Cheney's assasination ring by SignyM

Who is "they?"

The laughing Chrisisall

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 7:52 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

"I don’t know. That’s why they call them they. And them"(Conspiracy Theory Mel Gibson)

I dunno. Do you recall the "secret weapon" that was hinted at as being the reason for success in Iraq? Wonder if the two are connected. Seems we should find out.

---------------------------------
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 8:01 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
"I don’t know. That’s why they call them they. And them"(Conspiracy Theory Mel Gibson)

One of my all-time favourites.

Quote:

Seems we should find out.

"a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently"

That's what I found out.

The laughing Chrisisall

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 8:10 AM

FREMDFIRMA

No offense, but concerning some things, Mister Hersh should keep his damn mouth shut.

Yes, exposing abuses is a worthwhile investment, but some of the information finding it's way into that mans hands as of late - if exposed, could cause a disaster so profound that it would lead to a social collapse beyond most peoples worst case scenarios.

Between this, certain other informants, and what Thomas Tamm has by now told him, with additional corroboration from two other valid sources that I am aware of, I am sincerely hoping Mr. Hersh plays this one close to the vest, cause frankly if you exposed some of this crap...

In about eleven days, every major city in america would look like post-Katrina New Orleans.

I am *not* kidding, and despite where my own sympathies lie, have been helping bury some of this crap as deep as possible in hopes of it being blessedly forgotten.

Look, bad things got done by bad people, we all know this, and we can maybe learn from the freakin mistakes without having to dredge up stuff so horrific our very social fabric would come to shreds because it's very foundations would utterly disintegrate if the truth were known.

I'm all for punishing the guilty, but the potential cost of blowing some of this stuff wide is just too goddamn high, I've mentioned in another thread, and I'll repeat it here.

Total social breakdown and your looking at not only violence and chaos, but full scale loss of utilities, power, sewage, water, either by destruction of the infrastructure, as a punitive measure, or simply as an excuse on behalf of ambitious officials seeking emergency powers, and then things go to hell damn quick, especially when the transportation infrastructure breaks down and people start starving, which'd happen damn quick in the inner cities...

And then when FEMA sends in the dirty third to start rounding folk up, considering what sparked it in the first place, it then throws credibility behind *every* conspiracy theory no matter how ridiculous and will amount to the final breach of trust that causes a civil war in the streets regardless of what anyone else wishes to call it at the time.

And in combination with starvation, disease (believe me, you've no IDEA how quick that can happen once water and sewage systems fail) and violence, within twelve months you're looking down the barrel of 21-25% casualties, concentrated primarily in the elderly, infirm and very young.

That's Seventy-Five MILLION PEOPLE.

I'm sorry folks, but that is too high a cost to pay given that there's just too many of the bastards to arrest and prosecute, who'd get off all too lightly anyways.

If this is to be handled, the only safe way to do it is to simply look the other way and pretend really hard not to notice when certain folk start having some well deserved accidents, which is only gonna happen if any chance of some of this crap coming out dies with them - it's unfair, unfortunate, and a damned ugly bit of business, but a necessary one if a potential catastrophe worse than dropping a nuke on our own soil is to be avoided.

As I have said before, there's things in this world that just the knowing of can hurt you, that's not hyperbole or rhetoric, not when despite my own sympathies I am desperately trying to help bury it good and deep, right ?

I hope like hell that Seymour has the damn sense to know what beans NOT to spill, not now, maybe not ever.

You. Do. NOT. Want. To. Know. - Ever.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 8:15 AM

There is some real sense to what you say here, Frem.
Although I'll never believe enough Americans presented with the facts, even by those they trust, would take it seriously enough to make our society collapse- it would be another "Conspiracy Theory" like Iran-Contra.

The laughing Chrisisall

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 8:35 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Look, bad things got done by bad people, we all know this, and we can maybe learn from the freakin mistakes without having to dredge up stuff so horrific our very social fabric would come to shreds because it's very foundations would utterly disintegrate if the truth were known.

I have utter faith the the American people not to care unless it's THEIR bread that's been shit on.

That's one of the weak points of Serenity. They (crew of Firefly) seem to think that if the truth is disseminated people will rise up on their hinds legs and demand change. We've been doing this kind of crap for years. DECADES. We killed millions of people in Vietnam in the "free fire" zone that we made out of the Delta.

YAWN!

We supported evey kind of torture and depravity that Somoza and Pinochet and The Shah of Iran could inflict on their societies.

SNORE!

We gave money and arms to Suharto so that he could massacre 200,000 people, and the only thing Kissinger was worried about was whether or not his fingerprints were on it or not.

Whuuuhh???

We killed about 100,000 people in Iraq, but I don't see many wringing their hands over lost lives.

Peeps like Rapo, Geezer, and Finn will find a way to deny. Most Americans really wouldn't care. Hell, look at the big yawn tha New Orleans got after Katrina! The only thing that would happen is that OTHER countries would demand accountability. If some of them (China, Australia, UK and EU) made their continuing support of our currency part of the demand for an investigation or (worse) punished us after-the-fact by dumping our currency...

THEN there would be a problem! But not before.

---------------------------------
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 8:50 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

You can find the transcript of Hersh's statment here:

www.truthout.org/031209J

---------------------------------
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 9:36 AM

WULFENSTAR

http://youtu.be/VUnGTXRxGHg

Lets just admit it.

