Re-Post from 3/28/11
Obama is a political gamesman. He lied his way into power.
Now he is determined to do and say anything to ensure a second term in 2012. That is his priority. His focus. His limited character.
Human needs and rights of others? Not so important.
Peace and a sensibility of the common good for this country and the globe seem permanently off the table for him. I am not talking about say-anything lip service about things humanitarian. I mean actual recognition and action. A true sense of responsibility as a fellow human being with the power to make change yes we could have believed in. Responsibility? The ability to respond? He hasn’t got it. At least in a moral way.
William Blum on Obama:
"... Barack Obama is not bothered by anything as long as he can exult in being the president of the United States, eat his hamburgers, and play his basketball. Let me repeat once again what I first wrote in May 2009:
"The problem, I'm increasingly afraid, is that the man doesn't really believe strongly in anything, certainly not in controversial areas. He learned a long time ago how to take positions that avoid controversy, how to express opinions without clearly taking sides, how to talk eloquently without actually saying anything, how to leave his listeners' heads filled with stirring clichés, platitudes, and slogans. And it worked. Oh how it worked! What could happen now, having reached the presidency of the United States, to induce him to change his style?"
"Remember that in his own book, "The Audacity of Hope", Obama wrote: "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.""
"Obama is a product of marketing. He is the prime example of the product "As seen on TV"."
Maybe if it were pragmatically politically useful to him, Obama might just give altruism a go. But that ain’t gonna happen. The ruling class elite is not about altruism and Obama’s political ambitions have been fulfilled thanks to their mentorship. He will, of course, continue to pretzel himself for their continuing support.
Obama also knows he needs to counterpoint all those idiots who incredibly still think he is a liberal. Led by Rush Limbaugh, the Koch brothers, et al. Must list further and further to the right to futilely coax the irrationally uncoaxable to a recognition of his ever escalating disdain for the needs of the average citizens and especially of the poor.
You might want to ponder that quote, Barack, by Groucho about the wisdom of only wanting to belong to a club that won’t have you as a member.
Obama perceives he must act tough about US foreign policy. Thus he will. It is called "reaction formation." Of course that is well worth lives lost or devastated to him. Thousands of lives. Hundreds of thousands. The posturing for 2012 is all.
The bloody irony that Obama ran as the anti-war President is a colossal insult to all of us so disenfranchised today, the people of conscience whom Cindy Sheehan describes as “lost in the wilderness of integrity.” (By the way, Hillary Clinton is certainly proving that a woman in a leadership position can be just as coldly militaristic and amorally game-playing as any man. Nice counter-pointing yourself, Hill. Hope it is worth it to you, all the gratuitous death, to prove you are no girlie woman!)
Arthur Silber expressed some rage for all of us recently. He describes us as a “nation led by blood-guzzling, flesh eating pigfuckers.”
I too feel such rage at the KILL KILL KILL, our only tool is a hammer then everything is a nail, gotta destroy the village to save it, violent military industrial security complex corporate-pimped monster that our leadership Pavlovianly answers to every time, that devours a minimal $500 million a week isn’t that what Kucinich estimates for its wars?
Hey, there are 330 million Americans. What if instead of fighting one little week we have a 7-day moratorium and each of us Americans gets one of those $500 million? Please please please? Just for that one week can’t we use the money for ourselves and not to bomb the shit out of fellow human beings and watch so many of our own young people get maimed or killed to promote corporate interests? Just for a week, guys ... and gals? Seven short days? Or, okay, maybe just give that money out to the people instead of bombing them? See where that gets us? Not money to their corrupt leaders. But to them! How novel would that be?
Sorry!!! I know, I know. What am I thinking???? That is just CRAZY talk, isn’t it?
That money must go into the mission creep addiction of spreading global death and destruction, again, using our overly-trusting, unfoundedly patriotic young people to sacrifice their lives and sanity to commit homicide for profits for corporations. I know. We need the oil. Blood for oil. A trade the leadership is willing to make for our own good, right?
It is the American Way. IT IS THE AMERICAN WAY!!!!
I guess for half a sec those fools who gave Obama that Peace Prize thought they could nudge him into a different direction. As well as the millions who hit the pavement for him in 2008. How wrong so many of us were. Charles Ferguson said on Tavis Smiley recently that Obama has singlehandedly wiped out American idealism for a generation or two. Way to go, Barack. What a bunch of optimistic wimps we all were apparently in your eyes. You really pulled the biggest fast one in American history, I’d say. You are so shameless you are beyond acknowledging your flip-floppiness. Colossal flip-floppiness. You did tell us you adored Reagan. Big clue, I admit. Many of us were lazy liberals led by a disinforming media.
This is America. Where lying to win is more than okay. It gets you big hugs from Oprah and a media just as pimped by the corporate overlords as the politicians who took oaths to represent our needs.
As for the Bush-era Dems now so thoroughly lobotomized to moral sensibility that they defend this President and his war-mongering, his assumption of the right to assassinate citizens, to authorize and defend torture of a soldier whistleblower of war crimes, toss out our right to due process, and are busily rallying against those bad ol’ evil-er tea partiers, I am still at a loss. Is being on a “winning team” or never having to admit you were wrong that irrationally strong for them?
More and more when I click on the tv I brace myself and know I am going to be “played.” I crave certain websites and commentators whom I am learning to trust on the net. I wonder how long before that plug will be pulled on us, or the honest ones eliminated?
We’ve got our death squads in most countries in the world. Why not our own? How much more patience will the fascist regime have in citizens speaking out like this? I guess the status quo is so strong for now, such objections based on morality are just crazy talk. Naive crazy talk.
The fast hardening of soft fascism seems to be happening with little conscious struggle among the masses. A big ol’ amiable smile and a Democrat in name only at the helm is all that is required as our constitutional republic becomes toast.
There is a provocative quote from one of the most haunting pieces of science fiction (novel and movie) by Ray Bradury, Fahrenheit 451. It offers a glimmer of hope for those calling out for morality.
Some day the load we're carrying with us may help someone. But even when we had the books on hand, a long time ago, we didn't use what we got out of them. We went right on insulting the dead. We went right on spitting in the graves of all the poor ones who died before us. We're going to meet a lot of lonely people in the next week and the next month and the next year. And when they ask us what we're doing, you can say, We're remembering. That's where we'll win out in the long run. And some day we'll remember so much that we'll build the biggest goddamn steam-shovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up. Come on now, we're going to go build a mirror-factory first and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them."
Let me repeat:
... we'll build the biggest goddamn steam-shovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up.
Jim Quinn also offers this comment on his website about Fahrenheit 451.
Montag is stalked by the Mechanical Hound throughout the book. It was programmed to hunt down Montag and lethally inject him with poison. Bradbury didn't know it, but he had described an early version of a predator drone. Today, a man can sit in front of his computer in the Pentagon and direct an unmanned predator drone to fire missiles at "enemies" without faces, halfway around the world. No danger, no consequences, no responsibility. The American public blindly believes the state is protecting them by murdering "enemies of the state". They will think differently when predator drones circle the skies above their towns seeking out "domestic terrorists" and non-conformists.
As I type this Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates are on a replay of Meet the Press congratulating themselves on the humanitarian intervention. Spin time. War for peace. Oxymoronic and evil. Hillary Clinton talking about the war crimes of Gaddafi. Robert Gates saying the hammer isn’t the only tool in our tool box. Mirror, anyone?
Tell me, David Gregory. What is the Obama doctrine coming up after the commercial? I'd say "the say anything big con."
--------------
What you say is true and awful and seemingly inexorable. The entire world is in a precarious state, economically, intellectually, politically, financially, ecologically, emotionally, morally and whatever else comes to mind. Voting as an exercise of ineffective protest hasn't a snowball in hell's chance of deterring total catastrophe. Do I dig a hole in a small remaining wilderness and stock it with canned goods, rice and dried beans or simply give up and commit some form of comfortable suicide to miss the worst?
