The Lopsided Foreign Policy Of The Corporate Idiocracy

Consistency has never been a key factor in US foreign policy. It doesn't matter if there's a Democratic president, or a Republican one, the double standard employed by both always been the same.
Take today, as an instance. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced sanctions against eight Iranian officials for human rights violation following a crackdown on protesters after last year's elections. On the surface it sounds good, not just more posturing designed to soften the television watchers up for an attack on Iran.
In the meantime, the UNHRC says Israel used incredible violence against a Gaza Aid flotillaviolated international law by storming the flotilla and killing nine human beings, including an American in execution-style killings, and what does our country do? It criticizes the report as 'unbalanced'. The truth is, the only thing unbalanced is our foreign policy, which seeks to condemn one act of brutality, while defending another.
Now one case is set to go to the International Criminal Court, which the US opposes, mainly because between Iraq, Afghanistan, and the crackdown on the Gaza strip, American-Israeli exceptionalism rules the day. We can torture, kill, and maim whom ever we so please, as we are better than the people living over all those preciou natural resources the Corporate Idiocracy needs to keep it's followers happy and buying more useless things, giving up their time and money to make the incredibly wealthy, more incredibly wealthier.
I don't suspect this will end anytime too soon.

Just Another Intelligence Failure In The Mega Million Corporate Idiocracy

The unnamed source is the scourge of true journalism, because it is an uncheckable rumor displayed as fact. And yet, in the permanent twenty-four hour news cycle,and it's unslakable quest for breaking news, the unnamed source has become the savior of the propagandist. Need to deliver a cutting blow to your competition? Nothing works better than an anonymous aide.
And if an intelligence failure is played out the world stage? Don't blame it on your agency. Fuck no. Blame it on the victim! Because if you can believe that the intelligence agency with the largest budget in the world was outsmarted, then you probably would believe that a slim majority of Americans support a military strike against Iran, if you were the type to believe that polls are nothing more than manipulated information used to create opinion and not reflect it. But hey, in their world we're more than halfway there! Never mind that in the rest of the world, the attempted bribe story is already out there, the rest of the world knew that reasons given for our invasion of Iraq were lies (France, anyone?), it just never made it past the gatekeepers of anonymous sources.
So while the egg on our collective face is discretely wiped off by the corporate media, and the blame is placed not on the criminals, but on their victim, maybe we should consider that another intelligence failure ( you know, like 9/11, Iraq's WMD, etc,) is to blame, we still keep relying on the intelligence gleaned from people who don't appear to be very smart.

A Tale Of Two Defectors

Defector 1: Reza Kahlili, a Iranian revolutionary Guard defector who went to work for the CIA following the revolution of 1979 says that Tehran will attack Israel. Speaking at a conference at The Washington Institute For Near East Policy, Mr Khalili (not his real name) has stated that Iran will unleash the largest suicide bombing mission ever! Of course, since Israel has nuclear weapons while Tehran doesn't, it will most certainly be a suicide mission, conveniently timed for the propaganda run up for the US/Israel attack against Iran, later this year.
Defector 2:Shahram Amiri is a top Iranian nuclear scientist. He went missing a year ago on a pilgrimage to Medina, a city in Saudi Arabia. The Iranian government claims he was kidnapped, the US denied that claim.
Well, fast forward a year later, and Mr. Amiri (his real name) has turned up in the Iranian interest section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington DC. Mr. Amiri has claimed he was kidnapped and held against his will where he was "under enormous psychological pressure and supervision of armed agents in the past 14 months".
Hmmm. Mr. Amiri then goes on to state that "I was not prepared to betray my country under any kind of threats or bribery by the US government."
So, in other words, the US government, desperate to start a war against a country that is not a threat to anyone (unlike, say, the US), kidnaps a top Iranian nuclear scientist, using various means of coercion tries to get him to betray his country (possibly by stating lies about Iran's nuclear power program). Then the man escapes, posts an interview on YouTube stating he is a prisoner, which is then countered by another YouTube video of someone resembling Amiri saying he is fine and every body should just go back to buying things and disregard the previous video. Now it turns out the first video is right, and all Mr. Amiri wishes is that he just be allowed to return back to his country.
So there you have it. A defector who (most likely) was coerced (or bribed) into telling the chickenhawk war mongers what they needed to hear, and a kidnapping victim that was tried to be passed off as a defector in order to lie to sell ANOTHER war to the American television watcher.

