When Katrina hit, we found out FEMA had been decimated. When there's an epidemic, we will learn the same thing about the CDC. 

I couldn't care less who the 2008 American Political Idol will be. I'm immune to the election hype coming from the media, which has a fetish for persona and an obsession with horse races. That stuff is irrelevant to me. My only concern is that down-to-earth issues be addressed, finally.

I want my children to have medical benefits and I want them to make a living wage. I want them to have a future above the level of serfdom. Beyond that, I'd like to see the destruction of the pay-to-play system of government, banishment of the parasitic privatization pirates, and elimination of the term "free speech zone" from the vernacular.

The issues concern me, not candidate's charisma, not pundits' handicapping. That's why I don't give a tinker's cuss whether or not the next president is a trans-gender, intergalactic, anti-matter cyborg, just as long as he/she/it will straighten out this mess and give a future back to my kids.

The premier achievement of the latter part of the twentieth century was not the invention of the microchip, nor was it landing on the moon. The most impressive feat was performed by the wealthy conservative right in convincing the middle class to adopt the agenda of the rich. Through crafty and careful manipulation, the non-investing class has been cajoled into forsaking its true concern, wages, and substitute in its place a rabid hatred of the ultimate bane of the wealthy, taxes.

A few of the consequences of this monumental hoodwinking are diminishing wages, of course, but also increased personal debt, social insecurity, and replacement of educational grants with predatory student loans. The latter means that fewer students from the middle class will be able to attend college, which nixes upward mobility. This isn't speculation, the record shows that scions of wealth have hugely displaced children of the middle class in private colleges.

How was this snake oil sold to the middle class? Through the slow and patient pandering to their prejudices and greed, the wealthy puppeteers persuaded their stooges on the one hand that they were on the cusp of being wealthy themselves and on the other that the only obstacle to their becoming so was the economic drag of poor racial minorities. Hence, welfare "reform" under Clinton, which, while it bolstered the testosterone levels of haters, did little in economic terms. That's because corporate welfare in its myriad forms dwarfs the cost of social welfare programs directed toward the poor.

The "elimination of welfare as we knew it" failed to increase middle class prosperity because it was a ruse from the outset. The middle class never figured it out though. In fact, their indigenous vehemence is even now being harnessed for another round of hating, this time directed toward immigrants. Rather than ask why businesses ranging from proprietorships to multinational corporations are allowed to hire aliens at will for the sole purpose of undercutting wages, red-necks mindlessly rip into the next scapegoat pointed to by the grand manipulators.

So there you have it. While their home equity evaporates, while their adult children go without health insurance, while their stake in democracy is cancelled out in a pay-to-play political paradigm, and indeed, while their progeny is relegated to serfdom, the angry-white-male middle class continues to do the dance the wealthy right calls out for him. 

If the working class is that imbecilic, perhaps there is verity in the creed of social Darwinism. Perhaps the rich ARE superior. Perhaps they do deserve the oligarchy they're wishing for.

What if the American people were beginning to become leery of the of corporate globalization steamroller, and what if this had been as large a factor in the November election results as the Iraq war?. Would the corporate media be disinclined to report it, hoping that by ignoring the growing discontent they could avoid feeding a groundswell and thereby protect their own financial interests? Alternately, would they altruistically and perhaps self-sacrificially stay true to their journalistic duty and report the role that rising misgivings about the present economic structure played in the election? (Yeah, right.)

Most people see their children being denied the same benefits and security they knew as young workers, and they find this ominous as well as grossly unfair. Further, they had been told that Social Security was on the brink or bankruptcy even before we started spending two to three billion dollars per week in Iraq, so there's more cause for concern. (Of course, the claims of bankruptcy were patently false, but the fact that someone at the top even made the claim makes people suspect there's a fox in the henhouse.)

Add to this that it's looking like the one repository of wealth for the average American, their house, is about to turn into a pumpkin, and there is much to be worried about. Compound this further with job outsourcing, the paltry minimum wage which depresses all wages, and the droves of H1B foreign workers imported to undercut salaries of technical workers. Next, include the pensions that have turned out to be written in disappearing ink. Then for good measure, count the doughnut hole in the Medicare merry-go-round prescription plan and there's cause for at least mild panic in the land.

But all this stuff seems to be below the radar of the corporate media/news-tainment industry. Why, they've already moved on to the '08 presidential horse-race. Maybe that's not good journalism, but that's entertainment!

Gingrich is taking his show on the road again. His latest snake oil purports that the Republican Revolution was betrayed, that temptation and ensuing corruption perverted the great goal of shrinking government. Poppycock.

