Hitchens vs. Vidal

This is only moderately interesting. I have thought that Hitchens was a very good polemicist for a long time, he did go completely off the rails after 9/11. Of course he did climb back on once it became clear that Bush and co. were torturers.

This however, really has nothing to do with that. He is attacking Vidal for some of his conspiracy theories. Ones that I have to say I find hard to swallow. Still it does seem to give a lot of people an opportunity to call Vidal an anti-Semite and an old queen, among other things. The worst thing Vidal seems to have done is to have consistently and accurately criticized America and its neo-colonial empire for the last half-century.

Those I find most interesting (in the same way one finds public exhibitionist interesting) are the commentators who jump in by first admitting that they haven't read anything by Vidal, or maybe only one thing many years ago and then go on to slag him for not being creative or not being original. That takes more nerve or stupidity than I have.

He was certainly the the most perfect American prose stylist of the twentieth century and perhaps ever. He was also one of the most widely publish and accurate critics of our empire.

Plutocrats Be Them

The web is all atwitter with the Bernankey vote coming up and the possibility that he might not be confirmed for another term as head of the Fed. Although the administration now appears to be pulling out all the stops to make sure he's confirmed. Much like they did with Coakley (although I would suspect that the Senate is more easily swayed than Massachusetts). It is interesting that they are more than willing to spend political capital on a guy who was oblivious to the disaster that was Wall Street and the American economy in 2007 and 08, than to a person who might in fact be a competent leader of Homeland security or various real regulators that they can't seem to get through the confirmation process.

Of course the guy also made clear that he is more interested in keeping inflation down now than encouraging job creation now. This would of course be the very guy a democrat would want as head of the Fed in the face of massive unemployment.

HCR is another issue that makes me mostly incoherent much like torture. The issue here (like torture) is that I cannot for the life of me figure out what the people in power are thinking. Now they are apparently floating yet another trial balloon that if they cut the benefits even more (in this case making sure only children's pre-existing conditions are covered) and perhaps somewhat fewer than half of the originally stated 31 million will be covered, that will make the bill more palatable. Too who do you think?

What a concept: Make it worse so that even fewer people like it and it helps even fewer people --- that's the ticket!

Who would have thought that we were voting between a republican and a republican lite in the last election (although to be honest, I no longer know which one the "lite" was. To go a little farther, I can't believe that I can only hope that a guy I actually worked for (a little) and voted for fails in all his major legislative endeavors. Before his first State of the Union he has shown himself to be in the pocket of the plutocrats who it turns out really do rule this country no matter what the majority of us want.

Time For Dinner

So I posted earlier, but I completely deleted it because it was nearly incoherent. It's my blog and I can do what I want, so there.

It was on the HCR push to force the House to pass the Senate version with no changes. I got it from Firdeoglake. The stuff from FDL is pretty depressing. I'm not sure what to do about it. I read an interview with Obama where he seems to be oblivious to what he has done to the progressive coalition that elected him, and seems to be oblivious to what happened he says we needed TARP and the Stimulus (yes I know he was "just" a senator when the first monies were shovelled to the banks, but he was the democratic leader at that time and he could have insisted on oversight with the bill as the price for his vote and he didn't. They were all passed with no oversight or control at all. In large part because of his efforts.

All over the web today on the left are arguments about whether or not to pass the Senate bill and fix it later. The ability of some people (even the great Krugman, I'm not in the mood to link) to kid themselves and pretend that the bill will be "fixed" later amazes. I guess not having any kind of reputation that relies on my political or economic predictions kind of makes it easier for me to back off my earlier positions. Although after backing off the prediction that Obama would be better than the alternatives, I've pretty much got to say I was right about most everything else.

Let me not go very far out on a limb and suggest that the democrats are screwed no matter what they do at this point. Not because it isn't possible (in some imagined world) to change course and accomplish things that will both help people and appear to help people, but because the bozos in charge will simply be unable (and more to the point probably unwilling) to do it. I would think that a competent embezzler should be able to graft the money from the dumb poor and shift it to his big buck buddies while making the rubes think that it is golden for them. Obama can't seem to do that.

