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No one has to "marry" anyone else politically; no one has to embrace every tenet or belief that an anti-imperialist ally might hold. You simply have to say: "All of us, regardless of our other views, believe this truth to be self-evident: dismantling the empire will bring immediate and enormous benefits to our nation and to the world."
If in your travels you meet the Buddha, throw him through your tv set.
—Davis Fleetwood
I've found that culture, however useful and important, is neither the foundation nor the ceiling of human experience, even if it is commonly used for walls.
I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family. So I hope to see him often here in Egypt and in the United States. —Hillary Clinton
Wanna join my tea party?
ReplyDeleteNeed something strong than tea...
ReplyDeleteOh...
Perhaps your reference is through a looking glass...
Every time I hear the terms "limited government" or anything like it; red flags go flapping in my head.
ReplyDeleteLimited government rhetoric has brought us to the present multitude of crisis that America faces today. We need more EFFECTIVE GOVERNMENT that reflects sound reason and the will of the people...neutering government power only gives us plutocracy and neo-fascist corporate rule....Calling for limited government only serves the oligarchs.
Admittedly government in it's present state is unacceptable to any sentient being...but in my opinion that's not a reason to abolish government, we need to transform government...make government reflect our wishes and not the wishes of only the privileged few.
Granted Obama is only a tool of the oligarchs and we probably won't significantly change government in our lifetime...but further disabling of government is not the answer...IMHO. In a world of neo-fascist plutocrats government is the only defense of the people, the plutocrats are storming the gates of the government fort and burning the peoples village as we speak...let's not help them by turning on government...Reagan was flat out lying when he said "government is the problem"...Reagan and every President since has betrayed the constitution and the American people.
Government was only the problem to the corporatists in the late-70s and early 80s...
The financial crisis, the unemployment crisis, the environmental crisis, BP and all...weren't made by too much government intervention...those crisis and many more were made because government has been bribed into compliance of and by the corporate anarchists...That's what we need to change.
We need limited, more effective government.
ReplyDeleteThe BP crisis was NOT brought about by limited government. It was brought about by government that hands out environmental waivers like they're candy.
And part of the reason people can't get together to fix it is because those flags go up when they hear terms from the other side.
AND LIMITING GOVERNMENT FROM PUTTING US ON LOCKDOWN BECAUSE OF HALF OF THE THINGS ON THAT LIST, LET ALONE "HOMEGROWN TERRORISM" IS DEVOUTLY TO BE WISHED.
No matter what the merits of government, the one we've got is BLOATED and ineffective and full of careerist moles, stooges, torturers and every kind of creep on the take. And limiting it, does NOT mean rendering it ineffective. Our government is supposed to be weak! The founders worked hard to make sure it was weak. Just because I don't want a weak government in the same sense Grover Norquist wants it, doesn't mean it isn't a good idea.
Liberals almost NEVER stop to think that ripping it down, together, and then building a really good weak one could be the answer to ALL our problems. How do you like having to put your thumb print on every check you cash at the bank it was drawn on? How do you like not being able to endorse a check made out to you over to someone else? How do you like paying taxes that are ONLY going to pay interest on plutocratic debt? How do you like traffic fines so steep they stop you in your tracks for months? How do you like cops able, willing and INSTRUCTED to use a taser on you if you take issue with them even a little... over a damn INFRACTION you DIDN'T commit?
I have long maintained that stuff they INSIST is designed for the safety of the public ONLY generates more criminals and more determined ones. People don't do half the shit they are accused of doing nowadays when they live in a fair and decent society, AND, in fact, they don't actually DO half the shit they are accused of doing in THIS one.
This is ALL the way out of hand.
You get angry with an asshole grocery clerk, and they haul you off to jail. You live near a suspect and a fucking grenade gets thrown through your living room window before the SWAT team comes in to hold a gun to your head. Nothing you say on the phone or on the internet is private, can and will be held against you. You must disrobe, literally and metaphorically to fly anywhere, assuming your papers are in order and your name isn't similar to one of the millions on their list.
If yer a big shot, NONE of this applies to you.
I'm with the limited government people.
Our government is CRAP. All the SHIT you hear about the careerists being pros who have to bow to the whims of the elected officials is CRAP, a lethal MEME. Homeland Security went and reproduced or coöpted every other branch of government, staffed with people far less scrupulous than those they duplicate, and ranking higher in the administration's estimation, creating a mess, and the PERFECT vehicle for a quick and dirty take down of all the other agencies. It might even be the organ wherein the greatest number of traitors are amassed.