The only way to clean out Washington, is to be rid of all the slimy devils that have wormed their way in.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 9:51 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I'm kinda waiting for Frem to give me a "hypothetical" that he thinks would be so horrific that it would break through the stupefaction and create total social chaos.

Mad cow in the meat?

Blacks being systematically targeted for the death penalty?

Banksters and top government officials (like Cheney) raiding the Treasury and moving all their money offhsore?

American government officials and/ or politicians dying conveniently in small plane accidents?

Battle-hardened troops deployed to the USA for crowd control?

Gays and kids being provided for WH entertainment?

American officials (like Eliot Spitzer) being spied on and blackmailed to make them stop investigating?

I mean, really... what would top THAT????

C'mon Frem: Your turn.

---------------------------------
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 10:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
Lets just admit it.

The only way to clean out Washington, is to be rid of all the slimy devils that have wormed their way in.

The revolution will not be on Youtube.

The laughing Chrisisall

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 11:45 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

*sigh*

If ONLY this were true.

It is not those who use the term "Islamo-Fascism" who are sullying the name of Islam; it is the Islamo-Fascists. - Dennis Prager

A concern of the GOP is that the people aren't informed enough to understand their policies, while a fear of the Dems is that the people ARE.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 12:15 PM

FREMDFIRMA

The difficult part is to say anything without pointing fingers at stuff I happen to be trying to bury, mind you - and you do make a good point about the apathy factor, only, some of this stuff might even overwhelm that given the economic factors involved currently.

So let's go with a hypothetical of something already suspected.

Like, a certain software company recieving extra legal breaks, run-around immunity from various levels of prosecution, a little help from the SEC in inflating their stock, basically a blank check to do whatever the hell they wanted, and even some economic and legal sabotage against their competitors, in exchange for hard coded backdoor access to not only their software, but anything it has access to ?

And because of this, all the subtle little bits of assistance required to ensure they become the dominant software platform worldwide.

While the average joe might yawn that off, the backlash of other software companies would start something ugly, especially since a pretty large scale of economic manipulation went on, and were it to come out that it's the second time that happened, and that the trial run of these tactics wound up costing a certain large media enterprise in excess of nine digits, well, faith in the stock market would tumble pretty quick.

Of course, those events and the two companies involved are pretty much an open secret, but the degree of stock manipulation is a matter of conjecture only, at this time.

Now, any one of those minor bits, by themselves, is a pebble in a pond, couple of ripples, and soon gone - but were they to come out bang,bang,bang - different story.

And some of em... they ain't pebbles.

As for Main Core and it's related feeder groups, certain folk have been aware of it for much, much longer than the general public, and while nothing much publicly came of it, and it's unknown how much damage (if any) was done to it, persons unknown made a serious attempt to put one of it's feeder systems out of service on Oct 20 2006 @approx 3pm, and did a damn thorough job of it.

My real main concern at this time tho is the scale and degree of economic sabotage against "politically unreliable" corporations, which would be an epic economic catastrophe, especially now - but so long as no *proof* is laying around for anyone to latch onto, it'll remain just one more theory for wackjobs to bat around to each other.

People talkin, well, that's just people talkin, long as the evidence is dead and buried but good, nothin's gonna come of it, thankfully.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 1:13 PM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
You can find the transcript of Hersh's statment here:

www.truthout.org/031209J

And here's the website of this secret group, Joint Special Operations Command.

http://www.socom.mil/

and a writeup by Global Security.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/dod/jsoc.htm

"Keep the Shiny side up"

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 1:16 PM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

That psycho personally offered my wife a job to work directly for him at the Pentagon.
www.piratenews.org/pentagonwhistleblower.html

And everyone thought she was crazy to turn it down and retire.

Keep your friends close and enemies closer. And in Cheney's case, rape them in the bowels of the Pentagon.
www.trance-formation.com

Hersh: Cheney's Office Considered Disguising US Navy Seals As Iranians To Attack US Navy To Provoke War
www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/31/hersh-cheneys-office-cons_n_116140.h
tml

As for the End of the World, bring it on. Let martial law sort em out.

Whatever you do dont take the vaccines - They got live Bird Flu inside
www.fiercevaccines.com/story/baxter-vax-products-contained-bird-flu-vi
rus/2009-03-11

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 1:53 PM

WHOZIT

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
From Dennis Kucinich
Quote:
Dear Chairman Towns:
As you may already be aware, recent media reports indicate that investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, while answering questions before a public audience at the University of Minnesota divulged information about what he calls an “executive assassination ring” operating under the George W. Bush Administration.

If substantiated, the allegation would have far reaching implications for the United States. Such an assertion from someone of Hersh’s credibility that has a long and proven track record of dependability on these issues merits attention. Mr. Hersh is within a year or more of releasing a book that is said to include evidence of this allegation. However, we cannot wait a year or more to establish the truth. As such, I request that the Full Committee immediately begin an investigation to determine the facts in this matter.

Mr. Hersh made the allegation before an audience at the University of Minnesota on Tuesday, March 10, 2009. He stated, “Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving.”
Hersh has always been an extremely reliable investigative reporter. I'd take this pretty seriously.

---------------------------------
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

Check Hersh's bio at wikipedia, he loves his "unnamed" sources.....and tinfoil hats.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 2:35 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Dija notice, tho, that his stories prove out? Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you!

