We must stop investing in death and, instead, invest in life.

Our death-dealing around the world has worked us woe.

Mr. Acuff is correct: "America's vast energy resources--the powerful wind on two coasts and down the middle of the country that could spin the turbines of vast wind farms, the sun that shines day after day in the deserts of our southwest, coal fired power plants the need upgrading and the installation of scrubbers and carbon sequestration. All this would require the upgrading of our transmission lines and electricity infrastructure. All this work would require thousands and thousands of people. Just as importantly, it would be an investment in America's future."

Corporations are going to do this? No way.

It's gotta be the government. Stop the tea party idiocy. Many of them are smart enough to switch sides.

Demolition of coal-fired power plants would add still more jobs.

"Now, of course, pundits and rightwingers will call even more loudly for national austerity and the dismantling of our social security net--especially for seniors."

Um, I hope by rightwingers you mean the ENTIRE political class of the USofAscism, right?

Just as the "socialists" in Greece, Portugal, Spain as well as the "communists" and "socialists" in Italy are the ones ramming austerity down everyone's throat if you really think anyone in the American political class actually would offer ANY sort of real resistance to the forced imposition of serfdom on us, then you're blind or a fool.

This is a coordinated campaign to enslave the planet in neo-feudal chains and the fascist elite believe they have all the ducks in a row as they have co-opted any and all opposition parties worldwide.

Again, if supposed Socialists and Communists worldwide are ramming austerity, understand that no matter who is in power or what they call themselves, the reason that they are in power at this moment in time, is because they have already agreed to sell the citizens of their own countries into bondage.

To reiterate, any leader in any Western country at the present has already been co-opted or bought off by the elite.

This is not an accident.

None of these people would still be in power if it wasn't already a done deal that they are going to betray the people they were sworn to protect.

That is where the world is at right now.

Yet, here in America we still bicker over the chimera that is our two party system.

Nice.

Gotta be reasons why our economy and infrastructure are allowed to crumble.
FDR stated, "If it happens in government, you can be sure it's No Accident!"
Look past the mindless diversions. What are they not telling us?? We Can Handle the Truth!

Paranoid & NMlib: While your statements are true enough on their surface, it's important to recognize HOW and WHY so many fell into the trap of blindness. In my view, the media is to blame. Sure, we can throw some dirt at some public schools, and mention that many Americans truly do NOT care; however, it took a number of "arms" of social engineering, or purposeful conditioning, to essentially produce a people who, in so many ways, seem truly care-less.

When religion, a la Calvinism, reinforces the Neo-liberal meme that everyone is solely responsible for himself, and no application or empathy need extend further; and when schools teach competition in a way that's brutally reinforced by sports, then you already have the beginning embers of a selfish fire burning.

When the nation PUSHES the idea that power and patriotism = war and aggressive forms of expression, then anyone who sees the logic in peace is disqualified from the get-go, told to shut up, or treated as a dangerous anomaly.

The Conversation is dangerously controlled, with the tools of mind control, often operating through subliminal channels. These influences are pervasive.

Even the Amerikan diet with its emphasis on sugary substances and meat, declares biological war on the body, if not the pendulum of mood swings. Then typically these mood swings are "treated" with all sorts of anti-depressant drugs, or behavior mod drugs, added to a plethora of alcoholic stupifying agents.

Life can be painful, and when the true contract with citizens (that which was alluded to in our Bill of Rights & Constitution) is betrayed, pain amplifies. For some it's a medical condition they can't afford to treat; for others, being jobless, or homeless, or lonely, or in despair.

Instead of blaming citizens, I think it's important to look at the methods used to program the public into the behaviors now in view. This is not to say there is no such thing as personal responsiblity. It's one thing to say we each are responsible for our own "swim" in things, and another to ask said swimmer to navigate against a current strategically engineered to work against his efforts.

Never forget the power and designs of The Programmers.

It's election season and Mr Acuff has woken up and the dims have thrown him out here to start bashing those bad, bad repugs. I think it is going to be commonplace here. Tony

"Our nation has just been shook..."

Never been a grammar Nazi but YIKES!!!

