Saturday, October 24, 2009

The Military Wants More Toys, More Time, More Lives...



10:40 AM



(The) conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.


In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.


We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defence with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

President Eisenhower (1961)

Pasted from <http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html>




Nobody was duped. Really. Secret report 'leaked'. A General giving speeches out of the border criticizing his Commander-In-Chief. Gates saying, before even reading McChrystal's paper, that he is sure that it will be on target 'and set for the challenges we have in front of us.'


The military wants to do war. On a big scale.

It does not want to stop. For security reasons? Maybe.


For political and financial reasons? Surely.


Well, that's what the journalist Seymour Hersh thinks.

And i don't think he's too far from the truth.


From Huffington:

Seymour Hersh: Military Is Waging War Against The White House


In addition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States military is also fighting a war against the Obama administration at the White House, Seymour Hersh said in a little-noted speech at Duke University on October 13. The military is "in a war against the White House -- and they feel they have Obama boxed in," he said.


Hersh, a Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist who exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq, sees an undercurrent of racism in the Pentagon's dealings with the White House. "They think he's weak and the wrong color. Yes, there's racism in the Pentagon. We may not like to think that, but it's true and we all know it."


As Neil Offen writes in the Durham Herald Sun:


"A lot of people in the Pentagon would like to see him get into trouble," he said. By leaking information that the commanding officer in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says the war would be lost without an additional 40,000 American troops, top brass have put Obama in a no-win situation, Hersh contended.


"If he gives them the extra troops they're asking for, he loses politically," Hersh said. "And if he doesn't give them the troops, he also loses politically."


Hersh considers the worsening situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan as the principal test of the Obama presidency, which will require the cooperation of the top military brass. Obama must face up to the military, Hersh said. "He's either going to let the Pentagon run him or he has to run the Pentagon." If he doesn't, according to Hersh, "this stuff is going to be the ruin of his presidency."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/23/seymour-hersh-military-is_n_332139.html


Actually, let's put it another way.
Stop the war, get healthcare to pay for itself.

The wars crippled the nation. We started something we just couldn't afford.
The time has come for O.B. Man to learn from past mistakes and take
the steps to create wealth by creating peace. And jobs.

Don't let war, big porky business and neowingnuts eviscerate everything we hold dear for a buck and a half and a private jet.

Again, in the famous words of
President Eisenhower:
'America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.'

They Say it so Much Better Than I Could...


From Seeing the Forest, always on target:


Fight the Big Boys on Wall Street at www.BanksterUSA.org

The Banksters have pulled off the biggest heist of all time. They have crashed the global economy, throwing 7.5 million Americans out of work, emptying retirement and college funds and forcing many into hardship and homelessness. Yet they continue to be rewarded with trillions of taxpayer dollars that underwrite their Bankster bonuses, they prey upon the vulnerable with ballooning bank fees and macabre investment schemes such as "death bonds" and their taxpayer-subsidized lobbyists swarm Capitol Hill to prevent the passage of any meaningful reform of the financial system.

The Smackdown Starts Now

This fall is a critical time. Congress is now taking up a series of bills to restore confidence in the financial sector. If you want to rein in the Banksters and if you think America deserves better than a "boom and bail" economy, you need to muscle up and weigh in. Only you can tell Congress to prioritize the interests of Main Street over the interests of Wall Street.

Bust the Banksters at BanksterUSA

www.BanksterUSA.org is the go-to site for updates on the financial services re-regulation fights in Congress and for progressive netroots campaigning against the big boys on Wall Street.

Our "Action Center" is a hotbed of popular campaigning on the crisis.

We know that it is wrong that a full year since the Wall Street meltdown no employee of any major American bank or blue chip financial institution is behind bars. Compare this to the Savings and Loan crisis 20 years ago. No less than 1,852 S&L officials were prosecuted and 1,072 were jailed.

Our motto? Too big to fail, but not too big for jail! Click here to email the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI and tell them to get cracking!

This week Congress is debating a key Obama administration reform proposal, one that would create a new "top cop" for consumers in the form of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). This new agency will tackle abusive lending practices and protect consumers from the deceptive tricks and traps of the financial services industry. We need to pass a strong bill to empower the agency to do battle with the Banksters, but the Banksters have promised to "kill" it.