To move a step beyond the general despair over the leaders of the world and especially the current leaders in the USA from both political parties and all the powerful private areas, the current population of the USA is suffering terrible to the horror of the average citizen and the joy of the ultra wealthy because of the massive transfer of current wealth and power ti the extremely small number of those in control. This "victory" of those manipulating all social levers is massively rotting, not only the local situation and social structures, but the health and welfare of the entire world. All of those in control have children and their children are expected to have children and, at least this moment indicates, there is no other world fit for human life. The total intellect of these controllers are "cleverly" destroying the future for their descendents' existence, not to speak of the existence of other humans and a massive amount of life on Earth in general. The devastating stupidity, not to speak of the soulless brutality of their policies is an indication that the species is committing suicide.
Jan, I believe in ants moving rubber tree plants, and little trains that can. I know, too, things are dire. I literally put my modest money on Green Party's Jill Stein. I'm waiting for her to crack the media sound barrier. The media is pretty defiant of letting in non-corporate citizen candidates, especially presidential ones, even suggesting that there are any competent ones out there or any people who don't drop into the Obama or Romney camp, but Stein has stamina, charisma and a steadily growing grassroots following. Stein against the MACHINES of media and corrupt corporate legacy parties' cronyism. Against the mighty matrix. She's for People, Peace and Planet and she means it. Her grace, intelligence and savvy will out. I know time is ticking fast but I'm thinking she may be an October surprise but maybe in August! I get accused of negativity but I have nothing but positives to say about Stein. best, libby
"You might want to ponder that quote, Barack, by Groucho about the wisdom of only wanting to belong to a club that won’t have you as a member."
That's something I never understood with Obama (or with anyone for that matter) . Why is he so eager to win the approval of those who are against him? If someone doesn't like me I don't care, I just avoid them and take care of those who do like me.
Why do so many ego-maniacs have insecurity complexes?
Jan's comment is on the money, the people calling the shots are not leaving a future for their children. Why do people assume because someone is wealthy or powerful they're intelligent. There are a bunch of dumb wackos running everything, being heartless is not the same as being smart.
I'm not commiting suicide, I'm staying to see the rest of the show.
That's something I never understood with Obama (or with anyone for that matter) . Why is he so eager to win the approval of those who are against him? If someone doesn't like me I don't care, I just avoid them and take care of those who do like me.
Why do so many ego-maniacs have insecurity complexes?
Jan's comment is on the money, the people calling the shots are not leaving a future for their children. Why do people assume because someone is wealthy or powerful they're intelligent. There are a bunch of dumb wackos running everything, being heartless is not the same as being smart.
I'm not commiting suicide, I'm staying to see the rest of the show.
Jan and Bleue, :-) thanks for commenting!
I just was looking over an old article by Matt Taibbi:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27499.htm
Taibbi: Why Isn't Wall Street In Jail?
"Criminal justice, as it pertains to the Goldmans and Morgan Stanleys of the world, is not adversarial combat, with cops and crooks duking it out in interrogation rooms and courthouses. Instead, it's a cocktail party between friends and colleagues who from month to month and year to year are constantly switching sides and trading hats. At the Hilton conference, regulators and banker-lawyers rubbed elbows during a series of speeches and panel discussions, away from the rabble. ...
snip
"As for President Obama, what is there to be said? Goldman Sachs was his number-one private campaign contributor. He put a Citigroup executive in charge of his economic transition team, and he just named an executive of JP Morgan Chase, the proud owner of $7.7 million in Chase stock, his new chief of staff. "The betrayal that this represents by Obama to everybody is just — we're not ready to believe it," says Budde, a classmate of the president from their Columbia days. "He's really fucking us over like that? Really? That's really a JP Morgan guy, really?""
"Which is not to say that the Obama era has meant an end to law enforcement. On the contrary: In the past few years, the administration has allocated massive amounts of federal resources to catching wrongdoers — of a certain type. Last year, the government deported 393,000 people, at a cost of $5 billion. Since 2007, felony immigration prosecutions along the Mexican border have surged 77 percent; nonfelony prosecutions by 259 percent. In Ohio last month, a single mother was caught lying about where she lived to put her kids into a better school district; the judge in the case tried to sentence her to 10 days in jail for fraud, declaring that letting her go free would "demean the seriousness" of the offenses."
"So there you have it. Illegal immigrants: 393,000. Lying moms: one. Bankers: zero. The math makes sense only because the politics are so obvious. You want to win elections, you bang on the jailable class. You build prisons and fill them with people for selling dime bags and stealing CD players. But for stealing a billion dollars? For fraud that puts a million people into foreclosure? Pass. It's not a crime. Prison is too harsh. Get them to say they're sorry, and move on. Oh, wait — let's not even make them say they're sorry. That's too mean; let's just give them a piece of paper with a government stamp on it, officially clearing them of the need to apologize, and make them pay a fine instead. But don't make them pay it out of their own pockets, and don't ask them to give back the money they stole. In fact, let them profit from their collective crimes, to the tune of a record $135 billion in pay and benefits last year. What's next? Taxpayer-funded massages for every Wall Street executive guilty of fraud?"
snip
"The mental stumbling block, for most Americans, is that financial crimes don't feel real; you don't see the culprits waving guns in liquor stores or dragging coeds into bushes. But these frauds are worse than common robberies. They're crimes of intellectual choice, made by people who are already rich and who have every conceivable social advantage, acting on a simple, cynical calculation: Let's steal whatever we can, then dare the victims to find the juice to reclaim their money through a captive bureaucracy. They're attacking the very definition of property — which, after all, depends in part on a legal system that defends everyone's claims of ownership equally. When that definition becomes tenuous or conditional — when the state simply gives up on the notion of justice — this whole American Dream thing recedes even further from reality."
end of quote
OBAMA WON'T DRAIN THE SWAMP, NOT EVEN A MOLECULE. IT IS HIS ELEMENT. DO WE REALLY HAVE TO ENDURE ANOTHER ELECTION CYCLE OF CROOKS AND LIARS REPRESENTING AND ENABLING EITHER CORRUPT LEGACY PARTY?
As for the willingness to trash the planet beyond recovery, and we are now at that place of irrevocability, addicts just don't care. And these are greed-power addicts. And as I learned the hard way growing up in an alcoholic family, the enablers of addicts help them prolong and even esclate their destructiveness by not detaching from them and finding sane alternatives. Realizing their own power. They become locked in "reaction-only" and won't detach. Won't say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! The answer to dealing with a rigged game is not to play on their terms. How many of the 80 million who voted for Obama are willing to ENABLE him to a second term of more betrayal, distracted every now and then by a good sounding Trojan Horse of a policy that we all know will help the 1 percent and screw the 99% in actuality? To enable a down and dirty betraying Dem Party and corporate media now playing the "sky is falling" re Romney (who is also disgusting), when as Glen Ford says amoral Obama et al are making the role of the rat bastard Republicans obsolete or redundant in dismantling social justice and perpetrating economic and military terrorism.
best, libby
I just was looking over an old article by Matt Taibbi:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27499.htm
Taibbi: Why Isn't Wall Street In Jail?
"Criminal justice, as it pertains to the Goldmans and Morgan Stanleys of the world, is not adversarial combat, with cops and crooks duking it out in interrogation rooms and courthouses. Instead, it's a cocktail party between friends and colleagues who from month to month and year to year are constantly switching sides and trading hats. At the Hilton conference, regulators and banker-lawyers rubbed elbows during a series of speeches and panel discussions, away from the rabble. ...
snip
"As for President Obama, what is there to be said? Goldman Sachs was his number-one private campaign contributor. He put a Citigroup executive in charge of his economic transition team, and he just named an executive of JP Morgan Chase, the proud owner of $7.7 million in Chase stock, his new chief of staff. "The betrayal that this represents by Obama to everybody is just — we're not ready to believe it," says Budde, a classmate of the president from their Columbia days. "He's really fucking us over like that? Really? That's really a JP Morgan guy, really?""
"Which is not to say that the Obama era has meant an end to law enforcement. On the contrary: In the past few years, the administration has allocated massive amounts of federal resources to catching wrongdoers — of a certain type. Last year, the government deported 393,000 people, at a cost of $5 billion. Since 2007, felony immigration prosecutions along the Mexican border have surged 77 percent; nonfelony prosecutions by 259 percent. In Ohio last month, a single mother was caught lying about where she lived to put her kids into a better school district; the judge in the case tried to sentence her to 10 days in jail for fraud, declaring that letting her go free would "demean the seriousness" of the offenses."