Taking Risks For Peace By Killing All You Hate

President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met Tuesday for talks to smooth over the rift between the two leaders before they could both go ahead with the all-out attack on Iran. President Obama said Netanyahu was willing to take risks for peace. He then went on to call Fox News fair and balanced, BP as fine environmental stewards and Toy Story 3 as the best Toy Story yet.
Really, to call the man who called for an attack on Iran for it's peaceful nuclear power program, continues it siege against the people of Gaza for exercising democracy, and defended the murder of nine activists bringing relief to the people of Gaza a man of peace is to call Sharron Angle a sane voice for women's rights.

The Old Two War Party Bait And Switch

Our political system would work a whole lot better if our two "opposing" parties were on the same page at the same time. For instance, Republicans opposed the filibuster when they had the White House, and now, with a Democratic president, it's considered an essential tool of government. (I know, I know, the GOP are "tools" of government)
As another example, in 2006 and 2008, the Democratic Party rode into power on a wave of anti-war sentiment. But now, with antiwar sentiment momentarily distracted by the continuing ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the Democratically controlled House has voted for more funding for the Afghanistan quagmire, President Obama has formally disavowed the July 2011 draw down date. Meanwhile, the Democratically controlled US Congress and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed new US sanctions against Iran, a prelude to war with that country.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, most Republicans now think the Iraq War was a mistake. Some have even gone as far as to call it "Illegal and immoral". I wonder, though, is this true regret, or is this an excuse, in that great game of Risk that has become US foreign policy in the Middle East, an excuse to move our troops in Iraq to it's immediate neighbor to the east. Or, maybe the change of heart within his own party and the fact that as an architect of a policy they are calling illegal he could now be prosecuted for war crimes has led Dick Cheney to the hospital. Don't worry, Dick. All this posturing is, I'm sure, just that, as Americans look closely at what we haven't accomplished after many years, many lives, and many, many more dollars wasted in a region of the world far removed from our back yards.
The problem is the learned helplessness of the two party system. Unable to think outside of the box, they are trapped in the Republican/Democrat box. Both parties have been in power on and off, for at least the last century, both parties have brought the country to the state it's in, and yet, people keep hoping that maybe this election cycle, or the next will bring real change if their party gets the control it needs.
Good luck with that. Evil 'A' vs. Evil 'B' is still evil.