Click here to tell Congress to ignore the Banksters and "Put a New Sheriff on the Block" with a Consumer Financial Protection Agency!

Our Action Center highlights the upcoming "Showdown in Chicago" which promises to be the largest grassroots protest against the Banksters of the American Bankers Association. The Action Center will also help us ramp up the campaign against Goldman Sachs' despicable "death bonds" - an investment scheme you have to see to believe.

Sign up to get the latest news and receive regular email alerts and action items. The Banksters may have the big bucks, but we have the big numbers. The only way to win reform is to make our voices heard!

Don't Let the Banksters Write the History of These Turbulent Times!

The Banksters may be whitewashing, but we can Wiki! We need your help to build a fully-sourced research companion to BankstersUSA.org on the web. It is a collection of editable Wiki profiles of the financial institutions, CEOs, lobbyists, front groups, issues and legislation related to the crisis and the bailout. It builds on our powerful Sourcewatch Wiki with its proven capacity to raise critical information in the Google-sphere so it can be easily found and used by citizens and journalists. We need citizen journalists to help us build this important resource and document the truth about these turbulent times. This Wiki is not a place for editorializing, but for quality research based on top-notch source material. Please visit the "Help Out" section of our Real Economy Project Wiki portal to learn more. It is easy and fun! Our motto? "Fair, accurate and documented."

About Us

The www.BanksterUSA.org site and our larger Real Economy Project are part of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). CMD was founded in 1993 as an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, public interest group focusing on exposing corporate spin and government propaganda. CMD brought you the book "Weapons for Mass Deception" before the Bush team failed to find weapons in Iraq, and we exposed "Fake News" in the media and the "Pentagon Pundits" on cable news. With this new effort, we will debunk the spinmeisters of the powerful financial services industry and help ordinary Americans take positive action on the financial crisis and the real economy.

StumbleUpon Makes my Heart Beat Faster Sometimes...






Some nice pix from Alan Taylor's The Big Picture.

I'm particularly fond of the one showing the possible beauty contains in the workers' life,
some of which are, of course, just children.

Umbrella Art Installation by Oz Collective


I Love Him... But I just Want to Kick his Butt




'I really do love him but…' It's what comes to mind every time I see him.

Yes, I'm talking about my ex.


But I'm also talking about my dear President.


The list gets longer after the' but' in my ex's case. Unfortunately, it's starting to be the same situation with my Prez.


Who writes his speeches? Who could tell him he's not in class or in court anymore? Who could tell him to buy a barf bag, sit down and actually study Bush-moron Junior for a little while?

I'm shocked at my self to even suggest this but O.B. Man needs to study the nitwit in chief and let some of his sweat locker monosyllabic charm rub off on him.


'O the Man' forgot that what he was voted for was to be the champion of the Little Guys of the nation, the champion of inclusion and the end of exploitation of the Everyday people by the 1% of the Porky Pigs (thus, the Nobel. But those feelings of vindication are so long past and forgotten, we just don't know why O's here anymore.)


He should remember that the middle class put him as Commander-in-Chief to clean house and bust heads. (Yeah… They were stereotyping.) And he needs to lead by being clear about his targets, zeroing in on identifiable enemies and stopping all appeasement actions toward the neo-KKK movement now at the heart of the so-called Republican party.


'Cynical claims...' speech lingo, talk-show tennis talk and, no, not even a consumer protection bill won't cut it (Funnily enough, most won't feel concern about it as rules can sometimes be easily circumvent by business, as we all saw…)


We feel hesitancy, anxiety and downright unwillingness to shake up the established order of things. People pleasing is not an attractive quality in a leader.


Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis talks about the need for the US to remember who we are. I would add a nuance and say that the US needs to remember that we can change and accomplished more by cooperation than savage competition. That we always did. That's who we can be anytime we chose to. And no one give a tone and a sense of identity or direction to this nation as it's President.


Well, it's between him and Paris Hilton.


Seriously though, Obama is poised to become one of the greatest. If he can find the right voice to communicate with his constituents, if he can learn from all his predecessors and most importantly, if he starts to yield a big whacking stick that he'll use unapologetically for the common good.


I'm shock again, but Biden did it well against Vampire-in-chief Cheney. Simple, monosyllabic and on target.