Note how "Invesing in America" is 100% linked to war and conquest. And the resulting technological developments threw more people out-of-work than created jobs. The suggestion below to deconstruct coal-fired power plants as a job producer is one example of the myriad of jobs that could be created to Green the economy and move toward the path of sustainablity that would also provide more freedom. Unfortunately, that's exactly the sort of thing the Oligarcy doesn't want as it is 100% opposed to the doctrine of Neoliberalism, which is ultimately designed to reduce everybody other than the Oligarchy and its minions to debt-peonage status--Orwell's Proles in 1984. What we must have is a lesser degree of complexity coupled with a large decetralization of power, both political and economic.

If I may:

President Obama can do anything he wants. He can invade whole nations (or as in TARP, bail them out). He can have you shot or held for eternity. He's got a bully pulpit and a willing press that will give him an audience. He (along with his democratic senate) run this nation. A short while back, democrats held the entire Hill.

Furthermore, the Tea Party is not in charge. Republicans are not in charge. Democrats are in charge. They are also equally responsible for this 14 tril of debt. Truth be known, they probably own more than 50% of it, much of it used for empire around the world, for murder, destruction and likely even an old pork-project or two in the author's own neighborhood.

The author is correct that we need many of these things done, but he's seriously in denial that we can spend ourselves out of this. We've shipped our jobs and manufacturing (thank you Robert Reich and Bill Clinton) overseas or to Mexico. Our biggest selling item is bandwidth that transfers data by overpriced plastic widgits made in fucking China. The only ones who can print money out of thin air is Verizon, AT&T and your local friendly broadcaster who doesn't pay a dime for the 'right' to do it.

It would be a no-brainer to commence with all these great projects if we weren't in hock to the max, but we are. It isn't the good old days when we had the resources and the know how and the people to do it. Now we're a nation of greedy nitwits (thank you Academia) and a third-rate nation –with one big-ass military albatross dangling around our necks. If we don't do something about that soon we're sure to hang from it.

--END RANT--

After months of decline, the foreclosure rate is rising again, ostensibly tied to the lack of decent job opportunities. Meanwhile, nobody in power in Washington is calling for another 700+-billion "stimulus" bill, which was really about half stimulus and half tax breaks for the well off (and was a half-assed underpowered stimulus in the first place). It's all about "austerity," a euphemism for "fuck the poor."

Not that this was FDR's idea of "stimulus" in any case. In my county a huge amount of "stimulus" money went into a major Indiana-controlled highway expansion project that virtually doubled the width of the right-of-way, installed huge underground storm sewer pipes, and completely dug up what had been a perfectly good U.S highway section. Essentially a six-mile-long make-work project for politically connected big-job contractors using heavy machinery and purchasing huge quantities of rock and asphalt There were no "pick-and-shovel" men employed, no trees planted. This was no Civilian Conservation Corps. This was high political graft, and being Indiana, probably all no-bid contracts under the guise of emergency.

Meanwhile, the county's back roads and bridges are going to hell as traffic diverted from the main highway shutdown (for three years!) tears up roads that are barely two lanes wide and have no berm, and small local businesses have lost customers and laid people off due to the road shutdowns. The ONLY people helped by this "stimulus" project were already rich! (In fact, the only "rational" reason I can think of for this road project is to enable movement of large military vehicles, like tanks, or even use as a runway for military aircraft in the event of insurrection!)

I spent half my life fighting corruption as a journalist, civil servant and elected local public official. Almost always, back in the day, the "bad guys" were the grievous exception and if you put the spotlight on them and documented their transgressions, local government officials responded, fines were levied, opprobrium had its impact, and things got straightened out. It's completely different today! Everybody in the county knows this is a massive boondoggle but nobody says so publicly while the unusually honest local newspaper just hasn't got the resources to do any digging---hell, who buys newspapers anymore, except to read the Classifieds and the obits, and to clip the articles about their kids winning in sports tournaments...my county being a small metaphor for the nation generally.

Polycarpe is right:
-----------------------------------
"Um, I hope by rightwingers you mean the ENTIRE political class of the USofAscism, right?

Just as the "socialists" in Greece, Portugal, Spain as well as the "communists" and "socialists" in Italy are the ones ramming austerity down everyone's throat if you really think anyone in the American political class actually would offer ANY sort of real resistance to the forced imposition of serfdom on us, then you're blind or a fool.

