The future looks ....?

Glenn Greenwald writes:

As Kaptur said, given the size and scope of "the largest transfer of wealth from the American people to the biggest banks in this country," one would expect there to be massive public interest in what happened and why, and, more so, whether any of this is being fixed (it plainly isn't). One would particularly expect the Democratic Party -- which has long branded itself as being the populist party against Wall Street -- would be leading that charge, for political benefit if not for substantive reasons. But that's clearly not happening, and the primary reason why is because both political parties, as institutions, are dependent on and thus controlled by the very industry that is at the heart of it.

Among the two parties, there's no outlet for the populist anger that Kaptur understands and is voicing because each party is eager to serve the interests of those who fund them. And that's why Democrats have largely ceded the populist anger over Wall Street to GOP operatives who are exploiting the "tea party" movement as the only real organized citizen activism over these issues. ...

[...]

This is hardly unique to the banking industry. This is how the political system works generally. Earnest, substantive debates over this or that policy are so often purely illusory, as the only factor that really drives that outcomes is the question of who owns and thus controls the political system. That central fact subsumes just about everything else.

I keep hoping that I don't live to see how far the US will go along this road ... which means that I hope that we can restore some for-the-people, by-the-people and of-the-people to our government and if that does not happen that at the very least the worsening does not completely stop my enjoyment of life ... as in reality I'm in no hurry to leave it.

Balance ...

It is right balance of ideals as stated by Conservative and Liberal positions that is lacking? Could be. Read Conservative vs Liberal

Excerpt on the issue of the US education system (or lack thereof):

The problem arises because conservatives do not have a position on education that drives us to be more productive as people. Conservatives do not argue that we need to be better in vocational training. And they argue against the utility of science. This is strictly medieval thinking. And it threatens to eliminate the middle classes. The problem of inferior education also arises because liberals tend to undervalue the social, political, and cultural values and tools of thought that are rightly taught in liberal arts colleges, in high schools, and in elementary schools. [emphasis added]

boggled minds ...

When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness in an industry. Leadership becomes faith-based, while employees who have the temerity to suggest that what seems to be happening is in fact happening are herded into Innovation Departments, where they can be ignored en masse. This shunting aside of the realists in favor of the fabulists has different effects on different industries at different times. One of the effects on the newspapers is that many of their most passionate defenders are unable, even now, to plan for a world in which the industry they knew is visibly going away.

Oh, my.

The details differed, but the core assumption behind all imagined outcomes (save the unthinkable one) was that the organizational form of the newspaper, as a general-purpose vehicle for publishing a variety of news and opinion, was basically sound, and only needed a digital facelift. As a result, the conversation has degenerated into the enthusiastic grasping at straws, pursued by skeptical responses.

Shunting aside of the realists? Isn't that what we are doing in government and claiming it is pragmatism?

Note -- everyone should read the entire article: Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable -- It's chock full of information, organized, concise and penetrating.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

... Isn’t it interesting that advocating tax breaks for the wealthy is unlikely to get someone called an elitist by the media.

When you think about it, Obama actually has more experience than McCain. Sure, a guy named "John McCain" has been in the Senate since 1987, but he's not the Republican nominee.

There was a guy by that name who supported Roe v. Wade, but the new John McCain replaced him two years ago.

There was a guy by that name who called Jerry Falwell an "agent of intolerance", but the new John McCain replaced him two years ago.

There was a guy by that name who proposed comprehensive immigration reform, but the new John McCain replaced him in February.

There was a guy by that name who was against waterboarding, but the new John McCain replaced him in February.

... and on and on ...

This amalgamation of major business interests with state power, this system of oligopoly and governance of, by and for the ruling class, has metastasized beyond imagining since the Progressive era. It has expanded in every direction and subsumed virtually every industry and business in America, large and small. It is this system of "political capitalism" that dictates domestic and foreign policy, including a foreign policy of endless war, preparation for war, and various forms of "cleaning up" after war. You the ordinary citizen, you "the people," figure nowhere in this -- except to provide the necessary labor and, when required, your blood and your life.<

That [Tim Russert] is who was canonized -- by the media and, revealingly, by the Right -- as the Model of Great Journalism. That's because the core function of the establishment press is to obtain and then disseminate government claims. ...