I suspect that it would be better at this point that nothing at all be passed because by now the only thing that is going to come will place a patina of gilt gloss of a heaping pile of dog shit. And unfortunately for our democratic would be overlords people can currently see through this enough to blame them. In addition, I suspect that it will appear enough to prevent any real reform happening for quite some time.

So there you have it. A shit bill now and no real reform for some time because those in power will be able to convince enough people that that is all the reform you should get or have. Or no bill at all now and those in power will be able to convene enough people that reform is not wanted or needed.

So get ready to chow down cause that's all you're gonna get.

What Are We Ever To Do?

I've been thinking a lot about the recent dust up in Massachusetts.

I wonder about the concept that because us lefties attacked the preznit because we thought he hasn't been much but a shill for the various corporations we are to blame for losing the election there. I wonder who got that idea and how they got it. Which seems to be where No More Mister Nice Blog is (as usual you have to scroll down to Did Pro-HCR Voters Actually Put Brown Over the Top?)

I would respectfully suggest that the people who are making those complaints are full of it. When a candidate in a two and a half month campaign cannot be convinced to go every place she can go to shake hands and talk people up, on twenty hour days, who apparently takes a five day vacation in the middle of it, who makes fun of her opponent for shaking hands, but who can take an evening off to run to D.C. to get money from fat cat insurance and pharmaceutical types, she deserves to lose. Of course it is the rest of us who pay for this shit.

On top of this is the most inept White House national campaign group since Clinton (and which seems to have most of the same losers in it, by the way).

You cannot win elections by telling people that things might be mighty bad, but really you know they aren't as bad as they would be if the other people were in power. On top of that then you go out of your way to screw your base(let's tax previously nontaxable union benefits). You flat out lie and then turn around and grovel to the other side. I suspect that Obama was beat up a lot as a kid and they only way he could protect himself was to give the bullies his lunch money, because that is certainly how he is acting right now.

Finally, the average voter seems (gosh for what reason I don't know perhaps it is because he gives the corporations everything they want with no oversight or controls) to think that Obama cares more about Wall Street than Main Street (I know, I know it is jejune, hackney, and been uses over and over, but it is true). That is how people now look at him.

Look I am not demanding perfection. But a little bit of balls. Make those who oppose real HCR stand up and filibuster. Make 'em talk for 6 weeks. See what happens. But that assumes that Obama wants something that is kind of progressive, doesn't it?

Next Stop Debtors Prison

Gosh I hate to mess up the joint now that I've got it looking spiffy.

However: I see the SCOUS (that's the United States Supreme Court, for those without a computer) has spoken. They appear to agree with the 19th Century French: The law in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

Now it is true that in 21 Century America we are a little more creative. In that we permit the rich corporation as well as the poor to give as much as they might want to the political action of their choice. So you just feel good out there that no corporation is denied the right to spend as much as they want on politics, just be assured that so can you.

Obama: Incompetent, Corrupt, or Incompetently Corrupt

Yet another new format, OOH bright colors.

So if the republican wins in Massachusetts today then Obama will not be able to pass his progressive agenda. Hm.

Can someone tell me just what progressive agenda our good buddy has attempted to pass up to this point and what little he has attempted he has larded down with shit for the banksters and for the insurance industry and for big pharma, given the rest of us the crumbs from the rich man's table?

Going beyond that if what Firedoglake reported he has actually tried to prevent independent actions by the so called liberal groups so that he can control it all. That would be why we had a plethora of actions by teabaggers this summer and nothing by the progressive. The veal pen indeed.

Nihilism For Today

Nihilism the word of the day.

I am beginning to think that those Russians who threw bombs at random targets in the aristocracy might not have had such a bad idea.