Peeps complain about the MSM, but when a reporter is out there actually investigating, doing what the MSM would rather ignore... well, they call the guy a "nutcase" and ignore him.

How stupid is THAT?

---------------------------------
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 2:43 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Like, a certain software company recieving extra legal breaks, run-around immunity from various levels of prosecution, a little help from the SEC in inflating their stock, basically a blank check to do whatever the hell they wanted, and even some economic and legal sabotage against their competitors, in exchange for hard coded backdoor access to not only their software, but anything it has access to ?

Shoot, man, I've known that for YEARS. That's why China has made Linux the official computing language... governments don't like their software coming with a pre-loaded "NSA key".

---------------------------------
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 2:45 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
And here's the website of this secret group, Joint Special Operations Command.

Not that the group is secret. Just that their activities were.

And since I know you know better than that....

---------------------------------
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 4:40 PM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Not that the group is secret. Just that their activities were.

Like this is new.

The Kennedys tried to off Castro in the 60s. JSOG existed since 1980, through both Republican and Democratic administrations. Old news.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 5:46 PM

PIRATECAT

Geez. I was going to say the same thing.

edit: SUITE 8F GROUP

"Battle of Serenity, Mal. Besides Zoe here, how many-" "I'm talkin at you! How many men in your platoon came out of their alive".

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 10:04 PM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

Cheney's assassination squad includes mind-controlled slaves, er, soldiers. Just like Dollhouse.

Now Fox this week fired its chairman who allowed Dollhouse to exist. Coincidence?
www.shinyuniverse.net/news.aspx?nid=196

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 1:43 AM

CITIZEN

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Shoot, man, I've known that for YEARS. That's why China has made Linux the official computing language... governments don't like their software coming with a pre-loaded "NSA key".

They made linux a computing language, that's clever of them.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 5:07 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

GEEZER
That's what I said: This stuff has been going on for DECADES.

Of course, that doesn't explain why you then turn around and say: We didn't assassinate people in Vietnam or prop up tyrants around the world. You can't use past misdeeds to justify current misdeeds, and then believe that our past was clean, can you? (Well, YOU could, but that's just you.)

FREM
See what I mean?

If people aren't already outraged, this isn't going to push them en masse over the edge. Auhtoritarian right-wingers and status-quoers will find a way to deny, minimize, or justify the Bush administration's power grab. About 25% of our population is dyed-in-the-wool ideologically authoritarian conservative. About 25% is left-leaning. The remaining 50% only respond to immediate concerns: their job, or the price of gas.

Riots in the streets?

Only when peeps get so economically pinched they can't stand it anymore.

---------------------------------
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 6:43 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

First of all, I almost passed over the thread, thinking it was a PN-spawned one.

Second, "In about eleven days, every major city in america would look like post-Katrina New Orleans." Well, OK - I've got it marked on my calendar. I'll give it a month beyond the date just in case. (I also have 2012 marked.)

Third, supposedly confidential reports of US torture investigated and written-up by the ICRC have already been leaked, so it can't be that. Hmmm, what could it be, I wonder.

Fourth, the way people responded to 1/10 of the entire US public having their calls traced (or technical equivalent), to Katrina and the still existing state of New Orleans, to torture, to being lied into a war, to any number of misdeeds and illegalities -- BIIIiiiggggg ho hum -- makes me think NOTHING will make USers stand up.

All in all though, Hersh is extremely reliable. I'll be waiting to see what comes out of this.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 7:47 AM

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

I'm sorry, but when I see "Cheney's assassination ring", the image I can't get out of my head is one of Cheney with an actual ring on his finger that shoots out a lethal laser. I picture Mike Myers in the Dick Cheney role... "And we want a ring. A ring with LASERZZZZZZ."

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 7:51 AM

Quote:

Fourth, the way people responded to 1/10 of the entire US public having their calls traced (or technical equivalent), to Katrina and the still existing state of New Orleans, to torture, to being lied into a war, to any number of misdeeds and illegalities -- BIIIiiiggggg ho hum -- makes me think NOTHING will make USers stand up.

Yup. Even if you found out they were putting PAX in the air scrubbers, very few would be upset enough to do anything about it. Of course, that's the whole idea behind putting PAX in the air scrubbers to begin with, innit?

Mike

The "On Fire" Economy -
The Dow closed at 10,587.60 on January 20, 2001, the day GW Bush took office. Eight years later, it closed below 8000 on the day he left office - a net loss of 25%. That's what conservatives call an economic "success".

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 7:52 AM

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 7:54 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Well, I will say that it kinda disgusts me to be *hoping* for a ho-hum reaction given the potentially awful alternatives...

There's an X-factor to public reaction that's quite unpredictable, although media coverage does apply, and the country and/or parts of it have gone relatively apeshit over "minor" things before, like the sinking of the USS Maine or the Rodney King Incident, so you really never know what spark might light the powder keg, which is why smart folk don't go throwing them sparks willy-nilly.

Focused outrage has it's place, but when the monster within man slips the leash things can turn ugly quick, yanno ?

I worry that one faction might wind up the public against another with the assistance of 'friendly' media and unknowingly light the fuse on us - especially given the amount of suppressed rage over the economic situation, especially if/when it starts hitting home in, as you say, a personal, undeniable way on Joe and Jill Public.