"So there you have it. Illegal immigrants: 393,000. Lying moms: one. Bankers: zero. The math makes sense only because the politics are so obvious. You want to win elections, you bang on the jailable class. You build prisons and fill them with people for selling dime bags and stealing CD players. But for stealing a billion dollars? For fraud that puts a million people into foreclosure? Pass. It's not a crime. Prison is too harsh. Get them to say they're sorry, and move on. Oh, wait — let's not even make them say they're sorry. That's too mean; let's just give them a piece of paper with a government stamp on it, officially clearing them of the need to apologize, and make them pay a fine instead. But don't make them pay it out of their own pockets, and don't ask them to give back the money they stole. In fact, let them profit from their collective crimes, to the tune of a record $135 billion in pay and benefits last year. What's next? Taxpayer-funded massages for every Wall Street executive guilty of fraud?"
snip
"The mental stumbling block, for most Americans, is that financial crimes don't feel real; you don't see the culprits waving guns in liquor stores or dragging coeds into bushes. But these frauds are worse than common robberies. They're crimes of intellectual choice, made by people who are already rich and who have every conceivable social advantage, acting on a simple, cynical calculation: Let's steal whatever we can, then dare the victims to find the juice to reclaim their money through a captive bureaucracy. They're attacking the very definition of property — which, after all, depends in part on a legal system that defends everyone's claims of ownership equally. When that definition becomes tenuous or conditional — when the state simply gives up on the notion of justice — this whole American Dream thing recedes even further from reality."
end of quote
OBAMA WON'T DRAIN THE SWAMP, NOT EVEN A MOLECULE. IT IS HIS ELEMENT. DO WE REALLY HAVE TO ENDURE ANOTHER ELECTION CYCLE OF CROOKS AND LIARS REPRESENTING AND ENABLING EITHER CORRUPT LEGACY PARTY?
As for the willingness to trash the planet beyond recovery, and we are now at that place of irrevocability, addicts just don't care. And these are greed-power addicts. And as I learned the hard way growing up in an alcoholic family, the enablers of addicts help them prolong and even esclate their destructiveness by not detaching from them and finding sane alternatives. Realizing their own power. They become locked in "reaction-only" and won't detach. Won't say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! The answer to dealing with a rigged game is not to play on their terms. How many of the 80 million who voted for Obama are willing to ENABLE him to a second term of more betrayal, distracted every now and then by a good sounding Trojan Horse of a policy that we all know will help the 1 percent and screw the 99% in actuality? To enable a down and dirty betraying Dem Party and corporate media now playing the "sky is falling" re Romney (who is also disgusting), when as Glen Ford says amoral Obama et al are making the role of the rat bastard Republicans obsolete or redundant in dismantling social justice and perpetrating economic and military terrorism.
best, libby
really really interesting and thought provoking... hmm
The illusion that Obama is really a good guy trying to tame the maniacs and bring everybody on board in hearty good humor to steer the ship of state to good government with everybody having a beer together seems to have weird hypnotic staying power. The way he is stamping on the basic rights held by the Constitution, his enthusiasm for assassination and undeclared wars and sustaining a manic and idiotically brutal and unaffordable (and obviously unsuccessful) military, his dumping untold amounts of public wealth into the pockets of his Wall Street gangsters on the possibility they will divert a precious bit into his campaign coffers, all this and more seem to have no effect on the religiously entranced sector of liberals who place all their hope in him despite his open moves towards totalitarianism. It's over the brink we go!
Hayley! Good to see ya! thanks for dropping by!
Jan, I'm thinking waging a war with Iran might not be too much for someone disconnected from a moral compass in order to win an election! Reagan and Nixon were willing to play games with people's lives, the Iran hostage crisis and with Nixon VietNam citizens, so they could slide into place. Obama is on a war criminal roll.
This I wrote in a recent blog on Obama's steady and methodical criminalizing of dissent:
"We are a nation of laws. More and more we are a nation of anti-citizen laws imposed by constitutional-law-discarding fascists in Democratic and Republican clothing. Most significant are the monumental and obscene selling-out Democratic Party leaders and their media enablers hypocritically trying to fog out the horror of what is happening.
Obama REAUTHORIZED the Patriot Act of 2001 which has given our fascist leadership what they consider a blank check (an illegitimate one) to do ALL THE UNCONSCIONABLE ACTIONS IT WANTS.
This from Jemima Pierre at Black Agenda Report:
http://blackagendareport.com/content/when-it-looks-and-feels-totalitarianism…
"... we have seen assaults on our dignity, our human rights and ability to protest. These assaults now come from multiple fronts and contain diverse tactics. And they affect us all. We see examples in the local and federal militarized response to the Occupy Wall Street movements, the deployment of drones domestically by city governments, universities, private contractors, and local police (see domestic drone authorization map here), and we see how the Obama administration has waged an all out war against whistleblowers by using the archaic World War I era Espionage Act, prosecuting more people than all other presidents combined."
"More importantly, there is what the Washington Post last year called the “National Security Enterprise” that depends on “854,000 civil servants, military personnel and private contractors with top-security clearances,” and whose major work is domestic surveillance to curtail dissent. The unprecedented $1.5 billion, almost 1 million square feet National Security Agency data center (or “Spy Center”) that is being built in Utah, is to work both as a bottomless database for all information on all Americans, and as a remote interrogation center."
end of Pierre quote
"The US government is breaking moral law all over the globe with its military MISADVENTURES. It bullshits about humanitarian intent but look at who ends up governing in said destabilized countries (destabilized with lotsa help from you know who) and which oppressive governments the US is perfectly content to enable. A cabal of international bullies."
"We are at the mercy of a government that is committing war crimes now at warp speed."
"We are reduced to looking outward at the world and thinking, “Wow, safer to be within U.S. borders than without.” Cold and temporary comfort. If you happen to live in the Middle East or Africa, especially now, you or your nearest and dearest can get incinerated or maimed in a New York second just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Tidily zapped to red mist by some callow kid at a joy stick in Nevada. Labelled insurgent if your death makes it to any US media, though that is unlikely. Labelled a “bug splat” by whoever is behind the drone killing console screen."
This from Pierre:
"With all of this, it is clear that, even though it seems to only be concerned with international wars and other misadventures, the US government is preparing for domestic insurrection. And it has done so by unleashing the structures of totalitarianism, as it seeks to regulate our actions through mass surveillance, fear, and threats of repression. (For how else can we understand the recent purchase by the Department of Homeland Security of nearly 500 million rounds of ultra-deadly hollow-point bullets and 40 caliber ammo, as well as a large number of semi-portable steel checkpoint guardhouses, complete with high-impact bulletproof glass windows and doors?)"
end of Pierre quote
"People are actually saying on these faux-progressive MSNBC shows that once Obama is safely in place for a second term, he will finally feel safe enough to be the softer, more liberal, more empathetic and responsive to citizen suffering, REAL Obama."
"Really?"
"There’s an East River bridge in New York I’d like to sell them."
"By the way, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein just released a video and statement declaring she will pardon Bradley Manning when elected."
"LISTENING BARACK? Of course you are. Well, not you exactly. Creepily, your surveillance apparati is listening."
"Dr. Stein is pitting her conscience against the unconscionable anti-American and anti-global-citizens activities of the Obama administration and our mass-murderous government."
"Who’s back should we have? Obama’s or Stein’s? I choose Stein’s. The more of us who take that stance the safer Stein and all of us daring to protest will be."
"Obama being cute on Jimmy Fallon? What Obama is doing behind all the cronied celeb media propaganda is not cute. It is destroying democracy. It must be stopped."
"Are we waiting for corporate media to give us permission to take this all seriously? That ain't gonna happen. The clock is ticking. The slippery slide to fascism is pretty much complete."
"Our nation must be saved. We can do it if enough of us face down REALITY, a reality evident right out there in the open. A reality that profoundly and dizzyingly repels, granted. A reality that awaits our exercising our responsibility as citizens. Responsibility a/k/a the “ability to respond.”"
