Political Theater in Congress: Is Toyota being scapegoated to humiliate Japan?

As you may be aware, Japan recently elected a new party into power after decades of dominance by the Liberal Democratic Party. The new party (Democratic Party of Japan) promised to be less "passive" in regards to the US. This has not gone over well within the bowels of the Pentagon:

In November last year, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned Japan that it would face “serious consequences” if the new government did not honour the commitments on the bases given by the former government. During his visit, Gates loudly lobbied for an extension of the military bases agreement.

Imagine if a foreign emissary came here warning us to do as he says or there will be "serious consequences". Such arrogance is why the Japanese are unwilling to continue being our thankless sidekick.

China is also a factor. Japan seems to be throwing its lot in with China and other eastern countries, probably because our bullying behavior and rapidly-declining-in-value currency are getting really annoying.

Is this The Powers That Be's way of getting back at Japan? It's more of a warning than a crippling blow, but things could escalate quickly if the wall of secrecy continues to crumble:

The recent revelations of secret security pacts with the U.S. have inflamed public opinion. The Japanese Foreign Minister has appointed a team of scholars to delve into the Foreign Ministry’s archives to track down secret documents relating to security ties with the U.S.

"Secret agreements"? Yeah, this is when the conspiracy theorist in me starts paying attention. There is a lot more underneath the surface if you start to dig. If you find anything juicy, let me know in the comments.

I should also note that the US Government is currently the majority stakeholder in a direct Toyota competitor: General Motors. If "investigating" a foreign competitor to a state-owned business isn't a conflict of interest, I don't know what is. Congress has jumped the shark; we'd be better off with a bunch of muppets in charge.

Meanwhile, he Japanese people and their media arewatching events in Congress closely, and they are familiar with Kabuki drama.

Still, the Japanese media have carried a number of articles and broadcast segments analyzing the meaning of the upcoming hearing, many pointing to what they saw as political motives behind the actions by lawmakers and regulators.

Mark my words, this bit of political theater is not a coincidence.

Liberals and Libertarians Must Come Together to Defeat The Fed and Secure Economic Liberty

I see a lot of common ground between liberals (i.e. leftist Democrats and independents) and libertarians (big L and small L). It's unfortunate that a few fundamental issues divide them because there's so much room for collaboration, especially when it comes to the calamitous policies of the Federal Reserve.

A Solution: First Steps
First, people need to chill out on both sides of this debate. Second, realize that what I'm proposing is not new, just misunderstood. I've jokingly called myself a libertarian socialist before, but today I found that there really is such a thing.

Now, what I'm about to do will piss off both liberals and libertarians, but I need to criticize both approaches before we can find a happy medium. This might be painful for you if you fall on one side or the other, but please bear with me; each side will get its fair share of abuse. And praise.

Neither Side is Perfect
The libertarians, especially social conservatives, need to realize that they do try to protect rich too much even though it's the rich who created the Fed and many of our current economic problems. It's the rich, after all, who can afford to thrive during times of moderate to high inflation because they can hire a team of accountants, investment bankers and so on to ride the rough waters of fiat capitalism.

Some well-meaning libertarians, being perpetually out of power, are gradually seduced into supporting right-wing bombthrowers like Glenn Beck, which only makes them look stupid, racist, backwards and irrational to a liberal. The tea parties have not succeeded because they are partisan and co-opted by mainstream Republican politicians like Minnesota's own Michele Bachmann, tapping into anger and doing nothing to really change things. If they were non-partisan End the Fed rallies that might be a step in the right direction. But many libertarians hate liberals because the Democrats who get elected tend to be corrupt establishment figures -- just like Republican politicians.

Conversely, the leftist populists need to realize that Obama is not the savior they want him to be. He's a politican like any other and he's just playing the game. Note how little has changed since he took office. He's made lots of noise about change, but our Empire is still killing peasants in Afghanistan, our privacy is still nonextistent as warrantless wiretapping continues, and our economy is still in the thrall of the rich as Bernanke gets re-upped for another term and the idiots who supported deregulation (like Summers) get cushy jobs in the administration. Meanwhile, Obama's tackling (and losing) the health care fight when he should be focused on the economy first and foremost. I support universal healthcare, but the conservatives are right to question how we're gonna pay for it. Shouldn't we get our economic house in order before we make massive commitments to future spending?

The Health Care Riddle
The health care conundrum is a medium-sized part of our economic problems. The bigger problem is exactly what the Libertarians are talking about (and what progressive left-wing publications like the HuffPo are finally starting to realize): The secretive Fed's embrace of fiat currency and fractional reserve banking will make peasants of us all.

This government, and everything in it (including Obama) is controlled by the banking apparatus. Look at how quickly the bailout and stimulus packages were passed in comparison to health care reform. And yet we could've easily paid for health care for every single American with the money we threw at the bankers so they could erase the red ink from their bottom lines and then refuse to give loans to regular people. Bonuses to executives are already back to pre-crash levels.

My point is that unless we fix the underlying issue we'll be back at square one again. Unless a new amendment is added to the Bill of Rights guaranteeing free health care for all (not bloody likely) the bankers will find a way to put us back in the poor house again. Congress will bankrupt whatever public option we create unless it is rock-fucking-solid. Because of the inflationary and demographic bubbles we face, Social Security and Medicare will likely go bankrupt within a few decades. How will adding more financial obligations to the pile help us solve this mess?

Sometimes Society is to Blame
The typical libertarian response is to say "Get government off my back!" I think libertarians are susceptible to Republican messaging because the Republican politicians pretend to be in favor of limited government. And both libertarians and Republicans see poor people as failed and lazy.

Here's something libertarians can learn from liberals: Sometimes the main forces that cause poverty really are society's fault. More specifically to blame: government and corporate interests from banking to health care who are in favor of fiscally incapacitated citizens who thus become dependent on the state and the state's favored corporations. Fiat currency and fractional reserve lending have created the underlying conditions that make this economic incapacitation possible.

Spending Our Way to Prosperity
Liberals have traditionally tried to solve this problem with even more government intervention. They see government as a tool they can use to elevate the playing field and give those people a shot at crawling out of poverty and back to fiscal independence. Libertarians have largely cried foul but haven't proposed a practical solution and have in fact fallen for Republican Party propaganda (especially on taxes) when they should have stood with the poor. It is the poor who suffer most from the Fed's policies.

Yet liberals who think we can continue to spend our way out of this mess are sadly mistaken. In fact, we've already spent far too much. It is perhaps the best response to the problem within the context of an inflationary world, but the Keynesian approach will ultimately collapse because the inflation is too destabilizing and it's also incredibly iniquitous. Who here gets a check for inflation each month? Not me, but because of fractional reserve lending practices, banks benefit disproportionately from inflation. Liberals, just like right-leaning libertarians, are inadvertantly supporting the rich elites who create the problems they decry.

The Tree of Liberty
This crisis threatens to rend our nation apart but also presents an opportunity; a chance to end the Fed and the economic inequity it has wrought. And the only way that can happen is by unifying liberals and libertarians once again. Their names come from the same root word, after all -- Liberty. Both sides need to make bold changes to come together, but the only way to achieve true economic liberty is by a combination of tight regulation of banks and specie-backed currency.

As FDR said:

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

Political liberty cannot come without economic liberty.

FDR Did Better Against the Nazis Than The Bankers
A lot of Libertarians hate Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but what they don't seem to realize is that he was fighting an all-out war against the corrupt banking and corporate interests who were colluding against the common man, and the levers of government were the only powers the president had available to him. The banker-controlled Fed, after all, caused the first Great Depression and FDR was forced to act quickly to stem the bleeding. Read this link for more insight into FDR and why he abandoned the gold standard -- Europeans had already ditched gold and were buying up ours with their fiat currency, but FDR wanted to work out an international gold standard once the crisis subsided. And indeed, Bretton Woods was an attempt to do just that.

