what we've learned ...

  .. is an horrifying[1] shocker ...

    .. and US hubris was the last nail

-=*=-

G'day Bob,

to your point at which the empire crumbled (a real bewdy), I would add:

December 12 / 14, 2008
What is to be Done?
The End of the Washington Consensus

  «Wall Street’s financial meltdown marks the end of an era. What has ended is the credibility of the Washington Consensus - open markets to foreign investors and tight money austerity programs (high interest rates and credit cutbacks) to "cure" balance-of-payments deficits, domestic budget deficits and price inflation. On the negative side, this model has failed to produce the prosperity it promises. Raising interest rates and dismantling protective tariffs and subsidies worsen rather than help the trade and payments balance, aggravate rather than reduce domestic budget deficits, and raise prices.»
[counterpunch/Hudson & Sommers]

Economics are indistinguishable from the military, when it comes to discussing the so-called, self-termed 'world leader,' the US. It turns out that the only place the US is leading us is to rack and ruin, aka right down the gurgler.

Today is as good a day as any (i.e. bitter-sweet) to draw a line, although as the King Canute myth has it, life will (must) go on.

To make 3 Hs, add hypocrisy; say one thing and do another. Possibly the very worst, is to have (realistic!) expectations dashed. The expectations I 'carried' out of child-hood were, quickly summarised, truth and justice. From 'Bringing up Baby:' "Don't tell me lies!" - "You will share that (object) - or trouble!" Simplistic? Perhaps, but we're going for brevity here.

Less simplistic would be that the Enlightenment would show us the way.

Wrong!

Did not, does not. What we have are lies, cheating theft and murder.

-=*=-

Consider so-called representative democracy, an informed and engaged electorate votes, the elected representatives then rule (wisely!); of the people, by the people and for the people.

Wrong!

As actually implemented, the people are deliberately dumbed-down (they are lied to and effectively turned into sheople®), the representatives fail to properly represent; the systems are pre-set to ever further enrich mostly evil, vested interests.

I mentioned above the very worst being dashed expectations; the very worst failure in our so-called democracies are the lies, aka swamping us in deliberately, psychologically designed, evil propaganda, what I call the pushed paradigm. Many electorates, pioneered in the US but adopted more widely in the Anglo/Judaic sphere and further, have been deliberately deceived - the exact, designed purpose of the lies they tell us. As we found out from Howard, "All politicians lie!" - well, perhaps not exactly all, and none quite so badly as that grim example, but it's not just the politicians; the mostly corrupt and venal MSM transmits and often amplifies the lies. (Even 'our' AusBC and SBS get into the lie-transmission/amplification act; boo! Hiss!)

-=*=-

It has been said that GWBush&Co were/are incompetent, that had they done a better job, they could've 'won' in Iraq (murder for oil), say, or in Afghanistan (murder for a pipeline.) IMHO wrong; GWBush&Co were following a filthy, neocon/neoliberal agenda which specifically set out to rip ever more of the world's resources off, and to allocate the plunder to the already obscenely rich, mostly US fat-cats, and at the same time to drive the ordinary people of the world (including their own!) into penury, forcing them into a Malthusian hell. This was well-illustrated just the other day, when the US Senate refused to bailout the US auto industry, on the grounds that the UAW wouldn't agree to a drastic slashing of wages/conditions. When correctly gauged, GWBush&Co made great strides in their agenda. One other thing, it is/was not only GWBush&Co, the rot has permeated the US for yonks, hardly a US president has anywhere near clean hands. One could say none.

The problem - and possibly our salvation - is that GWBush&Co performed sooo badly, that the rest of the world (well, some of us, we the truth-seekers) noticed. And when the enemy (the wannabe hegemon, its illegitimate sprog, the poodle with dag) are recognised, diagnosed, seen for what they truly are and the ghastly, murdering criminal things they do, then plans can be made to counter that enemy.

-=*=-

The Beatles wrote "And, in the end, the love you take - Is equal to the love you make."

Q: What did the US make, with Israel as the illegitimate 2nd fiddle (and especially in the case of Iraq, the UK as poodle with Aus as dag?)

A: Lies, cheating theft and murder.

-=*=-

Fazit: Reform the systems, save the planet - or doom.

-=*end*=-

PS In plain text: Our so-called 'leaders,' our so-called 'betters,' have turned the world on its head. Instead of leading us to maximise human happiness, the best deal for the most people, they have worked almost exclusively to enrich themselves - essentially by crooked means (i.e. not 'fair prices' but what (the max) the market will bear, 'super' profits aka resource-rent, a swinish list of foul malfeasance), right up to and including murder for spoil (Iraq, ex-Palestine), all the while encouraging the devil to take the hindmost. A ghastly proof is the 'health' system in the US, which will bankrupt people and/or outright deny (unfunded) necessary life-saving treatment. In order for these villains to enrich themselves, they have deliberately deceived us, a truly filthy - treasonous - thing to do.

-=*=-

Ref(s):

[1] horrify
verb (-ies, -ied) [with OBJ.] (usu. be horrified) fill with horror; shock greatly: they were horrified by the very idea | [as ADJ.] (horrified) the horrified spectators | [as ADJ.] (horrifying) a horrifying incident.
DERIVATIVES
horrification noun
horrifiedly adverb
horrifyingly adverb [as SUBMODIFIER] horrifyingly flimsy boats.

ORIGIN late 18th cent.: from Latin horrificare, from horrificus (see HORRIFIC). [Oxford Pop-up]

horrify

Øverb
1 she loved to horrify us with tales of ghastly happenings
FRIGHTEN, scare, terrify, petrify, alarm, panic, terrorize, scare stiff, scare to death, fill with fear, scare someone out of their wits, scare the living daylights out of, throw into a panic, make someone's hair stand on end, make someone's blood run cold; informal scare the pants off, make someone's hair curl; Brit. informal throw into a blue funk, put the wind up; Irish informal scare the bejesus out of; N. Amer. informal spook; vulgar slang scare shitless, scare the shit out of; archaic affright

2 Lucien was horrified by her remarks, but said nothing
SHOCK, appal, disconcert, take aback, confound, dismay, outrage, scandalize, offend, throw off balance; disgust, revolt, repel, nauseate, sicken; informal rattle, faze, knock sideways, knock for six; archaic pother.
See AWKWARD SYNONYMS at dismay.
-opposite(s): PLEASE. [New Oxford Thesaurus of English]

shocking! criminal! pity ...

  .. they're all barking up the wrong tree

-=*=-

The sensation of the day is that the Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) has tried to 'flog' Obama's Senate seat.

Mass outrage! The FBI, Fitzgerald, arrests, the whole box-and-dice.

The pity - IMHO - is that no one puts any effort into bringing those lying f**kers 'responsible' for the deaths of upwards of 1mio Iraqis, 'mass-murder for oil,' to justice.

temporary setback ...

  .. or part of a trend?

-=*=-

Try this (the later bits, i.e. from December:)

Central Asia
Dec 9, 2008
NATO scuttles US plan to encircle Russia
By F William Engdahl

  «Translated into real political language, Washington has undergone a stunning setback in its agenda of encircling Russia with NATO. Despite the fact that president-elect Obama retained Bush Administration Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and named a person to be Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who has strongly supported bringing Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, key European NATO members, led by Germany and France, blocked what must be a unanimous membership decision.»
[atimes/Engdahl]

(Wouldn't it be nice to see a 'next positive step;' i.e. the abandoning of a (phoney! Aggressive!) missile 'defence' system in Poland & the Czech Republic, eh?)

Continuing the Russian theme; the next 'cab off the rank:'

South Asia
Dec 9, 2008
India, Russia regain elan of friendship
By M K Bhadrakumar

  «In sum, the Mumbai attacks may prove to be a watershed in Indian regional policies. Relations with Russia, China and Iran assume a new level of importance in New Delhi's regional strategies. The gravitation towards the SCO signifies the new thinking. Not too long ago, India visualized the SCO as primarily an "energy club". Actually, India's petroleum minister routinely represented India at the SCO summit meetings. Now, to envisage a crucial role for an SCO-led regional initiative on Afghanistan, New Delhi has indeed come a long way. Surely, Medvedev would have returned to Moscow quietly pleased that he met a long-lost friend.»
[atimes/Bhadrakumar]

Then, just to round the day off; win some, lose some:

1. Win? Pak 'militants' destroy nearly 200 NATO vehicles yesterday.

2. Win? Pak 'militants' destroy nearly 100 more vehicles.

3. Lose? Pak army attacks LeT base.

The Q: "Was the Mumbai outrage a false-flag/black-op?" is still wide open; we may never know. That the CIA and Mossad do such things, instigate such things, and that the CIA actually created Al Qaeda is IMHO not in dispute.

[cross posted]

incompetence ...

  .. of the absolute 'highest' order ...

    .. 'war on terror,' CIA etc. just make things worse

-=*=-

I'm fed up. All we get is *more* violence.

Whatever it is that the US is doing, has been doing, is not working, but not 'just' not working; we've got militarised police, we've got grievously injured civil rights, we've got the so-called 'leaders of the free world' kidnapping, torturing and murdering - and all the while we're getting *more* violence, both against *and by* the US, not less. Also all the while, as they 'divert' themselves with their vile (invasive!) wars, the excess-CO2 caused climate-catastrophe gets ever closer, ever more unavoidable, as the US regime hands out US$trios(!!?) to Wall St. No money for any services, Oh, no! - No money for a health scheme, but *lots* for unproductive (counter-productive!) banksters.