"By the way, the audacity was never of hope. It was the audacity of evil."
best, libby
Jan, I'm thinking waging a war with Iran might not be too much for someone disconnected from a moral compass in order to win an election! Reagan and Nixon were willing to play games with people's lives, the Iran hostage crisis and with Nixon VietNam citizens, so they could slide into place. Obama is on a war criminal roll.
This I wrote in a recent blog on Obama's steady and methodical criminalizing of dissent:
"We are a nation of laws. More and more we are a nation of anti-citizen laws imposed by constitutional-law-discarding fascists in Democratic and Republican clothing. Most significant are the monumental and obscene selling-out Democratic Party leaders and their media enablers hypocritically trying to fog out the horror of what is happening.
Obama REAUTHORIZED the Patriot Act of 2001 which has given our fascist leadership what they consider a blank check (an illegitimate one) to do ALL THE UNCONSCIONABLE ACTIONS IT WANTS.
This from Jemima Pierre at Black Agenda Report:
http://blackagendareport.com/content/when-it-looks-and-feels-totalitarianism…
"... we have seen assaults on our dignity, our human rights and ability to protest. These assaults now come from multiple fronts and contain diverse tactics. And they affect us all. We see examples in the local and federal militarized response to the Occupy Wall Street movements, the deployment of drones domestically by city governments, universities, private contractors, and local police (see domestic drone authorization map here), and we see how the Obama administration has waged an all out war against whistleblowers by using the archaic World War I era Espionage Act, prosecuting more people than all other presidents combined."
"More importantly, there is what the Washington Post last year called the “National Security Enterprise” that depends on “854,000 civil servants, military personnel and private contractors with top-security clearances,” and whose major work is domestic surveillance to curtail dissent. The unprecedented $1.5 billion, almost 1 million square feet National Security Agency data center (or “Spy Center”) that is being built in Utah, is to work both as a bottomless database for all information on all Americans, and as a remote interrogation center."
end of Pierre quote
"The US government is breaking moral law all over the globe with its military MISADVENTURES. It bullshits about humanitarian intent but look at who ends up governing in said destabilized countries (destabilized with lotsa help from you know who) and which oppressive governments the US is perfectly content to enable. A cabal of international bullies."
"We are at the mercy of a government that is committing war crimes now at warp speed."
"We are reduced to looking outward at the world and thinking, “Wow, safer to be within U.S. borders than without.” Cold and temporary comfort. If you happen to live in the Middle East or Africa, especially now, you or your nearest and dearest can get incinerated or maimed in a New York second just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Tidily zapped to red mist by some callow kid at a joy stick in Nevada. Labelled insurgent if your death makes it to any US media, though that is unlikely. Labelled a “bug splat” by whoever is behind the drone killing console screen."
This from Pierre:
"With all of this, it is clear that, even though it seems to only be concerned with international wars and other misadventures, the US government is preparing for domestic insurrection. And it has done so by unleashing the structures of totalitarianism, as it seeks to regulate our actions through mass surveillance, fear, and threats of repression. (For how else can we understand the recent purchase by the Department of Homeland Security of nearly 500 million rounds of ultra-deadly hollow-point bullets and 40 caliber ammo, as well as a large number of semi-portable steel checkpoint guardhouses, complete with high-impact bulletproof glass windows and doors?)"
end of Pierre quote
"People are actually saying on these faux-progressive MSNBC shows that once Obama is safely in place for a second term, he will finally feel safe enough to be the softer, more liberal, more empathetic and responsive to citizen suffering, REAL Obama."
"Really?"
"There’s an East River bridge in New York I’d like to sell them."
"By the way, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein just released a video and statement declaring she will pardon Bradley Manning when elected."
"LISTENING BARACK? Of course you are. Well, not you exactly. Creepily, your surveillance apparati is listening."
"Dr. Stein is pitting her conscience against the unconscionable anti-American and anti-global-citizens activities of the Obama administration and our mass-murderous government."
"Who’s back should we have? Obama’s or Stein’s? I choose Stein’s. The more of us who take that stance the safer Stein and all of us daring to protest will be."
"Obama being cute on Jimmy Fallon? What Obama is doing behind all the cronied celeb media propaganda is not cute. It is destroying democracy. It must be stopped."
"Are we waiting for corporate media to give us permission to take this all seriously? That ain't gonna happen. The clock is ticking. The slippery slide to fascism is pretty much complete."
"Our nation must be saved. We can do it if enough of us face down REALITY, a reality evident right out there in the open. A reality that profoundly and dizzyingly repels, granted. A reality that awaits our exercising our responsibility as citizens. Responsibility a/k/a the “ability to respond.”"
"By the way, the audacity was never of hope. It was the audacity of evil."
best, libby
A long time ago someone proposed that if everybody in the USA screamed at a particular hour, minute and second it would make the loudest protest world would ever hear and when the precise moment arrived everybody opened their windows and just listened.
Both traditional parties and the present administration offer NO HOPE for REGULATION or TRANSPARENCY. The media kabuki drama and propaganda of faux-progress just enable the economic gang rapes to continue. The declarations that the citizens must sacrifice more and more to enable the trickling-up of tax-money and debt usury interest is INSULTING AND MOLESTING!
The “inside job” of continuing fraud can not be stopped from the inside. The insiders are the ones who perpetrated it. Glass Steagall, again, was put in place so another 1929-type crash would not happen. The country wasn’t broken economically when it was repealed. But the bastards of the universe, smartest guys and gals in the room presumably, well, the most amoral at least, decided to pretend to "fix" the country by breaking it (removing Glass Steagall) for short term obscene profit-making. They and their seduced government officials and academics have brought hell down on the heads of Americans and the rest of the globe, for that matter.
We have and have had laws that honored justice, values and ethics. We have and have had non-sell out representatives and business-people and academics who were committed to the common good. We need to enable them and/or get them back into power.
We need to recognize just how betrayed we are and have been and exactly by whom!
libby
The “inside job” of continuing fraud can not be stopped from the inside. The insiders are the ones who perpetrated it. Glass Steagall, again, was put in place so another 1929-type crash would not happen. The country wasn’t broken economically when it was repealed. But the bastards of the universe, smartest guys and gals in the room presumably, well, the most amoral at least, decided to pretend to "fix" the country by breaking it (removing Glass Steagall) for short term obscene profit-making. They and their seduced government officials and academics have brought hell down on the heads of Americans and the rest of the globe, for that matter.
We have and have had laws that honored justice, values and ethics. We have and have had non-sell out representatives and business-people and academics who were committed to the common good. We need to enable them and/or get them back into power.
We need to recognize just how betrayed we are and have been and exactly by whom!
libby
Libby, I am totally with you and Jan in the issue that there is a global loss of truth, morality, concerning ρoliticians, who ".. congratulate themselves ..'', no matter what. I think that without the fear of jail time if they harm the ρeoρle, no good can be done. Running a state, is a work, and if one can not do it, then go home or go jail, I think, but as long as they make the laws, I do not think that they will law against themselves. As always, Libby, this was such an interesting learning and reading, rated!
Jan -- interesting and so very human, that scenario, sadly. is that part of what is called the bystander effect? remember when that woman was stabbed in the street in nyc and none of the witnesses lifted a finger to help. when group members begin to look around for leadership of the group, it is not a good sign. homeless people soliciting money are more successful asking someone walking along alone than those in a group who look about to see if anyone else will make the move to offer money and if no one does they don't. Same is true for someone felled by an accident or an attack from a criminal. Step back and let others respond or scurry away within the crowd.
I know when I was passing out election day flyers I had so many people tell me that not enough people were voting Green to win so why would they. If all the people who maintain that they won't vote Green because others won't vote Green the Greens could win. Waiting for the other guy to go first? Everybody waiting. Learned helplessness for sure. And the media certainly plays on group think and peer pressure! Sigh.
best, libby
I know when I was passing out election day flyers I had so many people tell me that not enough people were voting Green to win so why would they. If all the people who maintain that they won't vote Green because others won't vote Green the Greens could win. Waiting for the other guy to go first? Everybody waiting. Learned helplessness for sure. And the media certainly plays on group think and peer pressure! Sigh.
best, libby
Stathi, once again, thanks for your vital spirit and wisdom! appreciated! yes, with NO accountability and the bullshit that the economic gangsters will be fine without regulation the mass fraud and extortion will increase. The non-one percent across the globe will be victims of the escalating obscene corruption. I appreciate what you write:
"I think that without the fear of jail time if they harm the ρeoρle, no good can be done. Running a state, is a work, and if one can not do it, then go home or go jail, I think, but as long as they make the laws, I do not think that they will law against themselves."