Over twelve years the federal government systematically abdicated its responsibility for governing and handed the reigns to the private sector, as prescribed. The Gingrich-Norquist hypothesis stated this would lead to smaller, less costly government. Apparently, neither Teapot Dome, nor the Robber Barons of the 19th century, nor the continual reemergence of war profiteers informed their conceptualization. 

If any had, Newt and Grover could have anticipated that the power vacuum created by government's indolence would be filled instantly by big business. Frankly, I strongly suspect the whole plan was a ruse and they knew what the outcome would be all along.

The experiment did not fail. It ran to completion, the protocol was followed, but inevitably, the result doesn't uphold the cockamamie hypothesis. No more neo-con experiments, Newt, we're not crawling back into another test tube on your say-so.

My answering machine keeps filling up with political campaign calls. That's to be expected, given the season, but what's disturbing is their content. They almost all play on fear, either of immigrant hordes, dangerous criminals, or terrorists. The caller, usually a spokesperson for the candidate, promises his guy will see to it immigrants will be denied benefits, criminals will be thrown into the dungeon and forgotten, and fire will reign down on our enemies. That's it, there are no other issues in the eleventh hour. Apparently, politicians think we are a wary and angry electorate too seized with fear to think on any higher level than basic survival. On Tuesday they likely will be proved correct.

Want to understand how our government presently works? Look at what the Republican Congress did on the night of their 1994 revolution: it instituted the "K Street Project". That is, it launched a program to force all lobbying firms, which center on Washington's K St., to henceforth give the preponderance of their political donations to Republican candidates and eschew donating to Democrats.

To this end, Republicans made up a list of past donations and confronted lobbying firms with their indiscretions, telling them to toe the line and fork over to Republican campaigns only, else they would not have access. Now that is reminiscent of a Mafia strong-arm. In fact, it's racketeering.

The effect has been to produce a closed link between Republicans in Congress and corporations and other wealthy Republican interests through an all-Republican lobbying industry. It's a Republican government serving Republican interests exclusively.

Proof of this is that whereas previously corporate lobbyists sought to influence legislation, they now write that legislation. Republicans don't even invite congressional Democrats to the meetings in which they review the legislation. The first time Democrats see legislation is hours before it comes to a vote, and since they are a minority, they may as well not even show up for the vote in most cases.

If you approve of FEMA's handling of Katrina, Halliburton's war profiteering, and the appointment of former industry executives to lead government agencies chartered to oversee those industries, then this new one-party system is just the thing for you. The rest of us can go fishing, or if the pond is polluted, just pretend to fish. 

Master showman John Kerry told a joke the other day, but he left out a pronoun and that made the brunt of the joke US troops instead of the intended target, the president. A good joke has three parts: the setup, the twist, and in the end, someone loses their dignity. Kerry mucked up on the last part, Now the president's political general has wrapped Kerry's joke in a larger one in which a guy tries telling a joke, blows the joke, and in the end looses another election. I'd laugh, but I'm crying too hard.

Corporations do not have undue power over government, they own it. They don't influence legislation, they write it. The result is that corporate profits are unprecedented, but the average wage earner, the ordinary person not of the investing class, is gradually being squeezed out of the economic picture. I wouldn't care so much, but I grieve for my children, knowing their lives will be so much harder than anything I experienced.

I don't have any real hope or expectation that working Americans will wake up to the fact they're being screwed. They will not rise up to protect their own interests in time to halt the theft of their wealth and security, or to defend the future of their children. No, instead they are carried away with ancillary issues and by eleventh hour trickery at election time and cowered by hyperbole about the terrorist threat. Fear and loathing, as Hunter Thompson wrote about, is what's driving elections. Politicians need only trumpet how harsh they will be on evildoers of all stripes, playing to people's fears, and they will be reelected.

The news-tainment industry, whose rightful role is to fortify the people against demagoguery, eschews issues because it's more economical. Sending out careerist stenographers to copy down the official PR blather verbatim is cheaper than fact-checking and investigation. Besides, leading the zombies watching the box with the flashing lights to think is too hard of a job, and there's no immediate monetary reward for doing it.

So, we're on the road to becoming a third world economy, with a very wealthy minority, no middle class, and then the rest of us in pre-New Deal funk. The loss is infuriating, tragic, but nothing can stop it because the electorate is out to lunch. Meanwhile, the K Street bandits haul off the wealth of the middle class, steal its birthright, and marks its children for the new serfdom.

(10-17-2006) Today we made torture the official policy of the United States. In a couple of years, they'll be water-boarding down at the local jail. Game/set/match to tyranny, democracy eliminated.