US House Accuses Iran Of Being Just Like The US

When I was in high school, the US and the USSR were engaged in the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, or SALT II talks, which was about limiting the number of times each nation could kill the other one. I think they finally settled on 150. My father, an ultraconservative, one might even say reactionary, was opposed to such a treaty with the Russians, because, as he told me, "You can't trust those commies. They never keep their word and have broken every treaty they ever signed."
Fast forward a few decades, and here is the United States, breaking another treaty it signed, namely the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or the NNPT. Under the NNPT, the US recognizes the right of other nations to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes, such as electrical power, or medical research, and as such, would not hinder any signatory nation from doing so, and even offering to assist said nation in their quest to using the atom for peace. Except now, the US is doing everything in it's power to stop Iran from doing what it is guaranteed as a signatory to the NNPT. In other words, just like the commies of long ago, they are not keeping their word and essentially breaking the treaty which they have signed.
And now, the US House is send H.R. 1457 to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in the latest round in the lead up to the invasion of Iran, using entirely fraudulent claims.
1. President Ahmadinejad fraudulently won the last election
Remember in 2000, the hotly contested presidential election in the US? The one where the State of Florida had to pay roughly $5000 each to black voters disenfranchised by the Republican Party? Remember when it finally came out that Al Gore did in fact win Florida in 2000, we were told to "get over it"?
However, while there was no evidence of voter fraud in the 2009 Iranian elections, there is evidence that the US corporate media tried to paint it as such. So you see, vote fraud in another country is bad, very bad, but election fraud in the US is no big deal.
2. Iran has plenty of oil, why do they need to develop nuclear power?
A lot of neocons are suspicious of Iran developing nuclear power, because, they say, why do that, when they have all that oil? Well, in addition to having vast quantities of oil, Iran also has 1400 uranium mines. As the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran deputy head Fuel Hossein Faqihian pointed out, nuclear energy is a good alternative to energy derived from non-renewable fossil fuels as they are cleaner and cause less environmental damage.
Iran has even agreed to an arrangement with Turkey in Brazil in which raw uranium in Iran is exchanged for enriched uranium, thereby ensuring that Iran cannot enrich uranium to a high enough yield to use in nuclear weapons.
3. Iran supports terrorism
This claim is made because Iran funds Hezbollah, which is considered a terrorist organization by the US, Canada and Israel, but not the rest of the world which recognizes the differences between the security and political wings of the organization. Meanwhile the US, which created Al qaeda, is spending $400 billion annually to fund the MEK, a terrorist organization to destabilize the Tehran regime.
4. Iran continues to deny human rights and democracy to the people of Iran Right now, the whole of the Palestinian population in the Gaza strip is suffering under the collective punishment of the Israel led blockade against them. This blockade was put in place when the people, believing in "democracy" voted for the Hamas party to rule the Palestinian Authority over the US/Israel backed Fatah party. The blockade violates the human rights of about a million and a half people, many women and children. Meanwhile, right wing politicians in the US want us to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Commission because it wants to investigate the excessive use of force in the  Mavi Marmara flotilla raid.
5. Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program Nope.No evidence of that. Meanwhile, Israel which has nuclear weapons (and tried to sell some to South Africa), refuses to sign the NNPT or open up it's sites for inspection.
6. President Ahmadinejad has vowed to wipe Israel off the map
Here we go again. His statement was a gross mistranslation, taken out of context.
However, Israel has vowed to drop nuclear weapons on Iran again, and again,and again.

Right now, in the Red Sea , there are eleven US warships and three German built Israeli subs armed with nuclear cruise missiles . While there is a problem with Iran "wiping Israel off the map", there doesn't seem to be a problem with the US wiping Iran off the map. With the US now mired in two wars in the Gulf region, can it really afford to get tangled up in another? Does it really matter? We the people no longer decide what's right for this country. Although the many television-watchers may be cowed by corporate media propaganda about Big bad Iran, the truth is, while Iran isn't the greatest country in the world, neither is the US any more, mainly because we have become the aggressor that behaves in a fashion to it's once feared enemies. Economically, we can no longer afford to repair all the damaged nations of the world, because we have become as damaged.

Change Can Wait, WE Need To Hold Our Majority So We Can Do Nothing Conclusive For The Next Two Years

As an excellent example of the screwed-up priorities of the Taxed-Enough-Already crowd, they protest when President Obama bails out GM, they protest when President Obama tries to provide health care to millions of fellow American citizens with out any, but when the Senate approves billions more in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not a peep. Even while the Pentagon cut pay for soldiers in Iraq, making this nothing more than a bailout for the Military-Industrial Complex, nothing from the television watching soldier sniffers.
This is also a prime example of the lack of difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties. The Democrats, who gained a majority by exploiting the antiwar sentiment in 2006, and again in 2008, voted for funding a war that Gen. McChrystal has termed a draw. So dumping more money into this sinkhole would be a waste of tax-payer money, right?
Yes, but, being an election year, rather than stand on principal, the Democrats instead choose to let their decisions be guided by their desire to hold onto their cushy jobs where they can bet against the stock market as they pass legislation to deregulate it and probably invest heavily into defense contractors, all with the salary they made from, us, the tax payer.

Freedom Of Speech Doesn't Apply To Those Who Are Saying What They Don't Want You To Hear

Remember when you were a kid, and if somebody told you something you didn't want to hear, such as it's time to go to bed, you would stick a finger in each ear and say "LaLalalalalalalalal" very loudly? It didn't work, because that very act alone told your parents that indeed it was time for you to go to sleep. Well, this is kind of like that. Jewish groups are asking member countries to stand up and walk out when Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addresses the U.N. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference on May 3.

“Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability poses a threat to the region and the entire Western world. To have President Ahmadinejad address this review conference makes a mockery of the efforts of many countries to prevent nuclear weapons and nuclear terrorism from becoming the gravest global threats of this century."

Mockery? Really? How about Israel deploring IAEA and UN calls for Israel to sign the NPT and join the IAEA while trying to simultaneously deciding whom that august body should and shouldn't be listening to?
The president and executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the group that is calling for the boycott, then goes on to state that:"It is dismaying that, once again, the U.N. is allowing the head of a regime, foremost in the sponsorship of terrorism and the abuse of human rights, who defies U.N. resolutions regarding its nuclear ambitions, to appear before the international body."
Really? You want to go there? Israel, an apartheid state where it's Palestinian peoples are treated as second class citizens, where the Goldstone report has listed numerous war crimes and abuses of Human Rights, a country that has defied more UN resolutions than Iraq, and rejects UN resolutions regarding it's nuclear ambitions, and now you want to criticize Iran, which, once again has not diverted one isotope towards anything but it's nuclear energy program, nor has it been found to be developing a weapons program?
Which is likely what Ahmadinejad will be discussing at the conference, which is what pro-Israel groups do not want the world to hear. That and the fact the US has not lived up to it's obligations under Article 4 of the NNPT. (It's unlikely that the Iranian president will be discussing the continued violation of it's own Symington amendment by the US either) So, once again, we have the US standing behind international criminal state Israel while making false claims against one of Israel's enemies in the region. Pot. Kettle. Black.

What To Do About The Dangerous And Imminent Threat Of Iran?

Like Harry Reid said, Iran is a festering sore, and the US needs to patch up ties with Israel by using the nuclear option on Iran. The US also needs to seek a new round of sanctions against Iran.
To this end, according to VP Joe Biden,Israel agrees to wait for these new round of sanctions before attacking Iran. Let's hope they won't have to apologize for embarrassing Joe Biden again.
But wait a sec here, is Iran actually doing anything wrong? Both the US and Israel have threatened to attack Iran, while Iran has done nothing of the sort. I mean, I know that Secretary Of Defense Robert Gates has claimed Iran was sending fighters and weapons to the Afghanistan, but even US Commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal has stated there's no proof to back up that claim. So what is the reason behind the Obama administration's call for nuclear option against Iran? Iran actually poses no threat to it's neighbors, Europe, or the US. And, more importantly, why is the Obama administration acting and sounding exactly like the Bush administration?

It's clear The Adults Have Abandoned The Republicans

It's official. In the nearly four hundred years that this country has been settled by Puritans, nothing has really changed at all. back then, they saw witches everywhere, now, the poor put upon and persecuted Christians see Muslims everywhere.
Now we have these paranoiacs, who obviously only remember the part of the Bill of Rights that allows them to keep weapons to shoot each other with, have forgotten that whole freedom of religion thing. I don't give a fuck if President Obama is a Muslim (which, he's not)because our country is not based on any theological practice (although there are those who would like to see it that way). like the Nazis who saw signs of Judaism everywhere, the conservatives of the US are seeing signs of Islam, or wanting to see it, everywhere.
I swear, sometimes our whole political process has been taken over by a bunch of third graders. Republicans criticize Democrats, liberals hate conservatives and nobody notices that for the better part of the last century into this one, both parties have been running things. And with the exception of a few Jewish candidates here and there, for the most part, they have all been Christian. And what or where has that got us? Mired down in two never ending wars, rampant unemployment hidden by government figures, on the brink of a global depression, global warming, etc. All this polarized petty partisan bickering isn't solving anything. There's nothing civil about any of it. It's just name calling and blame throwing.
And I'm just sick of it all.

Which Side Is Naomi Wolf On?