Now the Grey Lady is more than willing to tell us that the reason that the reason Croakley might lose in Massachusetts is because Obama and the democrats have been too liberal (a source which will soon be behind a firewall apparently, ignoring the fact that they make most of their money from ads, which when one links through one sees). Of course by doing this along with Murdock they will limit the ability of the net to provide access to news stories, and so (they think) increase access to their product. Yet another brilliant business model brought to you by the same people who managed to yada yada yada, you know.

Well, back to the original thought: I have been thinking that this would be the way that this will play out for some time. Rahm was able to finally destroy the democratic majority in congress for almost two decades pushing NAFTA and GATT and help destroy the middle class in the process. To be fair he wasn't able to do it alone, but he does seem to be the go to guy for destruction of democratic majorities. At least in my lifetime.

The current leadership of the democratic party is as conservative as it gets (Teabaggers are not conservative, they are Nazis or fascists). They are simply unable to acknowledge their own limitations or perhaps, since they don't seem to be particularly stupid, (although the decision of Obama to appoint the very people who destroyed the economy in positions of power in his administration does seem to indicate a certain lack of intelligence, or perhaps just a willingness to shovel more money to his friends at the expense of the rest of us) perhaps just particularly unwilling to admit the truth.

The concept of killing the messenger is I think at play here. But then Obama lied and lied and lied as a candidate. I can no longer believe anything else. He and his people are not going to accept that they did anything wrong and they will always believe that what is best for AIG is best for America.

So once I say all that what is there to do? I'll be damned if I know.

OPPS: That's Coakley not Croakley, perhaps that is a Freudian Slip.

Nap Time

Health BS Reform

Maybe it is time to provide a new format so I feel like I'm starting new, or maybe not.

This is something, part of the FDL coverage of the Health Care Reform (Insurance Give-Away) I've been thinking about for some time. Aimai has been going slightly crazy about FDL at No More Mister Nice Blog (for some strange reason you can't link to a specific post, so scroll down to Splinter Group) and I commented on that post of hers yesterday, but to be truthful I didn't say what I really thought, which is that she has become hysterical concerning serious criticism of the bill. Very disappointing, because for the most part I like her style and ability to string words together and politics, but right now she appears to have even lost that.

Criticism of the people who want to kill HRC (IGA) seems to be focused on a couple of points: first, Obama never claimed to be that liberal/progressive so what do you expect, stop being so unreasonable and support what you can get (he wants to give you); second, he couldn't really do anything else because of the mean senate so get behind him and realize that we will improve it some time in the future, no really we will. When I guess the senate isn't all that mean anymore. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but the second really does kind of excuse Obama or the first doesn't really blame him, but rather blames me for being so naive and for demanding perfection I guess.

Both positions give Obama a pass either because that is who he is or that is all he can accomplish.

Both suggest that we have to take what is offered and then try to build on that. Although to be honest, what makes anybody think that we will be able to build on a very bad bill that was enacted with overwhelming majorities of democrats in power is beyond me. Particularly when we look at what will probably be happening next year when people simply won't bother to work or vote after being screwed like we have been.

Both positions try to dampen the real, and I feel totally justified, rage people feel about Obama. He ran as something and he lied about what he was. I should I think feel kind of abashed that at my age I believed in his lies, but still they were his lies, not mine.

He twisted arms and makes threats to get his more conservative positions passed (wire tapping, bank bailouts with no oversight, more war) but when it comes to helping the people who actually went out and worked for him, screw us all.

Up next filibuster: What it meant in 1963 and what it means now.

647

Arrgghhhh!!!!!!!!

I have been trying to post here more reliably, but real life keeps getting in the way. In addition, I keep posting little things to Facebook. Oh well.

I've been trying to figure out what to do to accomplish some sort of progressive agenda while Obama and I have finally come up with an answer: Nothing, Nada, Nyet, Nein, Nothing.

