heckuva job.

"We are conned since early childhood to look with dark suspicion upon anyone who points a finger of accountability at the robber barons of the corporate world."

Goshdarn those whistleblowers!

It was a sad day when the Los Angeles Times got rid of Robert Scheer, but not surprising. He was too good at getting to the heart of the matter in a way that was compelling. Scheer is spot-on when he uses the term "gunboat diplomacy" to describe the thrall that Exxon and other big oil companies have the US government in (just as their 19th century Robber Baron counterparts did so in the past). As history has shown, the end result was a small number got rich, the US taxpayer was stuck with the bill and the negative legacy, and those countries are still suffering. It is way past time that the American public realize that corporate interests are not American interests.

And to think they could be running Miss Rice as a Republican for president and trump that tough choice on the Dem side between race and gender. Oh, yeah, I forgot. Miss Rice might have some old policy baggage that would negatively trump BOTH race and gender.

Rice is one creepy chick.
Does she also have a deeper, hidden agenda? one which perhaps stems from her childhood, when her father was rejected by the Democrat party, an event so traumatic that he became a Republican. That just seems weird. And this is her foundation...

It's a simple fact of life. Oil companies need huge profits to counter the insane wishes of the citizenry like alternative energy, universal health care, demcoracy and human rights. The current system in which the government taxes the middle class (and a token tax from the wealthy) to give back to the rich via no-bid military contracts and Homeland Security is under attack by grass root movements and radical authors. Democracy is a terrible thing for corporate profits and that's why corporate America supports the most ruthless dictatorships in the world. Show your support for a corporate world by buying a gas guzzling SUV or still better... a motor yacht! Buy, buy, buy anything you can before our resources run out and finally be a good corporate citizen by only watching FOX, NBC, ABC, CNN and CBS as the primary source of information. If you see Britney as the headline, it's only because no other news out there is relevant! As for the million or so Iraqi's who have died since the invasion, just remember that they're all terrorists responsible for 9-11! And as for the poor, the uninsured, the underinsured, and the struggling middle classes of America it's their fault because they're all lazy and ignorant. George Bush is the Jesus Christ of our time and Dick Cheney is a virtual Gandhi! Peace through War makes sense (In the White House at least!) and you can do your part to support the next few wars by sacrificing your children to fight the evil-doers everywhere!

cynthia mckinney for president get us a three-fer: black, female, and principled.

While New Orleans drowned during Katrina, Rice went shopping.

"Rice is one creepy chick..."

As creepy as War Criminals get...

Scheer for President. One smart guy and quite pleasant too. Good to have a drink with. Runs circles around the current presidential crop.

Many Americans depend on corporations for their jobs, the livlihoods of their families, and most of us depend on their products, services and profits. We progressives realize the predatory nature of corporate bosses, boards and enablers in government--but, what to do? Change the legal status of the corporation and re-write charters to prioritize wellfare of the "commons", the employees, the nation, and the world, actually, above that of the "corporate entity", the execs, and the board. Give back real power to the shareholders. Drastically limit the ability of the corp to influence politics. The corps should serve the majority of citizens, inverting the present reality. Entrepreneurs could still innovate, strivers could still make money--just not all the money! The rest of us could still have good jobs. Our "commons" could benefit us, not be despoiled to make billionaires at our expense. And Rice could return to Stanford to complete her study of the Soviet Union (just don't let on to her that it no longer exists....).

Hail the brave true patriots of CODE PINK!

Worth repeating - America should adopt and adapt the NFL playbook: salary caps, shared rev, strictly enforced rules for illegalities, strong unions.

Corporate-wise, let's say profits capped at $1B, the rest must be reinvested, with Priority One being health insurance for ALL employees; executive salaries capped at $50M, all rules religiously, swiftly and publicly enforced. Off-shore tax havens ruled "offsides." Failure to reinvest for the sake of the country's future - unsportsmanlike conduct, game ejection. Etc.

And free therapy for any human who complains that $50M/year isn't enough.

I would like to ask Mr. Scheer if we should boicot the next election. Both
parties are run by big corporations. If we had the likes of Robert Scheer, Ralph Nader and Bill Moyers to run as Independents we may be able to save the country.