While Bob Woodward's portrayal of Rumsfeld's psychotic narcissism in "State of Denial" is entertaining, to blame the Iraq debacle on him alone is an oversimplification. The decision to jettison General Jay Garner's practical plan for reconstruction in favor of the Bremer-led neocon "Plan B" was not Rumsfled's alone. If readers really want to learn who was pulling the strings and why, they would do better to read Greg Palast's "Armed Madhouse", where they would learn of the neocon consensus to turn Iraq into an ode to Leo Strauss. The neocon cluster-fuck in Iraq cannot be put down to one man's foibles and failures, even if they're as blatant as Rumsfeld's.

Import of McCain Torture Bill in the Approaching Economic Crisis
                       or
Future's so Bright, I Gotta Wear Electrodes

You are a free-enterprise, put America first, patriotic American. You are not some terrorist-coddling, muddle-headed, left-leaning, secular humanist liberal. That's why you understand the need for strong measures in the fight against terrorism and support the McCain Torture Bill. Good for you, only you might want to take a look at the fine print.

Far from outlawing torture, the bill codifies everything done so far by the administration regarding torture, and gives it a free hand to continue. What it doesn't do is openly refute the Geneva Convention. It just ignores it, like the administration ignores the Bill of Rights.

Again you say "This is the War on Terror, and strong measures are warranted and needed to protect America from terrorists!" Bully for you, but you may want to consider this: at some point in the not-too-distant future, you could be perceived as a terrorist/enemy combatant. It seems far-fetched, but it's not impossible. It's not even improbable.

You might be a solid gold, golf-addicted middle manager with a "W04" sticker in the back window of your SUV, but your fortunes are about to change. Globalization is not a rising tide that lifts all boats, as once touted. It is a rip-tide that drags the jobs and wealth of the middle class out to sea. You've seen the erosion of America's manufacturing base and the resulting job losses. You’ve noticed that high-tech jobs, which were supposed to replace manufacturing in the "information economy" have gone overseas too. And in your bones, you know your own job is next.

The fact is that compared with globalization's destructive power, al Qaeda's threat is minor. If al Qaeda were a bird-dropping on your SUV's windshield, globalization would be a head-on collision with a fire truck.

When you realize you're sitting on top of a termite mound and your McMansion is made of balsa wood, when you realize your position of privilege has been obliterated, you're going to be really, really unhappy. If you should act on that displeasure in some way, that's where your personal intersection with the McCain Torture Bill could occur.

McCain's bill is expressly crafted to allow the president to detain anyone without due process of law, so long as the president deems that person to be a terrorist or enemy combatant. It's up to the president's discretion. There are no guidelines, no limits. It doesn't matter if your ancestors came over on the Mayflower, you can be declared an enemy combatant, i.e. an enemy of the state, by the Unitary President at his pleasure. And you can be disappeared.

That's how the McCain bill could end up stepping on your tail. That's how someday it might come down to your wife trudging from one government office to another, pleading to be told of your whereabouts. Worse still, that's how you might come to be waiting outside a Halliburton-built detention facility managed by Blackwater USA, hoping to be granted a few moments visitation with your unfortunate son or daughter.

When the general public wakes up to how badly and permanently they've been screwed by globalization, there might be fireworks. Fortunately for the administration, it already has the tools in hand to deal with any trouble, courtesy of the McCain Torture Bill.

Is this a paranoid vision I'm painting? Maybe, maybe not. The worst always seems far-fetched until it happens. Then we wonder why we never saw it coming.

Vice President Cheney is on the stump saying Democrats have done nothing to combat terrorism. He's being disingenuous, because the fact is Democrats haven’t been allowed to participate in government at all since Republicans took over, and are shut out of the process so completely they may as well not even show up. They are on the outside looking in on every issue, including terrorism, so how could the VP reasonably expect them to do anything about it?

Thank heaven we have TV news anchors to interpret reality for us. On Sunday, NBC news showed clips of Bill Clinton’s setting the record straight with Chris Wallace on FOX. The ex-president refuted everything that had been said on FOX about his supposed lackadaisical pursuit of Osama bin Laden. He did this forcefully and eloquently, and did an overall outstanding job of defending his reputation and his record.

Bill Clinton was plainly angered by the falsehoods that have been promoted by ABC’s recent fake documentary, and by the fact Wallace, et al, at FOX had followed up with further deliberate misrepresentation. His anger was justified, but although he came across as very intense and determined, he did not sputter or rage incoherently. He didn't turn crimson or yell.

But Clinton's powerful defense of his record was not the "take away" message, according to the NBC talking head. I was informed by the anchor the real story was that a former American President had "lost it" on broadcast television. That was the last word in the piece, and it was purely subjective, slanted spin.

The truth is, the current president has displayed more flashes of anger in public on numerous occasions, but NBC, being a corporate entity and having gentleman’s sensibilities, doesn't dwell on those flare-ups. This makes me wonder why anyone would bother watching network news if they weren't primarily interested in the commercials for incontinence medicine.