Roosevelt has been slandered as anti-business by many on the right. He was not; he was anti-Big Business. He stood up for all of America, not just the plutocrats. FDR's Keynesian solution was imperfect but it bought time and saved the Union. If he had not acted quickly the Business Plot of 1934 may have succeeded and America may have spiraled into despotic fascism, never to return.

Corporate Power
Some libertarians have not been sufficiently suspicious of the motives of Big Business. They think that corporate rights are the same as personal liberty. They are not.

Corporations are amoral machines that must be controlled. Men should be free to do what they will, but who among us will argue that a man is free to run over people in his car because, by golly, he paid for that car and he controls it and he uses it to make money for his family, so anybody who tries to stop him is abridging his rights? Well, we shouldn't let corporations driven by men to run amok any more than we should allow that of motor vehicle operators. It is imperative that libertarians understand that economic freedom is more fundamental and more important than corporate power.

A New Respect
Liberals, meanwhile, have long regarded libertarians a bunch of kooks; militia-joining types who are all paranoid gold-bugs who believe in anarchic and anachronistic principles. But libertarians have learned the hard way that governments can resort to tyranny whether they're controlled by the Democrats or the Republicans. Democratic attempts to solve our basic economic problems have either been limp-wristed or misguided. Liberals need to take a look at the constitutional principles libertarians stand by and realize how closely they align with progressivism. Most importantly, liberals need to get past the false "left vs. right" dichotomy that the elites use to divide and conquer us. The marginalized, but proud Libertarian voters have defiantly supported their minor party despite no chance of winning.

Perhaps liberals will have more respect for libertarians and their journey through the political wilderness after the last 8 years of suffering their own indignity. Soured on big, invasive government (wiretapping, No Child Left Behind, literal invasions) during the Bush years, this is the ideal time for liberals to wake up and realize that they can only secure the freedom and prosperity by looking beyond the political and focusing on the very most fundamental monetary elements of our economy upon which the government and society are built. Libertarians are not greedy to focus on money; they are prudent. Unless we have a secure gold-backed money supply we will continue to have these crises, and at some point we can't continue to solve them through social programs and endless spending. Inflation creates the poverty that we all fear. It's time to end it.

This is my plea for liberals and libertarians to work together and remove the Federal Reserve's charter. It's time to take back our economic liberty. We don't have much time to waste.

The evil "S"-word: Socialism: Building a socialism-free utopia

Booo!! Hissssss!!!!

He said "socialism"! Socialism is evil! Socialism is kinda, vaguely, sorta like communism, and therefore bad!

Seriously, people. Grow the fuck up.

I'm just as much against government waste and intrusion as anybody on this planet. Read this blog; you will find pages upon pages of my ranting, most of it aimed at government stupidity and evil. But enough with the "socialism is evil" crap.

You hate socialism? Fine. But now that you've talked the talk you'd better walk the walk.

That means you anti-socialists will support the following minor changes to our way of life -- because that's what it takes to build a Socialism-free America:

• Kill the Social Security program -- Let grandma starve in the woods. Fuck her, she's a leech on society. Get a job, grandma!!
  
• Get rid of Medicaid/Medicare -- Let's say grandma manages to drag herself out of the woods and to the hospital. Laws require her to be treated, but guess what -- you, her offspring, are stuck with the bill. Grandma needs an expensive operation and you can't pay for it? Oh well, dig a hole.
• Fire Department is now privately run -- Just like in Roman times, if you can't pay for the Fireman to put your fire out -- up front -- he just lets it burn. Yay for capitalism!
• Police Departments are disbanded -- only private security firms exist, and only if you can afford to pay for them. Because the warlord system of Somalia worked so well, we decided to copy it! (I'm going to join the mafia!)
  
• No Libraries -- real Americans buy books, you commies!
• Toll Roads everywhere -- including right in front of your house. Wanna get to work in the morning? That'll cost you 5 bucks. Highways are for the rich; the poor could take the bus, but since transit companies are government-subsidized they won't exist in our socialism-free uptopia! No more subways either! Yay!
  
• No public education system -- are your kids going to public schools? Well not anymore, since there aren't any! Public schools = socialism, kids! Now only the rich will be able to afford private education, while the poor youths will form gangs and wander the streets all day when they should be inside learning! And since there's no cops there's no one to stop them! Yay, the best of feudalism and gang-culture! You conservatives really know how to make a first-class utopia!
  

And thanks to our brave men and women in Congress, there's already no public healthcare system clogging things up! Our present system works great, so long as you're wealthy and healthy!

Isn't this socialism-free utopia great, you guys?! No welfare, no healthcare, no roads, no cops, no firemen, no schools! Wow! It's like heaven, but with gangs, death and disease in abundance instead of love and harmony! Yay! This is great! The taxes are so low, if I had a job I'd be making lots of money!

Thanks, conservatives! You've shown us the error of our ways. Now I know that the only true way to live is like the animals -- kill or be killed! Might makes right! The Laws of the Jungle are more important than the Laws of God! Jesus said, "love your neighbor", but what he meant was "only if your neighbor can reimburse you in cold, hard cash!" Hell, why not murder him and steal his property -- he'd do the same to you. That's what living in this anti-socialist nirvana is all about.

... sigh.

I'm honestly not a big fan of socialism. I lean libertarian, politically, but economic liberty is important too, and it can easily be corrupted by the rich, who then make social mobility more difficult for the poor/middle class. Socialism, regrettably, seems to be necessary for humans living in large, diverse communities. We shouldn't have to sacrifice our political liberties to make the world a better place for all. But we may have to put a crimp on Goldman Sach's ability to make shitloads of money off the taxpayers. Corporate welfare, mind you, I am 100% against!

Seriously, can we ascend above the 4th-grade style name-calling and trite platforms designed to generate much heat but no light? If you live in America, you already live in a quasi-socialist system. And I bet you enjoy your highways, libraries and schools, don't you? Well, then you might as well embrace the socialism moniker, because to do otherwise would be hypocritical, childish and stupid. I'm sure the American conservative movement wouldn't stoop to that, would they?

We need you, conservatives. We need you to stop playing games and start cutting deals. Your stupid anti-socialist crusades are fucking retarded and don't stand up to a 5-second analysis. Try being constructive.

Unless we want to be a third-world country we're going to need universal healthcare. Yes, it's expensive, but by all measures, it's less than what we pay now. I don't understand how paying twice as much for a non-government run system is considered "efficient." I think when people say that, they really mean "efficient for us rich folk." That's what it's really about -- protecting the rich (as if they were an endangered, cuddly baby seal or something). Couldn't the rich muddle through somehow? Universal healthcare does not preclude a private healthcare system any more than public schools make private school impossible.

It will be okay. The sky won't fall. We'll just have less paperwork to fill out since the accounting/insurance snafu will no longer exist. Can't we all get behind that slogan? Less paperwork, more healthcare. Is that too much to ask?

Probably.

We're all gonna die: Why we need a soft landing

Things look grim. I'm sure we're not out of the woods yet -- there's a long way to go before we hit rock bottom.

You can probably guess my reaction to the bailout: SCAM!!

So, our plan is to give the people who fucked the economy billions of dollars with no real plan to get it back? Brilliant! How could that not work?

The assholes basically just got us to pay them for ripping us off. Quite the smooth move on their part. 

But you know, it's basically rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic at this point. I don't think $700 billion (actually, with all the pork it's closer to $850 billion) will make a lick of difference. The problem is much deeper than that; it has to do with the way we create and regulate money, at the fundamental level. Basically, we need to return to the gold standard, eliminate fractional reserve lending and dissolve the Federal Reserve.