It ain't gonna happen. There will be no real progress as long as Obama is president. He and his minions will thwart it. They will always be giving the goodies to the wealthy 1% and brothers and sisters that ain't you or me. Not only that, but when the democratic party gets gutted in the mid-terms it will be us nasty liberals who get blamed. Meanwhile, the people who keep giving him a pass: telling us it's just too difficult, the president just doesn't have that kind of power, and by the way just ignore the deals with the wealthiest behind the curtain will keep supporting him, but they won't work for or vote for those lower down on the party ladder.

So what will happen? The democrats will lose the house and perhaps the senate, but there is a good chance that with the Obama lovers he might be re-elected. To continue Bill Clinton's presidency (and in all important ways Bush's). That is money being transferred to the wealthiest from the middle class at a slightly accelerated rate, but not a lot of difference between the parties really (who ever thought I'd be quoting George Wallace). I even suspect that he will be as personally popular as Clinton, a lot of good that will do the rest of us. As his kids get to marry into the wealthiest families in the country. It will be good for them and screw you.

As long as there is a democrat in the white house, I suspect that the left (such as it is) will be co-opted. Imagine, if Al Smith had won the democratic nomination in 1932 instead of Roosevelt. Well, that is where we are now, with some "safety nets left around from the 30s and the 60s. Watch what happens after the mid-terms though. Watch them finally gut those nets.

So in answer to the original question? Damned if I know, but watch the better and more intelligent "progressive" people keep insisting that it isn't as bad as it might be under a republican so really we must keep supporting this guy cause you know.

Obama What He is Doing and What he Should Do

Wants your

To to give to

When he sould be giving them

So Sad.

Post 644 or Let's Think Up a New Name

OK, so I'm reading various blogs and things and I've now see our ruling monied classes called Neo-Feudalists, Robber Barons and Corporatists.

Humm which name really truly describes them, do you think?

Post 643 or Sociopaths Anyone

Here I am trying to figure the hoohah over Jane Hampsher's decision to hook up with Grover Norquist and attempt to get an independent investigator to try to investigate Rahm Emanuel for misdeeds when he was with Fannie and Freddie. It is almost as though many of the progressives who are criticizing her have backed into a hot poker and have come out in a nearly uncontrollable rage attacking her. Forgetting that the ACLU and others have connected up with this organization at points where there goals coincided. Also perhaps forgetting that Churchill connected up with Stalin at a point where their goals coincided. Perhaps one reason they come out fighting like this is that they have laid down and allowed the corporate elite to run over them without standing up for anything. They have caved at the request of Obama and his minions and have become Obama's minions themselves.

Hampsher has been slamming large and important members and groups of the progressive community for being in, what she calls the veal pen for some time. So I expect that she hasn't made a lot of friends, but the response is kind of interesting, to say the least. Or stupidly overwhelming might be another way of putting it. One of my favorite sites, "No More Mister Nice Blog" has delinked (sorry can't link directly to that post you'll have to scroll down some to see it) to her based on that and her argument that the senate health care[?] bill needs to be destroyed because nothing is better than that bill for the vast majority of Americans.

I'm not sure what I'm seeing here. I really hope that I don't understand what is going on. That is I think that Emanuel and Obama are incredibly corrupt and were more that willing to lie about just about anything to get Obama elected. Further, I think that we (those of us who consider ourselves liberals/progressives) were completely taken in by our own desire to see a progressive black man elected president, so we were willing to overlook his real background and project our own fantasies on to him. So if I'm right then Obama and Rahm are simply very intelligent sociopaths and the rest of us are beyond belief naive and probably not so bright.