This is a coordinated campaign to enslave the planet in neo-feudal chains and the fascist elite believe they have all the ducks in a row as they have co-opted any and all opposition parties worldwide."
------------------------------
My only objection to "his" (?) post here is that while the smaller countries of the EU where the communists and socialists are in bed with the austerity hawks may really have no choice, because they have no real control of their economies given the condition of the Euro, this is NOT true for the United States, given that most major international transactions are denominated in (electronic) DOLLARS. In other words, Greece, for example, may have little choice but austerity while this is NOT true for the U.S. We have a choice. If the U.S. continues with its austerity binge and the economy tanks even more, we have only ourselves to blame, and we can expect a Stalingrad Winter, where we burn the antique furniture to stay warm, huddled, unemployed, in our quarter-million-dollar "underwater" McMansions. Won't even be able to eat frozen dandelion roots, cause we used herbicides to rid them from our pristine lawns.

Meanwhile, as our country goes to hell, Obama diverts attention from our crisis by calling for the people of Libya---which has (had?) the highest literacy rate and Social Index in north Africa to rise up against their "oppressor" while NATO bombs its oil fields and cities. Truly, as Polycarpe writes: "This is a coordinated campaign to enslave the planet in neo-feudal chains..."

"Good night and good luck," Citizen!

-30-

I was talking to a right-winger at a party. He seemed so nice. He was so long as the discussion was about his son in Little League.

But then we got into the issue of war. He said he didn't know what percentage of the U.S. budget goes to the military. In fact, if you go on the web, you will find anything from 20 to 54 per cent.

Considering all the "funny money" the government doesn't want us to hear about, I'd say the high figure is more accurate. Anyway, this guy produced a lot of numbers-- billions and trillions-- and then said he didn't think they really amounted to much, and he rejected the notion that eliminating our military ventures would solve the domestic budget crisis.

The best I could do was get him to agree that eliminating our military ventures would HELP alleviate the domestic budget crisis.

I get very nervous when I read an article such as the one here and find no real mention of war. War is the real issue in the United States-- no it's not the economy, stupid. The lousiness of our economy is a direct result of our foolish wars and our foolish "leaders" and our foolish citizens.

Even Americans who belong to the 63 per cent who oppose the Afghan War are far from being passionate enough. Please buy my book at Kindle, THE LAST WORDS OF RICHARD HOLBROOKE. I've sold five (5) copies in almost the first month of its existence. That's how much people want to read an anti-war book. 'Twould cost you five dollars.

All I'm trying to do here or in my book is to chip away at the American inertia concerning idiotic war. Where did I get that idea? From Chomsky and Zinn.
So much of the discussion I see, even here, distracts from this bigger subject.

We all need to speak out, to "keep chipping away" which won't happen until everyone becomes focused on the foolish American wars.

Rebuilding 'America' is to regurgitate or re-perpetrate the mess. First of all the word America belongs to all on the American continents and who the hell are US citizens to appropriate it for themselves as if all others alive or who have ever lived on America soil are of no account? Secondly,as its behaviour clearly demonstrates, 'America' is an absurdity and has been so from its genocidal beginnings.

An examination of the aggregate international English debate is easily conducted simply by reading the English news. It shows clearly that the mother tongue English speaker does not really care what he says so long as he says it with great certainty. This he admires beyond all and calls it variously the courage of conviction or opinion or individualism.
The best word for it is the combination of the first person singular, I, and its object form, me, resulting in Ime.
Just a little thought shows this means the Ime has no history; that all of his all (or what of it that counts) is only in his head.
In the East people like this, dead or alive, are regarded as Good Brothers. For one month every year they are loved and catered for with offerings of food and accommodation but brushed off to place where they are locked away for another year to negotiate an entrance to death in peace before those who fail again can sally forth for another round of ego stroking and food to strengthen them for their next attempt at peace.
We never need another attempt at 'America'. It is an absurdity that has to be brushed away. 'America' the State of Ime is a damned Good Brother.
The flag to fly in the face of the Jolly Roger/Stars and Stripes of Ime is a mirror with a transparent image of the The Scream by Edvard Munch for the latter is in reality what the Ime is.