War and torture are horrible, and the administration is on the hook for both, but when is someone going to mention the 600 pound gorilla at the end of the table: there is a full-on class war being waged against American working people, led by the party in power. Just look at deteriorating healthcare, shrinking pay, job losses, pension theft, and dissipating middle class wealth.

We are so caught up in the debate over Iraq that we tend to overlook our politicians’ domestic performance. The price of gas is way down, which is enough to satisfy many people that all's well. But it isn't. The world out children are inheriting is one of less educational opportunity, less economic stability, little or no healthcare, and a lower standard of living. We and our politicians are answerable for this.

George Bush is a CLASS WAR president.

The House has passed a Voter Photo ID bill that will soon go to the Senate. Despite the smokescreen, the sole purpose of this bill is to disenfranchise poor and minority voters who generally vote for Democratic candidates. This move is in concert with "cadging" minority voters at the polls, challenging them in order to slow down the process and thereby create long waits in predominantly Democratic wards.

The strategy is to gain a marginal advantage in elections and thereby win, if underhandedly, and ultimately establish a one-party government. It is ironic that we profess to bring democracy to the Mid East while we gleefully destroy it here. It is also noteworthy that if the Senate passes the voter photo ID bill into law, this will be the first time a poll tax will be in place above the Mason-Dixon.

George Bush traded on 9-11 to drag us into Iraq, he traded on 9-11 to get reelected, and he trades on it every single time he mouths the phrase "war on terror".

"If we cut-and-run from the Iraq war now, the terrorists will win."

First, it isn’t a war anymore, it’s a nasty, costly occupation. Second, by "the terrorists will win" what is meant is that if we leave Iraq without privatizing their oil industry (a thing from which, according to neo-con cannon, all good things will come) then we will have failed. 

Understanding cannot occur until the language is precise.

In "The Monster at Our Door", (Time, 9-18-6) Robert Samuelson muses about how we as a country can deal with the expanding cost of Medicare and implores Mark McClellan, outgoing head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to give us the answer. But here’s the larger question for McClellan: how is it that every industrialized country in the world except ourselves can provide medical care to ALL of it’s citizens without going broke? Also, why is it that despite paying half of what we pay, England’s baby boomers are twice as healthy? 

Samuelson dismisses the over 30% off-the-top insurance companies take as inconsequential. Fine, then how about the fact we pay twice as much for drugs, over 32% of which ultimately goes to marketing and advertising, an amount greater than that spent on research? Could this be a cost-driver? Obviously, malpractice is a red herring, as proven by the fact that in Texas and elsewhere where tort reform has passed, malpractice rates dipped only for only a short initial period, if at all.

If Samuelson sees US prescription drug prices as justifiable and insurance profit as marginal, then perhaps the article in Forbes magazine suggests why Medicare costs are out of control: wherever the concentration of specialists is high in relation to GP’s (e.g., Florida), the cost of Medicare blossoms and the quality of care declines. Is the problem that we have too many specialists?

Whatever the cause(s), it doesn’t take an MD or a PHD to divine a remedy. The country code for England is "44". Mark McClellan should give them a ring and ask how they do it. Here’s an idea: let’s privatize our entire medical care system and give the contract to the British Government, just like we privatized port security and gave it to Dubai. (Probably work for Homeland Security too, seeing how effective Scotland Yard is by comparison.)

There are 46 million people without health insurance in this country. What percentage of those will die unnecessarily because of lack of treatment or delayed treatment? Would one tenth of one percent seem reasonable? Too low? Probably, but let’s just take that as a conservative guess. Point one percent of 46 million is 46 thousand deaths annually, or about three thousand deaths per month, deaths that were preventable with adequate medical care, i.e., the dead would have lived if they had been covered by some kind of medical insurance. 

To put it in perspective, that’s how many people perished on 9/11 five years ago. Since then, that same number of people likely has died from preventable illness in the United States every month for the last forty-eight months, a total of well over two hundred thousand Americans, many of them children. Remember, this is using the conservative estimate of one tenth of one percent preventable deaths for the uninsured.

Emphasizing the terror threat pays off politically for the Repubs, whereas pointing out what a punishing situation they have cruelly and indifferently allowed to befall many millions of citizens isn't a big selling point for them. 

Oddly, the media hasn't really picked up on the plight of the uninsured, but they cover terrorism non-stop. Somebody should tell John Stossel about this, he likes to point out that people typically fear the unlikely and ignore real dangers. I don't think he's politically partisan at all, so he'll probably jump right on it.