If we go on with this thought game a little further we end up with a lot of people who have a great deal invested in Obama the Idea now that they see where Obama is leading them they are too invested to back up and say: "He lied and is continuing to lie and he is only going to serve his corporate masters and not the people who really elected him." So where are they and what are they going to do when they see this abortion of a health care/insurance give-a-way of a bill? They have to believe that really Obama wants more, but he can't do more right now, so he is playing some sort of brilliant chess game that we mere mortals can't understand. We must remain in awe and let him play it out his way and just hope that we get some crumbs from the rich man's table. They cannot allow themselves to see that they (we) were taken for suckers and we've got to stop giving him a pass and start fighting if we are going to get any more than those few crumbs.

Let's see what he's done with just health care (let's forget Wall Street and the other money men):

First, a (it turns out a not so secret) deal with the pharmaceutical industry to guarantee them no cheaper imports of drugs from Europe or Canada and to continue the highest prices in the world.

Second, a deal with the insurance industry to guarantee them 31,000,000 new customers at whatever rate they want to charge. Payment to be made by the middle class whether in the form of direct payments to the insurance companies or in subsidies paid through the government or with tax credits and to continue the highest prices in the world.

Second B, a subsidy that will not cover the increased cost for the middle class.

Third, special deals with hospitals and doctors to continue the highest prices in the world.

Fourth, if Hampsher is correct, he directed the largest progressive organizations to back off. That is not to try to organize demonstrations or other grass roots actions to support a truly progressive bill. No he wanted them to stand down to allow him to proceed in secret to construct these deals whose details were not available to the public until later, but would be what was best for us, you'll see. Then when in essence it was really too late to do much about it the facts emerge. Added to that fact was of course, the out pouring of right wing crazies who essentially controlled the news all summer.

Fifth, he refused to pressure anyone on the right to move to a more "moderate" position, because as president he couldn't.

Sixth, he was more than willing to pressure those on the left to support this bill because as president he could.

Seventh, one of the most important parts of the bill and a way to pay for other parts is a tax on health insurance provided by employers (but just on "Cadillac" health insurance where employees get more insurance than they need or really know what to do with), so that the health care will be paid for by the middle class and workers, instead of oh say the wealthy or the health care industry in one form or another.

Eighth, the insurance industry can't refuse you for preexisting conditions, but they can charge you out the ass for them. Therefore, more money for them again.

Ninth, no cost control.

So how do progressives stomach this? The argument is now that we get something now and we build on it in the future. You know like with Medicare or Medicaid or ADC or or or or or. Or what of course we have built on nothing in the last thirty years except deregulation and tax cuts.

So I guess I understand enough about what is going on with Obama and Rahm (they are sociopaths), but what is going on with the progressive blogesphere? I do suspect that they are just too invested to admit that they were wrong and are now wrong. And their God has failed and they do not know what to do. They will eventually get their heads out of their asses just like they eventually did with Iraq, but then what?

I Stole This Entire Post

"wrestling with the crushing burdens of the Bush terms" irony -- only the best blogs have it.

You mean like escalating the war in Afghanistan, preserving military spending levels, helping to keep gays as second class citizens, granting immunity to price controls and competition from Europe and Canada to big PHARMA, backing the Bush position on land mines and biological weapons, preventing disclosures to the ACLU under the FOIA, continuing the Bush tradition of renditions, preventing legal action against tortures aledged by Rumsfeld, not closing Quantanimo, bailing out the banks instead of protecting homeowners, failing to commit to anything substantial that might slow climate change, smothering the public option with neglect and poor leadership, keeping Dick Chenney and his pals from being investigated, giving bailouts to GM instead of creating green jobs, and quashing Rahm's investigation?

Seems he's accomplished quite a lot in just one year. I don't see how McCain could have done much more.

Columbus Fun

Isn't that an incredibly distinguished looking gentleman there on your right in the top and bottom photos?

Post 640

This is depressing, but mostly right and this is only about the broken promises concerning health care.