I feel sorry for American children, elders & disabled--but it's awfully hard to feel sad for the majority. They elected The Clown TWICE & failed to react to the evil & harm the Bush Administration formented in the world. The economic global collapse (including America) is not the result of some failed policy, but is rather the effect of decaying capitalism--and the hardship has just begun. Soon Americans will understand what economic suffering really is--and you know what, they deserve what they're going to get. Addiction to sports, TV & the latest electronic gadgets has a price. America is hopelessly insular, greedy & corrupted.

We may have an identical view on war, Buck, but I surely don't like you, and I don't think I'll be marching with you soon.

Just because war is immoral doesn't mean it can't be foolish, too. And just because your motive seems pure, Buck, doesn't mean that you're not a fool, too.

According to the logic of your post, Buck, no one should write an anti-war book for five dollars. That will lead to fewer anti-war books.

Therefore, Buck, you're just a warmonger like anybody else.

"What an affront to America's history! The Louisiana Purchase, the building of the transcontinental railroad during the Civil War"

HUH??? The Louisiana Purchase was stolen Indian land where there is JUST a claim to title, not real clear title based upon international law. The transcontinental railroad was built across Indian land without permission and ushered in a gold rush that virtually destroyed a Tribal culture. This is your proud culture based upon theft and greed returning to confront you. You cannot escape it. Face it or perish!

No matter how much sense it makes to create employment by going green, no matter how logically it's argued, the Right is invariably going to oppose any such plan.

This is because the 1/3 or so of Americans on the Far Right _ whose anger fuels all effective political activity _ will consistently oppose any initiative they perceive as 'Left.'

You have to understand that it doesn't matter to these folks what it is _ what matters is who suggested it.

There are a lot of moral and intelligent people on the Rabid Right, but their morality and intelligence have been permanently overriden by their hatred for the rest of us. Permanently. An entire generation of them has been irreversibly altered by Rush Limbaugh and FOX News. The key is that they are in the minority, and control the wheels of power only because they're more aggressive and have hijacked the Media. You can probably more or less forget about the 1/3 _ they're going to have to either declare civil war or secede, because they absolutely will not live with the rest of us. All hope probably lies in activating the initiative of the inactive among the other 2/3, and taking back control of the Media conversation.

I agree with 95% of what Mr. Acuff has written. However, the average coal-fired power plant spews 1.2 million metric tons of CO2 into the environment. With some 50,000 such plants worldwide, burning coal for electricity is the biggest culprit in global heating. As a result large-scale, man-made carbon sequestration is a pipe dream. Outside of what the oceans, plant-life and amine-based solvents can absorb, the coal industry leads us to believe engineered sequestration is already ongoing. It's not. It's King Coal's way of snowing us into believing it's becoming a clean form of energy. Any and all funds appropriated for this folly should be diverted to wind, solar, geothermal, wave and fuel cell technologies that are truly renewable and already exist. This massive shift of the energy paradigm could create jobs like a second Industrial Revolution while we'd cleanse the air and reverse heating worldwide. Problem is our country doesn't have the political will and can-do spirit that got us through the Great Depression, that beat two countries on two fronts in World War II and that got us on the moon in less than ten years after the first space launch. Corporations are now in charge and fellow Americans are either too stupid or too apathetic to care.

Sorry Stew, you can keep the giant wind farms on both coasts and in the middle of our country. Besides the enviromental concerns over giant wind farms, what you are suggesting would require giant energy companies to run them. Forgive me, but after all that has happened over the last thirty years, why in the hell should the American people have anything to do with giant corporations? A better answer to our energy problems would be a national effort to install smaller wind turbines on private homes along with solar collectors. This would reduce our need for the 100 new nuclear power plants and the coal fire plants that President Zero wants us taxpayers to pay for. Doing this would significantly reduce peoples electric bills, create less of a demand for new dangerous nuclear reactors, and would free up demand on existing power plants so that there main focus could be to supply major cities (where personal wind turbines and solar collectors might not be practical with so many people packed into such confined spaces) and industries. Another industry that could have a future, would deal with the issues of major cities generating power to help reduce demand on our existing power plants, such as incorporating solar collectors into the surfaces and windows of new buildings, every little improvement would be a help!