Been doin a little historic research concerning the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror cause some things can indeed be historically predictable, and roadblocking the conditions which could lead to that here is kinda important to me.

Obviously, I don't have a lotta support from my fellow Anarchists, who aren't exactly sympathetic to the general populace as a rule - but I consider them a bit short-sighted and blinded by their own ideology to the factual consquences of a political collapse that takes out society with it, especially so in light of the current examples in Africa at this time.

But then, the voice of reason is never quite as popular as that encouraging action, that's always been true as well - for my part however, it's my opinion that sometimes the safest and wisest course is to stay your hand even as your heart cries out to let it fall.

I don't wanna see the world burn - I wanna see it grow up, and alas that no ideal is without it's idiots, Anarchism far more than others just by it's very nature, too bad more people cannot be made to understand that forcing ANY social or political model upon the unwilling is an immoral act at best, and much MORE so for a model supposedly based on lack of coercion.

Trying to kick some sense into "allies" that don't even *like* you is never a fun proposition to begin with, as you can well imagine.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 7:54 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

HAHAHA!

Okay, okay, "Cheny assassination ring" sounds a little like his secret decoder ring. How about "squad"? Does that do it for ya?

---------------------------------
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 8:07 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
HAHAHA!

Okay, okay, "Cheny assassination ring" sounds a little like his secret decoder ring. How about "squad"? Does that do it for ya?

---------------------------------
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

Oh, DAMN! I liked it better the other way! I just got a giggle out of it every time I read it. Just imagining Cheney taking a bead on someone with his super-double-secret-phaser-ring, and letting out his evil little laugh while he smoked 'em with it.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 11:38 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:

Perfect! That's exactly the mental image I see when reading the original thread title!

Mike

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 4:20 PM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
GEEZER
That's what I said: This stuff has been going on for DECADES.

Of course, that doesn't explain why you then turn around and say: We didn't assassinate people in Vietnam or prop up tyrants around the world.

What? I know perfectly well that we "assassinated" VC and NVA in Vietnam, since we killed them with long range rifles or silenced pistols instead of in a stand-up fight. I also saw the reports of what the VC and NVA did to anyone not sufficiently committed to their cause. Remember Col. Kurtz's speech about the pile of childrens arms in "Apocalypse Now"? That wasn't fiction. That was VC policy in action.

And I'm sure we propped up tyrants, in situations where we considered them the lesser of two evils. In hindsight, some were probably mistakes. Some probably weren't.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 3:32 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Okay, since YOU claim we've been assassinating people for years PROVIDE SOME EXAMPLES HERE (aside from Castro).

'Cause either this is a radical departure from past practice, or it's been more-or-less SOP since... well, Kennedy. And if it's been SOP since that long, you should have DOZENS of examples to choose from.

Start listing. If you make 'em juicy, Cheney doesn't look so god-awful by comparison:

---------------------------------
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 4:33 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
SOP since... well, Kennedy.

That would be my pick.

The laughing Chrisisall

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 6:00 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Well, Geezer is faced with several options:

1) He can find a half-dozen really horrific examples of USA extra-legal practices, and give up on the notion that our actions were always honorable and our motives always pure.

2)He can find a half-dozen really horrific examples of USA extra-legal practices and try to justify them, giving up on the notion that although our actions weren't always honorable at leats our intentions were good. (But I'll give him a run for his money on this one, and I think he knows it.)

3) He can shove Cheney under the bus.

BTW- You know ONE THING that would cause riots in the streets? Proof bin Laden was assassinated many years ago, and was simply held up as a boogeyman to frighten the American people.

---------------------------------
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 6:04 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
You know ONE THING that would cause riots in the streets? Proof bin Laden was assassinated many years ago, and was simply held up as a boogeyman to frighten the American people.

Nah, so many are aware of the fact he's gone & his name was used for that purpose...but he wasn't assassinated, he died on his toilet (okay, a REALLY nice bucket).

The laughing Chrisisall

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 6:12 AM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

Example of police psyop: Symbionese Liberation Army

Quote:
Think about it: The (convicted felon) guy who committed one of the most startling kidnapping (and murders) in American history later (with the possible exception of the Lindbergh baby) became an investigator for the San Francisco District Attorney. That’s a pretty startling career move.
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2009/03/late-breaking-news-on-sla.html

To Provoke War, Cheney Considered Proposal To Dress Up Navy Seals As Iranians And Shoot At Them, July 31, 2008
www.thinkprogress.org/2008/07/31/cheney-proposal-for-iran-war/

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
SOP since... well, Kennedy.
That would be my pick.

JFK Sr was assassinated by CIA's Operation Mongoose, which was part of Operation Northwoods, which was declassified by NSA in 2000 as 2-million pages of JFK files ordered declassified by Congress, thanks to Oliver Stone's documentary JFK, which mentioned Mongoose.
www.dailymotion.com/video/x81wug_jfk-oliver-stone-fr-112_shortfilms

Northwoods is why JFK planned "to break the CIA into 1,000 pieces".
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92662&page=1
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/doc1.pdf

Mongoose/Northwoods was founded and run by Nixon, probably without Ike's knowledge, hence Ike's final warning about the Military Industrial Complex.

Nixon's convicted Watergate CIA burglers, E Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis, were found "guilty" of the JFK murder by a civil libel jury, in Hunt v Liberty Lobby (aka The Spotlight, aka American Free Press). LL's attorney Mark Lane wrote a book about it, Plausible Denial.