ReplyDeleteFor FORTY years liberals and conservatives alike have been dismantling EVERYTHING "progressive" about our government and it is 100% packed with criminals and people who keep their heads down so as not to impede criminals.
How do you like not being able to pay cash for an iPad?
ReplyDeleteHow do you like having to show the POST OFFICE all kinds of proof of who you are, including a note from your landlord or mortgage company, in order to receive mail?
PEOPLE FORGET OUR GOVERNMENT IS STUPIDLY EFFECTIVE AT FASCISM.
I know you hate that Obama is letting torturers go unpunished and continuing the practice. He was our big "progressive". The ONLY wonderful thing about him is his skin, except just about everyone with his skin color, and darker, would make a better president than he has.
ReplyDeleteIf you listen to the interview behind the Mad Hatter, you will hear about how he will be assassinated if he does anything better for us. That does NOT excuse him. In some ways it makes him WORSE.
But that won't get pulled off anyone we elect for any office until we've brought these fuckers down. The ONLY way to do that is to drown this hulking mechanism for perfidy and empire in a bathtub.
99...I reiterate...
ReplyDeleteallow me to to quote myself...
"Limited government rhetoric has brought us to the present multitude of crisis that America faces today. We need more EFFECTIVE GOVERNMENT that reflects sound reason and the will of the people...neutering government power only gives us plutocracy and neo-fascist corporate rule....Calling for limited government only serves the oligarchs."
What you're demonstrating is a bought off government...I'm NOT SAYING the present system is fine...far from it...but what you seem to be advocating is more of the same...limiting government which only further empowers the corporatocracy.
We need an effective TRANSFORMED government...a transformed government that curtails the power of corporations/oligarchs while protecting the rights and assets of it's citizens. As I said earlier this probably won't happen in our lifetime without heavy divine intervention...maybe our purpose is to keep the idea alive.
99...the teaparty has been co-opted from it's original Ron Paul values by corporatists, who have hijacked it's message to a far right wing/corporatist philosophy...
My tea party allegiance runs more to The Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI)...they have a hammerlock on the issues that matter to me...yet they get NO MEDIA ATTENTION while the corporatist tea party gets all the media attention...there is a reason for that 99
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/watch.html
Allow me to elaborate 99...
ReplyDeleteOur court system is our rule of law (don't laugh)...but if someone with tons of money buys off the judge (they don't need to buy jurors)...then our court system is then made impotent by money...that's what's happened to our government...government has been made impotent by filthy lucre...the government is still in place with it's constitutional mandates...yet it has been made ineffective and contrary to the constitution by plutarchs.
Let's not hog tie or kill government because some evil minded bastards have sabotaged it...Let's eliminate the evil minded bastards.
Yes, and THERE IS NO CHANGING it without tearing it down. That same media thing is making is SEEM to you as though the tea parties have been coöpted by corporatists. The MEDIA has been coöpted by corporatists, AND by the bankers who finance them. Plus, THEY have the balls to go in and try to take it over, which would BETTER have been accomplished by progressives, real ones, not the fascists who POSE as progressives... one of whom we know in common... but are too busy defending their Party officials against their constituents to do anything as RATIONAL as join with their fellow citizens to TAKE BACK THE PEOPLE'S CONTROL OF OUR GOVERNMENT.
ReplyDeleteSo for however reasonable and rational your position SOUNDS, it is vividly and demonstrably [over DECADES] not EFFECTIVE.
And, ELIMINATING THE EVIL-MINDED BASTARDS is what I'm talking about.
ReplyDeleteDon't give me any bull about eliminating them at the ballot box. THAT DOES NOT WORK. Been there, done that, for my ENTIRE adult life. We could have PRISTINE elections of PERFECT people and BUBKES would change.
That's EVIDENT.
Do listen to that interview at the Mad Hatter. Farrell sounds too optimistic that they'll be quelled here by forces already in motion, but he gives a really good description of HOW evil they are. And two thirds of our present government could be razed without ANYONE feeling the difference. Just because you raze it, doesn't mean you don't build the stuff that could be good back up after.
ReplyDeleteJudges will stop getting bought immediately upon the masses making that impossible. AND it can't become impossible until the puppets at Main Justice are ripped out from behind their desks.
media HAVE
ReplyDeleteSheesh, I hate how common usage fucks with proper usage in one's ear.
For instance, Farrell's latest interview took place BEFORE they gutted the financial reform package he thought was going places... but otherwise, there's all kinds of valuable points in there.