It was a bad sign early on when Obama did nothing about the Bush regime crimes. Crickets about torture and rendition, unwarranted wiretaps, etc. It was foreshadowing that he intended to commit his own crimes along with continuing many of Bush's. He did.
you take care! best, libby
"I think that without the fear of jail time if they harm the ρeoρle, no good can be done. Running a state, is a work, and if one can not do it, then go home or go jail, I think, but as long as they make the laws, I do not think that they will law against themselves."
It was a bad sign early on when Obama did nothing about the Bush regime crimes. Crickets about torture and rendition, unwarranted wiretaps, etc. It was foreshadowing that he intended to commit his own crimes along with continuing many of Bush's. He did.
you take care! best, libby
You are right in so many ways. Our system is wrong and broken...So I ask you, could any one fix it? There is a lot of salt for every wound, evil grains of salt $$$.
This is powerful stuff, Libby. Regarding the notion that Obama will somehow transform himself into our previous idealized notion of him after reelection, not only is such a metamorphosis highly unlikely, I don't even know what it would embody. Obama has indeed set American idealism back by many years. If Mister Hopey-Changey can't turn things around, who can? There are no other such transformational figures anywhere on the horizon (excepting Jill Stein, as you say, but she's not a Democrat and will certainly be silenced by the MSM). For now, the very notions of "hope" and "change" are discredited.
Rated.
Rated.
Well, with your wonderful support, I hope you celebrate when RMoney becomes President, ends abortion and Planned Parenthood, throws all Jews into Mormon re-education camps and makes the One Percent our overlords.
Let me make this clear: Obama is the only hope this country currently has. He isn't your ideal antiwar candidate, but then, nobody pushing that agenda was even considered by the Democrats. That issue wasn't made essential to Americans who found other agendas more important, like stopping Sarah Palin from becoming Emperess-God of the former United States. And most certainly, if there had been such a candidate, nobody spoke up for him or her.
Republicans have become hardened, believing that compromise with any other beliefs is a sin against their God, Mammon. It's important to recognize that there are people on the Left who also have that doctrinaire hard-heartedness.
Let me make this clear: Obama is the only hope this country currently has. He isn't your ideal antiwar candidate, but then, nobody pushing that agenda was even considered by the Democrats. That issue wasn't made essential to Americans who found other agendas more important, like stopping Sarah Palin from becoming Emperess-God of the former United States. And most certainly, if there had been such a candidate, nobody spoke up for him or her.
Republicans have become hardened, believing that compromise with any other beliefs is a sin against their God, Mammon. It's important to recognize that there are people on the Left who also have that doctrinaire hard-heartedness.
Perhaps the great alignment as begun again. Or perhaps it never left. I think I would like to hear Alan's take on Petro Dollars. There is no place to run from this. Who IS our President? He is full of sound and puffery. I think it matters not who is at the helm. The ship is called Titanic. The band is playing and the iceberg is in the path.
There are too many of us with diverse "me firsts". The congress is all about themselves and their places on committees. The DC group thinks like Royalty. Their are entitled to health care, security, pay raises, the best seat in the house....and they are fiddling while we are burning.
For the first time in my life, I am so disheartened with the government that I cannot imagine going to the polls. I will have to vote for Romney, just to get Obama back to Chicago. After four years of nothing, he will retire to a life of lectures, book sales, grand parties and honor. We will pay for his protection and his care.
Do we reward those in the private sector for nothing? I do not expect a great leader to come forward...the back room dealers always win. It is the way things are done.
There are too many of us with diverse "me firsts". The congress is all about themselves and their places on committees. The DC group thinks like Royalty. Their are entitled to health care, security, pay raises, the best seat in the house....and they are fiddling while we are burning.
For the first time in my life, I am so disheartened with the government that I cannot imagine going to the polls. I will have to vote for Romney, just to get Obama back to Chicago. After four years of nothing, he will retire to a life of lectures, book sales, grand parties and honor. We will pay for his protection and his care.
Do we reward those in the private sector for nothing? I do not expect a great leader to come forward...the back room dealers always win. It is the way things are done.
I believe you may be confused as to the meaning and content of Groucho Marx’s quote regarding organizations and membership.
According to most resources, Groucho Marx resigned from the Friars Club. When he was asked, in a letter, why he wanted to resign, according to his son Arthur, he replied, in a letter, “Because I do not want to belong to any club that would have me as a Member.”
This understanding, of NOT wanting to belong to a group because they Would have you as a member, is significantly different that you trying to paint the comment as meaning, “I want to belong to a club, that won’t have me as a member.”
Very significantly different, indeed.
According to most resources, Groucho Marx resigned from the Friars Club. When he was asked, in a letter, why he wanted to resign, according to his son Arthur, he replied, in a letter, “Because I do not want to belong to any club that would have me as a Member.”
This understanding, of NOT wanting to belong to a group because they Would have you as a member, is significantly different that you trying to paint the comment as meaning, “I want to belong to a club, that won’t have me as a member.”
Very significantly different, indeed.
tg within -- nice to see you. Yes, Jill Stein could. She is for People, Peace and Planet. The two legacy parties are not for ANY of these.
People complain about the money, and yet Jill Stein refuses to take corporate money and the citizens won't take her seriously. She is friggen doing the honorable thing!!! Why not reward her? Why not believe in her. Not just play "ain't it awful" about political corruption but as citizens don't move your vote away from the amoral ones. I don't get it.
When she debated Romney in MA for governor she mopped the floor with him. The newspapers said she was the only grown up in the room. Please, let us get a decent grown up and not an ego-driven arrested development amoral child with the reins of power! That seems what the corporate overlords and the media and the legacy party operatives vet and approve of for us. For their humongous advantage and our tragic loss.
Obama is suddenly very concerned about how hard it is for all of us with all those tax breaks for the rich out there. Wow, music to people's ears? Time to play Lucy and the football with the American people, that he has our back. Bull shit. How many times does he get to betray? Election posturing. He is shameless. He will promise and then he will deliver the goods to his corporate pimps.
Dear God. He and Congress gave away so much for so little when you think of the zillions going into the pockets of the rat bastard profits uber alles evil ones.
Bloomberg in NYC is starting a campaign to build REALLY small apartments -- cells -- that young people can afford in NYC. Think about it. Yeah, that is the ticket Mikey ... instead of getting wages higher and getting people their stolen money back. You talk of building those cheap cells for citizens who are fighting not to be homeless. What a guy. Really BIG of you after you have given your cronies so many financial breaks it is obscene. Oh, and keep turning your back on the homeless and poor, you, what, 13th wealthiest man in the world who is empathy-challenged?
Just because the corporate media isn't singing Jill Stein's praises, people can google Stein and hear about her send her a few bucks. How passive have we become we only believe what comes out of the boob tube.
People who have obscene amounts of money must be intelligent? NOT. Most of them are unscrupulous.
The cronyism of the evil has captured this country. Let's not enable that cronyism with ours is my thinking!
best, libby
People complain about the money, and yet Jill Stein refuses to take corporate money and the citizens won't take her seriously. She is friggen doing the honorable thing!!! Why not reward her? Why not believe in her. Not just play "ain't it awful" about political corruption but as citizens don't move your vote away from the amoral ones. I don't get it.
When she debated Romney in MA for governor she mopped the floor with him. The newspapers said she was the only grown up in the room. Please, let us get a decent grown up and not an ego-driven arrested development amoral child with the reins of power! That seems what the corporate overlords and the media and the legacy party operatives vet and approve of for us. For their humongous advantage and our tragic loss.
Obama is suddenly very concerned about how hard it is for all of us with all those tax breaks for the rich out there. Wow, music to people's ears? Time to play Lucy and the football with the American people, that he has our back. Bull shit. How many times does he get to betray? Election posturing. He is shameless. He will promise and then he will deliver the goods to his corporate pimps.