Basically, daaarlings, I don't think they could make things worse if they tried; it probably means they *are* trying - to make it worse, and succeeding. Murphy says that if it can happen it will; the biggest force for evil in the world is obviously the US M/I/C-plex, with the I/J/Z-plex in clear 2nd place. All they can do is make and deploy guns, all the better to kill someone. Like, 1mio+ in Iraq, say (murder for oil!) - and 60+ years long in sadly now mostly ex-Palestine; no end in sight other than evermore murder for land and water.

They talk about 'peace-processes' - but all we see is more killing, more theft of others' sovereign resources.

Say one thing, do the opposite; so much for the self-termed 'Masters of the Universe.'

Hypocrites! Incompetents! Idiots! Fools!

Lying, murdering thieves.

every day, every hour, every minute - without ...

  .. the (effective!) action Oh, so urgently required ...

    .. is another nail into our once jewel-like planet's coffin

-=*=-

Preamble: Our planet is being assaulted, pillaged and plundered[1,2,3]; we are confronted and ripped-off, not by 'simply' greedy but by excessively-so, greedy beyond avarice liars, cheats and murdering thieves. The lying overwhelms the people; the psychologically-refined propaganda turns otherwise innocent people into TV-comatosed sheople®, who in turn act-out the "Monkey see, monkey do" paradigm, with attention to "Best country in the world" - "See no evil" exceptionalism, turning themselves into witless (and hopeless!) passengers. We (the honest ripped-off people) are being swamped by evil, drowned in lies, as the planet is being abandoned to burning-up, due to the threatening excess-CO2 caused climate-change catastrophe, a shocking, avoidable greedastrophe®.

-=*=-

We do know the 'who,' the 'how' and the 'why;' what we don't know is two, namely Q1: How can the perpetrators be so utterly bad (suggested A: psychopaths), and Q2: Who is going to put a stop to the rot - and save our once jewel-like planet?

The 'who:' Is the mainly US M/I/C-plex, with Israel, the UK and Aus (i.e. a self-selected subset of Anglo/Judaic regimes; the wannabe hegemon, its illegitimate sprog plus the poodle with dag). Note that a change of government does not appreciably change the policies. So much for so-called 'democracy,' so much for the people's choice.

The 'how:' Is the 'Washington Consensus' with its WB & IMF instruments; keyword 'neoliberal' with its so-called 'free' markets, privatisations, down-sizing, out-sourcing and off-shoring, ending with globalisation. Note well: when all quasi-legal methods fail, the perpetrators turn to violence; see Iraq, illegal invasion morphed into brutal occupation ('murder for oil'); see the "Economic Hit Man." In extremis, they go to 'murder for spoil;' see the sadly now mostly ex-Palestine, I/J/Z-plex murder for land and water, 60+ years now and still no end in sight. (So much for that particular 'peace process.')

The 'why:' Well, we've covered that; basically, greed. Out'a all control greed, greed beyond avarice. 'They' just can't get enough.

-=*=-

Intermezzo: Not only can 'they' not get enough, they cheat as well; see the current world-wide financial imbroglio, 101% created by the self-termed 'Masters of the (financial) Universe.' It wasn't enough that 'they' gave themselves almost an eternal 'free lunch' with their (otherwise worthless!) US fiat-dollar rip-off, 'backed' by oil for their double rip-off pleasure, they had to poison that well with their toxic clever-dick derivatives. Wham! The entire show may well collapse. 1929 and possibly, IMHO quite probably worse, here we come.

-=*=-

Update: As if all that wasn't enough, the most recent outrage - the 'terrorist' attacks on Mumbai, which are now being referred to by some as "India's 9/11." The possibility here is, that the US will use this outrage as an excuse to attack Pakistan, as another 'brick in the wall' the US M/I/C-plex is constructing around (massively oil-possessing!) Iran. (Looping - as usual - 'they,' the US fat-cat criminals just can't get enough!)

And all the time that all this carnage/theft/murder is going on, the greedastrophe gets ever closer and more unavoidable. Idiots!

-=*=-

The Enlightenment, the hope and aspiration of fair-thinking people everywhere (one might suppose), is being over-run by lying brigands, who chortle 'Economic Darwinism' as their fig-leaf for 'Law of the Jungle,' 'Might makes Right' murdering theft.

We return to Q2: Who is going to stop the rot - where are the adults?

-=*end*=-

Ref(s):

[1] assault —n. 1 violent physical or verbal attack. [POD]

[2] pillage —v. (-ging) (also absol.) plunder, sack. —n. pillaging, esp. in war. [French piller plunder] [ibid.]

[3] plunder —v. 1 rob or steal, esp. in wartime; loot. 2 exploit (another person's or common property) for one's own profit. —n. 1 activity of plundering. 2 property so acquired. [German plündern] [ibid.]

they ...

  .. have a screw (or three) loose

-=*=-

Consider this item:

  «Oil prices soar towards $US55
Posted November 25, 2008 06:03:00

Oil prices have roared higher towards $US55 as equity markets surged on government action aimed at tackling a severe economic downturn.»
[AusBC/justin]

Some keywords used: 'prices soar,' 'roared higher,' 'equity markets surged,' 'rallied,' 'closed up a massive,' 'pumped billions,' and 'mammoth financial stimulus,' 'prices also benefited,' and 'cut production.'

'They' told us that the oil price 'soaring' to US$150 was 'supply and demand.' Then when it fell back to US$50, that was 'China and India reducing demand.' What utter bulls**t, it was the clever d**k speculators all along - apart, that is from the (illegal!) Iraq war effect. 'They' tell us many things; most, as it turns out, is just more bulls**t. The AusBC, as we can plainly see, is right in the s**t with the rest.

-=*=-

'They' (GWBush et al.) told us that "They hate us for our freedoms!"

'They' (GWBush et al.) lied.

'They' (GWBush et al.) screeched "We will disarm him!"

'They' (GWBush et al.) lied.

'They' (Cheney et al.) told us that invading Iraq was not for the oil.

'They' (Cheney et al.) lied.

'They' (Murdoch et al.) told us that invading Iraq would give us US$25 oil.

'They' (Murdoch et al.) lied.

'They' (Howard et al.) told us they'd 'keep interest rates low.'

'They' (Howard et al.) lied.

'They' (Costello et al.) encouraged us to borrow and spend up big.

'They' (Costello et al.) cut the CGT in half, triggering the house-price bubble which took average house-prices to around nine times average earnings, effectively ending the 'Great Aussie Dream' for far too many Ockers.

(I haven't got all day to continue this list - it couldn't be finished in a month of Sundays anyway.)

-=*=-

You can't have democracy when people are lied to (B, B & H; they all *knew* that Saddam had no WMDs.)

You can't have democracy when the MSM retails and extends politicians' lies (almost any media outlet, including AusBC & SBS. Filthy, lying propagandists!)

You can't have democracy when voters are ignored (Howard, calling anti-wars "a mob.")

You can't have freedom when people are concrete-walled in (Iraq, Israel/ex-Palestine.)

You can't have free-trade when the US (and some others) subsidise their own farmers.

(Again I don't have the time to go anywhere near finishing this list.)

-=*=-

'They' are guilty of many more sins, inspect the labels 'neoliberal,' 'privatisation,' 'out-sourcing,' 'off-shoring' and 'neocon.' Add 'free-trade,' 'freedom' and 'democracy.' (And so on; add your own failing/lying keywords.)

The US is the source of all the evil flowing from those labels (and all the etc.s), the only one of those labels which that has a meaning close to the actual word is 'neocon,' not from 'conservative' but as in con-men - which is what they are.

Bush was 'aped' by Blair and Howard following the principle of "Monkey see, monkey do." The whole foul neoliberal, neocon lot of them, 'inspired' by Greenspan have dumped the world deeply into the s**t. Note that it wasn't always Repugs, Clinton had his filthy fingers in there too. Now Obama is 'employing' lots'a Clinton-types. Rudd, whilst being *infinitely* more preferable than Howard, still mouths the same-old same-olds, like "poverty-busting power of free trade."

This blog is called 'nomoreofthesame' for impeccable reasons; if Rudd and Obama only do more of the same - and the indications are so - then we can't expect to climb out of the s**t 'any time soon' (detested Ameri-speak, spit!)

Where are the adults?

culpable ...

  .. and/or incompetent ...

    .. but in any case, wickedly criminal

-=*=-

"All politicians lie!" - or so we were informed, as that ghastly fact became unavoidably obvious in the 'run-up' to the US-led (with UK and Aus as poodle with dag) illegal invasion of Iraq - murder for oil.

Equally obvious - at least to those who wish to see and look closely enough - is that it's not 'just' the politicians who lie; it's also the MSM (main-stream media: largely corrupt and venal), including some public broadcasters, like the AusBC and SBS, say. (Boo! Hiss! How dare they take our dough - then lie to us!!?)

The MSM - and the AusBC, SBS etc. go so far as to deploy 'talking head' so-called experts, many of whom were actually briefed by the Pentagon ('over there;' one suspects a similar process to be under way in the UK and Aus, after the principle of "Monkey see, monkey do." Recall the AusBC 7.30 Report's pre-Iraq war 'make-over,' and the subsequent 'expert' analysis segments.)

That we are being deliberately lied to was exposed largely due to 'citizen journalist' efforts associated with (against!) the illegal invasion of Iraq (now been morphed into an equally brutal and murdering occupation), and we won't forget that Iraq is only one modern occurrence, there's the almost concurrent invasion of Afghanistan (murder for a pipeline), and a looong list of US transgressions stretching at least from WW2 - the A-bombing war crime, my own chosen 'starting point,' but plenty more before that - right down to this day. The US is a war-oriented organization, they murder for spoil. See Blum's "Rogue State," Chomsky's "What Uncle Sam Really Wants" and Perkins' "Economic Hit Man" for examples.