The US government of fantasy ...

Are we really this afraid of the boogyman. Does everyone in the US government check under their beds at night and fear what may be entering their closet through an alternate universe?

The FBI team fingerprinted 3,800 fighters. More than 40, Shannon said, had previous criminal records in the agency's database.

Seems the US is fingerprinting the world. Imagine out of almost 4K 'fighters' the US has identified 40 who have criminal records in the US. Are you shaking in your boots yet? From these figures invasions can be fantasized. If we weren't living through it, this could be the plot of a good movie.

The people being fingerprinted had come from the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan. One of the first men fingerprinted by the FBI team was a fighter who claimed he was in Afghanistan to learn the ancient art of falconry. But a fingerprint check showed that in August 2001 he had been turned away from Orlando International Airport by an immigration official who thought he might overstay his visa. Mohammed al Kahtani would later be named by the Sept. 11 Commission as someone who reportedly had sought to participate in hijackings. He is in custody at Guantanamo Bay.

The logic in the above quote is just overwhelming. It can't be be questioned nor denied just like the fact that waterboarding is torture if used against certain Americans (Mukasey comes to mind) but not torture when used on those with a different skin shade.

I think 'reporter' Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post has missed her calling as a great novelist:

Post-9/11 dragnet turns up surprises; Record-sharing links foreign detainees with U.S. arrests

The team, led by Paul Shannon, a veteran FBI agent, traveled to the combat zone toting briefcases outfitted with printer's ink, hand rollers and paper cards. The agents worked in Kandahar and Kabul. They traversed the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. They hand-carried the fingerprint records from Afghanistan to Clarksburg, W.Va., home to the FBI's criminal biometric database.

As they analyzed the results, they were surprised to learn that one out of every 100 detainees was already in the FBI's database for arrests. Many arrests were for drunken driving, passing bad checks and traffic violations, FBI officials said.

Beware all Americans who have been arrested for drunken driving, passing bad checks and traffic violations. The US government has postulated an invasion on the startling fact that some foreigners they found in Afghanistan had arrest records in the US for these horrendous offenses. The US government has seen through the vast conspiracy of power, will and capability of these previously fingerprinted foreigners (even without Bushie's help) to bring down the United States. If the US government can discern the danger that foreign drunk drivers, bad check writers and traffic violators pose for the US then what kind of analogies might they use against all the US born who have passed bad checks, been arrested for drunk driving and other traffic violations. They may just decide 'we' would all be safer if these people were also incarcerated for our protection.

Is that really so far fetched given the fantastical nature of this Washington Post article which is providing the fictional foundation for the complete elimination of personal privacy in the United States?

A very brave man ...

Taking a stand against a corrupt administration, that has turned the US justice system into a political arm of the Federal government and instituted untold authoritarian, thugish and pre-FLDS like refinements to both American civilian and military life, is very brave indeed.

Sgt. Matthis Chiroux, who served in the Army until being honorably discharged last summer after over four years of service in Afghanistan, Japan, Europe and the Phillipines, today publicly announced his intention to refuse orders to deploy to Iraq. (via C&L)

There obviously are many brave and honorable US citizens around the country. If a sufficient number of them had been in Congress (or even the press) we might not have been in the situation we find ourselves in now.

We, the American People, have done a very poor job of keeping tabs on, and control of, OUR government.

'Our' government at work ...

Mustn't let anything get in the way of taking public money and resources and handing it over to the corporate mafia:

... 889 scientists had "personally experienced at least one instance of political interference in their work over the last 5 years." Some 394 of these scientists reported that their own findings had been misrepresented by EPA officials. In addition, 285 noted instances in which data had been selected or omitted to weaken a regulation, and 224 had been ordered to "inappropriately exclude or alter technical information from an EPA scientific document." Scientists who reported political interference tended to work in offices that write regulations rather than in basic research labs. Hundreds said they feared retaliation by officials if they voiced concerns about EPA regulations.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Very troubling indeed. Sen. Clinton has this ugly and detestable habit of impressing people who get to know her well - especially independents and Republicans! The result? A powerful Republican and media magnate who hated the Clintons came dangerously close to endorsing her! We certainly can't have that! After all, according to The Clinton Rules and The Obama Rules it is only acceptable if Republicans endorse Sen. Obama - he who has courted them aggressively - in support of his campaign of hope, unity and change. ... how unfair can it get.

