypocritical Republicans would likely have a problem with that, wouldn’t you? Every time someone wants to give us poor folks a hand-out all you guys want is for us to get a job. Yet here’s Rush saying we should be “elevated.” What the hell does that even mean, anyway? And since it’s the people at the TOP WHO CAUSED THIS MESS aren’t they the first who should pay?

Us poor folks didn’t cause the economy to crash and bleed out. It was the bankers and the businesses–and the politicians who thought the bankers and the businessmen could be trusted to not get greedy.

I could go on and on and on and on, but I have things to do.

Oh yeah and one last thing–Rush wants Republicans to take back the country? Republicans. Didn’t they just have the country for 8 years?

Republicans: Please stay away from Rush Limbaugh. He is saying things that betray you and your beliefs. As an independent, I don’t like a lot of what the Democrats are doing any more than I like what the Republicans have done. But Rush is just trying to polarize you. He’s trying to manipulate you by using the same tactics he accuses Obama of using.

Think for yourself–learn the truth for yourself. It’s hard work, for sure. But if it was easy to think for yourself, everyone would be doing it.

Posted via email from thepete’s posterous

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Wikileaks Cracks Pentagon Encryption; My Faith in Our Leaders is Restored (or NOT)


by ThePete 1:59 pm 2009-02-27
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This is hilarious–well, assuming you think massive incompetence being a Pentagon job requirement is funny. Can you believe this? Apparently there was a password on the politically sensitive file at this URL:

http://oneteam.centcom.mil/isc/Shared%20Documents/NATO%20Master%20Narrative.doc

By the look of it, the only thing protecting the contents of this file is the fact that it’s a password-protected MS Word doc. Wtf?? What bright-eyes thought this would be a good idea? Let’s just leave a politically sensitive WORD DOC in an unprotected directory and expect a fracking MS Word password to keep it safe. WHAT COULD HAPPEN?

So, anyway, the post at Wikileaks.org (see screencap above or original here: https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/N1 ) doesn’t explain how the “encryption” was “cracked” but I suspect it was something simple, like the highly technical process of entering random words until something worked.

You may be wondering what was so politically sensitive in the Word doc. Well, it turns out it was a document meant for NATO officials, and it tells them not to tell anyone that the country of Jordan is involved in helping us with the War Against Terror (aka tWAT) in Afghanistan. What’s the catch with the world knowing Jordan is involved? It’s supposed to be a secret. Apparently, back in 2001 they officially withdrew from the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force), which is officially in charge of our efforts in Afghanistan. It seems like they sure didn’t stop helping us.

Why is it a big deal that Jordan is still involved in our Afghani efforts? Well, it seems they’re real big in the torture community. They are also said to be big helpers with our extraordinary renditions program. So, essentially, they help us when we go into one country, kidnap a suspect and deliver said suspect to another country where we ask them questions and let local authorities torture if we don’t like the answers.

In an obviously related story the Pentagon shut their entire site down this afternoon. Gee, I wonder why they did that!

Does anyone still wonder why the world has so much wrong with it when our leaders are smegging moronic enough to use only a single password to protect sensitive information?

OH yeah and the password on the doc? Progress.

Well done, Pentagon! Well done!!

Massive kudos to Twitter-user Zaibatsu who posted about Wikileaks cracking the password on the NATO file.

I wonder if this story will hit CNN or any of the other MSM news “sources.”

Posted via email from thepete’s posterous

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Jay Doesn’t Understand Obama’s Plan


by ThePete 10:52 pm 2009-02-25
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And neither do I.

Here’s Jay’s 12 second take:


Jay Doesn’t Understand Obama’s Plan on 12seconds.tv

Sure, it’s an oversimplification, but if loans are what got us into trouble in the first place, how are more loans going to fix things?

Seriously: Banks give loans to people who can’t afford them and then pawn off the lawns to someone else who then gets screwed.

Obama wants us to give money to the same banks who will then, somehow miraculously NOT give money to people who will default on the loans?

Since the economy is hurting, a LOT of folks won’t have good enough credit to get loans, so who are these loans going to be given to?

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TheBlurb: Ignorance must really be bliss, or else why would so many people embrace it?
updated on 12/05/09 13:44:16 Change it! Archives