That we were being deliberately propagandised occurred to me relatively early in my own investigations into the Iraq imbroglio, stimulated by the crooked works of Judith Miller (NYT) and Tony Parkinson (theAge) amongst other journalist-traitors. "Why that?" I cried to myself. Finding the answer took some deep digging, and a bit of serendipity.

We all should know by now the chilling implications of "the big lie;" try reading that ref. as a refresher to see if it rings any alarm bells anew. I draw particular attention to this bit:

  «His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.»
[wiki/Big_Lie, ibid.]

(Any viewer of AusBC's "The Howard Years" could keep the above in mind.)

But there was a predecessor to 'The Big Lie,' namely Bernays.

Reading that reference exposes nearly all, to wit, that we the sheople® are being deliberately propagandised - but worse: with malice aforethought.

In a nutshell, that's how our so-called democracies - US, UK, Aus & Israel - most of the Anglo/Judaic group and possibly, probably many others - are being deliberately corrupted. I regard that, and the subsequent results like murder for oil in Iraq (and all such lies and transgressions) as being filthily criminal.

hoist on their own petard ...

  .. by some  'reverse engineering'

-=*=-

Here's a bit of a laugh:

November 19, 2008 | 01:02 PM (EST)
Jane Hamsher
Chinese Want To Buy the Big 3 Automakers

  «It appears that the Chinese car makers SAIC and Dongfeng have plans to acquire the Big 3:
...
At current market valuations (GM is worth less than Mattel) the Chinese government can afford to buy GM with petty cash. Even a hundred billion $ would barely dent China's more than $2t in currency reserves. For nobody in the world would buying GM and (while they are at it) Chrysler make more sense than for the Chinese. Overlap? What overlap? They would gain instant access to the world's markets with accepted brands, and proven technology.»
[huffingtonpost/jane-hamsher]

Read it yourself and consider; the Chinks have about US$2Trio burning a hole in their pockets. They could 'dump' some/all of it of onto the ForEx market and sink the US$ - or they could deploy it to buy up bits'a the US finance-collapse caused 'fire-sale.'

That would give them (the Chinks) many advantages; they'd pick up any 'intellectual property' the Big 3 have, give them the brand-names, and they'd be able to source components from wherever - mostly outside'a the US, a process called 'out-sourcing,' not to mention vertical integration. They'd have the dealerships (worldwide) jumping into their pockets (see 7.30 last night), the Chinks'd have a perfect monopoly position: wouldn't that be sweet? (As revenge, say. The bleeding of the US would move into 'high gear.' Haw!)

-=*=-

Now, for the BIG Q: is this communism (Chink buy-outs), socialism (US bail-outs) or what?

(Cue Costello: "Haw, haw, haw! - Let us prey.")

not just in Iraq, is the US jackboot ...

  .. crushing down on a hapless, helpless nation's neck ...

    .. it's basically the whole, wide world suffering similar - why that?

-=*=-

Preamble: The world is drowning in equal parts of lies, greed, corruption, outright theft and (often mass-) murder most foul. As self-titled 'leader of the free(?) world,' the US is 'responsible' for this situation, not just because it has failed to prevent it - Oh, no - but because the US has created most of it. Worse, worser, worst: they knew beforehand what they were doing, they planned it(!!?)

Almost invariably, when I reach the end of some analysis, I screech "Why?" In this case, I wish to know a bit more: not just a) why has this happened, but b) why do we only find out about it now, and most importantly, c) why has there been no effective resistance?

In other words, where are the adults?

-=*=-

Intermezzo: There's an old saw, that goes:

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics."

I propose a slightly different form:

"Lies, damned lies - and economists (Chicago School) ..."

To which I add:

  ".. and filthy, propagandising trolls."

-=*=-

I will 'deal' with (b) 1st;

Q: "Why do we only now find out about it?"

A: Because we have been mislead (aka lied to); another old saw, we've been enrolled in the "Mushroom Club," i.e. kept in the dark - and fed on bulls**t.

Thanks, but "No, thanks!" to the impetus of the fatally hubristic GWBush&Co, plus a bit'a serendipity - namely the internet, those who wish to see now can - and what an eff'n mess it is!

Until GWBush&Co showed up, my 'prime source' of information was the AusBC. Although we now see that the mainstream, corporate media (aka the venal and corrupt MSM) are the main conduit for, augmentors - and even creators of the propaganda-flood, it was predominantly the AusBC which kept me personally in the dark - and fed me on bulls**t, since I generally avoided the commercial alternates. QED against any 'left bias' slur; that's only a furphy, one of many similar deliberately deployed by 'the enemy.' And speaking of enemies, see this[2].

More generally, the world has fallen to propaganda, starting first perhaps with the dumbing-down of the US' own sheople® and their now apparently complete addiction to TV, with its distorted 'news,' Madison Ave., Hollywood - all, as we now see, poisonous to greater or lesser degree. In summary (possibly looping - comme d'habitude), we've been lied to - deceived, and that deliberately - also by publicly financed broadcasters, boo! Hiss!

-=*=-

To (a) the crime and its 'why:' That's too easy; the US set out to take more (far, far more) than its 'fair' share, and it set out to do that by deploying 'power tactics:'

  «We should cease to talk about vague and—for the Far East—unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.»
[wiki/Memo_PPS23]

Kennan was regarded as 'dovish:'

  «"The final answer might be an unpleasant one, but...we should not hesitate before police repression by the local government. This is not shameful since the Communists are essentially traitors....It is better to have a strong regime in power than a liberal government if it is indulgent and relaxed and penetrated by Communists. "»
[discuss ...the United States' military and political objectives ...]

Some dove, and 'Communist' was the epithet used on anyone who thought government functions included providing what would otherwise be termed 'normal' services to, or otherwise providing 'support' for the local peasantry(??!) 'Communist' has now been morphed/generalised to 'Socialist,' and attempts were made to smear Obama as such, just this year. Same old same old -

  - as most of the above is old, but the situation has continued. Using WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get - in other words, propaganda-created blinkers off and see what's really going on), we see that the US, still with 5% of the world's population now has 25% of the world's resources - and they have gone fat to the point of obese with their vicious, thieving greed and over-consumption.

But: anyone thinking this is not an extremely acute and current problem could try reading the whole of the article this quote[3] comes from.

-=*=-

Finally (c), why has there been no effective resistance? Who let the US 'get away with it,' up till now?

In other words, where are the (moral, clever) adults?

Search me. Lazy? Corrupt themselves?

Thatcher cried "TINA!" - it was a lie (no surprise), but now we've got an alternative - i.e. do nothing, and complete the drowning - or more likely crashing, starving and/or burning-up, as our ecosphere crisps in the excess-CO2 caused greedastrophe®.

Or some adults could take charge and follow my tip: finger out, dump the US and the $US with it, start soonest on saving our once jewel-like planet.

-=*end*=-

Ref(s):

[1] jackboot n. 1 military boot reaching above the knee. 2 this as a militaristic or fascist symbol. [POD]

[2] «The Pentagon's Information Operations Roadmap now describes the Internet as an enemy "weapons system."»
[globalresearch/Psychological Operations are my specialty]

[My comment: Not a truly serious article perhaps, but may contain more than a little truth - like that quoted bit, say.]

[3] November 12, 2008
Obama's Economic Advisors
Against Volcker
By Patrick Bond

  «Elmar Altvater of Berlin's Free University recalls how the world "slid into the debt crisis of the 1980s after the US Federal Reserve tripled interest rates (the so called 'Volcker Shock'), leading to what later has been described as the 'lost decade' for the developing world."

How 'lost'? The British Medical Journal complained in 1999 of orthodox World Bank structural adjustment policies that immediately followed: "According to Unicef, a drop of 10-25% in average incomes in the 1980s - the decade noted for structural adjustment lending - in Africa and Latin America, and a 25% reduction in spending per capita on health and a 50% reduction per capita on education in the poorest countries of the world, are mostly attributable to structural adjustment policies. Unicef has estimated that such adverse effects on progress in developing countries resulted in the deaths of half a million young children-and in just a 12 month period."»
[counterpunch/Patrick Bond]

The implications flowing from that article have local repercussions; suffice it to say that with an honest media (and politicians similarly honest), our wide-brown may suffer quite a bit less than it currently does. Our resources are being ripped out of the ground without adequate recompense; our politicians actively assist this rip-off. Our governments are being strangled by tax policies which favour the already filthy-rich, the list of malfeasances is looong. At the root of the problems is the so-called 'Washington Consensus,' an erring, filthy rip-off ideology. See "Economic Hit Man." Why should we be forced to suffer these depredations?

Final comment: Just when you think things can't get worse, they quite often do. The more I find out about what's been done - and what's been largely hidden from us, the madder - I mean angrier - I get. We the sheople - here I mean it with respect, all our fellow-citizens everywhere, shorthand 'humanity,' we do not deserve to be so ripped-off, so deceived. It's gotta be stopped, reversed, our world made whole again - and all the irresponsible criminals must be thrown straight into gaol.

unsustainable ...

  .. an unknown concept to the lying NeoCons ...

