Recent Comments [07-24] Update 1
America's 'Reputation' - How Low Can It Go?Please post the other article about money being the root of not just American but all that we in the world laughingly refer to as democracies to poor old Max.
He repeats the same old lie that all we need to do is get the right person in the White House and somehow the world and America will be magically healed. When will people realise it's the system that's broke.
Until you fix that you'll keep getting stuck with people like Bush/Clinton they are just the electable face of corporate America.
Is it going to be Jeb's turn after Hilary? How long have Cheney and Rumsfeld et al been in around the upper echelons of the American government?
Our political class all come from money and are products of our elitist public school system.
The same is true of America but as this contradicts the idea of a classless society and the whole idea of the American dream it seems to be ignored. - Frankie Reilly
Money Is the Root of American 'Democracy'
Thanks for useful article. Here are a few money-grubbing tactics of one Democratic candidate:
While Barack Obama talks about transforming politics and touts the donations of "ordinary" people to his campaign, a network of more than 100 elite Democratic "bundlers" is raising millions of dollars for his White House bid.
The Obama campaign prefers the emphasis be on the army of small donors who are giving -- and raising -- money for Obama.
In truth, though, there are two parallel narratives -- and the other is that Obama is also heavily reliant on wealthy and well-connected Democrats.
While Obama took money from federal lobbyists and political action committees for his Senate war chests, he is not for his presidential campaign.
That ban does not preclude non-lobbyists who have interests in federal matters or who lobby other government entities.
Those at the top of the Obama fund-raising pyramid -- people who pledge to raise at least $250,000 -- get a gold VIP lapel pin with the letters "NFC" fashioned in the campaign's logo.
The letters stand for Obama's National Finance Committee, and the group met in Washington on Wednesday for a retreat at a hotel with the Obama professional fund-raisers, campaign manager David Plouffe and chief strategist David Axelrod, among others.
After raising $25 million in the first quarter -- creating a national network almost from scratch -- their challenge in the second quarter is to show they were not just grabbing the low-hanging fruit. - Lynn Sweet
Americans Can't Impeach Bush - It Would Be Condemning Themselves
Utter bollocks. Bush has not been impeached because the vast majority of Americans(and Britons)particularly Republicans are ignorant of many of the facts.
They watch Fox CNN ABC even the BBC and think it's the truth. Ask most of them about the PNAC and they'll look at you blankly, but they all know that Iraq was directly responsible for 9/11 and had WMD.
They'll be blissfully unaware of the wholesale voter fraud that allowed Bush to steal 2 elections but will tell you all about the liberal bias in the media.
Bush wont be impeached because to do so would expose the corporate controlled MSM for the lying government propaganda machine that it is.
America's ruling elite call for the head of the smirking chimp, one of their own from birth? That would require the American public to face up to the truth about their own country and the myth of the American dream. And in the words of Jack in A Few Good Men... - Frankie Reilly
America's 'Reputation' - How Low Can It Go?
There is one subject that will not be raised by any of the candidates in the 2008 elections. It has not been raised since 1960 and then only by a departing president.
It is, of course, the military industrial complex that in effect rules the USA. I understand that Eisenhower's farewell speech included 'congressional' in this malign complex but that word just had to be deleted.
It would have exposed American lawmakers for the pawns that they are. Whether they like it or not, whether they are right or left wing, America's politicians are slaves to this complex.
Challenge it and the congressman from Oakland risks the jobs of thousands of his constituents. It is not for nothing that Boeing has parts for its planes made in over 40 states when it would be so much cheaper and efficient to have them made in one or two places.
No politician who has constituents working for Boeing would ever dare to point out this obvious fact. 'Pork Belly' politics rule.
And just how does America benefit from this huge expenditure? Does it frighten anyone other than me? It didn't frighten al Qai'da and it doesn't frighten the various insurgents in Iraq. It is totally useless in the supposed 'war on terror'.
The cold plain fact is that only the arms manufacturers and their lobbyists benefit from this expenditure which is an enormous burden on the American taxpayer.
Of course the millions of Americans working in the arms industry have a relatively well paid job, not as well paid as they used to be but still they are employed and that's something.
However, the amount of tax paid out on this incredibly wasteful complex could be used to build a new generation of nuclear power plants to really combat global warming instead of wasting it on uselessly producing Ethanol.
The American worker could be utilised to produce something really useful instead of producing killing weapons.
Universal health care could become a reality that would shame its European counterparts. America's educational standards which are amongst the lowest in the western world could become the highest. Americans could invest heavily in Mexico's industries and stop the flow of immigrants.
I realise that this is all 'pie in the sky'; it's not going to happen. An individual politician such as a Nader may be brave enough to stand on a platform that denounces the military, industrial and congressional complex but neither the Democrats or the Republicans would touch it with a barge pole.
The best that can be expected is for a candidate to nervously suggest a cut in this huge budget. Perhaps Obama will prove me wrong but I doubt it. - JohnM
Hillary Clinton's Slimeball 'Campaign Manager'
Policy and politics have always been inexorably intertwined in Clintonland, and, while some close to Hillary made a principled case for supporting the war, others clearly billed it as a political winner.
