kalia, there will come a time when god will get tired of all this, and unleash his wrath? he's probably too embarrased to show his face, for the mistake he made in his creation. he must of had a bad day.

#
Galen September 29th, 2007 1:46 am

Lobo: Canada is a nice place. I know. I live here.

Thanks :-)

Lobo: Canada is a nice place. I know. I live here.

hybridoma2001 September 28th, 2007 1:34 pm

I am hoping to leave the U.S. also as soon as the wife can retire.

Lobo Gris

LOBO GRIS. One word you used at the end of your post says it all:"elites." We don't know who they are and they aren't elected to any office. No election will do anything to change the situation. There have been a few presidents and others who were able to implement change due to the circumstances at the time ("I'm thinking New Deal here)but as the years past, things always managed to reverse themselves back to the way the "elite" want to run the world. The government are their foot soldiers and it makes little difference whether you vote for one party or the other.
Maybe I've just become paranoid or crazy, but this is what I believe today. In my opinion the only thing that can save us is a revolution, which is our right and duty under the constitution of the USA.
I don't know how this will come about. I mentioned the military the other day and one reader thought that was the worst idea, and maybe it is. I just can't see any other way at this point. There have been many ideas put out there for consideration as a way to force change but each of these has some part of it that just won't work - such as a national strike. Not many can afford to take that risk and lose a job. Not a whole lot of people can march on Washington and that would be cut short by the police before it got too far. Yes, I'm being a defeatist here but it is also true to a large extent.
I took the coward's way out and left the country after Bush's second s"election." For me, it seemed like the easiest way out. But I still care deeply for the people of the US and because of the way things are today, I feel concerned for the world.
If only the world did a boycott of the US,like what happened to South Africa, perhaps then our government would do their job and represent "we the people again." Right now the only people the government is representing are the elites. The only problem here is that the elites have no nation and are in all nations, in one way or another.
Like the song by Buffalo Springfield - For what it's Worth.

Good post Miles,

Privatization, Deregulation these are the Skull and Bones code words for corporate pork and Open Season on the citizen's infastructure. Apparently they aren't done looting the treasury yet......

Man, the general fund's going to be a black hole sucking everthing into it pretty soon....

(they must have gold stashed in Nazi vaults someplace, looks like they are trying their damnest to make the dollar crash.)

NEW YORK A new Gallup poll reveals that, as the organization puts it, Americans now "express less trust in the federal government than at any point in the past decade, and trust in many federal government institutions is now lower than it was during the Watergate era, generally recognized as the low point in American history for trust in government."

Among the findings: Barely half trust the government to handle international problems, the lowest number ever. And less than half express faith in the government handling domestic issues, the lowest findings since 1976.

Gallup adds: "The candidates running for president in 2008 will be trying to win over a skeptical public. Just 55% of Americans express trust in the 'men and women in political life in this country who either hold or are running for public office.' That matches the low Gallup found in 2001."

Lobo Gris

dkitching September 27th, 2007 2:45 pm

"We must support the Dems and nurse them along no matter what!!! Don't vote for any 3rd party candidates, don't sign any petitions to get other candidates on the ballot in any state. THIS COMING ELECTION IS THAT IMPORTANT.
REMEMBER DIVIDE US AND THEY WIN!!!!!!."

You're just another cut and paste shill trying to scare voters into voting once again for the lesser of two evils. You probably won't even be back to read and reply to all of your cut and paste posts.

"1. I agree that the Dems haven't done all they can."

You are right about that but your solution is to vote for them anyway?

There is a reason why Congressional approval ratings are at 11%. After we voted the Democrats into office in 2006 they not only haven't done their jobs, they haven't even tried. My take on it is that they think they can just coast along doing nothing, watching Bush self implode, and they will win in 2008 by default. Wrong IMO. We didn't elect them to just coast. We elected them to do the hard things that need to be done because they are right. What did we get? A Speaker that took impeachment off the table before she was even elected to the position. And we got a bunch of whining about how they can't beat a filibuster or override a veto. Both are wrong factually.

The Democrats could stop the war anytime by simply not funding it. They don't even have to let a spending bill out of committee, and if there is no bill it can't be filibustered or vetoed.