This will make for some bumpy transitions, as a nation used to 5% growth every year realizes that maybe 0.2% is more appropriate. Of course, the 5% growth stat is illusionary. You have to grow by 5% every year just to stay ahead of inflation. If you want to actually make money you need an even higher rate -- which leads to risky investments. Wall Street wants ever-better numbers and the strain of achieving them has led many an executive to make risky, negligent or downright stupid investments. We need fiscal sanity! It may be boring, and less people will be able to make a living moving electronic numbers around, but it will bring stable beneficence to the majority of the world.

Problem: How to get there from here. 

Step one: Reach rock bottom.

We're well on our way there. I'm afraid nothing will change without suffering because there's no motivation otherwise. It's a sad truth. The problem is that we're speeding too fast towards rock bottom. We may hit it with the impact of a dinosaur falling off a thousand-foot cliff. That would basically end our civilization as we know it.


We need a soft landing. But how to get it? The fat-ass rich people stole the golden parachutes, but in a world where money is worthless paper what help will those parachutes be?

There's no way out of this one, folks. We're all gonna die unless somebody has been planning ahead with an altruistic and audacious plan to save us from our high-velocity trajectory straight into the ground.

We can't look to the people in charge to save us -- they're the ones who got us into this mess. So I guess we don't have many options. Who has a plan? Who has the resources to make it work? Who among us is bold enough to listen?

We are fast approaching the Rubicon.

Look out for falling banks

Holy cow -- lookout! There's banks falling like boulders all around us!

Luckily for them, when big, important institutions such as investment banks fail, they fall right into the loving arms of the Bush administration.

AIG, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch this week alone. Am I forgetting one? Probably. Now regulators are calling other banks looking for buyers in case Washington Mutual fails too.

Wall Street couldn't be in worse shape if it was literally on fire.

But, the GOP is there to bail these irresponsible banks out of trouble with -- you guessed it -- taxpayer money.

That's what the Establishment truly believes in: Socializing losses and privatizing profits.

God bless America, Comrade.

RNC 2008: Thoughts on the mass arrests and the role of police

I don't hate the police for arresting me without probable cause or any concern for my civil liberties. The problem is institutional and systemic. The police merely carry out orders. The leaders in government and business are the ones who have erected this steel-barricaded oligarchy, and they are ultimately to blame for the sad state of civil liberties in this country, which in turn has lead to a serious downturn in the quality of our political system. Politicians are merely corporate whores; they spend 90% of their time schmoozing for cash in order to afford re-election, which incumbents manage to do over 90% of the time.

People are pissed about this. I am one of them. The cops are no different than barbed wire and steel barricades. They're just an obstacle to freedom set up by the ruling class in order to protect them from us, no matter how peacefully we approach them with our greivances. They don't want to hear about it because it's a zero sum game -- their power depends on the abdication of our liberties. They are not inclined to hear or obey the people because they are not of the people. They are the Oligarchs; the Ruling Elite. They rule by force and manipulation. They are not a government by and for the people, they are a fascist oligarchy run by megalomaniacs for their own twisted gain.

Never take your eye off the ball. The cops are pawns in this just like the rest of us. To see who's playing the game, look to the Superclass.

RNC 2008: I was arrested after filming this video. The cops fired flash grenades, herded us onto Marion bridge and arrested us

I went downtown to St. Paul in order to get some pictures and observe the situation (I already protested on Monday), but John Ireland Bridge was blocked by the police with dump trucks when I got there. The cops said there was a bomb threat to the Minnesota Historical Society, but that was quite clearly a lie since they were standing so close to it and they'd already closed the other bridges as I found out later.



So I went over to the capitol on foot using the Marion Street Bridge instead. I saw more cops than protesters.



The cops had the city in a headlock. All the other bridges were closed by the police; cops, BCA agents and national guardsman were everywhere. St. Paul was on fucking lockdown.



By the time I found out how totally heavy-handed the police presence was I was getting tired and decided to split. I was trying to get back to my car on the other side of the Marion street bridge when I saw a group about 200 protesters approaching the bridge. That's why I'm walking against the flow at the beginning of the video. Unfortunately I was too busy trying to get good footage and didn't notice the cops had surrounded us on all sides.

Soon the police started firing flash grenades, smoke bombs and generally scaring the shit out of me and all these peaceful protesters. We were corraled onto the bridge where they told us we were all under arrest, but not before all of us were shellshocked by the overwhelming police response. Watch the video, but beware that it's intense, chaotic and there's swearing and explosions.



Notice how none of the protesters resisted or attacked the cops in any way. This is ironic because we were charged with "resisting a lawful order" along with the 1st amendment-killing crime of "presence at an unlawful assembly." Whatever happened to the right of people to peaceably assemble?

We are not free; The Bill of Rights is no longer operative.

If you aren't reading this from jail that simply means the cops haven't bothered to arrest you on trumped up charges yet. They can clearly do exactly that whenever they want, with no repercussions. I wasn't even part of the protest and I was charged with being part of an "unlawful assembly."

The whole arrest process took hours. We were told to sit and put our hands on our heads, which many people had to do for several hours (your arms get sore). I was cuffed after an hour or so and stood around for another hour waiting to get my mug shot (on the bridge; this was all very ad hoc). Since we were on the bridge for so long they eventually hauled at least 3 porta-potties onto the bridge itself, for both police and protester usage (under heavy guard, of course).

Eventually I was led onto a city bus with 40 other arrestees and brought to the Ramsey County jail for booking. They searched me about 5 times, confiscated all my stuff, and gave me a paper bag with a peanutbutter and jelly sandwitch and two apples. See, even oppressive police tactics have a Minnesota Nice aspect. Of course we didn't get knives so we had to spread the jelly and PB with our fingers.

Hours dragged by as we waded our way through the bureaucracy and were eventually cited and loaded onto a paddywagon and driven out of the jail. They let us out just outside the fences and we were free -- and on our own far from where we were arrested, but at least the incredibly awesome Coldsnap Legal Collective were there to offer us hugs and access to free legal advice.



People without rides or places to go were able to sleep on the grass outside the jailhouse thanks to sleeping bags the Coldsnap folks brought. Somebody sent the angels last night; they're doing great work and need your support!

The problem with good things is that the police like to infiltrate and ruin them from the inside. That might've been the case with the protest last night. I heard several people talking about police plants -- agent provocateurs pretending to be protesters, inciting violence and keeping their superiors informed about where they are headed.

Unfortunately, this is standard practice for police departments these days, including Denver during the DNC. How many acts of vandalism and violence that you read about in the mainstream media were actually committed by undercover cops in order to incite and defame activists?

Imagine the embarrassment of the police and governments if they held a convention with massive protests and no one was arrested! They'd have spent millions upon millions of dollars for nothing! They've got to earn their outrageous security budgets, which is why they were so keen to arrest anybody who happened to be near Marion St. Bridge last night, including media folks and medics (at least 5 were arrested, along with a dozen credentialed photographers).

Of course they also wanted to show who's boss. Clearly they are, and clearly they are not going to allow us to change the system peacefully or otherwise. We are not free. We are only permitted to do what they let us; truly free expression is verboten. Believe it or not, America used to be a pretty anything-goes society as long as it wasn't overtly violent (think of the Old West). Nowadays we cling to our police state as if that makes us safer. But what have we lost in the process?

Diebold: Our vote tabulation software doesn't work!

Diebold to America: "Hey, thanks for all the tax dollars. Our vote counting software doesn't work. Have a nice election!"

Bradblog is doing an excellent job, as usual, of covering the insanity that is our election system, especially when it comes to black box electronic voting.

Diebold has admitted that their tabulator software, known as GEMS, and used all across the country, in at least 34 states, does not count votes correctly.