Dear God. He and Congress gave away so much for so little when you think of the zillions going into the pockets of the rat bastard profits uber alles evil ones.
Bloomberg in NYC is starting a campaign to build REALLY small apartments -- cells -- that young people can afford in NYC. Think about it. Yeah, that is the ticket Mikey ... instead of getting wages higher and getting people their stolen money back. You talk of building those cheap cells for citizens who are fighting not to be homeless. What a guy. Really BIG of you after you have given your cronies so many financial breaks it is obscene. Oh, and keep turning your back on the homeless and poor, you, what, 13th wealthiest man in the world who is empathy-challenged?
Just because the corporate media isn't singing Jill Stein's praises, people can google Stein and hear about her send her a few bucks. How passive have we become we only believe what comes out of the boob tube.
People who have obscene amounts of money must be intelligent? NOT. Most of them are unscrupulous.
The cronyism of the evil has captured this country. Let's not enable that cronyism with ours is my thinking!
best, libby
Alan, nice to see you!!! Thanks!!! Obama is not on the right side of history. He has proven that countless times, as the list of 218 reasons not to vote for Obama reveals with astonishing linked evidence.
Jill Stein is out there traveling the country. She is enemy number one of the corporatists and the corporate media overlords and the legacy party RICH operatives and they are really happy that passive citizens are so "winner take all" gamesmanship cynical. She is an advocate for PEOPLE, PLEASE AND PLANET. Too pie in the sky for the too cool for school giver uppers, the new breed of cowardly American settlers?
They don't see life as a Frank Capra movie and they won't make a move apparently to DO THE FRIGGEN RIGHT THING. Playing right into the hands of the "lesser evil" advocates, which is bullshit. That is not as good as it gets. "Lesser evil" is not lesser! Not by a long shot!!! We do have a choice. Come out of the stupor. That is what the overlords want us to say, that we must hold our noses and settle, that we are stuck. To divide up with each other and bond with corrupt them.
If we pay taxes we are all accessories to mass murder under Obama. To mass fraud. To mass racism given the obscene levels of incarceration particularly of blacks in America. I could go on and on and on.
Alan, Jill Stein doesn't have to be silenced by the MSM. We need to play the grassroots card, the communication card, the funding card. To support her, talk her up, send her what modest donation we can. I know what the media did with universal health care. They buried it and its time had come. They intend to do the same time with Jill. It doesn't have to be that way.
I look back and I realize what a shame it was Nader didn't win back in 2000. I know that statement will enrage people, but looking back, God, he told us so. What reality was. People still hate him as messenger, some! Those political parties were corrupt beyond imagination back then (look at the bipartisan collusion to dismantle Glass Steagall and what it begat. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out the doom it would bring. The pols stripped us of our economic protections. We were all slow to get it because we trusted our "representatives" were representing us. How wrong were we.)
It was Ralph who said that both parties had sold us out royally. He was right. Ralph wouldn't crony up with the big boys. And he was not invited to the debates (where he could have illuminated the vast amounts of bullshit).
What did we learn from that? Don't let a real humane citizen candidate near the government? No, that is the wrong lesson. The government is corrupt and the insiders can't fix it. Let's get a really strong, smart, decent and COMPETENT person in the role of president.
Jefferson said the price of democracy is eternal vigilance. We dropped the ball, but let's be proactive and vigilant now. We need to save our country. We have a collective voice. We got snookered by Obama. Don't keep on enabling. Find an alternative that resonates for your spiritual, economic and philosophical beliefs and needs!!! Why does the media get to decide our elections?
My take. To me there is no other seriously moral choice!
best, libby
Jill Stein is out there traveling the country. She is enemy number one of the corporatists and the corporate media overlords and the legacy party RICH operatives and they are really happy that passive citizens are so "winner take all" gamesmanship cynical. She is an advocate for PEOPLE, PLEASE AND PLANET. Too pie in the sky for the too cool for school giver uppers, the new breed of cowardly American settlers?
They don't see life as a Frank Capra movie and they won't make a move apparently to DO THE FRIGGEN RIGHT THING. Playing right into the hands of the "lesser evil" advocates, which is bullshit. That is not as good as it gets. "Lesser evil" is not lesser! Not by a long shot!!! We do have a choice. Come out of the stupor. That is what the overlords want us to say, that we must hold our noses and settle, that we are stuck. To divide up with each other and bond with corrupt them.
If we pay taxes we are all accessories to mass murder under Obama. To mass fraud. To mass racism given the obscene levels of incarceration particularly of blacks in America. I could go on and on and on.
Alan, Jill Stein doesn't have to be silenced by the MSM. We need to play the grassroots card, the communication card, the funding card. To support her, talk her up, send her what modest donation we can. I know what the media did with universal health care. They buried it and its time had come. They intend to do the same time with Jill. It doesn't have to be that way.
I look back and I realize what a shame it was Nader didn't win back in 2000. I know that statement will enrage people, but looking back, God, he told us so. What reality was. People still hate him as messenger, some! Those political parties were corrupt beyond imagination back then (look at the bipartisan collusion to dismantle Glass Steagall and what it begat. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out the doom it would bring. The pols stripped us of our economic protections. We were all slow to get it because we trusted our "representatives" were representing us. How wrong were we.)
It was Ralph who said that both parties had sold us out royally. He was right. Ralph wouldn't crony up with the big boys. And he was not invited to the debates (where he could have illuminated the vast amounts of bullshit).
What did we learn from that? Don't let a real humane citizen candidate near the government? No, that is the wrong lesson. The government is corrupt and the insiders can't fix it. Let's get a really strong, smart, decent and COMPETENT person in the role of president.
Jefferson said the price of democracy is eternal vigilance. We dropped the ball, but let's be proactive and vigilant now. We need to save our country. We have a collective voice. We got snookered by Obama. Don't keep on enabling. Find an alternative that resonates for your spiritual, economic and philosophical beliefs and needs!!! Why does the media get to decide our elections?
My take. To me there is no other seriously moral choice!
best, libby
neutron,
So I don't hear you convincing me that Obama is a moral and effective leader. Just put that focus on Romney, eh?
I am not advocating Romney and if he wins how dare you blame me when I am offering an alternative of Jill Stein. Turn your back on the messengers or a brutal reality but later down the pike BLAME the messengers or don't even wait -- do it now!!! the people of conscience working to save our democracy.
Jill Stein says that both of the legacy parties are like ships sinking. In some people's eyes the Dem ship is sinking slower with Obama at the helm than it would with a Republican. It is still sinking.
Obama set up the scaffolding for fascism with the NDAA, with assassination program, with trashing due process. Why did he do that? Not out of the goodness of his heart. No one has given an encouraging explanation of that horrifying Obama decision-making and the fact that so many can avoid and ignore and deny that is unbelievable!!!
You say Romney will make the one percent our overlords? What the hell do you think has been going on. Look at Obama's best friends forever. They are the one percent deregulators and war mongers. 80 million people voted Obama in to make a difference and as far as I can see he bought his little sled to the slippery slope of fascism. He should be impeached not re-elected!
Don't let MSNBC hypnotize you to the vast betrayal of Obama along with the other two branches of our government. There are no white and black hats here. They are all black hats.
I'm confused. Are you calling the people of conscience on the left who want to end war and economic terrorism hard-hearted????
best, libby
So I don't hear you convincing me that Obama is a moral and effective leader. Just put that focus on Romney, eh?
I am not advocating Romney and if he wins how dare you blame me when I am offering an alternative of Jill Stein. Turn your back on the messengers or a brutal reality but later down the pike BLAME the messengers or don't even wait -- do it now!!! the people of conscience working to save our democracy.
Jill Stein says that both of the legacy parties are like ships sinking. In some people's eyes the Dem ship is sinking slower with Obama at the helm than it would with a Republican. It is still sinking.
Obama set up the scaffolding for fascism with the NDAA, with assassination program, with trashing due process. Why did he do that? Not out of the goodness of his heart. No one has given an encouraging explanation of that horrifying Obama decision-making and the fact that so many can avoid and ignore and deny that is unbelievable!!!