My take on it again, the Democrats are scared that if they do stop the funding they will be labeled as not supporting the troops. Not supporting the troops is lying to put them in harms way and getting almost 4,000 of them killed and almost thirty thousand of them wounded. They are also scared that if things get worse in Iraq after the defunding that they will be blamed. We heard the same thing about Viet Nam which ended drawing out that war for over ten years with 58,000 dead before it was over. The end result? We still left in 1975 in an ignoble retreat, helicoptering people off the embassy roof and pushing the helicopters off into the sea when they reached the waiting carriers.

The Democrats have a chance to do the right thing here and avoid a repeat of the Viet Nam fiasco. And that is what they get paid the big bucks for, not whining about how they can't do this or they can't do that when they can.

And don't tell me to wait until 2008 when the Democrats will have a big enough majority to get us out. I watched the Democratic candidate debates last night and none of the three front running candidates would even promise to have our troops out by the end of their first term in 2013.

As for impeachment, we have the worst president in U.S. history that has blatantly violated the constitution, the law, international treaties, and the Democrats won't even try to impeach him. My God, the Republicans impeached Clinton for lying about getting a BJ in the White House.

So no don't expect me to support or vote for the Democrats in 2008 if they refuse to stand up and do the right thing now. And I'm one of the voters they need, an independent swing voter. Isn't it a shame that in this country neither one of the two major parties can attract enough voters on their own merits to be able to win elections on their own without help from independents? Both parties IMO need to take a close look at themselves and see what they are doing wrong and correct themselves if they want to remain viable. The voters, myself included, in this country are crying out for competent leadership that will turn the country around and head it in the right direction, rather than in the direction that the so called elites have been taking us. As of right now I don't see that and a majority of the rest of the people in the country don't either.

Lobo Gris

There will come a time and that day may not be far off when God will get tired of all this and unleash his wrath. Woe un to you.

Some just want to see forgiveness, peace, compassion, kindness, honesty, generosity, etc. IN ACTION HERE AND NOW and aren't concerned about beliefs, abstractions, professions, alternate realities, etc. one way or the other.

"Some of us Democrats still believe that Jesus is exactly who He said He was, and want to elect leaders who respect his real teachings."

and some of us don't believe in god at all and are tired of hearing about god all the time. i do agree though that we all need to work together to fix our country.

follow milesofmusic's advice

Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" is a must-read.

after maliki took his little fit last week and was so presumptuous to think that he could effect a political decision in his own country by throwing blackwater out the american military stated that they could not prosecute this war without them.

huh!

what's that?

fact is, the armed forces can no longer feed themselves, house themselves, clothe themselves or wipe their asses themselves.

not without blackwater.

i don't know about you but that - in an already very strange world - freaks me out.

worse, this messed up situation is not a mistake, it is a but another step on the path of privatizing the american government.

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
by Naomi Klein

review here:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,,2169298,00.html

explains that the largest growth industry in the united states is the cannibalization of the american government.

bush wants to privatize everything, social security, intelligence, the military, and all the remaining government services.

the plan as naomi explains so well is to create a moment of shock and in that moment put forward major initiatives that the population cannot deal with, and tin this way, make more and more gains to privatize and make for profit everything.

and the shocks need to keep on coming.

that would be you and me folks.

cheney is going to be out of the sump pump this week to up the rhetoric on iran - to make ready the war. cheney has got a lot of shocks for us in his evil little mind.

it is an important book - check it out.

so as the military continues to create inabilities of every sort, the blakcwaters move in and take over.

don't worry, blackwater is ready to stand up as the american military stands down.

hey?

isn't that the plan is iraq?

VOTE ALL INCUMBANTS OUT OF OFFICE!

Some of you may remember the comic strip "Pogo" by Walt Kelly. In the late 1950s, he sent two of his swamp dwellers, Albert and Churchy, to Australia, where they encountered the "Russian Bear," who was masquerading as Santa Claus, or as the bear called him, "Sam Nikolaus."

Albert and Churchy wanted to return to the US in order to vote. The ersatz Santa exclaimed, "Going to vote again> Two candidates? You'll never learn. Why waste the voter's tim making him choose? Pick the best man and let the people vote him in...efficiency!"

In approximately 1979, the real "Russian Bear," Leonid Brezhnev warned the west (and the same line was used in a Canadian production of a science fiction show, "The Outer Limits,"), "What you know too well, you are in danger of becoming."

Son of a Gun, both Brezhnev and Walt Kelly were (and are) RIGHT!