Thanks, HailCODEPINK, for your reasonable approach. In truth, we are quite dependent on corporations for our livelihood/jobs, goods, products and services. What has gotten out of hand is the distribution of wealth and control of those goods and services which most of us, if not all of us, require for living: food and water, clothing, shelter, entertainment, transportation, leisure activities and more. What most perplexes me is the necessity that we "must" work/have jobs in order to survive. The contextualization of what work is and how we are valued as human beings needs a complete restructuring. I am not my work/job and my value is not in what I do and how I fit into the cultural context. I am here to enjoy my life, however that may be experienced. I don't have the answer. I would submit that it is time to begin the conversation of a new paradigm, not just in the communities of spirituality/metaphysics, but throughout the culture. I'd love to hear comments from others on this topic. Our politicians, leaders, corporations are not the enemy. They are simply showing us where we are in our own consciousness and suggesting some alternatives as we discuss what "seems" to be wrong with them and how to address our displeasure. It is not a question of right and wrong so much as what works for all of us, and what doesn't.

peace,
st john

It is a vicisous circle

Corporate Business types
rape the general public
get into politics
get fed by corporate business types
take care of the needs of corporate business types
while raping the public

Get done with politics
go into the corporate world
and again rape the general public
by feeding the political types.

Ok not a vicious circle
More like the symbol for the Olympics

In this article Scheer refers to the "S.S. Condoleeza Rice":

"And the image we should all recall is of the Chevron tanker named Condoleezza Rice. Only in America would we think it not a conflict of interest that Rice was paid handsomely for being on the board of Chevron from 1991 until she resigned to go to work in the Bush White House."

Several years ago, say in 2001 or 2002, you could Google Image Search "S.S. Condoleeza Rice" or "Chevron Super Tanker Condoleeza Rice" and voila!--up came multiple images of a GIANT super-tanker with big, white letters on it saying "S.S. Condoleeza Rice". Guess what? Try doing a Google Image search for it now. Nothing comes up. Zilch. Zip. Nada. I emailed Google just for kicks asking what has happened to these images of this oil supertanker and they never replied. Obviously Chevron, Rice, and the Bush administration forced Google with a lawsuit or other threats to delete all of them. Clearly, obviously they decided to do their best to HIDE the glaringly OBVIOUS conflict of interest of a Secretary of State having a Chevron oil supertanker named after her during the Iraq War.

Zamboni, I just hit Google and came up with a picture pretty easily. Here it is:http://www.aztlan.net/oiltanker.htm

Apparently it's no longer called the Condoleeza Rice, though. But it doesn't look as though Google has been forced to yank all the pictures of the tanker.

I thought I heard Larry King announce today that Condi is McCain's running mate. Is that true?

This is why every time Dubya described his illegal and immoral war as a "noble cause" I always agreed. It was a pet cause of our Nobles-today's robber Barons. We need to confiscate their record profits to pay reparations and return what we can to the U.S. treasury to pay for their fiasco. Fat chance. Talk about over a barrel.

Ticonderoga-I appreciate your fact checking and thanks for your follow-up, but please: you've got to be kidding! The image your link shows is obviously, pathetically photo-shopped. There used to be countless AUTHENTIC images of this ship when you did an image search, unlike now when you get nothing. Don't believe me still? Google image search "condoleezza rice supertanker" or some variant. You factually, effectively get no images of this ship. So yes: Google definitely did remove all of them. On second thought, I don't really know who you are or what your actual intent is (trolling, anyone?) in making your misleading posting ;-)

http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/Condoleezza-Rice-Tanker5may01.htm
I can't tell, is this authentic?

Never a greater denial/looting racket in the history of the planet.

Nope, it's McCain/Jeb Bush.

st john: I would submit that it is time to begin the conversation of a new paradigm... I'd love to hear comments from others on this topic.

You have to get used to discussing things in the most abstract terms if you want your policies to be broadly applicable so you have to talk about things like reigning in power abuse. Then the task is identifying all of the many manifestations and reigning them in, but also observing what they have in common so you can continue to simplify/streamline the task.

The article hints at some of the ways - ending the cultural taboo of criticizing power concentrations, and then capping the size of those concentrations are some of the things. We build local economies, build self-sufficiency to fight concentration and prevent our enslavement.

Make one's support of an organization (a business, a government, a union, a political party) contingent on its behavior - again using abstraction - ask if the organization is benefiting all individuals equitably, and if not, remove support. Teach people to fish and feed them for a lifetime. Open the information, all information. Adam Smith despised trade secrets and insisted that consumer demand serve the society's better interests, Thomas Jefferson despised corporations, banks, and standing armies and said "enlighten the people generally". That's really where it starts. Notice how the government ignores protesters while the majority is dumbed down in their couch and beer.

A largely unreported "benchmark" for the green zone "government" would grant various oil giants like ExxonMobil 75 percent of Iraq's reserves with 25 percent for Iraqi insiders protected by our military. This robber-baron plan will require a permanent occupation as Iraq continues to resist as they did under historic British rule.

The invasion of Iraq has been a $2 Trillion dollar war crime producing little more than flag-draped coffins, 1,000,000 dead Iraqis, soaring national debt, inflation and global resentment.