Nixon's convicted chief of staff HR Halderman, in his autobiography, The Ends of Power, wrote that in the Watergate tapes, when Nixon said "Bay of Pigs" (Project Mongoose), that was code for the JFK murder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._R._Haldeman
www.watergate.info/tapes/72-06-23_smoking-gun.shtml

Hunt confessed his guilt on his deathbead to his son, St John Hunt, on audio and videotape, published by Rolling Stone (censored by all other media mafia).
www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13893143/the_last_confessions_of_e
_howard_hunt
www.infowars.com/articles/us/jfk_hunt_confessed_cia_murdered_jfk.htm
www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2007/300407deathbedconfession.htm
www.infowars.com/?p=5488
www.saintjohnhunt.com
www.myspace.com/saintjohnandthesinners

JFK Jr and family were assassinated to stop his campaign for US Senate in NY vs Billary Blythe Clinton Rockefeller, and president vs Bush Jr.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=jfk+oliver+stone&emb=0&aq=f#q=jf
k+jr+assassination&emb=1

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 6:53 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Okay, since YOU claim we've been assassinating people for years PROVIDE SOME EXAMPLES HERE...

Note that I said "assassinating" in quotes. Picture me making air "quotation marks" signs with my fingers when I say it. What I consider an actual assassination and what Mr. Hersch considers "assasination" probably differ quite a bit.

What Mr. Hersch would probably consider "assasinations"(imagine the air quotes here) in Vietnam were killings of known VC and NVA commanders, spies, informers, etc. by Special Forces or SOG teams or snipers. These are pretty well documented in any history of Special Operations in Vietnam.

I have no doubt that such "assassinations"(air quotes again) were carried out during various counter-insurgency operations in which the U.S. participated during the Cold War; principally in Central and South America. Killings of enemy officers, agents, and such by stealth, rather than in battle.

We're carrying out such "assassinations"(Yep. More air quotes) today in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, using Special Operations teams and Predator drones.

I suspect that Mr. Hersch's "assassination squads" are various Special Operations groups who are attacking the command and control structure of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. I don't have a problem with this, since I consider Al Qaeda and the Taliban aggressive enemies in a declared war.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 6:54 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Well, Geezer is faced with several options:

None of which you guessed.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 7:02 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Well, Geezer is faced with several options- Signy

None of which you guessed- Geezer

Well, another option is to toss in comments like this and then not elucidate. Another option is to simply abandon the thread entirely, or do the Rapo thing: Declare yourself the winner and THEN abandon the thread. Yet another is to engage in all the usual rhetorial tricks: changing the topic, ad hominem (calling me unpatriotic etc.), strawmanning, etc. Or, you could whine about how "unfair" I was being. If you REALLY wanted to be nasty you could ask the FBI to investigate me (again). Or, you could PM me. I was limiting myself to the options of open, honest discussion.

So far, this looks like you're just pretending to have something to say.

If you have anything of substance to add, feel free...

---------------------------------
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 8:55 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Looks like

Quote:
abandon the thread entirely

may have been the option of choice.

---------------------------------
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 9:00 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
You know ONE THING that would cause riots in the streets? Proof bin Laden was assassinated many years ago, and was simply held up as a boogeyman to frighten the American people.

Nah, so many are aware of the fact he's gone & his name was used for that purpose...but he wasn't assassinated, he died on his toilet (okay, a REALLY nice bucket).

The laughing Chrisisall

You... you...

You mean OSAMA WAS ELVIS?!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

Mike

A baby seal walks into a club...

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 9:07 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Okay, since YOU claim we've been assassinating people for years PROVIDE SOME EXAMPLES HERE...

Note that I said "assassinating" in quotes. Picture me making air "quotation marks" signs with my fingers when I say it. What I consider an actual assassination and what Mr. Hersch considers "assasination" probably differ quite a bit.

What Mr. Hersch would probably consider "assasinations"(imagine the air quotes here) in Vietnam were killings of known VC and NVA commanders, spies, informers, etc. by Special Forces or SOG teams or snipers. These are pretty well documented in any history of Special Operations in Vietnam.

I have no doubt that such "assassinations"(air quotes again) were carried out during various counter-insurgency operations in which the U.S. participated during the Cold War; principally in Central and South America. Killings of enemy officers, agents, and such by stealth, rather than in battle.

We're carrying out such "assassinations"(Yep. More air quotes) today in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, using Special Operations teams and Predator drones.

I suspect that Mr. Hersch's "assassination squads" are various Special Operations groups who are attacking the command and control structure of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. I don't have a problem with this, since I consider Al Qaeda and the Taliban aggressive enemies in a declared war.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

Actually, Geezer has a pretty good point here - we've been doing these kinds of "assassinations" at least since the Revolutionary War, where we were using snipers armed with Kentucky Rifles to take out British majors and generals from hiding - a practice that was NOT part of the approved warfare scenario of the day! War was supposed to be a more gentlemanly pursuit, whereby the officers would stay in the rear issuing orders, and were strictly off-limits as far as targeting went. But a bunch of rebels decided to change the rules a bit...

Mike

A baby seal walks into a club...

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 9:14 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:
Well, Geezer is faced with several options- Signy

None of which you guessed- Geezer
Well, another option is to toss in comments like this and then not elucidate.