    .. all they ever do is moreofthesame - mostly criminal bulls**t

-=*=-

ww1 - war to end war - obviously didn't

ww2 - peace, justice & the Amerikan way = prime bulls**t

cw - fear - unnecessary - except as theft-enabler for US aggressor

planet-wide US murdering violence now worse, worser, worst

cultural colonisation via the boob-tube = propaganda

sub-prime - biggest rip-off of all time

recall the filthy super-profit scam

the US doesn't buy, it steals

all planned by the self-titled 'masters of the Universe,' all a complete and utter failure - all they really enabled was the obscene to the point of going horribly obese US over-consumption

IF only moreofthesame - criminal bulls**t, THEN the bigger the eventual crash

Murphy says: If it can happen, it will.

Q1: How smart is Obama? Will he push on, or pull back?

Q2: How smart are we the sheople®, to tolerate the essentially intolerable?

Fallen at the first hurdle?

The election of Barack Obama was greeted with joy and a great deal of hope and expectations. However, as emotional a moment it was and as much as reality was suspended for a time, reality in the shape of the obstacles that will confront President Obama and his own positions on a range of issues might leave many hopes unfulfilled.

One way to gauge what Obama's policies might be is who he appoints to his staff. We have already one key appointment that does not bode well for a change in approach on a key issue. That appointment is of Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff.

In the first major appointment of his administration, President-elect Barack Obama has named as his chief of staff Congressman Rahm Emanuel, an Israeli citizen and Israeli army veteran whose father, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, was a member of Menachem Begin's Irgun forces during the Nakba and named his son after "a Lehi combatant who was killed" -- i.e., a member of Yitzhak Shamir's terrorist Stern Gang, responsible for, in addition to other atrocities against Palestinians, the more famous bombing of the King David Hotel and assassination of the UN peace envoy Count Folke Bernadotte.

In rapid response to this news, the editorial in the next day's Arab News (Jeddah) was entitled "Don't pin much hope on Obama -- Emanuel is his chief of staff and that sends a message". This editorial referred to the Irgun as a "terror organization" (a judgment call) and concluded: "Far from challenging Israel, the new team may turn out to be as pro-Israel as the one it is replacing."

That was always likely. Obama repeatedly pledged unconditional allegiance to Israel during his campaign, most memorably in an address to the AIPAC national convention which Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery characterized as "a speech that broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning", and America's electing a black president has always been more easily imagined than any American president's declaring his country's independence from Israeli domination.

Not a good start. And here.

I had really wanted to celebrate Barack Obama's remarkable victory for a day or so before becoming cynical again. I really did.

And yet, less than 24 hours after the first polls closed, the president-elect chose as his chief of staff -- perhaps the most powerful single position in any administration -- Rahm Emanuel, one of the most conservative Democratic members of Congress.

The chief of staff essentially acts as the president's gatekeeper, determining with whom he has access for advice and analysis. Obama is known as a good listener who has been open to hearing from and considering the perspectives of those on the Left as well as those with a more centrist to conservative perspective. How much access he will actually have as president to more progressive voices, however, is now seriously in question.

Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel is a member of the so-called New Democrat Coalition (NDC), of group of center-right pro-business Congressional Democrats affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Conference, which is dedicated to moving the Democratic Party away from its more liberal and progressive base. Numbering only 58 members out of 236 Democrats in the current House of Representatives, the NDC has worked closely with its Republican colleagues in pushing through and passing such legislation as those providing President Bush with "fast-track" trade authority in order to bypass efforts by labor, environmentalists and other public interest groups to promote fairer trade policy.

Others will try to coopt the new president.

To avoid falling for the same old, Ray McGovern suggests that President Obama ask questions at Presidential Daily Briefings ... and some personnel changes might help, as well.

Suggestions for changes.

In one area, foreign policy, there are warning signs examined in the above material. Other areas will be examined as appointments and other indicatorts become available. Not, perhaps a good start, but much will depend on whether President Obama respionds to the desires of the electorate or to other influences ... and his own attitudes and strength.

The Bush/Cheney Legacy.

A few days to go to the election and a few months left for the Bush Administration Questions are being raised about what damage has been done in the past eight years and what will or can change. Some people have placed their hopes in Barack Obama but is he going to be any different. The Democrats were tasked by the American electorate in the 2006 mid-terms with implementing change but, well, what has changed?

In this article Dr Dennis Loo examines the Bush/Cheney legacy and suggests ways for change to be made.

Ex-Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, one of many disaffected former Bush White House officials, recounts Vice-President Dick Cheney saying in a 2002 White House meeting: “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.”

The Bush/Cheney years prove that the rule of law and truth don’t matter.

Tom Engelhardt addresses the Bush/Cheney years in "Foreclosed".

They may have been the most disastrous dreamers, the most reckless gamblers, and the most vigorous imperial hucksters and grifters in our history. Selling was their passion. And they were classic American salesmen -- if you're talking about underwater land in Florida, or the Brooklyn Bridge, or three-card monte, or bizarre visions of Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicles armed with chemical and biological weaponry let loose over the U.S., or Saddam Hussein's mushroom clouds rising over American cities, or a full-scale reordering of the Middle East to our taste, or simply eternal global dominance.

When historians look back, it will be far clearer that the "commander-in-chief" of a "wartime" country and his top officials were focused, first and foremost, not on the shifting "central theaters" of the Global War on Terror, but on the theater that mattered most to them -- the "home front" where they spent inordinate amounts of time selling the American people a bill of goods. Of his timing in ramping up a campaign to invade Iraq in September 2002, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card infamously explained: "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."

A sign of how well they did - Glenn Greenwald.

In February, 2007, David Broder -- the Dean of the Washington Press Corps -- announced that "President Bush is poised for a political comeback" and "is demonstrating political smarts that even his critics have to acknowledge." Today, his own paper, The Washington Post, documented how painfully wrong that was, that George Bush's presidency is one of the greatest failures in all of American history, and he is so widely despised that he dare not show his face in public for fear of further hurting his party's nominee:

Even for a declared optimist, Bush has appeared remarkably sanguine in this season of discontent. The economy is melting down, his own party has shunned him, and Tuesday's election is shaping up as a searing rebuke to his eight years in office. . . .

"Everybody kind of wanted to spend the last 100-plus days doing some legacy things, and the financial crisis has thrown a wrench into that," said one prominent Republican who regularly talks with senior White House officials.

"You have a combination of no legacy stuff, a horrible economic mess and the likelihood that Obama is going to win," this person added. "There is a real sadness there."

None of this would matter, of course, if not for Bush's deep and abiding unpopularity. Bush has not commanded approval from a majority of the nation since early 2005, making him arguably the most disliked president since polling on the question began in the 1930s. A Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll last week put Bush's approval rating at 24 percent and found that McCain had made little headway in separating himself from Bush or his policies.

It's not for lack of trying. For the first time in recent memory, a sitting president has effectively sat out the presidential race, avoiding public appearances on behalf of McCain and other Republicans and raising far less money than usual in private fundraisers. Bush voted for McCain by absentee ballot rather than voting in person in Texas, as he has for the past three elections, and officials say he plans to spend election night at the White House rather than at a rally or other campaign-related event. . . .

"This is unprecedented for a president to be this invisible during a campaign," said Charlie Cook, editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "This is what happens when you have a 25 percent approval rating."

Dick Cheney finally made an entry into the campaign by endorsing John McCain. To the obvious pleasure of the Obama camp.

Matters which we have explored here and elsewhere and which display a frightening degree of criminality and corruption. But will it change/? Read the article for one view. But as I have expressed in the past - Obama might just be another representative of the elites and something more is required. For consideration - an interview with Naomi Wolf.

How to win elections, regardless of the electorate's wishes.

Here and elsewhere I have documented the methods used by the Republicans to try to get the election result they want. They are many and varied, from vote suppression, intimidation voting machine "irregularities" to a partisan Supreme Court.

With the US elections close I have gathered a few articles on past and present election rigging.

First, how 2004 was done. A detailed piece well worth studying.

Next, an interview with Mark Crispin Miller.

On why he got involved in the issue:

MCM: What immediately drew my interest was the overwhelmingly obvious fact that the 2004 election was stolen. We already know the 2000 election was stolen because the Supreme Court intervened so flagrantly, but I think the 2004 election was stolen on an even grander scale. What struck me was not just that fact, but no less, the general refusal to admit it which was evident not only throughout the corporate media but on the left as well. Even now I can't quite get over how the left fell into line and dismissed the evidence as "conspiracy theory" on the basis of very sloppy reporting by very good reporters in progressive circles.

So the immediate reason why I got into it was because of this staggering miscarriage of proper civic procedure and a betrayal of democracy. The more I thought about it, the more I also came to believe that this is the most important issue, precisely because we can make no progress on any other front if we don't have the right to pick our representatives, and more importantly, reject those who don't represent our interests. That's vital, so I often say in my talks that regardless of what your issue is, you're kidding yourself if you think you can get anywhere when government is able to act with impunity

On 2008:

CB: What evidence do we have currently, in addition to the voluminous evidence that you've provided in your books, that the 2008 election may already be stolen?

MCM: I do resist putting it that way with all due respect to Greg (Greg Palast) and Bobbie (Kennedy). I don't like to say that it's already been stolen because it's demoralizing, but I will say that they (the Republicans) have made enormous strides toward a McCain victory already.

CB: In what way?

MCM: Well, election theft is a two-part process. On the one hand is vote suppression. The purpose of vote suppression is to shrink the electorate before the fact. In the last four years or so they have moved somewhat away from fraudulent manipulation of ballots cast toward grand pre-emptive tactics meant to prevent people from voting in the first place. So within the realm of vote suppression, they have managed to purge literally millions of names from the voter roles. In New York state alone, we learned last week, 1.5 million voters have been purged without their knowledge. That's New York; it's not even a swing state.

