Politics as it should be talked about.

One step forward, two steps back. When Bob Shieffer derided the scramble to interview Paris Hilton, I applauded the man. There is so little to applaud on Sunday AM talk shows. The next Sunday he’s back in the style of all the bubble heads. Everyone’s talking about the London car incidents as cars filled with explosives. Gasoline is NOT an explosive! To create an explosive using gasoline as a part, the air/fuel ratio is critical and must be controlled. In essence, those three cars weren’t even good Molotov cocktails. Of course that label, "Three badly made Molotov Cocktails," is not as titillating or fear inducing as propaganda necessitates, which explains the terminology. Excited fear is the need Du’ Jour in order to mold public backing for bombing Iran. Funny that the same tired, talking point spouting, chicken-hawks that fed us the lies that led to the debacle that exists in Iraq, now have carte blanque credibility on their prognosis of the threat Iran poses.

I’m watching Ralf Nader, thank you Amy Goodman and Democracy Now, and I’m reminded, once again, why I voted for him every time he’s been on the ballot. Twice when he wasn’t. Did he cost Al Gore the election? No, Gore won. It was only the media and the Supreme court that thought $hrub should win and worked to give the office to him. Even the Repugs know he stole it. “Washington, DC, is Corporate occupied territory,” is a quote that is missing from all current Presidential candidates. You can’t fix anything till you know the root cause of the problem. Which leads to the next paragraph.

Two items for your consideration. Over half the budget is for the military. What, no waste or unneeded programs? How about the F-22 which has rizen in cost from $40 million to $400 million each. The US government pays more than half of all medical payments. By paying all, it would immediately reduce costs by at least 30%. A practical, radical solution towards resolving the world’s health care and the US's fiscal crisis': Stop using war to resolve political and economic problems. Not only does it not work, it is in fact, counter productive.

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We need to vote the old-fashion way, on paper.

If you're looking for info on electronic voting here are two Important links.

The first one shows how the Ohio vote in 04 was stolen and by whom. Thank you, Steven Rosenfeld and Bob Fitrakis on Common Dreams. The same computers the W.H. was using to hide emails is the same one used to falsify the Ohio vote count during the ninety minutes the official count was frozen election night.

The second one shows what is wrong with the only bill that seems to be trying to create a paper record of electronic elections. Thank you, Nancy Tobi, on OpedNews.com. There is no fix to black box voting. A computer generated paper trail is nothing but a placebo.

The leading link is one of the two main sites leading the fight. The other is BradBlog.com.

Be a citizen. Get involved. The MSM will not cover this issue.

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Too little, Too late?

The Resident started out more coherent than I’ve heard him in a long time. When he stated that he didn’t know where we got the idea that he was all about “stay the course,” I got the feeling that his changing face is superficial. While he did show improvement in his political acumen, I wonder how it will translate into working with an actual opposition party in power.Of course, I’m assuming the Democrats will so act.

The most interesting part I discern is his replacing Rumsfeld with Gates, a CIA spook. I’d say former, but my understanding is you don’t retire, you just go on extended leave. Rumors were rife during his confirmation hearings to head the CIA that he lied to congress about his knowledge vis-à-vis Iran/Contra. The Resident might get his marching orders from a higher power, but it seems his soldiers are more and more composed of Bush 1 minions.

The Republican meme: The further we go, the be hinder we get. So, with that in mind, I can now hope that we won’t degrade back to the stone age in the next two years, though the Resident’s posting of nuclear bomb designs on the web might make the make up of our congress irrevelant.

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Elections, Southern Style

Leave it to the GOP to call reaching out to the KKK as reaching out to its base. As Chris Floyd writes in the above linked article,

“Freed but disenfranchised, emancipated but still in chains, balked by law and brutal custom from full participation in society, the Southern blacks also made handy targets to divert the anger and dissatisfaction of the "poor white trash" from the elites that exploited them as well, albeit less severely. If even the poorest white man could consider himself superior to someone, if you could keep him tied up in psychological and emotional knots about inferior darkies messing with his women, going to his schools, sitting at his lunch counters, drinking from his water fountains, swimming in his public pools, living in his neighborhoods, why then he'd never make common cause with his black brothers and sisters in poverty to fight for a better life.”

The whole idea of the KKK was simply to keep the poor, undereducated white folk too busy acting “better than” to ever become aware of their own disenfranchisement. Look at that black man looking at a white woman not at what the real Boss is doing to his pocket book. It seems that simple minds, courtesy of our public school system, has been well worth the money for the ruling class. The same can be said for the Religious (sounding) Reich, point to someone worshipping God differently, instant distraction from the shrinking paycheck. Best of all, you can do it in a 30 second sound bite. In America, the only history that doesn’t start with Monday morning’s New York Times, is the bigotry that lives in too many hearts.

A quick aside. Thanks to Jon Steward and Steven Colber(t) I can get through all this political bile. Tim Robbin’s appearance on Steve’s show tonight had me not just laughing out loud but actually clapping for his performance, while sitting alone at home! We’re going to need our humor in the Halliburton Camps if they manage to steal this next election also.


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