"Their views of liberals are just as distorted as ours are of conservatives."-Naomi Wolf
Gulp! Did author Naomi Wolf just admit to sympathy with the Teabaggers? How can the bastion of liberal journalism, lauded by the left for her book, The End of America, which describes the US's fall into Fascism under the Bush administration, be on the same page as the knuckle-dragging cavemen of the Patriot movement who only know two buttons on their television remotes?
There is also a deliberate building up of two camps that benefits from whipping up home team spirit and demonizing the opposition. With the Internet there is even more fractioning since we are in echo chambers. With so much propaganda it is hard to calm down enough to listen. Of course, you can't talk to a wingtard; They all watch and believe Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. They never had a problem with the Patriot Act, or Guantanamo Bay, or 'enhanced interrogation' techniques under Bush, it's only when President Obama continues them that they worry about Fascism. Besides, I feel much better with my Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, thank you very much.
And they call Obamacare Socialism! Don't they know that the individual mandate is actually a Republican giveaway to corporations (Only right wingers think the reason people don't have health insurance is because they don't want it, not because they can't afford it) Sure the bill is flawed, but a step towards a more corporate union is better when it's initiated by the Democrats, right?
I was basically saying don’t sit around waiting for the two corrupted established parties to restore the Constitution or the Republic. The founding generation was birthed by the rabble of all walks of life that got fed up and did risky things because they were captivated by the breath of liberty. There is a looming oligarchy and it is up to the people to organize a grassroots movement and push back. Wait a minute! Aren't DINOs better than Republicans, because without them, we wouldn't have our majority and the capacity to fix things, or at least the things that our rich corporate masters will allow us to fix, as long as they get to squeeze us for every penny in our pocket?
Sure, it's feels better to point the finger at the other team while the whole country is losing, but unless people realize that our government has been stolen from us by large corporations who don't care about anything but stock prices and year end bonuses. By using wedge issues in the corporate media, as well as polarizing politicians, they keep people not voting for things, but against things, including, our own best interests.

Still No Change

The Obama administration, brought to power by claims of change, has proven that things have changed, only for the worse. Case in point: Cindy Sheehan, arrested in Saturday's antiwar march marking the seven year anniversary of the illegal US invasion of Iraq may be tried for her campaign. Huh? What? Even the Cheney/Bush administration was smart enough to know that trying a mother grieving over the loss of her son in a pointless unending war would make her a martyr, President Obama was supposed to be smarter than that.
Let's see, teabaggers can protest all they want, hurl invectives and slurs at members of Congress, and they go unpunished. But make a point about the senseless cost of war, and well, it's off to the hoosegow with you.
Of course this was the same Obama campaign that promised talks with Iran without any preconditions Now we have increased calls by members of the administration as well as members of congress for tougher sanctions against Iran. You know, sanctions like we had had with Iraq. And like Iraq, the propaganda has started against Iran. Now we have the US army claiming that Taliban fighters are training in Iran. Never mind that Shi'ite Iran and Sunni Taliban can't even agree on how to run a theocracy, the important point is that the military now has an excuse for it's poor performance in the never ending war in Afghanistan and the corporate media has a new scare to wave at the television watchers.

Who Are These Clowns And Why Do We Deign It To Pay Them $165,000 A Year

Whether you think the US is a democracy or a republic, the truth is it's neither, we no longer have any form of representative government at all.
Exhibit A, the "health care reform". While most Americans support fixing our health care system, offering a medicare buy in and a public option, what we are getting is the individual mandate, a law designed to line the pockets of the health insurance industry. Capitalism sucks bad enough, but when you force uninsured citizens to buy a product from a private concern rather than a government entity, you have taken another step towards the corpocracy.
Exhibit B, war with Iran. Most Americans don't want us to undertake another military confrontation, we haven't made any progress with the two we're already mired in. War with Iran will costs us more money, more lives, and more at the gas pump. Last time gas prices topped $4.00 a gallon, the economy went into a tailspin, another period of high gas prices and you might as well start stocking up on pencils to sell on Wall Street. Aha, you say, but we're not at war with Iran yet. Yet, of course, being the operative word in that statement. Because, you see, next week is the Aip[ac conference and this year, the lobby has built its annual conference, and its entire lobbying agenda around the issue of Iran. I know, I know, Iran actually hasn't done anything wrong, per se, but that didn't stop the US from invading Iraq, so what makes you think Iran will be any different. Well, you say, the Democratic party was given control of congress and the White House by progressives Americans opposed to the ongoing wars. And since that time, the party has done absolutely nothing to end either quagmire. In fact President Obama has even crossed the border of Afghanistan into Pakistan (well not, President Obama himself, of course), so you could even say he has increased the Pax Americana of the Bush administration. And with that in mind, there's no reason he wouldn't continue that Bush administration policy of the US military as the world's police force by bombing Iran for doing something that is well with in it's rights as both a sovereign nation as well as a signee to the NNPT.
So there you have it, two pieces of evidence that our representatives don't represent us at all. Instead, we have a bunch of jokers who sole purpose in life seems to be to grow fat off the public tit (ever see a skinny senior congressperson?) while doing the work of everybody save their constituency. It's become the new American dream.