There was a report, I think on Daily Kos, that the Justice Department has managed to effect the purge of 13 million votes. I don't know how many of those are legitimate purges because a lot of peoples' names shouldn't be on the list because they're dead or something. But between legal purges conducted by the Department of Justice and illegal purges of the electronic voter roles carried out by various partisan secretaries of state, and voter caging and other tactics, they've managed to do a great deal to shrink the pool of voters who would vote against McCain. That kind of thing will require a lot of fighting and amassing evidence which means that there's got to be a lot of video interviews, polls, phone calls placed to the hotlines-what I'm saying is that this grand stroke of dis-enfranchisement before election day has to be exposed and evidence thereof collected and made available.

But that's not the only thing you do when you steal an election. You also engage in electronic fraud. Here, we have the testimony of an incredibly important person named Stephen Spoonamore who is the star witness in a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation in Ohio. He's a conservative Republican and a former McCain supporter, but most importantly, he is a prominent expert in the detection of computer fraud.

Finally, trying to divert attention.

Virtually the entire mainstream electronic media drank ACORN Kool-Aid this month brewed up by the Republican National Committee. Almost no one seriously challenged John McCain's comical assertions that ACORN, a grassroots voter registration group, "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

While the Republicans had the distracted media searching for links between Obama and ACORN, RNC operatives were busily completing one of the most massive voter suppression and purging efforts in American history, stealing hundreds of thousands of Democratic votes across the embattled swing states and striving to arrange chaos and endless lines at the voting booths next week.

In 2006 things did not work out the way the Republicans wanted - possibly due to an underestimate of the swing to the Democrats. The problem in 2008 is that the polls strongly favour Obama, which means the Republican narrative will have to work really well lest people smell a rat. Given the electorate's mood, there might be those prepared recognise the stink. If the MSM do the right thing, that is.

some 'small' improprieties ...

  .. and some not quite so small

-=*=-

McMahon: “the ecodomy is basically sound”[1].

Haw! Now we're gunna get 'negative growth' (detested US-speak, spit!)

Whitlam succeeded McMahon; Whitlam's single-payer health system endures, although crippled and 'in competition' with medicine-for-profit (wha' d'ya get? Mainly profit), despite all the sly and malicious attempts at sabotage down through the years, but apart from any other problems, Whitlam had to contend with incessant corrosive criticism from the out-of-power 'born-to-rules,' the dirty Digger's (aka Murdoch's) 100+ days of lying 10cm black-ink headlines, and an external oil-shock.

The wheel having turned pretty-well full circle, here we are again.

After a decade-plus of booming exports under the Howard Liberal's 'economic genius' Costello, the Aussie economy is still deep in external deficit and the internal deficit has been converted to a deficit in services; after deliberately (halving CGT) caused asset-bubbles in stock- and house-prices (the latter having crippled the great Aussie dream for sooo many, perhaps for ever), after the Aussie sheople® have been coaxed, encouraged - or bludgeoned (via their Super, say) into becoming share owners, after the sheople having been encouraged to borrow themselves to the silly hilt via drawing-down on their home-mortgages or credit-cards or both, the born-to-rules are once more out of office and now these new-generation born-to-rules are reviving the same-old incessant corrosive criticism tactics, Murdoch's rags are once more on the vicious howl - and the great US-inspired, US-created finance-crash is setting the stage for another 1975, as well as another 1929 while they're at it. Clever, eh?

-=*=-

  «Oil prices dived underneath $US60 per barrel» - from about a $US150 peak a few short months ago.

Tell us that's 'supply and demand,' and not greedy speculators - eh?

  «... fears have sent world stocks spinning lower, with Tokyo hitting a 26-year low»

Tell us that's 'serious investment,' and not a gambling casino - eh?

-=*=-

The sub-prime mess blew up recently, and GWBush&Co tried to solve it by planning to hand out some $US700Bio (!!? - a truly stupefying sum, and by no means all of what's thought yet to be needed), this stupefying sum to be handed out essentially no-strings-attached to the very people - self-termed 'masters of the (financial) universe' - who caused the problem in the 1st place. Europeans, on the other hand, have suggested different approaches, including taking part-ownership in institutions under threat, and guaranteeing (savings) deposits. The latter path is also part of the Rudd government's response.

-=*=-

  «ELEANOR HALL: Yet another mortgage-based fund, Colonial First State, has frozen its redemptions as the sector feels the bite of the Government's deposit guarantee scheme.»

Tell us that "feels the bite" is 'balanced reporting' - eh?

  «JOE HOCKEY: Clearly the Government's action ... it is quite obvious that when the Government provides an unlimited guarantee at no cost as they did on October the 12th then it would create enormous distortions in the markets.»

Tell us that's 'clever commentary' - eh?

My comment: any 'unlimited guarantee' - as opposed to some 'capped' guarantee, can only be exploited by the real fat-cats, rapaciously greedy that they Oh-so obviously are. There are estimated to be less than 0.5% of Aussies who have $1Mio+ available to 'benefit' from such an 'unlimited guarantee.'

Q: Does Hockey really mean to imply that this 0.5% would deliberately cause trouble, themselves 'enormously distorting the markets?'

  «MALCOLM TURNBULL: Chris, the answer is, because look, you are making a debating point. We have got a crisis in our money markets now which has been going on for two weeks because the Government introduced an unlimited guarantee which has caused money, not just small depositors but large deposits to stream out of non-guaranteed institutions and funds into the guaranteed ones.»

Tell us that's a fair summary - eh? To blame this crisis on the Rudd government is a lie that the AusBC should not tolerate, let alone broadcast. Politicians will get away with lying like this as long as the media do not challenge them. That is after all the 4th Estate's job - and the AusBC are paid by us, we the sheople - so it's about time they actually started to work - for us - as opposed to against us. Earlier on, Turnbull said: «a new tax which will be a fee, a compulsory fee on all deposits over a million dollars. ... It will put upward pressure on interest rates.»

My comment: more utter rubbish, as well as outrageous scare-mongering. Even Blind Freddie can see that interest rates will not go up in any near-future, yet Turnbull trots out the scare. Worse, Turnbull is also saying that the 0.5% super-rich are a problem. Have both Hockey and Turnbull taken leave of their senses?

  «ALAN KOHLER: Well, we're witnessing a hedge fund crash. The global hedge fund industry is suffering a run on redemptions; a bit like our mortgage trusts.
And they have to repay the debt as well at a much greater rate that they get the removal of redemption. So they're having to sell everything, all the risk assets they've been buying; which is commodities, emerging stock markets and Australian dollars.
So you're seeing the hedge fund run exacerbated by the fall in commodities, which is also caused by hedge funds, and therefore the Australian dollar is getting sold off.»

My comment: great, 'a hedge fund crash.' In other words, this crisis has its roots in speculation - just like 1929. And guess what? The clever idiots - Repugs and Dummos both, have managed it, partly if not wholly, by dismantling all the protections installed after 1929. Again, clever, eh?

Just as measurable as the tiny proportion of rich having got ever grossly richer (their confiscatory 'share' having gone well past the merely obscene), is the reduction in living standards of the working class, the unions having been largely sabotaged, many workers having been turned into contractors who dare not complain, as they struggle to pay off their plant, and the middle-class having been hollowed-out by their borrowings and squeezed-out by job off-shoring. Globalisation, ain't it grand?

This is a bloody catastrophe, and it all goes back to greed and stupidity. The US-Repugs destroy the currency as they go to thieving, murdering wars-for-spoil. 1Mio essentially innocent but oil-owning Iraqis dead in their latest filthy 'escapade.' The Aus-Libs hang on the US-Repugs' coat-tails. The US-Dummos ape the Repugs, and the Aus-Labs hang on the US-Dummos' coat-tails. Altogether, the world is ripped-off by an exceedingly small, exceedingly greedy already rich-beyond-avarice minority, and we all know what's coming next - not 'just' a financial collapse, but 'the big one,' a possibly terminal climate collapse.

Where are the adults?

-=*end*=-

PS One thing that people might like to keep in mind, is that although the fat-cats may well be able to afford gambling, most of the sheople simply are not - in fact, quite the reverse. To see savings, struggled for years to accumulate, then wiped out in a few moments of greed-inspired madness - is not nice. We the sheople *demand* that our saved money be safe - and Turnbull and Hockey and their ilk be damned.

-=*=-

Ref(s):

[1] A not-so-random quote:

  «By early 1972, when I came to Canberra to work in the Commonwealth public service, the fragility of what Charles Kindleberger came to call “the long boom”, was evident to all. Or 2 nearly all, for the Prime Minister of the time, Billy McMahon, kept repeating: “the economy is basically sound”.»
[Ian McAuley/Insiders and outsiders]

erring ideologues, part ? ...

  .. hell hath no fury ...

    .. like a violated expectation

-=*=-

Apart from all the shocking negatives, we are left with one thing, and one thing only from the GWBush&Co catastrophe, and that is that they were just sooo bad, sooo hubristic - and so utterly criminal with it, that I, as many others, triggered into action by the perversion of democracy which was the bum’s rush to illegally invade Iraq, put the US under the microscope - and found it wanting in just about all respects.