Krugman is arguing that this bill needs to be passed, but I think that his position is that it is better than what is there now. Much like his being in favor of the various bailouts of Banking and Wall Street (are they the same?). That is, it is better than nothing, in the sense we need something done so this is what we've been given so we might as well live with it. I do not think that he understands the political implications of these half assed actions. The rage that inflames the middle class and the poor and what the outcomes of that rage can be and probably should be. Hell the middle class and poor are already pretty pissed with the attitude that the parties we keep electing will not govern in the interests of the people, but rather only in the interests of the 1% who now more or less own us all.

There is a good essay at Firedoglake, about how it is just as probable that we will not improve a very bad bill, but that we will instead institutionalize the insurance industry into another bloated (alright more bloated) government subsidized bureaucracy. In fact, given that the democrats are going to lose and lose big in 2010 it is a for sure thing that it will end up that way.

Hey Merry Xmas. And I hope you enjoy the anthracite compound in all your stockings.

They Forget Nothing and They Learn Nothing

I had a great afternoon in Columbus with some old friends then I came back here to read more stuff about the "Health Care Reform Bullshit."

I am reminded about what happened with the Bankruptcy bill a few years back when the right wing crazies, along with some left wingers managed to prevent the passage of that bill for a couple of years until the democrats got control.

I simply can't figure out what the majority of the democrats in congress think that they are doing. How hard is it to see that they are going to get their asses handed to them on a platter if they pass a plan that requires us all to buy insurance from private companies at private company rates, with a less than adequate subsidy, and no way to limit the cost.

Rahm is truly the epitome of the old description of the French ruling class: "They forget nothing and they learn nothing." He helped destroy health care under Clinton and now he charges forward to do the same thing under Obama.

I still think that I am right that they never wanted any real reform, just some sort of cosmetic change to let people think that they were going to get something good. It has come as quite a shock to them to find out that the people are in on it and do not like it one little bit. Further, I suspect that the people will not let Obama and the democrats forget how they feel, and that the result will be a disaster for the party next time out. So sad. too bad.

I would be more distrought if I thought that it would make any difference who was elected. I realy do think that there was more than a dime's worth of difference between the parties when Wallace ran back in 64, 68. Now perhaps about $0.03, maybe.

So I'm distraught about what is going to happen, but I do not think that the person I vote for is going to try to make any difference.

So sad, too bad.

Well one can dream, can't one.

Post Number 638

So I've come to the point that the military was in in Vietnam. Now the posts have become simply numbers. How many times can one say WTF.

Also, I'm concerned that I may have spelled Hippy (Hippie?) wrong. Gosh, I mean I was one, but then I never had to spell it, you know (hippy[ie?] not lawyer or for that matter dirty). So anyway that was depressing me and once again shows that I really can't spell worth a damn. Never could.

On top of that I've been posting to Facebook and linking there where I know that at least some people read the stuff. Here it is more like shouting in the wilderness. If a radical yells in the forest and there is not audience to hear him, does he make a sound?

One of the things that has been bothering me is that all of a sudden I'm seeing "progressives" claiming that they knew when they voted for Obama that he really wasn't a liberal, but was rather a "moderate." Therefore they have no reason to be surprised by what he is doing right now.

A couple of thoughts about that. After I call Bull Shit. First, if moderate has any meaning at all other then servant of the wealthy and powerful then he is no moderate. Of course, reading the MSM perhaps that really is what the word now means, so maybe he is what is now known as a moderate. Second, no one that I know of thought that he was the next FDR or LBJ but perhaps a JFK would not have been a bad thing. Hell another Eisenhower would have been OK. He is none of those. He is a Hoover, without Hoover's lovable personal qualities. Or a Bush II with a college vocabulary.

It appears as though we will now have a Health Care Reform Bill with no public option, no Medicare buy in, but with a requirement that each and everyone of us pay money to a private, nearly unregulated, for profit industry. Oh yeah, the government (us) will subsidize those of us who can't really afford it. But the subsidy will be so little and the kick in will be so high that it will still screw most of us.

November 11, 1918 etc.