You say Romney will make the one percent our overlords? What the hell do you think has been going on. Look at Obama's best friends forever. They are the one percent deregulators and war mongers. 80 million people voted Obama in to make a difference and as far as I can see he bought his little sled to the slippery slope of fascism. He should be impeached not re-elected!
Don't let MSNBC hypnotize you to the vast betrayal of Obama along with the other two branches of our government. There are no white and black hats here. They are all black hats.
I'm confused. Are you calling the people of conscience on the left who want to end war and economic terrorism hard-hearted????
best, libby
Ande, it honestly saddens me that you will vote for Romney instead of Jill Stein. But I agree, Obama needs to be sent packing back to Chicago. He is the American Judas.
I disagree when you write:
"I think it matters not who is at the helm. The ship is called Titanic. The band is playing and the iceberg is in the path."
One person, a small group of committed people, Ande, can make a difference as Margaret Mead said. Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness Bishop Sheen used to say. Look at the devastation a small group of people -- the evil neocons -- begat. now they are joined up with the neo-libs to do even worse. We need to counterpoint them with decency.
The corporate media, the boob tube, is their most effective tool. They got a lot of eloquent wolves in corporate-paid-sheep's clothing telling us we only have two choices for our leadership and side with Obama. What a bunch of wimps we are if we go on after so much evidence of evil -- buying into it. Eating their shit and smiling!!!
We need to rally around Jill Stein. We need to organize. There are so many of us. We were all so very naive. The first step of the 12-step program is to admit how unmanageable one's life, one's world is. That reality assessment is a tough one but it is the beginning. Better to face it than minimize it or deny it. Then one can begin the climb up to recovery. One step at a time.
You say:
"There are too many of us with diverse "me firsts". The congress is all about themselves and their places on committees. The DC group thinks like Royalty. Their are entitled to health care, security, pay raises, the best seat in the house....and they are fiddling while we are burning."
But you sound like you are identifying with the Congress when you say there are too many of us with diverse me-first. We vs they. They are the one percent, they are not only protecting the one percent. It is easy for them to protect them because they have become one percenters by paying off their pimps and themselves so very well. Like the mouthpieces for the one percent on the tube -- they too have become the one percent. We need to start giving attention to the 99 percenters. There are a lot of smart and decent ones. Energy follows attention. We must take a lesson from the enablers of addicts and do the opposite, we must stop rewarding the power-greed addicts by not keeping our eyes only on them and what they are doing and being bullshat by their media enablers. We need to DETACH from their evil and confusing manipulations and recklessness and build a better life and world.
We are not the "me first" congresspeople. We need to be advocates for each other in this country and advocates for the people getting killed and maimed IN OUR NAME AND WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS in other countries. Those Congress people in their Gucci loafers with their ideal health care plans for themselves and their families FOR LIFE who vote themselves raises and have proven they only care about continuing their stay at the national trough, enjoying their power and fame, and to hell with what they were put there to do!!!
Scott Peck said there is a battle constantly going on between good and evil. Sometimes the evil make themselves sound like they are the good or the lesser evil. We get snookered. But then we resume the fight not give it all up.
Thanks for commenting!
best, libby
xxxx
For the first time in my life, I am so disheartened with the government that I cannot imagine going to the polls. I will have to vote for Romney, just to get Obama back to Chicago. After four years of nothing, he will retire to a life of lectures, book sales, grand parties and honor. We will pay for his protection and his care.
Do we reward those in the private sector for nothing? I do not expect a great leader to come forward...the back room dealers always win. It is the way things are done.
I disagree when you write:
"I think it matters not who is at the helm. The ship is called Titanic. The band is playing and the iceberg is in the path."
One person, a small group of committed people, Ande, can make a difference as Margaret Mead said. Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness Bishop Sheen used to say. Look at the devastation a small group of people -- the evil neocons -- begat. now they are joined up with the neo-libs to do even worse. We need to counterpoint them with decency.
The corporate media, the boob tube, is their most effective tool. They got a lot of eloquent wolves in corporate-paid-sheep's clothing telling us we only have two choices for our leadership and side with Obama. What a bunch of wimps we are if we go on after so much evidence of evil -- buying into it. Eating their shit and smiling!!!
We need to rally around Jill Stein. We need to organize. There are so many of us. We were all so very naive. The first step of the 12-step program is to admit how unmanageable one's life, one's world is. That reality assessment is a tough one but it is the beginning. Better to face it than minimize it or deny it. Then one can begin the climb up to recovery. One step at a time.
You say:
"There are too many of us with diverse "me firsts". The congress is all about themselves and their places on committees. The DC group thinks like Royalty. Their are entitled to health care, security, pay raises, the best seat in the house....and they are fiddling while we are burning."
But you sound like you are identifying with the Congress when you say there are too many of us with diverse me-first. We vs they. They are the one percent, they are not only protecting the one percent. It is easy for them to protect them because they have become one percenters by paying off their pimps and themselves so very well. Like the mouthpieces for the one percent on the tube -- they too have become the one percent. We need to start giving attention to the 99 percenters. There are a lot of smart and decent ones. Energy follows attention. We must take a lesson from the enablers of addicts and do the opposite, we must stop rewarding the power-greed addicts by not keeping our eyes only on them and what they are doing and being bullshat by their media enablers. We need to DETACH from their evil and confusing manipulations and recklessness and build a better life and world.
We are not the "me first" congresspeople. We need to be advocates for each other in this country and advocates for the people getting killed and maimed IN OUR NAME AND WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS in other countries. Those Congress people in their Gucci loafers with their ideal health care plans for themselves and their families FOR LIFE who vote themselves raises and have proven they only care about continuing their stay at the national trough, enjoying their power and fame, and to hell with what they were put there to do!!!
Scott Peck said there is a battle constantly going on between good and evil. Sometimes the evil make themselves sound like they are the good or the lesser evil. We get snookered. But then we resume the fight not give it all up.
Thanks for commenting!
best, libby
xxxx
For the first time in my life, I am so disheartened with the government that I cannot imagine going to the polls. I will have to vote for Romney, just to get Obama back to Chicago. After four years of nothing, he will retire to a life of lectures, book sales, grand parties and honor. We will pay for his protection and his care.
Do we reward those in the private sector for nothing? I do not expect a great leader to come forward...the back room dealers always win. It is the way things are done.
DH, you write:
"I believe you may be confused as to the meaning and content of Groucho Marx’s quote regarding organizations and membership.
According to most resources, Groucho Marx resigned from the Friars Club. When he was asked, in a letter, why he wanted to resign, according to his son Arthur, he replied, in a letter, “Because I do not want to belong to any club that would have me as a Member.”"
Thanks for the elaboration. Okay, I get you, but it still works with even more creepiness your way.
Obama does not want to belong to the likes of non-elite minorities of which he was one and still is in some cases. Who are willing to embrace him as significant member and spokesperson for them. Which, by the way, got him elected. Snookering them was useful for him before throwing them under the bus.
Obama is repelled by the very people one would hope he would advocate for and be empathetic toward given his own background and experience. He is like the nouveau riche who can be super snobs to those who illuminate where they have so recently come from. Grandiosity and self-hate operating within him and causing him to push away from people who deserve so much better from him or any one. It is rather chilling imho!
You know, Hitler's father felt so crazed because he had a small part Jewish ancestry and felt so much shame about that, that Hitler when he came to power aimed his rage at destroying Jewish people because he was projecting outward that learned self-hate and obsessive shame from his father. Read Alice Miller's book For Your Own Good about what happened with Hitler and Germany.
best, libby
"I believe you may be confused as to the meaning and content of Groucho Marx’s quote regarding organizations and membership.
According to most resources, Groucho Marx resigned from the Friars Club. When he was asked, in a letter, why he wanted to resign, according to his son Arthur, he replied, in a letter, “Because I do not want to belong to any club that would have me as a Member.”"
Thanks for the elaboration. Okay, I get you, but it still works with even more creepiness your way.
Obama does not want to belong to the likes of non-elite minorities of which he was one and still is in some cases. Who are willing to embrace him as significant member and spokesperson for them. Which, by the way, got him elected. Snookering them was useful for him before throwing them under the bus.