History teaches that imperialism can be terribly expensive. "Empires" require huge military forces to impose agendas designed by the economic elite. Over time the military cost of maintaining an overextended empire can exceed the value of resources acquired.

The $3 billion per week occupation of Iraq over 50 years of oil production (or more) could become a $7 trillion (or more) taxpayer subsidy for Big Oil and the military complex. This is more than the profit that might be realized from the oil. The public is being robbed to further the interests of some of the wealthiest corporations on earth.

Unfortunately the military corporate complex is doing very well thanks to the Big Oil "War On Terror". With lies and fear mongering the military complex oil industry chicken hawks ignited the most expensive acts of violence in recent history.

Weapons and military operations in the Middle East have actually become bigger business than producing oil. And we only get 20% of our oil from the Middle East.

Unfortunately, we are paying for this bloody corporate welfare in more ways than one. Iraq's oil production has declined, raising prices at the pump along with record profits. The floating dollar has lost value against other currencies due to deficit war spending propped up by international loans. Like the debt-related inflation that followed Vietnam era spending, the pain is just beginning.

Rather than subsidizing endless oil wars we should be developing alternatives to polluting fossil fuels. What imported oil is needed can be purchased on the open markets like the other developed nations.

Public debt for private profit is the deadly game being played by an imperial corporate White House and a complicit Congress of invertebrates.

It is time to tear down the legal "corporate veil" and hold corporate decision makers responsible for their crimes against humanity. Political office holders who profit from investments in the war and oil industries should also face prosecution.

How good of Bin Laden to hide out exactly in the Pashtun tribal area where Chevron wants to build a pipeline. The Army must go there to secure the pipeline route, er, I mean, find Bin Laden.

Someone should tell Big Capital and Big Oil that they have already lost that one. The Chinese and Russians both have more money and pipelines finished through to the Caspian.

They also should take a look at a relief map of the area. What they will find is that they are trying to build a pipeline through most forbidding terrain and the biggest mountains in the world. This scheme is not only evil, it's also stupid.

Here is are some suggestions that actually promote economic democracy which, in turn, it would promote political democracy.

Everytime a corporation breaks the law, gets bailed out by the government (this would include bailouts such as cutting the prime lending rates; thus,we have to nationalize the Federal Reserve), or the corporation needs the US government to protect its foreign interests, such corporations would have to place elected representatives on their board of directors.

Because corporations must increasingly get involved in criminal activities to maintain their profits, the regularly scheduled corporate stockholders' meetings will eventually be changed into a citizen's assemblies.

For every corporate foray into Third World countries that involves corruption, super-exploitation of the workers, stealing the land of small farmers, attempted privatization, or destruction of important life-giving elements like water, top-soil or air, the company's citizens' assembly will start to include elected representatives of each exploited county's impoverished classes.

Each national will elect trusted, democratically-oriented tribunals who will make sure no politically elected body changes laws and regulations in order to decriminalize, currently or retroactively, unlawful corporate activity.

Tribunals will be selected from a pool of outspoken critics of corporate power; to be selected as a member of this pool, the individual will have shown no inclination or interest in gaining economic or political power.

Those who become tribunes will act as official whistle-blowers. They will be protected from assassination, corruption and/or cooptation through regular yearly elections with no second term.

Eventually, national and global economic congresses and assemblies will grow and expand and integrate.

Investment decisions will be democratically decided using transparent and open discussions and consensus-building.

.

Thanks for this article. I'm going to ring the Prime Minister of Australia immediately and propose that our defense forces, tiny though they are, be made available to our major Corporations to aid in their expansion!

Be warned. BHP may appear in your country soon trailing behind heavily armed ADF troop carriers.

Of course, you'll only be in trouble if you have minerals we're short of.

www.dangerouscreation.com

The cost of feeding large ego's is going up.

20, mostly Saudis, hijacked some planes and killed 3,000+ people in New York and Washington one day in September. America has responded by killing over 1,000,000 Iraqis and other Arabs over 5 years and want to continue to do this for another 50-100 years.

Enough is enough!

Okey-dokey, Zamboni. You got me: I'm a troll (grin).

Seriously, though, I don't know how anyone would know whether an image of a supertanker is the real Condi Rice tanker or not. my2sense found one, too. Is that one a fake, or not? How can you tell?

I did, as you suggested, google around a bit more, and I have to admit that although I found a lot of articles about Condi's tanker, I found very few photos of it. Does this prove that Google was forced to delete photos of this tanker? No, it doesn't. Is it disconcerting? Yes, it is.