2010:Still No Change

At last Saturday's Tea party convention, professional political harpy Sarah Palin asked, mockingly, "How's that hope-y change-y thing working out for ya?", barely paraphrasing a right wing talking point from last summer. This and her eventual outrage at Rahm Emmanuel's "fucking retards" of last summer, illustrate how slow her reaction time is, as well as how out of touch she is with events going on around her.
The truth is, there is no "change-y" thing. While President Obama may have stated "even greater cooperation and understanding between nations" in his inaugural address, he has since hinted that he may go the George Bush/Dick Cheney route of unilateral action against Iran. Hell, we have them circled now, it's only a matter of time before a justification miraculously occurs, and them bombs start flying and people start dying. So other than the obvious reasons, how is Obama any different than you, Sarah Palin?
We know why the tea partiers hate President Obama so much, despite his continuation of Bush/Cheney policies. So continue to criticize him for doing things you would have backed had your party won the election. You don't seem bitter to me at all. America will always be better off without people like you who have to be reminded to lift America's spirit!

Ready To Kill You For Their Own Benefit

Is the US government trying to kill it's own people? According to congressional hearings held on January 27 of this year US intelligence agencies shielded the Christmas Day "underwear bomber" and stopped the State Department from revoking his Visa. It's strange that this story wasn't covered in the unbiased corporate media, after all, Fox News has been working overtime to embarrass the Obama administration, and this wold have been a perfect opportunity for them to do so.
So when intelligence chiefs warn of another attack "soon", is this wishful thinking, or prior knowledge of another operative allowed to slip through to justify military action somewhere else in the Middle East?

The Crippled Epistemology Of The American People

President Obama's appointee to the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs advocates infiltrating 9/11 Truth groups. In a paper published in 2008, Cass Sunstein says that conspiracy theories arise not from irrationality or mental illness, but rather than a crippled epistemology in the form of a sharply limited number of news sources. Given that only five corporations control what the majority of Americans watch and read as news, doesn't that mean that all Americans suffer from this? And, since most people choose one or maybe two news sources, why isn't their judgment being called in to question?
Because the sources chosen by the majority of Americans do two things. They all sell the idea that any problem can be solved through the magick of market based capitalism. Even those problems, such as obesity, which are caused by capitalism. Secondly, they propagate a myth that our political system works, as long as you keep voting for the two major parties. Never mind that the stewardship of the Republican and Democratic parties have done nothing for anybody not connected monetarily to the corpocracy.
In 2008, Prof. Sunstein suggested infiltrating the 9/11 Truth movement in order to undermine it, enlisting nongovernmental officials to rebut the theories that run counter to the official government conspiracy theory. Given that many people still believe President Obama was born in Kenya, despite evidence to the contrary being provided, all I can say is, Good luck with that.

2009:The Year Of No Change

Events of the past few weeks have only gone on to underline my underlying belief that our political system is a corporatocracy, that there is no real difference between Republicans and Democrats (although, oddly enough, I don't care for Republicans at all).
Matt Taibbi writes of how President Obama campaigned on a platform of change and reform , then replaced most of his staff with Wall St insiders once elected. No change there.
Sarah Palin praises President Obama's Peace Prize speech as something that could have been taken from the pages of her memoirs. Since Palin is an acolyte of neocon leader Bill Kristol, the man behind the Bush administration's foreign policy, once again, no change.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday he expected the international community to impose significant additional sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Even though there is no evidence that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and has every right to seek nuclear power for peaceful purposes as a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the US is still laying the ground work for some sort of military strike against Iran.Like I said, no change.