Straight away, of course, I trigger some 'framing traps:' "Oh yeah, another anti-US rant." But really daaarlings, what else is there? We've had all the canards; "Hate America, love Americans," "Support the troops!" - all bulls**t. America is as America does, and what an eff'n disaster it really is. We have to abandon all pretence; see through all the carefully constructed furphies (keyword: Bernays); what we see (with eyes wide open) is what we've got. Then another canard: "(Mainly US-style) capitalism has brought more prosperity than any other system." Whilst it is true that the US, with only 5% of the world's population has garnered an obscenely whopping 25% of the world's resources to itself, they haven't done it by honest toil - Oh, no; quite the reverse. As the current financial crisis shows, the US has combined business and gangsterism, most of the graduates of the Harvard Business School (for sharks) and their ilk should more correctly be termed banksters.

Along with their hubris comes hypocrisy; say one thing whilst doing some other. In clear text: they deploy lies[1] in an attempt to disguise their criminal acts. The lies are often sourced from think tanks, erstwhile innocuous unless employed for criminal purposes, as they are by our so-called ruling élites (mainly US, UK, Aus & Israeli), except that there's nothing élite about criminality. The lies form a web of deceit that I refer to as the pushed-paradigm, trumpeted by the politicians (of both 'stripes' in our largely two party systems, noting that bipartisanship is itself deeply undemocratic), augmented by purchased 'talking heads,' transmitted by, even amplified by, the corrupt and venal corporate MSM - and, to their great shame, many publicly financed broadcasters like the AusBC & SBS; boo! Hiss! - Traitors all! Another clear-text: we the sheople® are being deliberately propagandised by our 'Establishments[2].' Outside of the Anglo-Judaic-sphere others copy or emulate - but they must in order to compete; a real-world case of bad-apples spoiling 'the game' for all. This is not what they teach us starting in kindergarten, hence the violated expectations.

Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four[4] brought us the concept of thought-crime, but what of ruling-élite-crime? It is an incontrovertible fact, that not only do the rich get richer, but in the last few years (I like to begin my history with the most ghastly of war crimes, namely the A-bombings, but the story is much longer); the rich have increased their depredations to extreme, ever-more obscene levels. (Again, the 'framing trap:' no, this is not 'the politics of envy,' just the facts.) I have heard rumblings, (falsely) asserting that the current financial crisis was somehow caused by some sort of 'leftist' forcing of impossible mortgages onto the unable to pay (NINJA; no income, no job), but recall the ever-present, filthy think-tank/Luntz-playbook style framing. No; it was the self-styled 'masters of the (financial) universe' that invented the latest Ponzi scheme now collapsing[3].

Q: What will it take?

We, those who can see, see a world dominated by crime, mostly originating in the US. Extreme wealth, concentrated in extremely few hands (so few as in the order of the Forbes 400, say), effectively controls the world via the warned-about M/I-plex. They control commerce and politics, and through them the sheople, mainly via lying-by-design, manipulative propaganda, with brutal force not far off. But it's gone wrong; more accurately perhaps, it was always wrong. The simplest way of seeing that it's wrong is that they try to hide it all behind lies, with threats escalating to actual, murdering violence ("Economic Hit Man," then see [5], brrr!) It's gone wrong with the murder-for-spoil wars, literally millions slaughtered. It's gone wrong with commerce, keyword 'economic rent.' It's gone wrong with finance, keyword 'sub-prime.' And horror of horrors, it's going wrong with our once jewel-like planet's ecosystem, quite literally our one and only life-line, keyword 'greedastrophe®.'

A: The people united will never be defeated. We will posit two types of people, those with us (we the sheople), and those agin' us. Along with the perpetrators are their paid minions, those betraying us for $s. For them, both the corruptors and the corrupted, crime obviously pays - at least, currently. Then what of the amateurs, those I term the erring ideologues?

We need to save the world - because it is exactly 'business as usual' that is crashing our systems. Phillip Adams suggests it's time for any and all who have contributed to the crash, also those who merely 'support' those doing the crashing, to change their tune.

I repeat (looping) Q: What will it take - to save the planet?

-=*end*=-

Ref(s):

[1] lie2 —n. 1 intentionally false statement (tell a lie). 2 something that deceives. —v. (lies, lied, lying) 1 tell a lie or lies. 2 (of a thing) be deceptive.  give the lie to show the falsity of (a supposition etc.). [Old English] [POD]

[2] establishment ... 6 (the Establishment) social group with authority or influence and resisting change. [ibid.]

[3] Most Serious Financial Crisis in World History
Grand Theft America.
Financial Crime of the Century
by Stephen Lendman
Global Research, September 29, 2008

  «... The result of unfettered capitalism's fatal flaw - unbridled greed in a rigged system that rewards the few at the expense of most others. First an explanation of how it works. Free-wheeling, "free market" Chicago School fundamentalism the way economist Milton Friedman championed it in his 1962 book "Capitalism and Freedom" and taught it to students for decades. He believed that government's sole function is "to protect our freedom both from (outside) enemies....and from our fellow-citizens." Preserve law and order. Enforce private contracts. Protect private property and "foster competitive (unregulated) markets." Everything else in public hands is "socialism....blasphemy." Not to be tolerated.»
[globalresearch/Lendman]

[4] How close does this come?

  «... has major significance for its vision of an all-knowing government which uses pervasive and constant surveillance of the populace, insidious and blatant propaganda, and brutal control over its citizens.»
[wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four]

My comment: the conscious manipulation of us, we the sheople, for nefarious and up to murderingly criminal purposes, constitutes an insurmountable affront to us, our democracies and the wider world.

Where are the adults?

-=*=-

[5] Then, a PS: Don't think 1984 is here? Try Lendman again:

  «...The 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade is for combat. It's not the National Guard or local police. It's trained for war. "Equipped to kill people" with potent weapons, and a last hurrah scheme may be planned to divert public attention from the financial crisis. A "terrorist" attack with "chemical, biological" or other dangerous weapons. A possible pretext for martial law at a time the administration and Congress are vulnerable. When people are angry about Washington protecting the privileged. Partnering with them in crime. Defrauding the public and stifling dissent. Moving one step closer to tyranny and away from silly notions about democracy. Proving crime indeed does pay and awfully well on Wall Street. "It's the economy, stupid." Theirs, not ours.»

information/psychological operations ...

 .. this is how they do 'em

-=*=-

The article in question was pointed out by/on ICH:

«Defense Dept. To Fund Pro-American Publicity In The Iraqi Media: The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300 million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to "engage and inspire" the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government.»

The link was not correct, so I searched for and found the item, published by WP:

«One official described how part of the program works: "There's a video piece produced by a contractor . . . showing a family being attacked by a group of bad guys, and their daughter being taken off. The message is: You've got to stand up against the enemy." The professionally produced vignette, he said, "is offered for airing on various [television] stations in Iraq. . . . They don't know that the originator of the content is the U.S. government. If they did, they would never run anything."

"If you asked most Iraqis," he said, "they would say, 'It came from the government, our own government.'"»

Propaganda is lies - must be lies, because if they were limited to telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, they'd never be able to convince even the most dumbed-down sheople® to 'support' their Nuremberg-class wars (murder for spoil.)

Why the 'rest of the West' allows/tolerates such vile US(+Israeli) criminality is beyond me. Where are the adults?

-=*=-

The US kleptocracy, in league with the Israeli kleptocracy, aided and abetted by the UK & Aus dittos (the wannabe hegemon, its illegal sprog and poodle with dag), have swindled and raped the world, not 'just' in their Nuremberg-class invasions/occupations, but also in the finance sphere, (see current voracious-greed based financial collapse) and equally voracious resource 'harvesting,' keyword 'economic rent.'

The invasion/occupation of Afghanistan should never have been allowed/tolerated; even though the US claimed it as 'hot pursuit,' we now know that it was a pre-prepared plan pursued under the cover of blind anger, the latter possibly even contrived. But the subsequent invasion/occupation of Iraq was known at the time to have no justification, apart from some criminal US 'strategic objectives,' aka murder for oil. All this is known, all this was/is/will remain illegal.

Now that the 'masters of the universe' have been exposed as the lying criminal frauds that they always were, in multiple fields of endeavour, and them having prepared then precipitated a financial crisis of possibly 1929-magnitude, we have the opportunity, one could say the necessity, of cutting the US loose. Dump the $US, set up a proper world-bank, a proper world-currency - at a single stroke removing the obscene US-deficits dragging us all down, and removing the US-gun at our heads - and then get on with saving the planet.

somebody spoke and ...

  .. I went into a dream …

    .. "Whatever it takes..."

-=*=-

Q: What will it take?

The sand in Afghanistan was, still is being, re-arranged.

They're winning in Iraq, so they say - but "they" are not the Iraqis, oh no. (Filthy lying thieves - murder for oil!)

The bailout has been passed by the US legislators, US$1Trio (more or less; most likely more, lots more) will be thrown at the horrendous mess actually created by the self-termed 'masters of the universe,' no-one knows a) how much we, the (generic, US & other) sheople® will eventually have to pay (yes have to, no democratic choice – bi-partisan anything is deeply undemocratic), or b) how much of the US$1Trio will be 'trousered' (filthy expression, ugh: spit!) - just how much of the US$1Trio will be 'trousered' by those very same 'masters of the universe.'

Alternatives were offered - mostly by the (now newly derogatory) 'lefty-bloggers' - but (and natch!) - nobody listened.

The greedastrophe® gathers pace; Rudd (amongst all other risibly so-called 'leaders') spouts BS and does nothing effective.

Sooo, Q: What will it take?

What will it take, to save our once jewel-like planet?

A: Nothing short of a total disaster - or so it looks like.

But, of course, that may be ju-u-ust that little bit too late.