Obama is repelled by the very people one would hope he would advocate for and be empathetic toward given his own background and experience. He is like the nouveau riche who can be super snobs to those who illuminate where they have so recently come from. Grandiosity and self-hate operating within him and causing him to push away from people who deserve so much better from him or any one. It is rather chilling imho!
You know, Hitler's father felt so crazed because he had a small part Jewish ancestry and felt so much shame about that, that Hitler when he came to power aimed his rage at destroying Jewish people because he was projecting outward that learned self-hate and obsessive shame from his father. Read Alice Miller's book For Your Own Good about what happened with Hitler and Germany.
best, libby
I have been thinking a lot about Obama and Hillary and why they behave the way they do. Politicians - like ordinary people - lie and cover stuff up because they are acting from a position of weakness. People who come from a position of strength don't have to lie.
I have also been thinking more and more why Hillary always sounds like a fish wife when she warns Pakistan, Russia or China about stepping on US toes. Women come across all shrill and shrewish when they have no real power. Today I read an interesting article in the Australia business press (which I will re-post this weekend) about Russia's relative economic (they are virtually debt free) and military strength in contrast to NATO. It's fascinating stuff you would never read in the US press.
I have also been thinking more and more why Hillary always sounds like a fish wife when she warns Pakistan, Russia or China about stepping on US toes. Women come across all shrill and shrewish when they have no real power. Today I read an interesting article in the Australia business press (which I will re-post this weekend) about Russia's relative economic (they are virtually debt free) and military strength in contrast to NATO. It's fascinating stuff you would never read in the US press.
Ms. NYC, you said, I'm confused. Are you calling the people of conscience on the left who want to end war and economic terrorism hard-hearted????
In a word, yes. You are upset because Obama is not your ideal candidate. But he's the only candidate that the Democrats have. In case you haven't been aware of politics in what we call Reality, there are only Democratic and Republican candidates. This Jill Stein isn't running for the Democratic nomination against Obama, is she?
Oh, she's a Third Party candidate, or what's known as a Voter Drain. She can stand on her soapbox and offer her plans for things that appeal to hard-headed doctrinaire people - yes, like you! - and make you feel good about throwing your vote away. And Romney's legions will do that much better against Obama, your only real choice.
And you missed the main point. This Jill Masterson or whoever is stating her opinions, but she isn't talking to a lot of voters. She's talking to your crowd. She hasn't found any issue that drives people or points them to a better day. If she had, she would have been visible in a lot more places than an Open Salon post.
She isn't Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And neither is Obama, but at least Obama isn't a religious fanatic and a rapacious businessman. Since you're apparently too obsessed by perfection, and don't want to "vote for the lesser of two evils," I suggest you vote for Cthulhu.
In a word, yes. You are upset because Obama is not your ideal candidate. But he's the only candidate that the Democrats have. In case you haven't been aware of politics in what we call Reality, there are only Democratic and Republican candidates. This Jill Stein isn't running for the Democratic nomination against Obama, is she?
Oh, she's a Third Party candidate, or what's known as a Voter Drain. She can stand on her soapbox and offer her plans for things that appeal to hard-headed doctrinaire people - yes, like you! - and make you feel good about throwing your vote away. And Romney's legions will do that much better against Obama, your only real choice.
And you missed the main point. This Jill Masterson or whoever is stating her opinions, but she isn't talking to a lot of voters. She's talking to your crowd. She hasn't found any issue that drives people or points them to a better day. If she had, she would have been visible in a lot more places than an Open Salon post.
She isn't Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And neither is Obama, but at least Obama isn't a religious fanatic and a rapacious businessman. Since you're apparently too obsessed by perfection, and don't want to "vote for the lesser of two evils," I suggest you vote for Cthulhu.
Seems the children can't imagine the horror (the alternative) of life without sugar-popsicle A or saccharine-popsicle B. Evolution, revolution, call it what you will, what's patently evident in the so-called, amerikan "electoral process", is that the two party system is beyond dead. Everyone smells the stench, even the party players (of every race, faith, gender, creed, and color, rich, or poor) themselves...
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Stuart, interesting take on Hillary. Hillary is not being monitored for what she does. She like Obama are trusted as "celebrity" leaders. Branding has cut them forever slack with citizens who are comfortable in short-term denial even though the buzz of cognitive dissonance has gotta be sounding, but they hold people like us responsible for the annoyance.
I mean Obama and Hillary are flirting with WWIII with the China/Russia testing reckless bravado ending in bloodbaths for the proxy nations. It is obscene and US is the big bully in all this, always urged on by co-bully Israel. What a sad and disgusting scenario.
Barack and Hillary can only operate from the matrix, the status quo corrupt box. Diplomacy is not in the US toolbox any more. Too many drones and corporate contracts. There is a new drone now that soldiers can carry in their own backpacks. That should really make collateral damage all the more of an issue and a tragedy.
best, libby
I mean Obama and Hillary are flirting with WWIII with the China/Russia testing reckless bravado ending in bloodbaths for the proxy nations. It is obscene and US is the big bully in all this, always urged on by co-bully Israel. What a sad and disgusting scenario.
Barack and Hillary can only operate from the matrix, the status quo corrupt box. Diplomacy is not in the US toolbox any more. Too many drones and corporate contracts. There is a new drone now that soldiers can carry in their own backpacks. That should really make collateral damage all the more of an issue and a tragedy.
best, libby
neutron, I don't know if you are Mr. or Ms. Neutron but by the way you say MS. New York, I suspect you are male.
So again your best defense of your apparent candidate, Obama, is to declare NOBODY'S PERFECT. That is pretty wimpy, don't you think? To go after me for wanting a too perfect candidate. That is not an inspiring defense, in fact it is one of those offenses pretending it is a defense because you have nothing to seriously point to.
And you are demanding that only the status quo candidates vetted by two corrupt political parties and a craven corrupt media should be considered. My point is they should not be since the system is broken, corrupt. And it can't be fixed by those corrupt ones within it, and THEY ALL ARE.
You make my point for me saying you have not heard of Jill Stein except here at OS. That is why she would be good. Because she is not a corporate crony which is why the corporate tool, mainstream media, will not mention her. Because she is such a THREAT. But you, as people try to ripple out about her, dismiss her because the teebee and other mainstream media which are again propaganda tools of the corporatists (5 main media conglomerates running the US media mostly -- so none of those 5 want an anti-money pro-citizen prez of course) so she is not going to be MENTIONED by the cowardly tv in this supposedly free country because politics is so unbelievably rigged and winner take all and elections such a sham that the Greens and Stein are trying to break through.
VOTER DRAIN? Stein is the only relevant candidate for the 99%. The others have even dirtier plans than they have had for the citizenry and the global village. Destroy them in order to save the wealth for themselves. Give Stein a chance, please!
best, libby
So again your best defense of your apparent candidate, Obama, is to declare NOBODY'S PERFECT. That is pretty wimpy, don't you think? To go after me for wanting a too perfect candidate. That is not an inspiring defense, in fact it is one of those offenses pretending it is a defense because you have nothing to seriously point to.
And you are demanding that only the status quo candidates vetted by two corrupt political parties and a craven corrupt media should be considered. My point is they should not be since the system is broken, corrupt. And it can't be fixed by those corrupt ones within it, and THEY ALL ARE.
You make my point for me saying you have not heard of Jill Stein except here at OS. That is why she would be good. Because she is not a corporate crony which is why the corporate tool, mainstream media, will not mention her. Because she is such a THREAT. But you, as people try to ripple out about her, dismiss her because the teebee and other mainstream media which are again propaganda tools of the corporatists (5 main media conglomerates running the US media mostly -- so none of those 5 want an anti-money pro-citizen prez of course) so she is not going to be MENTIONED by the cowardly tv in this supposedly free country because politics is so unbelievably rigged and winner take all and elections such a sham that the Greens and Stein are trying to break through.
VOTER DRAIN? Stein is the only relevant candidate for the 99%. The others have even dirtier plans than they have had for the citizenry and the global village. Destroy them in order to save the wealth for themselves. Give Stein a chance, please!
best, libby
II, so sad what you say, but God I love how you say it! Thanks! best, libby
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