Among them was surely her pollster, Mark Penn, who has been a member of the Clinton inner circle since 1995. The disheveled, Harvard-educated Penn has long been obsessed with the political center.
After September 11, he fixated on foreign policy, repeatedly warning Democrats that they needed to show voters that, as he put it in one essay, they are "capable of managing national security issues."
For Penn, supporting the Iraq war was a fine opportunity to demonstrate this. In the 2004 Democratic primaries, he attached himself to a candidate who believed likewise, joining the ill-fated campaign of Joe Lieberman.
According to one former Lieberman adviser, even as Iraq slid toward chaos Penn believed war supporters would be vindicated: "Penn was telling Lieberman he would be right about the war." It hardly seems a stretch to assume he told Hillary Clinton the same thing. - mc
Bush & Blair: Drowning Together
Firstly stop referring to Iraq as a war, it isn't and to do so merely helps Bush and Blair. Secondly Bush and Blair's places in history are sullied? They are criminals who shouldn't be meeting in the future as civillians but as inmates of some long-term institution. - Frankie Reilly
First Rule of Economics: Wealth Is a Result of Exploitation
I have news for you, the rich people in the USA are the ones that pay the most taxes and therefore pay for public research.
It is also a fact that most efficiency gains in the economy are a result of private parties. The farmer tweaks his tractor, the businessman finds a way to cut down on inventory, the software student starts his own business and creates a program that can do more work faster.
The internet guaranteed no one success, indeed many many companies went bankrupt. Only the ones that made a significant contribution to society survived the dotcom bust.
The government can increase the welfare of all of society by funding research that is risky and cannot feasibly be pursued for financial gain. Is it not true that every person of society benefits from the internet?
Even those that do not use it themselves buy goods from companies that saved money and time emailing and are therefore cheaper because of it?
Do not confuse this argument with the exploitation of multinational companies that use their power to negotiate deals that exploit workers in other countries, by spouting cheap, unfounded rhetoric you denigrate the true class exploitation. - Patrick
Body Hair on Women: It's a Turn-On!
Oh yeah! I agree fully. It's really up to the individual to shave or not as long as their decision is based on their personal comfort rather than social demands.
However they might not even notice how they are being brainwashed to think that its their personal decision... Agh! All we can do is encourage those who would love to go natural, yet don't do it for lack of confidence.
As you said it feels like revealing as much as you can of your natural beauty to the public. That's what is in my plans too.
Let us show them all, let them throw up and suffer, until they realize they could have actually saved so much time, money, patience and water just by being natural.
And yes really, if brushing teeth is an action striving to accomplish healthy teeth, shaving is not only useless, it is HARMFUL!!
In addition to red bumps, rash, in-grown hairs and such, the underarm and pubic hair protects the sensitive skin uder it creating an airgap between the two skin sides preventing them from rubbing against each other.
If you look at human body, are there any other places, where two sides of skin meet when in standing in relaxed position?
No! Leg and arm hair haven't fallen off yet, but why hurry to remove it? In fact it informs us if a bug or mosquito has landed on us.
So! Let's keep our minds and love our bodies and stop destroying them! :) - dandelion2688
Israel Started to Wipe Palestine off the Map Forty Years Ago
Give me a break with this revisionist bullshit.
When any Arab nation decided to recognize Israel's right to exist (ie: Egypt & Jordan), what happened? While the neighbors aren't *in-love*, they've co-existed peacefully, in Egypt's case, for almost 30 years.
Both sides have blame in the current situation, but please, this blame the *evil* Israel garbage, is disingenuous & only contributes to continued hostilities.
You conveniently forget that the two-State solution, which Israel favored upon its creation, was rejected by the Arabs.
And that Israeli Arabs, that live in Israel proper, have a helluva better life, than those in the Palestinian Territories, which continue to seek & support Israel's demise.
What the Palestinians need, is a leader who actually cares about the Palestinian people... and is willing to stand up, and embrace reality - - Israel is here to stay, and in order to improve the Palestinian lot, co-existence is the only answer.
Unfortunately, people like the author of this piece, prefer the status quo. - Jon
AND
Thanks for the article, Ed. It's about time the tables were turned. All we ever seem to get is Zionist propaganda and the reiteration of Ahmadinejad's alleged comment about wiping Israel off the map. Your title shows the truth. Palestine has been annihilated.
Can I recommend "Overcoming Zionism" by Joel Kovel as an antidote to the persecution of Arabs by Western Powers. Here's a brief summary:
Zionism seeks "the restoration of tribalism in the guise of a modern, highly militarized and aggressive state." It "cut Jews off from what history they did possess and led to a fateful identity of interest with antisemitism, which became ... the only thing that united them."
It "fell into the ways of imperialist expansion and militarism, and showed signs of the fascist malignancy." Zionists and their ilk -- those who build literal and metaphorical separation walls -- are "the splinters under the skin of humanity."
In short, "if you sign on to the idea of a Jewish state, you are taking the particularism that is the potential bane of any state, mixing it with the exceptionalism that is the actual bane of Judaism, and giving racism an objective, enduring, institutionalized and obdurate character."
Israel, he concludes, has "turned itself into a machine for the manufacture of human rights abuses." - left turn