ABC’s intensely marketed 9-11 docudrama-miniseries portrays President Clinton as having restrained the CIA from killing bin Laden, and hence most at fault for 9-11. The fact is Clinton okayed each and every request the CIA ever made to go after al Qaeda and get bin Laden. “But it’s just fiction” is the fatuous response; bullshit, ABC knows full well that the high school kids it's providing this thing to in classrooms will not make the distinction and will be left with the belief Clinton was at fault for 9-11. That’s only a reasonable assumption, because no one would expect that with the facts so fresh and available that  intentional falsehoods would be proffered. 

This is manna from heaven for the right, which will run with the misconception and cynically promote this fiction as fact. Thanks so much to ABC and Disney for dutifully contributing to the party in power’s bid to retain control of Congress.

Boycott the Rodent! 

Hey kids, the task of recruiting for the military has been privatized! Used car salesmen are signing the kids of America up now. And here’s the best news: the cost of recruiting one person works out to be around five-thousand, six-hundred and fifty dollars. What a great bargain!

A year ago President Bush replied to a press question regarding Osama bin Laden: "I don’t know where he is. ...I just don’t spend that much time on him. ...I’m truly not that concerned about him." Yesterday, President Bush gave a speech invoking Osama bin Laden’s name over a dozen times as a dire threat, and declared there would be no sanctuary for terrorists like bin Laden. Notice any inconsistency in these statements? What changed? An election is in the offing, do politics have some influence, perhaps?

While President Bush performs a political square dance called by Karl Rove, there is this fact to consider: simultaneous with President Bush’s speech yesterday, Pakistan announced a peace pact with al Qaeda in the area of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan where bin Laden is most likely hiding. A Pakistani official said of the operative policy toward al Qaeda, presumably including bin Laden, "As long as he is like a peaceful citizen, he would not be taken into custody."

The first question here is, can anyone in the administration even spell "reality"? The seconds is, does the press really think "spin" is synonymous with "truth".

Even though I presently don’t get paid holidays, sitting in the small patio behind my condo on this Labor Day morning is very pleasant and the day off is welcome. During the two-mile run I just finished, I reflected on how anachronistic this holiday has become. In these times of reduced benefits, vanishing pensions, rock-bottom minimum wage, outsourcing, and a pilfered Social Security Trust Fund, a holiday celebrating working people is as culturally relevant as St. Swithins Day.

For over twenty-five years, work and those who do work in exchange for a wage have been progressively denigrated. So thorough has the cultural shift been that even workers view their contribution with disdain.

In the present climate, rather than declare a national holiday honoring labor, Congress would be more likely to enact "reform" mandating employees donate eight to ten hours of work to their employers on the first Monday in September. They might call it "Entrepreneur’s Day". 

Ah well, that’s how it goes, and as long as we can still buy a car or a truck on credit, what’s there to complain about, really? It’s never been so easy to live beyond your means!

9-2-6 Very disappointed to learn that Air America Radio has given Mike Malloy his walking papers. Mike has emboldened us, and we are in his debt. Very sad that there is no place for a man of honor on the airwaves. 

I honestly don’t think the administration wants to leave Iraq. There’s unassailable evidence they were intent on invading before the 2000 elections and simply used the 9/11 catastrophe as an excuse to do it. They still use terrorism generally and 9/11 specifically to justify staying. But I suspect the administration wants to keep a military presence there where it is poised to move on Iran and Syria whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Their plan all along has been to replace those governments either by promoting their overthrow or directly by invasion. Iraq is our military’s lily pad and the Cheney/Bush/Rumsfeld troika will not recall them under any circumstances. Get used to the sophistic linking of withdrawal to weakness on terror, because we’re staying in Iraq, no matter what. Even if peace breaks out.

We pour nearly two hundred and fifty million US dollars into the Iraq war every day, much of which is snapped up by US war profiteers. US military forces are being squandered in an impossible police action. Half a hundred civilians a day die in Baghdad, three and a half years after the end of US invasion. 

Whereas there were no terrorists in Iraq under Saddam, the country is reputedly now a training camp for al Queda. Sunnis and Shiites are poised for civil war, while in the Kurdish sector it is illegal to fly the flag of Iraq and increasingly there are border skirmishes with Turkey.

All of this makes you at least pause before answering in the affirmative to the jaded question, "Don’t you think the world is a better place with Saddam gone?".

President Bush has been saying to friendly crowds lately that in the end Iraq will bear out the superiority of his ideology, but what ideology is that? The only ideology he has demonstrated is the privatization model, which is actually what was tried by Bremer in Iraq in the early going of reconstruction, and which has brought Iraq to the shattered state it’s in now. He’s saying that privatization will not only save Iraq but make it prosper beyond all expectation.

When you think about it, this is the same "ideology" Bush has applied to the US. He encountered impassible resistance when he tried to privatize Social Security, but he has successfully privatized many government departments, most notably FEMA. In fact, the George W. Bush Administration has largely abdicated the responsibility of US Government and turned the task of running things over to private industry, and very many Americans are agreeable to that. 