ReplyDelete99...
ReplyDeletePlease show me where I mentioned -elections- ?
I did mention divine intervention...that's about the extent of my solutions given the present dire circumstances...
99 I've been to several tea party rallies here in Michigan...almost every issue they reflect is pro-corporate, anti government, same old same old, right wing/corporatist rhetoric. They have NO CLUE that they are actually rallying against their own best interests...seriously they don't reflect my values or issues. I won't be attending any more.
I chose to give my time and attention to those entities that reflect what I believe in...the tea party does not reflect anything I believe in.
The tea party's focus on Obama is almost maniacal...Obama is simply the latest in a long line of sell out puppets...yet to listen to the tea party everything is Obama's fault and doing...
And the ONLY thing that bothers me about those cool people in Iowa is that every time they turn around they have to leap on their tractors to go in and demonstrate. The part we forget while watching those WONDERFUL people is that at ANY moment stormtroopers can bust them up, and WOULD if they were anything more than a sleepy little rural town.
ReplyDeleteWell, I wanted progressive to go in and talk to these people to help show them where our desires are congruent. Just going is a good start, but opening our mouths to talk to them, individually and severally, is what would cut it. They are, for the most part, indeed almost as addled in their perception of THE problem as most liberals. It wouldn't be EASY, but it would be feasible.
ReplyDeleteFEASIBLE!
What a concept!
And, just because they are as blind about their fascists as most of us are about ours doesn't mean that standing up against it is WRONG. Yes, it would have been GLORIOUS if we or they or all of us got up under Dubya and Fudd, but WE DID NOT! It really IS better late than never.
ReplyDeletePLUS, being anti-Obama is the same thing as being anti-imperialist and anti-plutocrat EVEN if they don't grok that. I'm sure SOME of them are racists, or situational racists, but MOSTLY they want the government to stop fucking them. SO DO WE.
I don't think it should be forgotten that we DESERVE our fascists to be outed EVEN more than they deserve to have theirs outed. Our smugness HAS been insufferable. IT'S OUR KARMA.
ReplyDeleteHow do you like having to show the POST OFFICE all kinds of proof of who you are, including a note from your landlord or mortgage company, in order to receive mail?
ReplyDeleteI fucking told you about that LONG ago!
Remember I was at the point of looking for a bigger mail box?
~phil
I had to be agreeing with you at the time, Phil, because it's a damn wonder I haven't murdered a few Postmasters.
ReplyDeleteAnd, Blue!, you didn't mention elections, just too many people DO mention elections, and they are COMPLETELY useless in this climate. Voting won't be worth ANYTHING ever again until we solve the root problem.
You have to talk to your postal worker.. ;o) It's the only thing going to work. The POSTMASTER is the devil.
ReplyDelete~anonymous
Unfortunately, here, the Postmaster and the postal worker are the same person. I'm in the sticks!
ReplyDeleteI BET YOU GUYS THINK I HAVEN'T BEEN TO BED YET! HA! I GOT UP AT 7am THIS MORNING!
ReplyDeleteALL BY MYSELF!
KAAAAAAZZZZZAAAAAAAAART!
I hope your doing alright 99. And I hope the top kill works. perhaps the "top kill" (where top kill means arrest and life at ft. leavenworth) method could clean up our security clearance problems as well?
ReplyDelete~phil
I'm doing okay, considering all the destitution, ailing father, nearly dead car and the WORLD.... Health is MUCH improved.
ReplyDeleteI dream of becoming someone who is dead asleep at 9pm every night and up at 5am every morning. That is my favorite schedule. Just my sleep disorders are having NONE of it. I come alive around 9 or 10pm every night and it's HELL getting to sleep before 4 or 5am, and then HELL waking up before noon.
I woke up at 3:30AM to the sound of PG&E jack-hammering the street a half a block away.
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought it was my cranked out neighbors changing tires on their cars with an air impact wrench. This would be a change from their "3 AM stand in the middle of the street and scream at each other" routine.
Must have been an emergency gas leak repair or something. They finally stopped about 4:45 - 15 minutes before my alarm goes off!
I guess they are a little nervous...
Several years ago a house near here exploded on Christmas morning and killed on of the residents and injured others. People in the neighborhood had been complaining of gas odors for a while.
The final report came out last week and blamed PG&E for a faulty installation - the wrong type of plastic pipe had been used to make a repair. The pipe used was actually the cover to a pipe, not the pipe itself!
They also were found negligent for not having a crew on site capable to investigate and handle the situation before the explosion.