Redefining Patriot

I've been hearing on the radio and seeing on the teevee a lot about a government supported program called Safelink, that provides free cell phones and minutes to the economically disadvantaged. Which is a good idea, I guess, that in an emergency people are able to contact help. Why a cellular over a land line? I don't know, perhaps so the homeless can use them as well.
But hearing and reading about this program started me to wondering: how did this program get started with out the Tea Baggers protesting against it? I mean, if they going to get their knickers in a twist over health care reform, a basic necessity, then why haven't they taken to the Capitol steps over this?
Well, they soon will be. A Google search about this program's origins led me to this website, where the blogger suddenly finds they have problems with the government running deficits. A person who had no problem with spending billions monthly in Iraq and Afghanistan to no end, spending millions more on unconstitutional spying on American citizens because they are a patriot, now has a problem with assisting those people being crushed under the weight of the economy run into the ground by these "patriotic" programs.
I think we really need to redefine "patriot".

Scannon's Corollary To Godwins' Law

"As an [online] discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches."-Godwin's Law
Any online discussion about Israel will end with the probability of anyone critical of the state of Israel being called an anti-Semite-Scannon's Corollary to Godwin's Law
We weren't always the bad guys. back in WWII, we faced down evil and triumphed, only to become what we feared most, the governmental embodiment of evil.
And no, this is not directed at President Obama, who has been called a Fascist/socialist/communist by the same people who supported the country's shift to the right, extreme far right, under the previous administration.
Right now, the US is considering a reassessment of the 2007 NIE that stated Iran had abandoned it's nuclear weapon program in 2003. Thge terror-industrial complex needs a new monster to shake at us, now that Saddam Hussein is dead and Osama Bin Laden is more than likely passed on as well. That "monster" is Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, a man so scary to millions of people that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Iran that "the world will not wait indefinitely" for Iran to meet it's obligations on it's nuclear plans. Iran has, of course, repeatedly stated that they are seeking nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and has opened up it's nuclear sites for inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has found no evidence that Iran is doing anything except building a nuclear power plant thereby meeting it's "obligations" on it's nuclear ambitions.
In the meantime, the US has thrown it's support behind Israel, which has been accused of 37 different war crimes under the UN Goldstone report. The US, ready to impose economic sanctions on Iran for...absolutely nothing wrong, was one of the six countries voting against a resolution on the so-called "Goldstone report", which accuses both Israel and Hamas militants of war crimes committed during the 22-day Gaza conflict last December and January. Once more becoming part of the terror-industry complex.
Similarly, Israel has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and open it's nuclear sites up for inspection. And, by US law, according the the Symington Amendment, the US is forbidden to send aid to Israel until it does sign the treaty and open up it's sites to inspection.

So now we are the bad guys, the evil empire, ready to terrorize the world or our own people to meet our ends. WE threaten one country with sanctions for obeying the law while simultaneously enabling another to break every law of decency we used to hold as an ideal for the rest of the world.

A Tale Of Two Nuclear Programs

The Obama administration has been making much political hay played up for the propaganda push in the press for an attack against Iran because of the revelation that Iran has a secret nuclear facility. Not any more they don't. But Iran has already agreed to open the site up for inspection by the IAEA. It's sole purpose is not a nuclear weapons facility, but is another nuclear enrichment site for it's reactor at Bushehr.
President Obama has accused Iran of "breaking rules that all nations must follow". All nations?
No, there is one nation that has nuclear weapons and has refused calls for it to sign the NPT and open their nuclear sites up for inspection. This nation of moochers has attacked a US naval ship and yet still receives billions of dollars in aid from the US annually. That's enough to fund health care for every American citizen. Meanwhile, this nation commits war crimes and is violation of numerous UN resolutions, and yet still has the audacity to cal for war against the "mad" regime in Iran. (By US forces, of course.)
So why are we planning to attack one regime for obeying international law when another flaunts that very same law?
One word:oil.