In fact, it actually loses votes, by not counting them at all, yet gives the system administrator no indication that the votes were not counted. Instead, it tells them that all votes have been counted correctly. This bug has been in Diebold's software --- where it remains to this day-- for years. Diebold has only admitted it now that it's been found by someone else (a number of counties in Ohio, of all places) and with the 2008 Presidential election less than 80 days away.

On that note, have a great election, America!

I'll be packing for someplace with a functioning democracy... like Pakistan!!

An Obviously-Brilliant Proposal

Er... wait, was it "modest" or "obviously brilliant"?

Regardless, I have an idea, everyone! Stand back, place safety goggles over your eyes, make sure the lead-lined X-ray bib is securely fastened to your chest and that your boots tied up tight.

Some Background
Now, I may be an old-fashioned (young) guy, but I believe that fair is fair. And our tax code, ladies and gentlemen, is not fair.

For instance, did you know that:

Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress.

The study by the Government Accountability Office, expected to be released Tuesday, said about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes over the same period.

Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales, according to GAO's estimate.

What a sweet deal for them! They get to operate without having a huge tax burden weighing down on them, freeing them to make more investments and take more risks.

Of course, they have a shitload of capital, credit and resources to begin with. But this is America, goddammit! We don't make corporations pay taxes no matter how much they fuck up the environment or make insane profits on the backs of their low-income workers.

But -- and I'm getting to my ridiculously cool proposal -- I can't help but think that it's not especially fair that multi-billion dollar companies don't have to pay any taxes (ZERO fucking taxes) whereas, I, as a Regular Joe, have to pay about 30% of my income in taxes every year.

Perhaps I am just a whiner, not fit to lick the boots of a mighty multinational like Wal*mart. I know, I know. This is America. Corporations have more rights and resources than regular citizens. Yeah, "The Constitution guarantees..." blah blah blah... Obviously the Constitution don't mean shit. Money talks and the Constitution was written on hemp paper by a bunch of proto-hippy revolutionaries who wore funny clothes and probably squealed like girls when tickled.

This is America, goddammit! We drive hummers and invade countries full of smelly brown people who are all determined to kill us (our Media assures us this; it must be true!) or even just because they looked at us funny. We don't have time for "rules" or "equality" or what's it called.. uh.... libraries? .. no... uh, -- "Liberty!" Yeah, that's it.

But what I want is not to return our country to the whole Constitution thing. I'm not that naive. However, I do think it would be freakin' neat if we lived in a country where lawful citizens were counted as 3/5ths of a corporation. Currently, we're about a zillionth of a corporation, so 3/5ths would be a vast improvement.

My Blindingly-Awesome Proposal
U.S. citizens, when paying their taxes, should be able to write off "overhead". Only our "profits" should be taxed.

That means, no taxes should be administered until after the essentials of running a healthy body/mind have been accounted for.

What are the essentials? Food, water, shelter and clothing are a good start (no, a big screen TV is not an "essential"). That means I should be able to deduct all of the money I spend on food, rent/mortgage and clothes (within reason) before any other deductions. A healthy mind is important, too, so education costs, books and maybe even an internet connection should also be deductable.

Also, I have to have certain things in order to do my job -- or even get to it -- like a functioning car, gas, a bunch of hygienic equipment to look/smell nice, a cell phone and a computer. That's all overhead; my paycheck is not "profit." It's revenue. I have to spend a big chunk of it just to stay alive and another chunk to fit into the corporate world. These are expenses and they are subtracted from revenue before you end up with profits -- if you have any.

As you probably know, only corporate profits are taxable. Most overhead costs (the costs of running a business) are exempt. Wikipedia lists examples of overhead expenses as follows:

Overhead expenses include accounting fees, advertising, depreciation, indirect labor, insurance, interest, legal fees, rent, repairs, supplies, taxes, telephone bills, travel and utilities costs.

So I should be able to deduct my high-paid accountants as well. Then I can make sure, like most corporations, that I pay no income tax. Alternately, we could just leave gaping loopholes in the tax code so normal people don't have to hire expensive accountants (and then deduct the costs of their services). Something like, "if you don't feel like paying any income tax this year, check this box."

So you see, my super-cool proposal just brings Joe Sixpack into the same league as the corporations, who already have incredible advantages in the economy because of their size and reach.

Corporate Welfare is Only for Wealthy Corporations
Small businesses generally take it up the rear as well since they can't afford all those slippery accountants. Or maybe those small businesses just need to take a page from the criminals on Wall Street and learn how to privatize profits while socializing losses.

It doesn't seem fair to me that the average guy/gal has to assume the vast majority of the tax burden when most of are making jack diddly squat compared to a major multinational. Fair is fair. Progressive income taxation is based on the idea that the rich should pay a greater portion of their income because they can afford it and because they owe it to society; especially since the rich people/corporations take advantage of the situation and pay their workers a pitance while making them work long hours in often-dangerous conditions. Meanwhile, the CEO gets his taxes paid for by the corporation via what is known as a "gross-up".

Think it's unfair of me to use the corporate tax code instead of the individual one? Well, like I said, fair is fair. Corporations are increasingly using the individual tax code:

An outside tax expert, Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, said increasing numbers of limited liability corporations and so-called "S" corporations pay taxes under individual tax codes.

"Half of all business income in the United States now ends up going through the individual tax code," Edwards said.

Turnabout is fair play.

Even though my brilliant tax proposal seems like a total giveaway I could make it a reality. If I had high-powered corporate lobbyists at my disposal I could enact all sorts of people-friendly laws. I'd use my army of ninja-lobbyists to get a 28-hour work week and every Friday off, along with guaranteed overtime for salaried workers and an Economic Bill of Rights for all.

Instead, the already-rich corporations have the lobbyists and they use them to get ever-greater amounts corporate welfare. Then they rewrite the laws so that the managers pay a lesser percentage of tax than their secretaries do, as Warren Buffett pointed out:

Speaking at a $4,600-a-seat fundraiser in New York for Senator Hillary Clinton, Mr Buffett, who is worth an estimated $52 billion (£26 billion), said: “The 400 of us [here] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.”

Mr Buffett said that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent on the $46 million he made last year, without trying to avoid paying higher taxes, while his secretary, who earned $60,000, was taxed at 30 per cent.

Notice how he implies he could've made his effective tax rate much lower if he had bothered. But he didn't. Badass. But most CEOs are not as cool as Warren... of course, he could probably stand to pay his secretary more than 60K a year if he's making 46 million, don't you think?

Anyway, the point is: The system is unfair. Let's try to level the playing field a little bit.

My proposal is not to make humans equal to corporations. That's crazy. I just want to make a person worth 3/5ths of a corporation. Is that too much to ask?

COINTELPRO is back

Dave Zirin at The Huffington Post was labelled a terrorist and a potential threat for going to anti-death penalty meetings.

I am "Dave Z." This nickname was given by an undercover agent known to us as "Lucy." She sat in our meetings of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, smiling and engaged, taking copious notes about actions deemed threatening by the Governor of Maryland, Robert Ehrlich. Our seditious crimes, as Lucy reported, involved such acts as planning to set up a table at the local farmer's market and writing up a petition.

Our totalitarian government is not as keen on dissent as they would like you to believe. Sure, you can protest all you want... but you will be monitored.

COINTELPRO was the codename for activities related to spying on peaceful protesters during the 60s. Now there's probably a new codename, but the plan remains the same. There are totalitarian elements in our government. These fascists seem to operate with near-total impunity; they are protected from On High; nobody can bring them to justice. Democracy is a myth used to control the masses. We live in Oligarchy.

Collusion for Tyranny: The Media is just as guilty as Bush

Kucinich has introduced the Articles of Impeachment against Bush

...and the Media hasn't said shit.