-=*end*=-

Somebody spoke and I went into a dream

Ah, ar ar ar, ah-ah, aar-aa-aa

Dum, de dum, dumb, dumb - dumb!

I read the news today oh, boy ...

living off immoral earnings ...

  .. society based on 'rule of law' ...

    .. how realistic are your expectations

-=*=-

G'day Bob,

 .. following one'a your excellent links, i.e. the Lindorff:

  «With the Bush Administration, the two leading presidential candidates, and the Congressional leadership, as well as a phalanx of Wall Street lobbyists all pushing hard for a massive transfer of taxpayer money to the coffers of banks and investment banks, the American people need to demand a halt to this bums' rush to a bailout.»
[BobW/opednews/Dave Lindorff]

(I repeat (looping): note that in a 2-party system, any bipartisan policy leaves the voters with zero choice and so is deeply undemocratic.)

-=*=-

"Here and now, boys!" (Huxley, Island.)

Starting at the beginning is problematic[1] for at least two reasons, a) it means going back and (perhaps worse), b) how far back is far enough? Take the example of "The Big Bang," the furthest back we can go (evidence-based) is to the CMB (cosmic microwave background, T0+~310,000 years), but theoretically to within a few seconds or less (a bi-i-ig theoretical stretch) - and the closer you go, the less accurate.

If we go back to the beginning of any individual's life, we find that 'the slate is not clean,' there is always an existing background of laws and morality (even the putative 1st 'bad-apple thief' was told beforehand "Do not do this!" - or so I recall the 'story.' Haw!) That morality and law differ is no surprise; there is no agreement on morality (partly for lack of trying and corruption both), and any law is a man-made construct, therefore by definition imperfect (for some of the very same reasons, namely lack of trying and corruption both. Boo! Hiss!) Nevertheless, each person has their own beginning; it is the responsibility of the primary carers to 'do their best,' and society as a whole to support this process, everywhere. This in turn invokes a loop; the primary carers and society have to a) know their business and b) carry it out responsibly. This is clearly hardly ever the (current) case: fail! Fail!

We can posit a practical 1st rule: "Get it right the 1st time!" A corollary is "... because there may be (Murphy: guaranteed) - no 2nd chance." Of course this seems, is, obvious - when you think about it, but popular culture depends heavily on "Der, I didn't think!" - I suggest that it's time (long overdue) for some effective change, to get us (i.e. our Anglo/Judaic society) 'back on track;'

"No more of the same!"

-=*=-

"In heaven there is no beer, that's why we have to drink it here!" (German quasi-joke.) As for no beer in heaven, so no police in Utopia[2]. (No joke.) Sooo, what about in our distopia[3]? Try this:

  «The ignorant, uneducated masses outside the Party are not normally subjected to its propaganda: "They can be granted intellectual liberty because they have no intellect", and hence no impulse to rebel either. Party members, on the other hand, cannot be allowed any deviation of opinion whatsoever. The danger of growing liberalism or scepticism within the Party is eliminated by massive indoctrination and constant surveillance of every member. A Party member "is expected to have no private emotions and no respites from enthusiasm. He is supposed to live in a continuous frenzy of hatred of foreign enemies and internal traitors, triumph over victories, and self-abasement before the power and wisdom of the Party."

To safeguard the essential notions that Big Brother is omnipotent and the Party is infallible, history is constantly rewritten...»
[Nineteen Eighty-Four/The Book]

Rewriting of history occurs, the cynical victors' history. The most famous example, actually of course most infamous, is misrepresenting perhaps the largest single-item war crime ever, then stupefyingly doubled, namely the A-bombing, as having been somehow justifiable.

Before we leave dystopia, what we really have is an anti-utopia, a pretend-democracy - which is anything but.

Backing up a bit:

  «The first chapter, Ignorance is Strength, begins with the observation that throughout history, all societies have been divided into a caste system of three groups or classes: the High, who are the rulers; the Middle, who yearn to take over the position of the High; and the Low, who are typically so suppressed that in their drudgery they have no goals beyond day-to-day survival (if they are at all able to formulate any political agenda, it is to establish a society where all people are equal).»
[The Book, ibid.]

I quibble; me'n me mates do not wish to overthrow our putative 'rulers,' to man the barricades would be madness in the extreme - under the current regime(s), they'd more'n likely machine-gun us. Nor do I suffer from the filthily-framed 'wealth-envy,' it should be obvious that we're not talking penniless paupers here, nor do I dream of "a society where all people are equal," since equality under the law would do: one rule for all. But a bit more than 'just' fair rules - in fact, a whole lot more - universal justice and nothing-but-the-truth would not go at all astray:

"Fair go, ya mugs!"

-=*=-

Some things have changed; even though severely deprived, Orwell's 'proles' could be trusted not to rebel and were thus spared the state propaganda - our sheople® clearly are denied such a luxury. It seems that the current 'rulers' dare not trust the sheople with a 'free' vote; the sheople are not only immersed in the lying pushed-paradigm propaganda (Hollywood rubbish, venal MSM lies, these lies both transmitted via *and* augmented by the corrupt MSM - and even then more and worse, keyword Bernays), the sheople are denied any effective choice (Lib/Lab ugly twins in Aus, Repug/Dummos 'over there,') and no matter who gets elected, they (the putative representatives) do not properly represent us, we the sheople (their electors) anyway, rather the reps are in league with the (shadowy?) true rulers, variously referred to as the M/I-plex, MNCs or just 'the big end of town.' Recalling my recent discoveries, we have Ponerology & Pathocracy, then my old stand-by kleptocracy, and all the usual et ceteras.

One of the comments to the Lindorff article includes this:

  «A psychopath only thinks of themself. They don't care about all the chaos and destruction they cause. In fact, some of them FEED OFF the chaos, destruction, suffering, misery, death, poverty and illness they cause!

It's been proven by psychological research: Psychopaths actually get a buzz off of be-deviling [sic; bedevilling] those under them in power! They get a rush from harming others!

These guys are snakes in suits just like many politicians.

It's obvious they have a dark agenda because of the insistence to rush the legislation through.»

Sounds about right. Even the fact that politicians could be suspect is a shocker - but we know it's gone far beyond suspicion and on into actual, serious criminality - right up to murder for oil, say; 'the system' is not just 'slightly broken,' it's damn' near to if not actually terminal.

-=*=-

Some things have not changed; for our propaganda we have a modern MiniTrue, the corporate, corrupt and venal MSM - but not 'just,' the public broadcasters are in it too, *double* traitors. As already noted, our modern MiniTrue does not just conduit the lies, it often actively augments them. MiniPeace is out'a control, see murder for oil in Iraq, no honour there. MiniPlenty has been down-sized, out-sourced, sent off-shore. Like the spiteful 'junior spies' reporting to the thought-police/MiniLove, we have erring ideologue 'pushed paradigm' apologists, appeasers (a lot'a bad 'A's[5]) and then out-and-out blog-terrorists, aka utterly despicable, filthy, lying trolls.

Backing up to the psychopaths, and Ponerology & Pathocracy. Here is some of it:

  «There are basic facts that all people of conscience need to grasp, fast. 6% of any given population are born genetic psychopaths. But then why do some fall under their spell and other not? The vast majority of 'paths remain undetected as they manipulate and plunder their way through human relationships consuming our emotional and financial energy. In this sense, they are 'successful'. They insinuate themselves into networks throughout society by sharp observance of our behaviour and mimic/act to get what they want: power over others - in fact, the pinnacle of achievement for a psychopath is TOTAL AND RUTHLESS DOMINANCE OVER 'THE OTHER'.

Political Ponerology expands this dynamic out onto the societal scale to explain that periodically a concentration of psychopaths (thanks to negative selection - think 'Old Boys' Network' taken to its extreme) coalesces 'at the top' to form a 'Pathocracy' wherein 100% of key positions of a state are run by people who have a permanent and incurable deficit in their worldview.»
[from a comment on a BobW/alternet/Naomi Wolf article]

-=*=-

Fazit: Power is fully half of the problem; misuse is the other. Power delegated must be responsible; no taxation without (proper!) representation. Power is delegated under a 'social contract,' force may only be deployed in support of the social contract, not - as with Bush&Co, actually against the very people who put them there (supposedly; doesn't help if the elections themselves are corrupted.) That psychopaths have infiltrated the 'leadership,' so widely and corruptly, must now a) be stopped and then b) prevented for all time. It's no good to talk about 'law and order' unless it goes for the entire population; one set of laws, applied to rulers and ruled alike.

We can make a start by identifying lies and liars, criminals and their 'A' retinues[5], and start lockin' 'em all up.

No destroyers, neither liars nor psychopaths nor any in between should go unpunished.

Oh, yeah; and no bailout for already obscenely rich fat-cats.

-=*end*=- (but don't miss [5])

Ref(s):

[1] problematic adj. (also problematical) attended by difficulty; doubtful or questionable.  problematically adv. [Greek: related to *problem] [POD]

[2] Utopia n. imagined perfect place or state of things.  Utopian adj. (also utopian). [ibid.]

[3] Distopia (actually, dystopia[4]) - a real or imagined society that is totally dysfunctional to its citizens, e.g. the society pictured in 1984, Doomsday Forecast - A forecast where a future catastrophe is the focal issue.
[mnfuturists/FuturistDictionary]

Comment: I think there are two entries run together here. Serendipity? Nope; (bad!) karma? Prolaby®.

[4] dystopia

  «A dystopia (from the Greek d?s- and t?p??, alternatively, cacotopia, kakotopia, cackotopia, or anti-utopia) is the vision of a society that is the opposite of utopia. A dystopian society is a state in which the conditions of life are miserable, characterized by human misery, poverty, oppression, violence, disease, and/or pollution.