Yes, the "ideology" he applies to Iraq is the same one he’s pushing at home, and it’s core belief is that businesses, i.e., corporations, can do anything better than government. Herein lies the rub: corporations are hierarchal and non-egalitarian, so if corporations supposedly function better in the real world than government, the implication is that democracy is inferior to monarchy or oligarchy. Again, many Americans apparently agree with that, so let’s get ready to make it official and declare the Great Experiment dead.

Donald Rumsfeld is attacking the intelligence and morality of those who oppose his strategy. He is quick to insult, but after three and a half years he still can’t give an explanation for why he invaded Iraq. It is the hallmark of this administration to sidestep questions raised in opposition and merely slander the critics.

Lenin advised: "In political conflict, the goal is not to refute your opponent’s argument, but to wipe him off the face of the earth." That quote is from an essay written by David Horowitz’, "The Art of Political War: How Republicans Can Fight to Win", which was sent to Republican congressional candidates and activists for the 2000 elections by the Heritage Foundation -with the blessing of Karl Rove. Rumsfeld is just carrying on the totalitarian tradition of Lenin, ala Rove.

If hurricane Katrina were a real estate developer who wanted to throw all the poor people off the land in order to build an upscale, faux version of the old New Orleans, it could not have had any better business partner than the dawdling federal government. In going so slowly, the government has guaranteed the city’s poorer residents won’t be coming back.

Displaced residents must inevitably commit to staying where they are, because they cannot afford to live in a temporary way forever, waiting for the government to return them to their homes. And the poorer the refugee, the shorter the period they can afford to remain in limbo. I think the powers-that-be know this full well and are using it to the fullest advantage to ensure a new New Orleans that is more like Epcot than the old Big Easy. 

The rights of poor people in this are of little consideration; they can not expect to be made whole, at least not in America 2006, because they’re not part of the main political base, the "haves and have mores". Rest assured though, Trent Lott’s spare house on the Gulf will be restored back to its original splendor.

"Why do you hate America" is a hackneyed right-wing rhetorical sucker-punch. 

First, it’s a personal attach meant to put the target on the defensive. 
Second, it precludes any sincere discussion of issues.

My canned response is: "I don’t hate America, you posturing a-hole, I hate the fascists who are taking it over; what is it in your makeup that predisposes you to fascism?"

Reading and hearing this week about Osama bin Laden’s longstanding crush on Whitney Houston and his listening preference for The B52’s was sort of a revelation. These details suggest that the image of him as a nearly superhuman fanatic is an oversimplification, even a misconception, and might not be helpful in getting rid of him.

Maybe he’s just another spoiled scion of wealth who’s cashing in on instability in the Middle East for personal gain. Maybe he’s a cynical opportunist who fakes religious piety to capitalize on the anger and desperation of poor and uneducated people in oil producing countries. Maybe he’s a big phony who just wants to be the Pasha of Petroleum himself.

Rather than add to his mystique by touting him as an icon of evil in the War on Terror, perhaps we should drop the hype and just tell everyone that he’s an egotistical brat who’s only in it for the bucks after all. Then one of his disillusioned acolytes might give him up, assuming we’re still looking for him.

It all kind of makes you wonder why we chose to hype this guy up to begin with, rather than deconstruct him under the cool eye of reason. Maybe we just prefer mythology to rationality.

Privatization is parasitization. Think about it, privatization inserts a profit-making entity where a function had been performed by not-for-profit government. All things being equal, this has to increase cost. How can this not be the case, unless you think the government is so incredibly inefficient that the sheer waste it incurs exceeds the profit after privatization? If that’s your claim, show me the figures. From what we've seen so far, private companies appointed to perform government functions have done a poor job, and their cost has been astronomical. Less for more, what a deal.

You have to wonder if the panic attack a fifty-nine year old woman suffered on a Heathrow-to-D.C. flight in August wasn’t a product of the present un-dampened fear that exists over potential terror attacks. That is to say, was she made so nervous by the media coverage of the would-be terrorist cell in England that it pushed her anxiety over the threshold into full-blown panic? If so, it’s ironic that she was arrested on the tarmac in Boston for disrupting a flight when she was merely an extremely successful product of intense fear mongering. Anyway, she at least woke up our air defense, something the real terrorists never accomplished.

As the November elections approach, discourse shifts to emotionally loaded topics like immigration, gay marriage, abortion, and embryonic stem cell research. Sinking below the radar, as always, is the crucial issue of universal healthcare. It happens every time: people turn out in frothing anger to vote against a list of hot-button issues rather than for their own well being. That’s how we end up denying pre-natal care to young women while simultaneously frustrating their access to pregnancy prevention.