"Liberal Media" my ass! The Media is fucking fascist, end of story. They are utterly controlled by the same corporate interests that control both major political parties. That's why Dennis Kucinich is a pariah in his own party -- he actually looks out for the Constitution and the rights of We The People. Such dedication to Liberty is considered treason in the bowels of both the Democratic and Republican parties.

A few mainstream outlets picked up the story and managed to spend an approximate average of less than 200 words describing the measure. They couldn't even be bothered to list more than a few of the 35 articles of impeachment.

I've seen better reporting in a fucking high school newspaper.

I don't blame the beat reporters; if their editors said "give me 2,000 words" they would have. As is, they probably had to fight to get 200.

But it's disgusting. I mean, jeeze, it's only the impeachment of the goddamn President of the United States of America. They all managed to mention that it's not politically feasible. Well I wonder why that is, you jackasses! It's because you won't cover it! If you did, everything would change, no matter how shitty and biased your coverage. Mr. 25% Approval Rating would not find many advocates in the populace, even if he would in the dominant press. And then you'd look pretty stupid, wouldn't you, defending the murdering megalomaniac who launched an illegal war. Those of us who still remember the impeachment of Bill Clinton know that it takes very little to whip the Media into a frothing frenzy of obsessive, inane coverage. Surely you could do the same for Bush. But you won't.

Because you're traitors.

Yeah, that's right. I said it. And it's true. This president is the most evil, diabolical man ever elected and you, the supposed Fourth Estate, won't criticize him in a voice above a whisper. It's fucking pathetic.

Look at Kucinich's 35 articles of impeachment. There's a lot of red meat here:

#1: Creating a secret propaganda campaign to manufacture a false case for war against Iraq

#2 Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression

#3 Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War

#4 Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States

#14: Misprision of a felony, misuse and exposure of classified information and cover up (Plame outing)

#15: Providing immunity from prosecution for criminal conduct for contractors in Iraq

#17: Illegal detention – detaining indefinitely, and without charge, American citizens and foreign captives (suspension of habeus)

#18: Torture – secretly authorizing and encouraging use of torture, as matter of official policy

#19 Rendition

#24 Spying on citizens violating 4th Amendment

#26 Announcing intent to violate laws w/signing statements, and then violating those laws.

#27 Failing to comply with congressional subpoenas, and instructing others to do so.

#29: Conspiracy to violate voting rights act of 1965, Ohio Sec of State 2004-06

#34: Obstruction into the investigation of 9/11

That's just a few of them. And this isn't wing-nut stuff, this is all stuff that has been discussed at one time or another in the mainstream press. Much of it was hushed up (the NSA spying scandal, election fraud, 9/11 obstruction) but some of it was loud and clear (torture, Plame, illegal Iraq War). Far from being left-wing lunacy, this is the last 7.5 years, distilled into 35 bullet points.

And yet the Media won't cover a congressman trying to hold Bush/Cheney accountable for their crimes.

I already told you why. But let it sink in. The Mainstream Media are the ones who made the Bush/Cheney disaster possible. They're the ones who greased the wheels, regurgitated the lies, jumped on the bandwagon and hushed up the really bad shit. Bush, without a fawning press corps, is just another partisan nutcase with a rich daddy. He wouldn't've been re-elected, let alone "elected" in the first place (another coverup there).

Let me lay it down for ya, real simple: If Bush hangs, Brian Williams should hang, too. If Cheney hangs, Tim Russert needs to swing from the same pole. If Rumsfeld goes down to the gallows, Charles Krauthammer and David Brooks need to die too. The blood of OVER ONE MILLION IRAQI INNOCENTS is on their hands.

Maybe that's why the Media is so protective of the Bush regime: They know if Bush goes down, they all go down. They've all bloodied their hands and sullied their souls together. Might as well stick together until the bitter end.

But if we don't stop them, they'll turn this nation into a fascist state and make you and I into criminals for believing in justice, peace and freedom. Somehow we've got to stop them, but I just don't know how. I'm just some random guy with a blog. What can I do? There's no one representing my interests in Washington except Dennis Kucinich.

One man, standing up against the Forces of Evil, spitting in the wind and calling for change. This doesn't look good for the underdogs.

Meanwhile, the supposed hope of mankind is cozying up to Israel, possibly attending the secret Bilderberg meeting (another media coverup) and generally doing whatever it takes to get elected. Fair enough. But Barack Obama had better watch out that he doesn't sell his soul in the process.

Maybe the whole Obama campaign is just a mirage, a hallucination by those of us who have dreamed of someone who could bring our government back from the brink of tyranny and outright fascism.

I hope I'm wrong, but it's hard to believe in anything or anybody anymore. We've been utterly betrayed by the government, the media and the elite. It just hurts too much to care anymore. The audacity of hope, indeed.

I'd feel a lot more hopeful if I knew somebody out there was fighting the good fight. I sleep a little sounder knowing Kucinich has the balls of a man twice his size, but he's only one man. We need a few hundred more like him in Congress.

Dennis Kucinich: I salute you. You are a true American patriot.

Continuity of Totalitarianism

There exists, somewhere deep in the belly of the NSA, a database so large, so secret, and so illegal, that few government officials will dare talk about it, even off the record.

Sources familiar with the program say that the government's data gathering has been overzealous and probably conducted in violation of federal law and the protection from unreasonable search and seizure guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.

According to a senior government official who served with high-level security clearances in five administrations, "There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived 'enemies of the state' almost instantaneously." He and other sources tell Radar that the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention. [emphasis mine]

Are you on the list? You have no way of knowing. There's no way to reason with them, to tell them you're not a threat. There's no recourse, no due process, no rights.

This is the dark heart of our government, silently beating away in the darkest corner of a military base somewhere deep underground. There are people in position who long for (or at least plan for) the chance to take power in the next emergency. The Constitution would be suspended, Congress rendered impotent, martial law declared and cities locked down.

For what?

Fear. This government fears its citizens, not because they're all terrorists, but because many of them still believe in democracy. Such people are dangerous. Believing in the Constitution might be enough to get you on the list.

Let's imagine a harrowing scenario: coordinated bombings in several American cities culminating in a major blast—say, a suitcase nuke—in New York City. Thousands of civilians are dead. Commerce is paralyzed. A state of emergency is declared by the president. Continuity of Governance plans that were developed during the Cold War and aggressively revised since 9/11 go into effect. Surviving government officials are shuttled to protected underground complexes carved into the hills of Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Power shifts to a "parallel government" that consists of scores of secretly preselected officials. (As far back as the 1980s, Donald Rumsfeld, then CEO of a pharmaceutical company, and Dick Cheney, then a congressman from Wyoming, were slated to step into key positions during a declared emergency.) The executive branch is the sole and absolute seat of authority, with Congress and the judiciary relegated to advisory roles at best. The country becomes, within a matter of hours, a police state.

Why? Why do we need to become a police state in order to become "secure"? Well, I already mentioned it above; the people who put these COG plans together are not patriots. They are traitors who wish to dispense with the annoyances of representative government and move instead to a system where everything is much smoother... for those in power.

It's strange that they would throw 200 years of liberty at the first sign of trouble ... if you don't know who these people are. Notice who gets protected in the scenario above. They aren't saving the Constitution, they're saving their own asses. They don't have contingency plans in place to ensure that citizens' rights are upheld; no, they're only concerned with maintaining their power and their control over us.

It's not necessary that the government be saved. We can start a new one and Lord knows it'll be better than the one we've got. But the one we've got is intent on saving its own skin, Constitution and Bill of Rights be damned. This isn't a Continuity of Liberty plan. This is a Discontinuation of Liberty plan.