Some academic circles distinguish between anti-utopia and dystopia. As in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, a dystopia does not pretend to be utopian, while an anti-utopia appears to be utopian or was intended to be so, but a fatal flaw or other factor has destroyed or twisted the intended utopian world or concept.»
[wiki/Dystopia]

[5] Some real bad 'A's: actual criminals, i.e. active perpetrators, then accomplices, accessories, appeasers, apologists ...

Q: Any more bad 'A's?

A: Yes, the finance market smart-As, the ones who created this sub-prime mess in the 1st place. I saw this problem coming, although I didn't fully realise it at the time. I posed this Q to a mate of mine: "How can this be sustainable?" The finance market smart-As have built a bubble on consumer/household debt, at the same time as depressing the wages - and 'market share' of consumer/household income (the difference having been confiscated by the already rich fat-cats). What happens, I asked,

Q: When the consumers/households get maxed-out on credit - and run out of 'spending' money?

A: The whole consumer/household market house of cards will - must collapse.

Sooo, even if some bail-out does go ahead, that'll only be shuffling the deck-chairs; the toxic debt may be moved from one place to another (and in any case is only one half of the problem) - since the deficit of demand will - must only get deeper.

Wham! 1929 here we come.

A Parthian Shot.

We have been seeing a surge of activity from pro-Zionist elements recently - and again. The usual routine, ie., demonise a certain person and state with misrepresentations, distortions and outright lies. The same tactics are used to defend against charges of Israel's crimes.

A retiring Israeli prime minister has fired some shots at much those described in the preceding paragraph promote and defend. From an interview in the New York Times:

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview published on Monday that Israel must withdraw from nearly all of the West Bank as well as East Jerusalem to attain peace with the Palestinians and that any occupied land it held onto would have to be exchanged for the same quantity of Israeli territory.

And:

He also dismissed as “megalomania” any thought that Israel would or should attack Iran on its own to stop it from developing nuclear weapons, saying the international community and not Israel alone was charged with handling the issue.

Try this:

He said that maintaining sovereignty over an undivided Jerusalem, Israel’s official policy, would involve bringing 270,000 Palestinians inside Israel’s security barrier. It would mean a continuing risk of terrorist attacks against civilians like those carried out this year by Jerusalem Palestinian residents with front-end loaders.

“A decision has to be made,” he said. “This decision is difficult, terrible, a decision that contradicts our natural instincts, our innermost desires, our collective memories, the prayers of the Jewish people for 2,000 years.”

The government’s public stand on Jerusalem until now has been to assert that the status of the city was not under discussion. But Mr. Olmert made clear that the eastern, predominantly Arab, sector had to be yielded “with special solutions” for the holy sites.

Fair's fair:

On peace with the Palestinians, Mr. Olmert said in the interview: “We face the need to decide but are not willing to tell ourselves, yes, this is what we have to do. We have to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, the meaning of which is that in practice we will withdraw from almost all the territories, if not all the territories. We will leave a percentage of these territories in our hands, but will have to give the Palestinians a similar percentage, because without that there will be no peace.”

The reaction has already started. Expect outrage and outrageous comments and not a little hysteria and histrionics. I caution some to be careful lest they hurt themselves in their excesses. It might even be entertaining to watch them in action.

Whether it has any larger impact is yet to be seen.

woke up, fell out'a bed ...

  .. dragged a comb across my head ...

    .. turned the radio on: shock! Horror!

-=*=-

The Dummos are caving in - as forecast, adding their milquetoast caveats.

The $US700bio is practically jumping straight into the Beagle Boys' pockets.

It's hard to imagine a bigger failure - except for a 1929-style crash and following depression, which so far we just don't have.

Sure, there's turbulence in the FIRE sector (finance, insurance, real estate), but that has hardly impacted the day-to-day sheople®, although the threat of superannuation funds 'evaporating' probably is biting. The sheople actually expect the stock market to crash every so often - that's an easy one, because that's exactly what happens. More shock, horror, and note a word now often deployed in conjunction with the current crisis: bet.

But: the markets were obviously defective - because why else would the neoliberals have deregulated them?

The deregulated markets allowed fraud to bloom, stealing from the cash-flow and enriching the clever-dick 'masters of the (finance) universe.'

Note: the now deregulated markets are also obviously defective - proof is the current crisis.

Q: how would you like your markets next? A: The markets, deregulated and regulated both, failed. The fact that markets crash, whatever their regulatory status, is - um, err - rather telling, eh? That pretty-well removes 'the market' argument, like toadally. Sooo, where (the bloody hell) is their ideology?

The proposed solution is to steal even more, this time direct from the sheople - $US700bio or so (final bill nowhere near in sight); goodly percentages of which will go straight to the same (criminal!) 'masters of the (finance) universe.'

And most probably (like night follows day), the Dummos will be blamed; it's the old-style wedge, damned etc.

-=*=-

Monday, September 22, 2008
For The Record
I called it first.
-Atrios 23:19
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_09_21_archive.html#8905305475796506073

And Because It's So Obvious
If the Democrats pass this piece of shit, look for Republican challengers to run against them on it.
-Atrios 15:23
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_09_21_archive.html#6220077789091439706

Smack Down
09.22.08 -- 7:45PM By Josh Marshall
I think Kos, Digby and Kilgore have this about right. The Republican/McCain plan is to get the Democrats to bail out the GOP's Wall Street friends and then run against them for doing it.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/218880.php

A New Deployment.

Despite being overstretched a US Army combat brigade is being deployed to a new front - the US. There might be some justification in this as the Bush Administration is a criminal organisation and has made the US a rogue state. However, the deployment is being made by ... the Bush Administration. And it is an "enduring" assignment. Coverage is in this Glenn Greenwald article.

Several bloggers today have pointed to this obviously disturbing article from Army Times, which announces that "beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st [Brigade Combat Team] will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North" -- "the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities."

...

For more than 100 years -- since the end of the Civil War -- deployment of the U.S. military inside the U.S. has been prohibited under The Posse Comitatus Act (the only exceptions being that the National Guard and Coast Guard are exempted, and use of the military on an emergency ad hoc basis is permitted, such as what happened after Hurricane Katrina). Though there have been some erosions of this prohibition over the last several decades (most perniciously to allow the use of the military to work with law enforcement agencies in the "War on Drugs"), the bright line ban on using the U.S. military as a standing law enforcement force inside the U.S. has been more or less honored -- until now. And as the Army Times notes, once this particular brigade completes its one-year assignment, "expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one."

From the Jeff Stein article:

It’s amazing what you can find if you turn over a few rocks in the anti-terrorism legislation Congress approved during the election season.

Take, for example, the John W. Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2006, named for the longtime Armed Services Committee chairman from Virginia.

Signed by President Bush on Oct. 17, the law (PL 109-364) has a provocative provision called “Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies.”

The thrust of it seems to be about giving the federal government a far stronger hand in coordinating responses to Katrina-like disasters.

But on closer inspection, its language also alters the two-centuries-old Insurrection Act, which Congress passed in 1807 to limit the president’s power to deploy troops within the United States.

That law has long allowed the president to mobilize troops only “to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”

But the amended law takes the cuffs off.

Specifically, the new language adds “natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident” to the list of conditions permitting the President to take over local authority — particularly “if domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order.”

Since the administration broadened what constitutes “conspiracy” in its definition of enemy combatants — anyone who “has purposely and materially supported hostilities against the United States,” in the language of the Military Commissions Act (PL 109-366) — critics say it’s a formula for executive branch mischief.

Yet despite such a radical turn, the new law garnered little dissent, or even attention, on the Hill.

One of the few to complain, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., warned that the measure virtually invites the White House to declare federal martial law.

It “subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law,” he said in remarks submitted to the Congressional Record on Sept. 29.

“The changes to the Insurrection Act will allow the President to use the military, including the National Guard, to carry out law enforcement activities without the consent of a governor,” he said.

Moreover, he said, it breaks a long, fundamental tradition of federal restraint.

“Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy.”

Nothing unusual in Bush disregarding the Constitution.

So what is the rationale? We saw a hint perhaps in the activities of law enforcement agencies before and during the Republican convention, as detailed previously. Could the Administration expect a higher level of public unrest, say in the wake of the elections? Or worse? There might be reasins for unrest if the election result does not seem to reflect opinion polls - and they are swinging in favour of Obama. But they have ways - and lots of new ones.

Bobby: "There are about 30 scams the Republicans are deliberately using, particularly in the swing states to get Democratic voters off the rolls. These scams originate in the so-called Help America Vote Act which was passed after the Florida debacle in the year 2000. It was originally suggested by Democrats and Republicans but it was passed by a Republican congress with a Republican senate and a Republican president. And instead of reforming what happened in Florida it basically institutionalized all the problems that happened in Florida. And institutionalized a series of impediments that make it very difficult for Democrats to register, for Democrats to vote and then for Democrats to have their vote counted.

Some people might not be impressed and want to voice their objections. But would they get very far?

Not forgetting the bailout - wherein the Administration wants to hand over a shipload of taxpayers' money to, at best, reckless fat-cats, and without accountability. A note - some have referred to this as "financial socialism", but think on who is to get the benefit and recall Mussolini also bailed out Capital. Perhaps the wrong "ism" is being used. And if you put together all we have seen over the past nearly eight years ...

Time to recall the words of Thomas Jefferson:

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is
wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts
they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,
it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...
And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not
warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure."

The time has come.