I did elucidate, in the post prior to the one you quoted. Perhaps you should actually read it before you go off on another rant.

I have to admit I'm impressed with the way you make up things you think I might say, and then become insulted by them. You can have an argument with me, and get to feel your righteous indignation, without me even having to be involved. Are you enjoying masterdebating?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 9:26 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

"And we want a ring. A ring with LASERZZZZZZ."

Or it might be THIS ring:

One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all
and in the darkness bind them.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 9:35 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

So, speaking of rage:

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment
By Robert Freeman

In early 1919, Germany put in place a new government to begin rebuilding the country after its crushing defeat in World War I. But the right-wing forces that had led the country into the War and lost the War conspired even before it was over to destroy the new government, the "Weimar Republic." They succeeded.

The U.S. faces a similar "Weimar Moment." The devastating collapse of the economy after eight years of Republican rule has left the leadership, policies, and ideology of the right utterly discredited. But, as was the case with Germany in 1919, Republicans do not intend to allow the new government to succeed. They will do everything they can to undermine it. If they are successful, the U.S. may yet go the way of Weimar Germany.

World War I left Germany utterly devastated. The landed aristocrats, industrial magnates, wealthy financiers, weapons makers, and the officer corps of the military that formed the locus of right wing power were completely discredited. Their failure in provoking and prosecuting the War was catastrophic, undeniable, and complete.

The economy was destroyed. Prices were at 800% of pre-war levels and rising quickly. Agriculture, pillaged for the War, lay in ruins. Social insurance payments for the War's injured, to widows and orphans, and newly unemployed soldiers were astronomical. And all this was before the cost of rebuilding was even begun.

At the same time, Germany faced massive reparations payments to the Allied victors, France and England. But Germany's foreign properties had been confiscated and its colonies turned over to the victors. The combination of these conditions, both domestic and international, made it extraordinarily difficult for the German economy to recover.

As a result of the failure of the right, the German people elected a moderately leftist government to lead the nation's rebuilding. It was named the Weimar Republic for the city in which the new post-imperial constitution was written. The new government was led by Friedrich Ebert, head of the German Socialist Party.

But the country's new parliamentary system had allowed dozens of parties to run, making it impossible for any one party to win an outright majority. Ebert's party had achieved the highest portion of votes, 38%, in the first post-War elections, held in January 1919. Ebert would have to govern by coalition.

It was at this time that the right wing made its crucial decision. Despite its shocking, naked failure over the prior decade, despite the horrific devastation it had wrought on the German people, despite the discrediting of everything they had purported to stand for, they would fight Ebert, his new government, and its plans for recovery. They would do everything they could to make sure that the new government failed.

Their strategy was two-fold: first, stoke the resentment of the population about the calamitous state of its living conditions-no matter that those conditions had been created by the very right-wing oligarchs who now pretended to befriend the little guy. Rage is rage. It is glandular and unseeing. Once catalyzed it is easy to turn on any subject.

And stoking resentment was easy to do. Just before the War ended, the military concocted its most sensational lie: the German army hadn't actually been defeated. It had been "stabbed in the back" by communists, traitors, and Jews. It was an easy lie to sell. It entwined an attack on an alien political ideology - liberalism- with the latent, pervasive myth of German racial superiority.

The second strategy of the right was to prevent the new government from succeeding. To begin with, success of the left would conspicuously advertise the failure of the right. Moreover, success by the left would legitimize republican government, so hated by the oligarchs of the right. Much better for the people to be ruled by the self-aggrandizing right-wing autocracy that had governed Germany for centuries.

So the rightists set out to do everything they could to make it impossible for the leftists to govern. They would use parliamentary maneuver, shifting coalitions, domination of the new mass media, legislative obstruction, staged public relations spectacles, relentless pressure by narrow but powerful interests, judicial intimidation and, eventually, outright murder of their political opponents.

Contrition for their abject failure, humility for their destructive hubris, compassion for their crippled country-those had nothing to do with it. All they possessed was a blinding, visceral hatred of the left and a masturbatory lust for the return to power.

Eventually, they succeeded. Every setback in recovery - and there would inevitably be many - was met with hysterical demonizing of the left wing government. The lie was repeated relentlessly that the government was run by communists, traitors, and Jews-the same furtive cabal that had purportedly stabbed the country in the back at the end of the War. They steadily chipped away at the efficacy and, thereby, the legitimacy of successive republican governments.

By the time of the Great Depression, Adolph Hitler's ironically named National Socialist Party had become the biggest vote getter in the nation. The Nazis had once been derided as the lunatic fringe of the far right. But the "respectable" right-wing power brokers who had started and lost the Great War anointed Hitler Chancellor in January, 1933.

He immediately suspended the constitution, abolishing most civil liberties. He outlawed opposition parties, began a massive military build-up and a relentless propaganda campaign, and set Germany and the world onto the path of the greatest destruction it would ever know.

America now faces its own "Weimar moment."

The failure of right wing policy and leadership over the past eight years, especially in matters economic, is comparable to Germany's right-wing failure in World War I. It is catastrophic, undeniable, and complete.

Consider:

According to the World Economic Forum, forty percent of the entire world's wealth has been destroyed in the recent financial collapse. In the U.S. alone, between housing and the stock market, more than $18 trillion in wealth has already been destroyed.