The totality of this plan, the way every tactically-important aspect has been planned for seizure and "continuity", is to me indicative of Totalitarianism. The state and those in power can't even imagine why we wouldn't want the government to control everything. The idea that we could survive just fine without a bloated Federal government doesn't even occur to them.

You know, the United States of America was originally supposed to be an alliance amongst soveriegn states. If something bad happens in Washington D.C. that shouldn't directly affect Arizona or Minnesota, except as far as Federal money is concerned (the main tool by which the Federal government has tightened its control over the states).

Realize this: We don't need a strong Federal government! We have state and local governments to take care of things important to every American; things like roads, power, water, communications and other services.

And who's planning all this stuff anyway? Surely a competent agency with a devotion to civil liberties, right?

Haha, just kidding. You know we're fucked: It's FEMA!

Under law, during a national emergency, FEMA and its parent organization, the Department of Homeland Security, would be empowered to seize private and public property, all forms of transport, and all food supplies. The agency could dispatch military commanders to run state and local governments, and it could order the arrest of citizens without a warrant, holding them without trial for as long as the acting government deems necessary.

Seriously.

Well, I guess I should look at the silver lining: FEMA will probably be just an incompetent at taking our liberties away as at helping those in need... But that's probably optimistic on my part. The reason FEMA sucks at disaster relief is because it was never really set up to be a benevolent agency; the idea behind FEMA was always this: Seizing control of the nation during an emergency.

This is the real purpose of the War on Terror. It's to get us used to the idea that the government needs to step in and take over when things get rough. What they don't tell you is that they're intentionally creating a culture of fear to make the poisonous medecine go down easier, and they're probably working the other end of things too, creating the conditions for terrorists to thrive so they'll launch attacks and trigger the COG plans that were the whole point of the War on Terror in the first place. So, like the War on Drugs, the WOT is reall just a War on Liberty.

All this brings us back to the Main Core database:

Another well-informed source—a former military operative regularly briefed by members of the intelligence community—says this particular program has roots going back at least to the 1980s and was set up with help from the Defense Intelligence Agency. He has been told that the program utilizes software that makes predictive judgments of targets' behavior and tracks their circle of associations with "social network analysis" and artificial intelligence modeling tools.

"The more data you have on a particular target, the better [the software] can predict what the target will do, where the target will go, who it will turn to for help," he says. "Main Core is the table of contents for all the illegal information that the U.S. government has [compiled] on specific targets." An intelligence expert who has been briefed by high-level contacts in the Department of Homeland Security confirms that a database of this sort exists, but adds that "it is less a mega-database than a way to search numerous other agency databases at the same time."

The fact that there are 8 million of us in this database is nothing less than horrifying. If there were really 8 million terrorists in the USA we'd have people exploding with Baghdad-like regularity... but we don't. Nope, it's far more likely that the people in this database are those like myself who believe in liberty and democracy. We are the true threat a tyrannical government would face in an emergency because we would want the Constitution to be reinstated. The COGers won't let that happen.

That is why we need to be monitored. All of us. All the time. For no reason other than we might be a threat some time in the future. Maybe. The pesky 4th amendment makes this so much more difficult than the government would like, but after years of merciless attack there's not much left of it in the public consciousness or on the law books. Here's a look at what they monitor:

The following information seems to be fair game for collection without a warrant: the e-mail addresses you send to and receive from, and the subject lines of those messages; the phone numbers you dial, the numbers that dial in to your line, and the durations of the calls; the Internet sites you visit and the keywords in your Web searches; the destinations of the airline tickets you buy; the amounts and locations of your ATM withdrawals; and the goods and services you purchase on credit cards. All of this information is archived on government supercomputers and, according to sources, also fed into the Main Core database.

Basically, you are being monitored at all times. The NSA has been scooping up anything and everything on the internet for years. They already had phone conversations and financial transactions.

The privacy concerns are horrifying enough, but what's worse is that the database is probably useless at preventing terrorism:

In any case, mass watch lists of domestic citizens may do nothing to make us safer from terrorism. Jeff Jonas, chief scientist at IBM, a world-renowned expert in data mining, contends that such efforts won't prevent terrorist conspiracies. "Because there is so little historical terrorist event data," Jonas tells Radar, "there is not enough volume to create precise predictions."

But there is a lot of data on regular Americans who aren't planning any attacks. And that data can be misused, and it probably will be at the first opportunity.

Media Priorities

Ah, the wisdom of Twitter. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but it's amazing what you can fit in 140 characters... such as a complete evisceration of the mainstream media (MSM) because of their utter, obsequious hypocrisy and the biased, treasonous way they frame and focus on issues. Here it is, from Chuck Olsen:

"If the corporate media had been as diligent about watchdogging the president as... Rev. Wright, it's likely we wouldn't have invaded Iraq."

Boom. Pretty much says it all doesn't it?

Here's where he originally found that quote.

The corporate media chooses -- seemingly as one -- what to make a big deal out of. And what to blackout.

The Corporate Media (especially the TV news stations who were caught red-handed) have been feeding us Pentagon-approved talking points through the supposedly-independent retired generals who show up for interviews about the war. Strange that they never invite peaceniks on the air, isn't it? Well, war is big business. You can't expect truth and fairness when the bottom line is at stake.

Quite simply, the Media act as a megaphone for the positions they support and a censor for those they do not. Peace, wisdom, tranquility, free thought.... these concepts are all offensive to the corporate media. They would rather focus on strife, stupidity, distraction and obedience.

All three major cable news networks are wasting valuable air time on Senator Obama's former pastor. Why? Is the story newsworthy? Sure. Is wall-to-wall Wright coverage more important than Iraq or gas prices or the climate crisis? No way. But Reverend Wright is a scary, shouting black man and scary shouting black men equal ratings-sweet-ratings.

We expect to see this sort of race-baiting behavior from Fox News Channel, but CNN and MSNBC have, once again, similarly crossed the tabloid threshold into the very same nefarious Roger Ailes realm by beating this nothing story to death.

They're all the same. Fox News is simply the worst offender. But instead of being an embarrassment to decent journalists everywhere Fox News is seen a pioneer, a bold leader in the (fascist) future of news. Thus, the other news channels simply follow Fox's lead.

Face it folks: Our mainstream media is controlled. Totally controlled. By just five mega-corporations, all of whom have interests vastly different from the average American.

Is it too hard to imagine that these corporations embrace war, hypocrisy and distraction? Five corporations means five CEOs. These reptilian CEOs have a different agenda than the common man. They're often Republican, always rich, usually ruthless and seldom charitable. These five scumfucks control 90% of what we see, hear or read in the press and they've all profited from the war. The only thing that gives us a chance at regaining our freedom is the internet and I assure you this blog and others like it don't have ratings anywhere near that of Fox or CNN.

So when you see the Media trumpeting something, be it Paris Hilton, Rev. Wright or American Idol, just remember that they're showing you what they want you to know and they're hiding the rest. For everything they tell you they're obscuring another ten useful facts with their incessant bullshit.

The media doesn't investigate, they serve the rich; they afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable. They are traitors, liars, demons and filth. I consider Big Media's tacit embrace of the Iraq War before and after the fact to be nothing less than treason.

One former participant, NBC military analyst Kenneth Allard, has called the effort "psyops on steroids." As Barstow reports, "Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as 'message force multipliers' or 'surrogates' who could be counted on to deliver administration 'themes and messages' to millions of Americans 'in the form of their own opinions.' … Don Meyer, an aide to Ms. Clarke, said a strategic decision was made in 2002 to make the analysts the main focus of the public relations push to construct a case for war."

If there's any justice in this world they will all burn in the hell they've created. I say we give them all a one-way ticket to Baghdad. Sleep in the bed you've made, Fuckers!