A new world order emerged when Mr. Gorbachev brought down the Berlin Wall. The next world order began when U.S. psyop forces staged the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue. From that point, it became apparent that America’s military might meant little without a peer force to compete against.

While the Bush Administration has demonized al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army since the invasion, it has never acknowledged one simple fact: between the two main Shiite factions in the country, Bush backs the one directly tied to Iran. Al-Sadr on the other hand is a nationalist, who will accept support from Iran but will never be an Iranian puppet.

... Yet after all this, our governing class and the foreign policy establishment have learned absolutely nothing -- except to commit their future crimes more "efficiently" and "competently." ...

[...] Be sure to appreciate the magnitude of the destruction involved: not only has the United States destroyed a nation and over a million human beings. As was true from the beginning, the U.S. is determined to destroy logic, morality, and your capacity to understand or make sense of anything at all: "The charges...were dismissed 'in order to continue to pursue the truth seeking process into the Haditha incident.'" ...

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

... as we saw over the last few weeks, the Pentagon correspondents laundered propaganda, which was then used by the White House to launder rhetoric through the White House press corps.
And the beat goes on ...
EMINENT DOMAIN LAWSUITS, WASTE OF TIME? ... Republican governing at it's best!
FEDS BEGIN SEIZING BORDER LAND IN ARIZONA ...
This sentencing was particularly interesting:

” …. and to access adjacent lands; including the right to trim or remove any vegetative or structural obstacles that interfere with said work; … “

For you people out east and west of Nogales, you had better hope your home is not interfering with the government’s project.
...it demonstrated that, at least regarding Clinton, [Obama's] knee-jerk reaction was not to work with her and "transcend differences."
I'm starting to worry about the danger of McCain, who many people who ought to know better still don't realize is just a war-mongering right-wing crackpot. (whose "objections" to torture don't extend to actually voting against it.)
Blindly protecting the border ... But this situation really goes a long way to demonstrating my strongest criticism of border enforcement. You can hire all the U.S. Border Patrol agents you want but if you don’t have the intelligence agencies to bring in valid information, it’s a complete waste of taxpayer dollars.

The DEA, the FBI and ATF are all in the middle of a hiring freeze. ...

[...] The result is something like a blind giant – heavy on the muscle, manpower, and weapons, but little idea what’s happening south of the line, and sometimes little idea what’s happening to the north.
The meanings of 'change' ... Democrats are being asked whether they believe in party, in which case they should be for Hillary, if they believe in power they should be for Edwards and if they believe in personality, they should vote for Obama.
As Bill Buckley admits, it's not just the "stupid" buyer that regulations are supposed to watch out for -- it's all the rest of us since we live in the town where the kids are playing with matches. ... The Robber Barons made their money and increased their power. The rest, including the giant globe we live on, is expendable.
Media Mess ... It's as if a pack of hyenas were crossbred with the characters in Mean Girls and then sent out to play at journalism.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Arizona is among five states in the nation either in recession or on the verge of it, Vest said. The others are Michigan, California, Florida and Nevada, he said. For most, the primary cause was likely a boom and bust in the housing market with heavy speculation and prolific use of risky mortgages, he said.
The purpose of government is to promote the general welfare of the people. There is no other reason to have a government except to promote the general welfare of the people. Therefore health care is a civil right. -- Randi Rhodes
... that would be $3,500,000,000,000. Mostly for an immoral, illegal, unjustified war of aggression that has wrought hell on an innocent people, and is now expected to accomplish nothing. ... Except for making certain individuals and corporations very very rich.

It's not that Bush and China 's goal is to poison your children ...

Efforts to crack down on lead paint thwarted by China, Bush Administration

It's just that in the current Corporate and Republican view of the world money and power trumps all else. And the only purpose of Corporate and Republican power is to garner more power and more money for those same Republicans and Corporations. The first choice in making money is to take it with the least amount of effort from the least powerful (e.g. sub prime loans). Isn't it amazing how easily Christianity seems to be fitting into this model?