The private mega-banks that anchor the financial systems of the western world are bankrupt. This makes it all but impossible to jump-start the western world's economies which are heavily dependent on bank-system credit to operate.

More than 10,000 homes go into foreclosure every day. More than 20,000 people lose their job every day. And the collapse is accelerating, developing its own self-reinforcing dynamic. Job losses breed foreclosures, reducing demand, leading to more job losses and further degradation of the financial system. None of the stopgaps designed to stanch the bleeding have yet worked. There is no bottom in sight.

Meanwhile, debt has risen to astronomical levels. Reagan and Bush I quadrupled the national debt in only twelve years. Bush II doubled it again in only eight. It is now ten times higher than it was in 1980 when Reagan was elected. Total public and private debt exceeds 300% of GDP, half again higher than it was in 1929.

The government's unfunded liabilities, promises it has made to the American people but for which no payment source can be identified, now exceed $60 trillion, a literally inconceivable sum that can never, will never, be paid. Federal Reserve economist Lawrence Kotlikoff has suggested that the U.S. government is "actuarially bankrupt."

The full measure of the nation's plight is revealed in Hillary Clinton's first trip as Secretary of State. It was to China, to beg them to fund Obama's new fiscal deficits. Without loans from China, the U.S. economy cannot be revived. The significance of this cannot be overstated: the U.S. no longer exercises sovereignty over its own economic affairs. That sovereignty now resides in the hands of China, the U.S.'s greatest long-term rival.

Thanks to Republican policies of massive debt and shipping jobs abroad, the U.S. has technically become a colony of China. It exports raw materials and imports finished goods, together with the capital to make up the difference. Should the Chinese decide not to lend the trillions of dollars the U.S. is begging for, the U.S. economy will implode, plummeting onto itself in a World Trade Center-like collapse that will leave dust clouds circling the planet for decades.

Notwithstanding the destruction inflicted on the economy by Republican policies, the most devastating breakdown is in the intellectual foundation on which right wing economic ideology itself is premised. Free market doctrine, the secular religion of right-wing America, is in utter, irretrievable shambles.

One of the most lofty tenets on which free markets are premised is their claim for themselves that they are "efficient," that is, that market prices always reflect "fundamental values" of assets. But if that's true, how could the world's largest insurance company, AIG, have lost 99.5% of its market value in only 18 months? How could the world's largest bank, Citibank, have lost 98% of its value over the same period?

How could the world's largest brokerage company, Merrill Lynch, have gone bankrupt and need to be bought by Bank of America? How could the world's largest car company, General Motors, have lost 95% of its value and stand on the threshold of extinction? How could the world's largest industrial conglomerate, General Electric, have lost 85% of its value in only 18 months?

If the largest companies in the world, those at the very heart of the capitalist system itself, can lose virtually all of their value in only 18 months, what is the possible meaning of the phrases "efficient markets" and "fundamental value"?

The other core tenets of free market ideology are equally compromised. Major actors are clearly not rational - a breakdown of theological proportions admitted by no less an avatar of the cult than its pope himself, Alan Greenspan. Free markets clearly cannot, will not, regulate themselves. It is precisely their innate, irrepressible propensity for sociopathic greed and predatory fraud that has brought the whole of the world's economy to the precipice of collapse.

Free markets clearly do not align risk and reward, allocating capital to its most productive uses, as its promoters advertise. They clearly do not automatically return to equilibrium, but must be bailed out with trillions of dollars of injections from the shrinking coffers of the public to the ever-bulging coffers of a private priesthood of pillage and plunder.

And in perhaps the greatest indictment of all, one going back to its primeval roots in Adam Smith's eighteenth century opus, The Wealth of Nations, the unrestrained behavior of self-interested individuals clearly, manifestly, does not "coalesce as if by an Invisible Hand to the greatest good for the greatest number."

These are not peripheral premises that have failed. They are not tangential tenets. Efficient markets. Rational actors. Market equilibrium. Risk and reward. Self interest. These are the essential sacraments on which the entire free market system is founded. They are in tatters. And it isn't that any one of them has been discredited by the glaring, merciless force of events. All of them have been. All of them together. And all of them at the same time.

Free markets have long been the basis for a legitimate - though rightly debated - economic policy framework. But they have become little more than a robotically-recited cultural catechism, a mindless mantra mumbled to mask the looting of the nation's resources that is the true purpose of Republican economic policy as demonstrated by the staggering upward transfers of wealth that inevitably occur under Republican regimes. A more complete, conspicuous, catastrophic, and irrefutable repudiation of right wing leaders, right wing policies, and right wing ideology could not possibly be contrived.

So what is the right wing response?

They have adopted the strategy and tactics of the failed right wing plotters in Weimar Germany. First, stoke the resentment of the population about the increasingly dire state of its living conditions-no matter that those conditions were created by the very right-wing oligarchs who now pretend to befriend the little guy. Rage is rage. It is glandular and unseeing. Once catalyzed it is easy to turn on any subject.

Second, prevent the new government from succeeding in any meaningful endeavor. The Republicans have set all their efforts to doing everything they can to make sure the Obama administration fails. Rush Limbaugh's infamous, "I hope he fails" pronouncement is only the beginning of the fomenting of hatred from the right. As Limbaugh said, "Let's be honest. Every Republican in America is hoping for Obama's failure."