So today is Veteran's Day. Big whoop. People congratulate me for serving in a (neo)colonial war half a world away, and tell me that I was there defending freedom (some add peace, but that is a little much to even comment on).

Sorry, I call bullshit. Eisenhower said that he kept the South Vietnamese from voting in 1958 to make sure that they didn't vote for Ho Chi Ming, which he knew they would. Some freedom. So I was no more defending freedom and democracy there and then, then the people in the service are now.

The guys who are busy being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and now it looks like there will be even more are fighting for what? Not freedom in Iraq certainly. In Afghanistan, gee we got a recent election that is so corrupt that the opposition "party" pulled out of the run off. On top of that one half of the population are being denied any rights at all (would you care to guess which half that is?) Given what just happened with the Sputak amendment, I would think that the democratic party probably has not problem with that at all.

I thought I was busy defending the world from the communist menace. Of course, keeping these mostly brown people from electing their own government was simply schooling them in real democracy. I really believed that at the time.

Seeing the affect we had on the people there the way we corrupted an already corrupt government (in Thailand) the affect on me was kind of like a cold shower. Why was I there, what was I doing? I grew up at 22, apparently our rulers have yet to get to that level of development.

At any rate I was supporting an entirely corrupt government that was not in any real way representing it's people. I guess that could refer to either the South Vietnamese or the good old USofA.

You can't do that on a continuous basis over seas (ever since about 1948) and expect that what you will end up with here at home is going to be anything, but a corrupt government which in no real way represents it's people.

The founding fathers understood that we could not have a large standing army and a republic. It's interesting that we knew so much more than we apparently do 200 years later. Now look at us. At any rate you cannot continue to support dictatorships everywhere else (no matter what Orwellian phraseology you might use to justify it) and not expect that kind of thing to start to be reflected in the government here.

So celebrate each one of us who helped support a corrupt and vile government (take your pick) whose only purpose is now to take money from the middle class and lower classes and give it to the wealthiest here in this country, it was always their purpose to do that in other countries.

P.S. Oh yeah, I've wondered since I could wonder why we insist on "celebrating" Veteran's Day on November 11. After all, the only thing that happened on November 11 (well except for the execution of the Haymarket Martyrs and Nat Turner) was the armistice in WWI, which merely paused the Great War. Our peace with Germany came much later after all the other parties had signed the Versailles Treaty and the Versailles Treaty simply set the stage for another war. We've actually ended at least one war since then, and stopped all our colonial wars without any formal ends. I suspect that there are no living WWI veterans left in the USofA. (As an aside I did meet a WWI veteran once. He had been stationed in south Texas during the entire war and spent the entire time chasing Mexicans and Indians, never seeing one, he said.)

Sunday Animals

Sonny and Ming taking a much needed rest.

Loki with his new stuffed toy.

Loki sleeping with his new stuffed toy. He doesn't want to be separated from it and doesn't trust us not to steal it from him.

Bad Treaties

I honestly do not think that there is any reactionary piece of crap that this administration will not sign off on. A secret treaty that will apparently (dare I say with any luck) decimate the internet. I understand that those who are in power, of course want to limit the real input of those of us out of power. The same type of thing happened with the introduction of the printing press. I would guess that it is important to keep these kind of things out of the hands of the radicals.

JWMcD? Just what would McCain have done? Let's us do it too.

Stupid Piece of Shit

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it, Upton Sinclair

An interesting timeline, one that is I suspect correct and one that is right in it's implications. Rahm would not want to learn anything that would interfere with his preconceived notions. The idea that we've got to suck up the the corporatists and the big money people in order to win certainly isn't new. The fact that you can't screw up enough to lose your job. Is probably not new either. If you insist that the things to do are very conservative things to do.

Now by job I mean the money that comes in from their corporate backers. That would include all writers for the MSM. It would also include all most all elected and appointed officials. One can of course lose one's elected position, or the people who appointed one can also get voted out, but then one will get to go back to the right wing welfare trough, or a nice lobbying position which would probably provide even more money than one got working for the government.