It's Not a Compound

This is some fucked up shit right here:



"It's not a compound."
"It's a ranch. It's our home."
"We're the most free women in the whole world!"

I'm gonna have nightmares.

FDR and the problem of economic tyranny

I was reading a well-researched look into fascism in America when I came across this quote by FDR:

"The "privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over Government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction...." They erected a "new industrial dictatorship" which controlled the "hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor...."

"For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor-other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real...."

"Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of Government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended ..."

I think it's still relevant today, unfortunately. Roosevelt was not able to end economic fascism in his lifetime and now it's back with a vengeance. Economic tyranny is as much of a problem as political tyranny.

In 1944 Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed an "Economic Bill of Rights" that would radically transform the economic policies of our nation to ensure freedom from oppression by Big Business. He saw that political freedom meant nothing if you didn't have food to eat or a roof to sleep under. Shockingly, FDR's dream is still unfulfilled 64 years later, but his reasoning and his solutions still hold up.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights-among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however-as our industrial economy expanded-these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made. [emphasis mine]

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all-regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

1. The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
2. The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation; [fascinating inclusion!]
   
3. The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
4. The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
5. The right of every family to a decent home;
6. The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
7. The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
8. The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

While none of the above are guaranteed to every citizen, in many cases America has made a half-assed attempt to realize them. Let's look at how America 2008 matches up with FDR's dream:

1. There is no right to work or hold a job.
2. Minimum wage laws attempt to set a floor for worker pay yet businessmen still howl whenever we try to raise it in keeping with inflation. Minimum wage is America is currently $5.85 an hour and will rise to $7.25 in July of 2009.
3. Farmers are a relic of FDR's time. Big business controls much of the industry. Farmers do have some price supports but these may cause more harm than good.
4. The SEC and other watchdog groups are in place to ensure fairness, but they've been largely infiltrated by the industries they're supposed to watch, especially under the Bush administration.
5. We don't have a right to a home.
6. We still don't have universal health care, but we do have Medicare and Medicaid.
7. Social Security
8. Public schooling up to 12th grade. "Good"? No comment.
   

Overall, not too bad, but some of the big ones are totally missing. Economic inequality is worse today than it was in FDR's time.

The article makes the point that the idea of big government restrictions on business is a sort of fascism. I disagree. It's socialism.

Fascism is more akin to a merger of Big Government and Big Business. Policies in fascist countries are laissez faire when business leaders want them, but they can quickly swing the other way depending on who stands to lose/gain. It's closer to oligarchy and "might makes right." Fascism allows businesses to destroy each other through the power of the state. It all depends on who knows who and who's in power.

Socialism and fascism were both attempts to find a middle ground between laissez faire capitalism and totalitarian communism. Fascism was an attempt from the perspective of business and socialism was an attempt from the perspective of the common man. Fascists were willing to cede political freedom in exchange for economic security whereas socialists surrendered economic freedom in exchange for political security.

Neither system works perfectly, but a look at Europe over the last 70 years should tell you which one is generally superior. Fascism was mostly a lie; fascist leaders denounced the tyranny of communism and turned around and did just as bad when they attained power. Socialism, on the other hand, is the norm in most of western Europe and largely successful and fair. While it results in high taxes and lots of regulation the Bush administration has shown how devastating deregulation can be and their tax cuts for the rich did nothing but spit in the face of the middle class.

It's ironic that the same Europe that was ravaged by fascism 70 years ago is now a paragon of the economic liberty that FDR envisioned... and that America is in the grip of a shadowy new form of fascism.

The psychics at The Onion have done it again!

The Onion has a pretty good track record of not only reporting the news before it happens, but making it funny, too. They've been eerily prescient before, but sometimes I forget just how good these guys are!

Just last month I posted a hilarious Onion TV video that featured a supposed al-Qaeda operative arguing with a 9/11 Truther. The video works on many levels, but for me it was funny because the al-Qaeda guy is so obviously spewing Bush administration talking points and desperately trying to claim credit for something clearly beyond their capabilities. He even brings a receipt for flight lessons and brags about his connections to the White House: "Me and Bush, we go out, we hang."

The idea of al-Qaeda stepping up to defend the Bush administration's version of events on 9/11 is pretty hilarious, but come on! That's just over the top, right? It was a good chuckle and then we all moved on.

Apparently somebody thought this wasn't funny enough in fiction so al-Qaeda has made it real!

Osama bin Laden's chief deputy in an audiotape Tuesday accused Shiite Iran of trying to discredit the Sunni al-Qaida terror network by spreading the conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

Just sit back and soak that in. I didn't make up that quote, amazingly.

One enemy of the U.S./Israel accusing the other of understating the first's evil is funny enough, but this treads onto satire when al-Zawahri says blaming Israel makes Muslims look stupid!

"The purpose of this lie is clear — (to suggest) that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no else did in history. Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it," he said.

Haha!! This is straight out of the Bush regime's racist playbook. Look at the implication: Muslims can be heroes only if they're terrorists! Only a moron or a stooge would admit such a thing about his own people. Sunni or Shi'ite, you'd think Zawahri would try to unify the sects against the Zionists, but instead he plays right into the Bush regime's hands by simultaneously defaming Muslims everywhere (as if every Muslim is just itching for a chance to blow himself up!) and sowing divisiveness amongst his people at the same time. Zawahiri is either a tactical moron or a CIA stooge.

Could he actually expect to sway Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with this argument? Ahmadinejad may be an idiot, a tool and a loudmouth, but he is not a terrorist or a dictator. He is like Putin, a strongman that the people have turned to in order to provide a hedge against U.S. imperialism.

Ahmadinejad knows, like Putin, that the 9/11 attacks were self-inflicted in order to provide a pretext for Bush's endless wars of conquest (and embarrassment). Heck, even our allies in Japan are starting to question the events of that day. In retrospect it looks like an incredible boon to an administration that has done nothing but evil with the goodwill generated worldwide in response to the tragedy.

Many people say the Bush administration is too incompetent to pull off the attacks and subsequent coverup, but I say al-Qaeda is too incompetent to do ... much of anything! Call the Bush team what you will, but they are masters at manipulation and misdirection. They managed to steal two elections and they orchestrated an incredible propaganda campaign to trick the nation into war with Iraq. I remember watching the news back in early 2003 thinking I was living in an endless Twilight Zone episode. And what happened to the treasonous military men, the lying pundits and the architects of this atrocity? Well they're mostly still around and many of them have been promoted!

People need to realize that the Bush administration isn't incompetent when it comes to stuff like Katrina: They just don't give a fuck! ... There's a difference. They look after their own, not a bunch of poor folks who don't vote Republican anyway.

Al-Qaeda is a CIA-sponsored group whose only role is to draw attention away from the real terrorists. This is common knowledge among the elite, although some still cling to a twisted sort of incompetence theory:

Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organisation would turn its attention to the west.

Oh, I think it occurred to them alright. It was the plan all along. You think the CIA can't "take care of" a few jihadis waving around U.S.-made stinger missile launchers? The CIA doesn't just let anybody play with their toys. They can find you. After all, details about members of al-Qaeda are, by definition, in "The Database."

That raises another question: Who the fuck would name their terrorist organization after a "structured collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system"?!

I have an idea. I'm going to start an organization dedicated to the Liberation of the Great State of Minnesota from the Oppressive Federal Government of the United States of America. I'm going to name this organization..... Pants!

What do you think? "Pants" ... or "Pants!"? ... I'm not sure, does the exclamation point sell it?

Anyway, my point is that it's completely fucking ridiculous. I just made my hypothetical liberation front look clueless, stupid.... and somewhat artistic, I guess. Maybe "al-Qaeda" would make a good, Dadaist band name in Arabic, but it doesn't do shit for a supposedly committed bunch of terrorists.