Neil Uecke:
"VOTE ALL INCUMBANTS OUT OF OFFICE!"

The word you're looking for is RECUMBENTS - as in "people who can't stir themselves to rescue themselves from their house burning down around their ears." "INCUMBENTS" suggests they are doing something - which we know they're not.

Lobo Gris - good point. Next thing is to go around and do a Poll of Americans who agree that Santa Claus has more believable foreign and domestic policies than BushCo and the Democrats have. I think there are now more Americans who believe in Santa Claus than in BushCo.

Militantliberal: Like when the Pope didn't pay the Landsknechts in gold, but instead said they were working 'for the glory of God'... and then the Landsknechts looted the Vatican, even breaking up and stripping the throne of St. Peter?

Macchiavelli didn't know the half of it. Germany was devastated by mercenary companies during the Thirty Years War (1618-48). The problem wasn't just what they did when they acted under orders from their customer. It was also what they did when they weren't paid or lost their contracts.

dkitching:
THEY win regardless of whether you vote for one wing of the corporate-imperialist duopoly or the other. Your rant about the importance of disenfranchising anyone who disagrees with THEM reeks of out-and-out Stalinism. I am astounded that you are trying to use the tactics of intimidation and "lesser-evil" political coercion to deny American citizens the right to get on the ballot and run for office. What will you propose next--sending armed thugs to every precinct to strong-arm any freedom-loving voters who dare to claim their constitutional right vote in free and fair elections?

DON'T YOU DARE TRY TO COERCE ME OR TELL ME THAT I "MUST" VOTE AGAINST MY OWN BEST INTERESTS AND THE PARTY OR CANDIDATES WHO BEST REPRESENT MY VIEWS JUST SO I CAN HELP ELECT YOUR WAR-MONGERING, BUSH-ENABLING, CONSTITUTION-SHREDDING DEMOCRATS!

Oh, I forgot. They are "better than the Republicans." Right. In the same way that a phony friend who will sell you down the river when the going gets rough is better than a known enemy you can trust to be exactly what they claim to be.

NO MORE LESSER EVILS! DUMP THE DUOPOLY!
VOTE GREEN IN '08!

Karl Rove has been a straw man for the Democrats to hide their incompetence.

Blame "Miss Piggy" as Karl Rove is called in the DC gay scene

The God-O-Meter

http://blog.beliefnet.com/godometer/index.html

really, what is a "free election?" all of a sudden there's Hillary and Obama and so on and so forth and they are my choices? I wouldn't say so, they are assigned choices.

the thing about mercenaries that's risky is if you don't or can't pay them they probably turn on you or go to the next highest bidder. They won't fight for free and because they believe in your cause, that's not the nature of a mercenary.

we live in a country of mercenaries it occurs to me. Most of the folks who live here only do what they do because they've been paid to do it. What happens when they don't get their pay check? No matter how you look at it, bush and his backers must be very desperate people, you know "take but degree away."

vote for dems? JEEEEEBUS h> christ on rubber crutches!

I am afraid that free elections may be relic of the past in the US

Paul Krugman also quotes Machiavelli in his column on Blackwater today:

Mercenaries "are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies. They have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy."

Hmmm--sounds about right.

We should not be hiring incorporated contractors with guns to do things in other countries that can end only with shame being heaped upon our heads. Our soldiers in some circumstances MAY be respected and appreciated by citizens of other countries. Secret hired guns will NEVER be, and having them at all is very, very bad foreign policy.

Making fun of God --or even making fun of some Republican conservatives' mis-use of God-- is equally very, very bad (and dumb) political policy, which also leads to shame (and election losses) being heaped upon our heads. Some of us Democrats still believe that Jesus is exactly who He said He was, and want to elect leaders who respect his real teachings.

Machiavelli wrote before the idea of the joint stock corporation made mercenary activity profitable for the rich rather than something to fear.

Would the murdering thugs from Blackwater prefer the term 'babykiller'?

I was in college during the same era as Bush and although I was not a frat boy, it was common knowledge that the frats' archives contained term papers and professors' tests. It was therefore unecessary for frat boys to read or study. Heck, they didn't even need to read the Cliffs Notes.

You can bet, however, that nobody on the face of the earth
understands Machiavelli better than Karl Rove.

That's funny, most of the conservatives I know are still blaming Clinton for all of the worlds woes.

Auite honestly there are at least a few I can ascribe to him.