The same malignant hope oozes unadulterated from all the other Dogpatch Demagogues that rent themselves out to the Republican party to foment resentment against anything liberal: Joe the "Plumber," Rick Santelli, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter, and virtually every other wing-nut operative whose intellectual stock in trade has been vaporized by the collision of right-wing policies with objective reality.

Equally so for the "respectable" members of the party, the all-but-three Republican members of Congress who refused to sign on to Obama's first stimulus package and continue to grandstand against every effort toward any form of progress. Contrition for their own abject failure, humility for their destructive hubris, compassion for their crippled country-those have nothing to do with it. All they possess is a blinding, visceral hatred of the left and a masturbatory lust for the return to power.

And what else can they do? Bereft of ideas, bankrupt in ideology, architects of collapse, obstruction is all they have. If Obama is successful, it will not only advertise the full extent of their failure, it will provide a model of liberal governance that would render Republicans irrelevant for decades, much as FDR's success left them out in the political cold for an entire generation. Liberal failure is a matter of life and death for Republicans.

And it's not at all clear that the liberals won't fail. No one should underestimate the task at hand. Never before - not even during the Great Depression - has the country inherited such a daunting, intractable set of economic problems: a debt burden so crushing; inequality so vast; a loss of financial sovereignty so constricting; an intellectual edifice so bankrupt; a private economy so uncompetitive; or an opposition so callously self interested in its own recovery and so cavalierly disinterested in the nation's.

The economy has been so damaged, successful rescue requires threading a series of policy needles, each of them so complex in their own right that none could be solved by any administration of the past 50 years. This includes rehabilitating and re-regulating the nation's banking system, restructuring health care, reducing national dependence on oil, reviving manufacturing so as to reduce the trade deficit, rebuilding the nation's crumbling infrastructure, dealing with a soaring national debt, trying to resuscitate a collapsing housing market, and all the while maintaining the safety net under 77 million baby boomers entering retirement with a net worth 60% what it was only 18 months ago.

Success will require much more than luck, hard work, brilliant policy, or soaring rhetoric. It will require cooperation and contribution from every American. It is those two offerings, cooperation and contribution, that Republicans are intent on withholding, the better to ensure Obama's failure. Simply put, the Republicans hate Democrats more than they love America.

If they succeed in derailing Obama's efforts, the cost will be incalculable.

After World War I, one of the consequences of the liberal government's failure was Adolph Hitler. Hitler had a genius for exploiting the resentment of the German people for their condition. More than 80% of the Nazi party's members were unemployed. It was these legions of idle thugs who made up the ranks of Hitler's brownshirt militia, the SA. The right wing oligarchy that had set out from the beginning to destroy the Weimar Republic recognized the potency of resentment and Hitler's genius at exploiting it. It was they who sponsored Hitler's ascension to Chancellor in 1933.

Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s.

The Republican propensity for fascism must not be underestimated. Witness their phony justifications for the war in Iraq, fanning the flames of nationalistic aggression, just as Hitler did with Austria, the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, and Poland in the 1930s. Consider their symbiotic embrace of corporate interests in the oil, weapons, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, finance, and other industries-the same type of corporate interests that sponsored Hitler's ascent to power. Look at their efforts to dismantle civil liberties with the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. Or their relentless, pervasive propaganda laundered through their corporate-owned right-wing media machine.

These are the classic hallmarks of fascism. The strategy is to obstruct recovery, facilitate collapse, and then incite the faux-populism of public resentment to re-install a corporatist oligarchy which has failed, but which will not abide a reduction of its privileges or a diminution of its control. It is a fetid, seditious agenda, awaiting only its own latter day mustachioed messiah for its final fulfillment.

World War I was a once-in-a-millennium upset in the architecture of global power. In four years, it shifted the center of that power from Europe to the United States. But failure now by the U.S. will shift that center once again, from the United States to China, out of the western world where it has resided for the past 500 years. The psychic shock to the billion-odd people living in western civilization, with its liberal democracies, capitalist economies, and Enlightenment ideals, will be incalculable, irretrievable.

This shift may be inevitable and only a matter of time. It is quite possible that the damage inflicted on the western world's economy by rapacious Republicans is already beyond repair. But it will be tragedy beyond measure if such a shift is consummated by the very wrecking crew that took us down the road to ruin, all the while so unctuously proclaiming "patriotism" as its crowning ideal. They are not patriots and their goal is not the revival of American power. It is the revival of their own power, even at the expense of America's. They represent a very dangerous threat to the nation's future.

Robert Freeman writes on history, economics and education. He can be reached at robertfreeman10@yahoo.com.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 10:02 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
I did elucidate

Nah... you gave a handwaving reference. (Elucidate: to make lucid or clear; throw light upon; explain, clarify

) Yes, we assassinated "people" (One? Two?) in Vietnam, and we "supported tyrants" because we thought that was the better option. I read that. That doesn't exactly prove your point that it was SOP, not the exception. Seems you'd have to come up with several examples from each (or most) Presidents since Kennedy... So be specific about your examples. The worse in the past, the better Cheney looks. So have a it:

Which tyrants?
Which Presidents?
Which other completed (or attempted) assassinations?

Demonstrate your case that this is nothing new.

---------------------------------
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 10:10 AM

Rue, yer creepin' me out...

The laughing Chrisisall

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, March 19, 2009 10:14 AM