Let's look at other "terrorist" organizations and what kind of names they have (I'll assign grades based soley on the clarity and effectiveness of the name, not their tactics or ideology):

• The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan - localized, religious and grassroots. These guys know how to name a group. Doesn't lock them into terrorism either. B+
• The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group - very straightforward; we know right away they're into Islam, fighting and Morocco. However, isn't this a little open-ended? Most groups start with a specific cause... you know, like freeing their homeland or something. These guys just feel "combative", apparently. It should be no surprise they're affiliated with al-Qaeda. B-
• The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine ( الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين ) - very savvy name. They're playing the populism card, plus you know exactly what their goals are. A
• The Irish National Liberation Army - once again, very straightforward. You know what they want and who they represent right away. Would this front be as popular if they were named "fishsticks"? I doubt it. B
• The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord - even though these guys aren't clear about what they want, it's obvious they're into Jesus and swordplay. Kinda makes you wanna learn more about'em too, but not really. I'm giving it a better grade because it rhymes. C+
• The United Liberation Front of Asom - pretty clear what they're after here. I like the unity reference; makes you think they're a big tent liberation front. But like most Americans I didn't know where the hell Asom is (northeast India). A-

I have to give al-Qaeda a D- for their crappy name. I would give them an F, but the randomness of it is pretty funny... except for the whole killing and murder thing. But that's the rub; I just don't buy these guys as terrorist masterminds. They can't even fucking name themselves right, so why would I think they could pull off 9/11? Even if you say, "okay, maybe 'The Base' refers to a military base" it makes no sense because the modus operandi of these guys is supposedly their decentralization. There is no main headquarters. They're ostensibly a loose-knit group of cells that operate independently, yet aren't really controlled by Osama either, who is mostly a figurehead who provides funding (or did... he's probably dead). Let's face it: "al-Qaeda" probably only makes sense if you don't speak Arabic.

If you're still not convinced al-Qaeda is a joke, watch an incredible BBC documentary called The Power of Nightmares. You'll be glad you did.

As for me, I will continue to worry about the real terrorist organization plaguing this wretched earth: The Central Intelligence Agency. A look at their record exposes the deep hypocrisy of the United States government when it comes to terrorism:

• You blow up a bus in Whogivesafuckistan? You're a terrorist.
  
• You overthrow a legitimate government and replace it with a puppet government that proceeds to butcher 500,000 of its own people? You're a hero. Here's your medal.

Even The Onion can't make that level of hypocrisy funny.

My open letter to ABC News: Dear treasonous media jackals...

I didn't even watch the damn debate and I could still smell its rancid stink by checking the livebloggers. God, what a wretched display of divisive, gotcha politics.

Here's my open letter to ABC News and the neocon whores who run it:

Dear treasonous media jackals:

ABC News' "debate" was a travesty and embarrassment to decent journalists everywhere. The gotcha debate style is more suitable to a professional wrestling match than an interview for the most important job in the world. Clearly, ABC News wants voters to be angry, uninformed and divided. YOU hate America, not people who don't wear flag pins. Burn in hell, you traitorous corporate whores.

A hint for next time: If you don't want to talk about important issues, don't hold a debate. If you want to ask about stupid, pointless shit, why not get Jerry Springer to hold the debate? I'm sure he'd do a better job than the two ass-clowns you had run it.

.... You may think I'm being impolite. Wrong. You should've seen what I wanted to write.

Sincerely,
an American voter

Click here for a more reasoned and restrained open letter (not that you deserve it, ABC).

Hell freezes over: The MSM talks about the Global Elite

The mainstream media is covering the global elite: The Superclass.

What is the world coming to? Are we actually going to have an honest discussion on the nature of the Super-rich and their incredibly disproportionate influence upon the world?

I doubt it, but it's still nice to see Newsweek talking about it... of course, the author positively lusts after the power in front of him:

Recalling an earlier crisis in global securities markets that he helped to manage, Geithner said the Fed brought together the leaders of the world's 14 major financial firms, from five countries, representing 95 percent of all the activity in global markets. The Swiss were there, the Germans were there, the British were there. Interestingly, no Asians were there, not even the Japanese. Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein "jokingly called them 'the 14 families,' like in 'The Godfather'," says Geithner. "And we said to them, "You guys have got to fix this problem. Tell us how you are going to fix it and we will work out some basic regime to make sure there are no free riders to give you comfort; you know that if you move individually everybody else will move with you."

There was nothing in writing, no rules, no formal process, and while no one asked the Fed to act, the Fed let everyone in the markets know it was acting. The beauty of the process was its absolute efficiency, seeing what a tight circle of large firms with "some global reach" could get done, fast—with an executive committee of only four running the weekly conference call until the crisis was past.

There was nothing in writing because it's not a democratic process. It's an oligarchical one. These super-rich folks have a common interest -- maintaining their power -- and they'll do whatever it takes to accomplish that goal.

The people on the recent calls like those described by Geithner, plus a few thousand more like them, not only in business and finance, but also politics, the arts, the nonprofit world and other realms, are part of a new global elite that has emerged over the past several decades. I call it the "superclass." They have vastly more power than any other group on the planet. Each of the members is set apart by his ability to regularly influence the lives of millions of people in multiple countries worldwide. Each actively exercises this power, and often amplifies it through the development of relationships with other superclass members.

It's just like high school. The super-rich have formed their own clique and none of the rest of us are invited "in". Nope, we're outsiders.... which seems odd because there's approximately 6,000 of them and 6,000,000,000 of us.

So how does one become a member? As ever, being rich certainly helps. Many superclass members are wealthy, wealthier in relative terms than any elite ever has been. The top 10 percent of all people, for example, now control 85 percent of all wealth on the planet.

It's very stable. It's orderly, and it works.

But it's not democracy.

In fact, when I said "it works" I meant that the system works. I didn't mention anything about whether or not it works for everybody. Clearly, with most of the world's population in either mild or abject poverty, the system does not work fairly or equitably.

So here's a question: Why do we need these guys?

What benefit do they bring me? Or you? Right now they only bring the status quo, but with the economy faltering (and these guys being in a position to see it coming) it seems to me that they're bringing us a world of pain. The superclass will have time to jump ship. They've probably already moved much of their wealth to Euros or gold. The rest of us? We're just trying to get by.

If they fuck us over, I say it's on. You ruin my standard of living, I might just ruin yours.

The iconic symbol of superclass unity is the Gulfstream private jet. In fact, one way to measure the clout of an event is to count the private jets at the nearest airport. According to Gulfstream, Davos traditionally attracts more of its planes than any other gathering, drawing up to 10 percent of the 1,500 planes in service to Zurich airport. But this year's Olympics in Beijing will give it a run for its money, as typically do events as diverse as the Monaco Grand Prix, China's Boao Forum, the Geneva Auto Show or Allen & Co.'s annual getaway for media magnates in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Globalization looks different when you can tell the pilot when to leave and where to go, and when there are no security lines to wait in when you are heading off for distant destinations. Those who are free to move about the planet this way come to have more in common with themselves than with their own countrymen. "What happened to us, that we walk through the Davos party and know more people than when we were walking across the village green in the town we live in?" wonders Mark Malloch-Brown, former Deputy Secretary General at the United Nations and now a senior official in the British Foreign Ministry.

The Gulfstream jet is a perfect metaphor for these people. They are in the fast lane while the rest of us take the bus. There's only one word for it: Class.

I thought America was supposed to be a classless (or at least upwardly mobile) society, but it seems like we've copied the British class system almost to the letter. Throw some more racism and capitalism in the mix and you've got Britain 2.0. Is that what our founding fathers wanted?

People tell me that I shouldn't wage class warfare, to which I say: "What the fuck are you talking about? The war is over. The rich won a long time ago."