The US Department of Education eliminated one -and only one- major from its list of science majors available for federal SMART grants this year. Guess which one that was: Evolutionary Biology. Yes, somehow that particular area of scientific study, which happens to be the anathema of creationists, was lined out of the list.

When called on this, the DOE quickly undeleted the major, and maintained its elimination had been unintentional, merely a "clerical error". Sure, but the question is, What type of cleric tried to slip this one through?" 

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the "signature injury" of the Iraq war. IED’s going off in close vicinity to personnel concuss the brain; that is to say, it rings the bell so hard it creams the clapper and cracks the bell. Sickening, no?

Well, the Republican-run Senate is currently showing its true level of concern and appreciation for the horrific sacrifice our servicemen and woman are making daily in this regard. The senators are revising the appropriation for treatment of TBI from its present level of funding of at 14 million dollars DOWNWARD to seven million!

Apparently, calling everyone in uniform a "hero" is considered more cost-effective than actually standing up for service people in dire need. In expressing regret for the budget cut, a spokesperson explained that there were "other priorities". Tellingly, that's exactly the excuse Dick Cheney gives for avoiding service during the Vietnam war.

An  industry  of well-paid journalists cum public relations specialists descends on every news story, stands between it and the reader/viewer and interprets the facts for them. These PR-journalists wave their hands shouting, "Don’t look! Don’t listen to what that guy’s saying! Let ME tell you what’s happening and what it really means." They don’t want the public to look directly at the facts or hear what someone else is saying without it all being "put into perspective" by them. Their motivation, obviously, is to control people’s perception of reality for political advantage. Americans better break free of the reality wranglers’ spell very soon, because the country's sliding into the dumper and the road we’re taking, choosing myth over reality, is the same one the German people followed in the ‘30’s.

The difference between slavery and paying $5.15 an hour is that there's no initial investment in the latter case.

Hoping to control the public discourse in the aftermath of war supporter Joe Lieberman's defeat, the right wing noise machine is trying to use a new red scare to ward the public off the real reasons for his losing Connecticut primary. In her op-ed piece, "It’s official: Democrats now defined by far left" Kathleen Parker claims to be against partisan politics and for moderates, even posing as a moderate who is dismayed by the Democratic Party's capture by the left. But just her choice of title betrays she’s working surreptitiously for the right. The epithet "Liberal" has lost its venom over time, so she chose the term "far left" to attack her enemy, knowing it will stir anger and produce angst. 

Within the article she also resorts to the ad hominem attack and name-calling, a hallmark of right wing propaganda. She even calls those who oppose Joe Lieberman "Stalinists", so her claim to speak for moderates is revealed as an obvious ruse. Beyond that, her op-ed is wrong every step of the way.

First, telling someone that you intend to throw them out in an open election because of their past indolence is not Stalinist or totalitarian. It is as American as sheriff John Wayne’s telling the bad guys to their faces that their days are numbered. Her hyperbole here falls flat.

Next, she claims to stand with political moderates, but the reality is there are no moderates left! All have been killed or converted to right wing orthodoxy. Former Governor of New Jersey and head of the EPA, Republican Christine Todd Whitman can attest to that from an insider’s view and firsthand experience. The extermination of moderates is the handiwork of the right wing, and those who did the most to eliminate congressional bipartisanship and civility are Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay, although many others currently active in the Republican hierarchy also contributed. 

The shocking truth is that congressional Democrats are presently excluded from participation in lawmaking. They don’t draft legislation, they aren’t consulted, and they are left out of the process until just before a vote is to be taken. This insult is delivered continually and systematically by the Republican leadership, it’s no accidental oversight. Are these the "moderates" she stands with? Consensus and comprise are for the weak, and the Republican Party is the party of macho -hasn’t she been listening? Democrats may as well stay home unless, like Lieberman, they are willing to ride along on the right wing bandwagon.

Further, she slanders liberals as "Stalinist" but omits that Karl Rove endorses a Republican strategic plan for winning elections that openly quotes Lenin: "In political conflict, the goal is not to refute your opponent’s argument, but to wipe him off the face of the earth." That quote comes from a paper written by David Horowitz and circulated to all Republican congressional candidates and activists in time for the 2000 elections. Look it up. And Karl Rove was and is completely behind this take no prisoners, total war approach that is anything but moderate or bipartisan. 

Now that liberals have begun to fight back, Ms Parker criticizes them for savaging a phantom middle of her own invention. That’s a clever bully’s trick! 

There is no middle in this new world created by the right. But right, left, up, down, or center doesn’t really matter anyway. What matters is that more and more people are without health insurance, the wealth of the working middle class is being drained away, real wages are eroding even while corporate profits rose by double digits over seventeen consecutive quarters. What matters is that both the Social Security Trust Fund and company pension funds have been raided. 