This take-all doctrine hasn't always been the preeminent mode of operation in this country. The American 'work ethic' really did exist and was still to be found a few decades ago.

Democrats have to stop answering Republican straw men and start projecting their vision for this country. Unless, of course, they don't have one. And they need to interpret and explain the Republican and Corporate plans for this country. Democrats must take on the Corporate and Republican control of the media.

There are really only a handful of elected officials who are really Democrats. Whether those campaigning as Democrats lie from the get-go or change after they are elected I don't know. But look at the Democrats and how they continue to enable the destruction of our country even after they are in the majority. The House, and specially the Senate, may not have enough of a majority to get their own programs passed, but they do have enough power, if they would use it, to control the budget and to start backing out some of the unconstitutional abominations the Republicans did to our laws. But they do not use their power. They blubber, bluster and they kneel down to an imbecile. They are little better than Republicans. They are NOT the Democrats they were elected to be.

Fascism entrenched ...

One sure way for the fascist minded to keep control of the government is to pass control of intelligence gathering and covert operations to 'hired' contractors.

Outsourcing intelligence by James Carroll

... The Washington Post reported that the Defense Intelligence Agency is transferring "core intelligence tasks of analysis and collection" to private contractors -- up to a billion dollars worth. This raises the prospect that hired guns, instead of sworn officials, will be conducting covert operations, spying missions, interrogations, "renditions," surveillance -- the whole dangerous complex of shadow activity that began as the government's most sensitive responsibility.

Given the often shocking record of what US intelligence officials have done over the years, why does it matter if such activities are carried out by contractors? The answer patently goes to the question of accountability. Public servants who are bound by oaths to the Constitution and the law understand what the measure of behavior must be, even if they fall short of it. Activities involving the surreptitious, especially, have properly been reserved to public institutions subject to political oversight. Private parties, bound by contract, operate at remove from such limit and accountability, which may be why borderline activities like interrogation or rendition are increasingly farmed out to them. ...

The Democratic Senate majority betrayed us again ...

16 Democrats voted to 'allow' BushCo to wiretap Americans without any oversight. A list of the Democratic betrayers is here and, of course, Dianne Feinstein is one of them.

Senate Democrats fail on FISA

By a vote of 60 to 28, the Senate just passed the bill that President Bush demanded today. Senators such as Mikulski, Klobuchar, and Feinstein promised to vote for the "Bond" version and the Democratic alternative bill for some unstated reason.

Really a pathetic showing by our Senators.

Update [2007-8-3 22:33:25 by andgarden]: I want to make a further point about this, because it connects to a problem I've had with Democrats for a few months. It is possible for them to oppose the President by not passing objectionable bills, amendments, and supplementals. They refuse to exercise this power--which only requires a simple majority. You can see the devastating results of this non-thinking tonight.

There's the US which canNOT get its act together on handling yearly hurricanes and floods ...

And then there is the town of Gouda which "is considering whether to erect 4,000 houses--some of which might float" in an area that can be up to 6.74 meters (about 22 feet) below sea level (and falling).

Tell me again why we think we are so great but on the other hand find nothing of value other than the illusion of military might?

Article: Part I: Saving Holland --With much of its land below sea level, the Netherlands is charting a course around ominous climate-change trends by David Talbot

Why do I find more news in the Sierra Vista Herald than in Tucson's Arizona Daily Star?

US Government wanted two non-violent priests protesting US torture jailed before trial ...

Here's the priests web page: U.S. District Court Magistrate Hector Estrada Tuesday refused to grant a military prosecutor's repeated plea to jail two Roman Catholic priests, each with a long record of nonviolent protest and subsequent imprisonment, pending their trial for trespass last fall at Fort Huachuca, in Sierra Vista, Arizona. Estrada set trials to begin in Tucson on June 4 for Jesuit Fr. Steve Kelly and June 6 for Franciscan Fr. Louis Vitale. It is expected that the cases will be consolidated, and the men will be tried together that week.

Here's a Sierra Vista Herald article that counterpoints the diverging stories: Priests claim torture; fort says no by Bill Hess.

A government that can't find it way out of a paper bag, though it has the power to blast the bag and everything else around to smithereens ...

Read 'Confusing Osama bin Laden with Johnny Rotten' and feel secure in the idiocy of your government.