I mean really. You should just listen to yourselves running down a piece of good news from the business world even in these times of bad economic news! Oil executives go to supermarkets and spend money too just like the rest of us. And people with steady jobs in those supermarkets get their shot at the American Dream too. You people would rinse the sense of patriotic participation out of anything, wouldn't you? Including even going out and paying the market rate for gas at the pump.

Maybe one day the people will get wise and nationalize our utilities - - including the purveyors of ALL forms of energy!

Ms. Rice is still "shilling" for the international gangsters who sit in shadowy boardrooms manipulating the world supply of oil and the horrors of war. These crooks write her orders. They use her like a hired thug.

Lets sing, I'm sure you know this one:

O beautiful for spacious skies
For waves of corporate grain
For blood red mountain's majesty
Above the fruited plain.
America, America,
God shed his blood on thee,
And crown thy good with a black hood
From sea to shining sea!

The name of the ship is the "Altair Voyager" Try looking under that.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2001/05/05/MN223743.DTL

Frankly, I really don't see what Google would get by erasing links to pictures of the ship. Its more likely that since the ship has a new name, you'd need to search under the new name. The sites that have a picture of the ship are likely to have changed their references to the new name, so a search would need the new name. The only way a search would come up with hits on the old name would be if sites had a picture of the ship labeled as 'the ship formerly known as the Condoleezza Rice".

Also, since it is an oil tanker, I can see some of the oil industry sites either taking the pictures down or referring to it only by its new name. Since the oil industry is tied closely to American politicians, I can see that happening. That's a more likely reason for why the google image search returns fewer hits. It makes a lot more sense than a conspiracy theory about Google.

Oh yeah, also remember that google is not the web. Its a search engine. If you don't like the google results, try a different search engine.

I love it! Every time I hear or read anyone using the term "WE" in reference to the murderous/criminal/corrupt policies of this administration or the U.S. Congress, I CRINGE! PLEASE! NEVER, EVER SAY "WE"... 'cause it doesn't have anything to do with me!!!!

I didn't do it. I wasn't there. They didn't ask for my opinion! And, if I gave it, they DIDN'T LISTEN!

NOT IN MY NAME!

What is the difference between the Condaleesa Rice Oil Tanker and the Condaleesa Rice Secretary of State?

One is often full of seamen, the other has never been touched by semen

You CAN find pictures of the SS Codi, Google this below -

Oil tanker "Condoleezza Rice"

What you can NOT find anymore is the old Photoshopped pics of-

"Bush fucking Cheney"

or

"Cheney fucking Bush"

which is evidence of censorship, back room dealing and that maybe they were NOT photoshopped at all ;)

Re: The missing S.S. Condoleeza Rice

It was renamed the "Altair Voyager" in 2001.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2001/05/05/MN223743.DTL&type=printable

And if you want to know where it is, click here:
http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=C6OK
WTF! It's off thew coast of Oz!

Re: Photoshopped pics of- "Bush fucking Cheney"

You mean this that is for sale?
http://www.allposters.com/-sp/George-W-Bush-And-Dick-Cheney-Posters_i987195_.htm

Someone posted: Our politicians, leaders, corporations are not the enemy.

Sorry, greatly disagree. It is politicians like bush/cheny that are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people and the destruction an entire nations. They squander our nation's wealth and enrich their backers. They violate our laws and shred our constitution. They are the authors of death and destruction. If they are not the enemy of humanity then what is?

JConrad February 13th, 2008 4:54 pm
Good post.

Well, this has certainly been interesting. What was it about, anyway?

Nate W

How dare you say it was a bad day when the Los Angeles Times got rid of Robert Scheer? How else were they going to make room for the Doughy Pantload, Jonah Goldberg? Just think about it.

A fascist can be white, black, brown or made from oil money.
She's done a great job for her masters.

The ultimate kick in our teeth is that if all goes perfectly for Cheney/Bush plan and the US oil companies do get access to all of that oil, they won't be selling it to us for a discount. They will be selling it on the world market to the best bidders who have the most cash and strongest currency. Thus after all of this proxy war fought on behalf of the oil companies by our troops at a massive expense to us as taxpayers, we won't even benefit from the oil. What suckers the US American voters are and how stupid are we? Wake up Americans, we have been victims of the greatest con of all time.

http://images.myngp.com/LinkTracker.aspx?crypt=IVi0ax2%2b6UBSinc%2fCPYaKXl3PCk5JLVkdSXdAcKBAHBRySTfSl3SEUKl6Pugjg%2fqogbDGVJGg4cD0oXKNUYmbgvDaaD63HEHKsokOed35g2Lqsbg3sT4rnSmrMW0YjHah2RgHboT5ys%3d

well said lwhunt

impeachment should be the headline

Bumper sticker sighting:

Waterboard The Whitehouse