What matters is that at a cost of $250 million per day our military is forced to play whack-a-mole with Iraqi insurgents in the botched aftermath of a preemptive war that actually siphons resources away from defending against terrorism. What matters is that corporate cronies have usurped and devoured government agencies for profit, leaving the US government FEMA-tized. What matters is that we have all been NAFTAted.

What matters is that we’re not providing healthcare to all our children, and prenatal care to all mothers. What matters is that our sons and daughters just don’t have the same opportunity for a reasonably secure and decent life that we had. What matters is that we throw these bums out now, before it’s too late.

Five years after 9-11 Osama bin Laden is still on the loose and his disciples are planning commemorative attacks and atrocities. Incredibly, George W. Bush points to this as a vindication of his anti-terrorist policies, in particular his Iraq invasion. Clearly, the recent plot to blow up US jets over the Atlantic demonstrates just the opposite: while an anti-terrorism policy is certainly needed, it’s not his policy because his isn’t working.

Playing whack-a-mole with insurgents in Iraq at $250M a day does nothing to protect us against terrorists. To the contrary, it saps resources from catching Osama and protecting domestic targets. The argument that we’re fighting terrorists over there so that we don’t have to fight them here obviously doesn’t wash, because terrorists are poised at Heathrow Airport to kill Americans traveling home.

The would-be terrorists nabbed this week by Scotland Yard had connections to Pakistan. The 9-11 terrorists mostly came from Saudi Arabia. So far, there hasn’t been an Iraqi in the bunch, but if we continue to destroy Iraq, we may eventually groom one. Meanwhile, we should be grateful that at least the Brits are competent, because our own FBI is busy chasing vegans.

Condi, we hardly knew ya. Mostly likely, Condi's goose is cooked. She will be served up "ala Powell" at the Crawford ranch, nee pig farm. All those hours spent sitting on the boy king's ankles while he did sit-ups have been wasted. 

Cheney and Rumsfeld will have none of this hippie peace stuff. They need war, war, and more war to achieve their objective of turning the Middle East into their oil plantation. Condi's only hope is that Big Oil decides these bombastic aims don't fit in with the business plan; if that happens, her fortune flips and you can look for Condi in '08.

And if that comes about, you'll have to ask yourself which is the lesser of two evils: the handmaid of Big Oil or the NAFTA-loving ex-corporate lawyer for Walmart (aka Sam’s Girl) who doesn't give a fig about anyone making less than 200K any more than the Republicans do? Tantalizing choice.

The Exalted Branch has just released its proposal for making certain persons immune from war crime prosecution: political appointees, CIA and former military personnel. If these sterling rules had been in place in 1945, former SS could march in the Veterans’ Day parade and Carl Rove would just be Joseph Goebbels’ gofer. Is our sense of morality so dulled that we cannot recognize evil and our judgment so muddled that we cannot see what horrors this will bring?  

The disaster in Iraq is not the result of the March ’03 invasion. The horrific mess there resulted from neo-cons’ insistence that the Iraq economy be made over from scratch, the Iraqi Army be disbanded, elections be postponed, and the government be purged of any and all Baathists. This disastrous neo-con experiment produced chaos, not the original mission.

Nobody ever mentions this, I suppose because the White House has never brought it up. The record shows however, that General Jay Garner’s initial plans for reconstruction were expedient, practical, and minimally intrusive -and therefore infinitely more likely to succeed- but he was replaced with Paul Bremer, the Maestro of Mishigas. 

This is more than a minor historical point, because the neo-cons are regrouping for another run at turning the Middle East on its head and thereby screwing up the planet even further. Oh, rapture!

"...residents of the [FEMA] camp are not allowed to talk to the media." Wait, has the Free Speech Zone been moved to Gorky Park, circa 1960?

Came up with this commercial for The Empire after reading John Perkins', "Confessions of an Economic  Hit Man": 4th of July Empire Sale [620K bytes audio, (.au)].

The country was hungry, and the New Deal brought it a feast. Toward the end of the meal, the avuncular actor/salesman stood up and announced that there would be no dessert because the New Deal wouldn't pay for it. So the people, sluggish and stupid from so much food, grumbled at the thought of missing out on their cheesecake.

As hoped, they agreed to roll back the New Deal and then waited for their dessert. But the dessert ran out at the head table. Worse, it became clear that there would be no future feasts, only leftovers, if that. Bad mistake.

Bon appetit.

Excerpt from Carl Sandburg's The People Yes

A message to the current regime: Cassandra

Think Halliburton is a new phenomenon? Think again. War is a Racket was written between the World Wars by Major General Smedley Butler.