Elections

It is too bad the democrat won in NY-23, since a win by the republican would have meant that the crazy right wing would have been emboldened in republican primaries.

I'm kind of happy that the democrat lost in Virginia, because it shows what happens when we run a republican clone and the base stays home.

It is a tragedy that the marriage equity lost in Maine. How sad indeed. Why is it that we can't let everybody have those rights? Plus it would mean more business for divorce lawyers.

And then there is Ohio, the three constitutional amendments all passed with money from industry pouring in. So the second one was the worst. Now we have another bureaucracy of appointed people who will be able to set the conditions for more factory farms. The small farmers (those who are left) were convinced to vote against their interests as they (and other middle class and poor people) have so frequently in the past. Now the animals will have their lives made even more brutish and miserable. And the ground water run off from these places with their poisons, and antibiotics will contaminate the water we all drink, and especially those few family farmers left.

Health Care Crap

Among other's.

Now this is something that I should not have just learned. I guess that it would just be too much to expect that American doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies make a reasonable amount of money.

Democracy Wins

Wow, just wow. We congratulate Karzai on steeling the election so efficiently that no one will run against him in the run offs. Too much danger. Why is it that I am not supposed to think of Vietnam when I think of this place? Is it because there are no jungles there, cause there are certainly enough incredibly corrupt loser politicians that we are backing to make the whole thing seem like a case of deja vu all over again.

How stupid are we not only do we congratulate the guy, but also the British government and the U.N. How is it not like Vietnam? No jungle, so it's much cleaner and oh yeah, we are only losing about a fifth as many soldiers per week as we did during Vietnam. So I guess that means that we can continue on for thirty years or until we or the Chinese run out of money. Or we run out of unmanned drones.

H1N1 or Swine All About It

Now this is interesting, thanks Sue. I wonder what the deal is with the Indonesians? Well assholes abound.

Dr. Horrible

Hey I just found this today, I don't know where I've been, but it is good.

Health Care Crap

This kind of thing is just insider bullshit. From the beginning of the election campaign and I'm talking the primaries, on the Democratic side one of the major focuses of the of domestic issues has been the reformation of the health care and health care insurance system in this country. What that means is that private insurers have to be reigned in in some way to enable the average citizen (at the very minimum) afford real health care. Of course the best option would have been (and still is) single payer or an expansion of Medicare to the whole population.

That option was taken off the table by Obama right at the beginning so that he threw away a major bargaining chip for those who really wanted true reform. So now the god damn discussion is which of the least piss poor plans out there are going to be available to us. And by us I mean the average citizen, since the people who are making the rules and the laws get the best gold plated system there is in the world. For those people our health care and insurance industries are indeed the best in the world.

At any rate to go back. It is clear (to me and it should be clear to everybody everywhere) that Obama has no interest at all in any real reformation of the health care industry (I think that might be an oxymoron: health care/industry). From the git go he has wanted to pump money into the insurance and pharmaceutical industries (just like the bankers) without any reforms at all. He plans on taking that money from the average American (and the Chinese for as long as he can) and giving it to the wealthiest 1% who produce nothing.

It is interesting that he acted differently with the auto industry. There he canned CEOs and cut wages, etc. He appears to be willing to throw money at only the industries that produce nothing.

So to get back he still wants to screw us and the only reason he hasn't been completely able to do that is that we the people are raising a huge stink and he needs a little cover. The other thing is that there are a few people in congress who won't go along and a few who are scared to go along. Of course, once again the insurance industry is doing their bit by pouring tons of money into this congress. My bet is that anyone who loses their seat because of voting for the industry and against their constituents will find that they and their immediate family have good insurance and jobs for the rest of their lives.

So apparently there is a little bit of democracy still left in the old girl.

Late (OK Very Late) Sunday

Watching the World Go By.

Cat In a Box.

Hows about it big guy?