Obama and The Evil Empire »
Posted By hyperbola 1 week, 6 days ago in Political OpinionThe US government is now so totally under the thumbs of organized interest groups that “our” government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate. Voters will vent their frustrations over their impotence on the president, which implies a future of one-term presidents. Soon our presidents will be as ineffective as Roman emperors in the final days of that empire.
Obama is already set on the course to a one-term presidency. He promised change, but has delivered none. His health care bill is held hostage by the private insurance companies seeking greater profits. The most likely outcome will be cuts in Medicare and Medicaid in order to help fund wars that enrich the military/security complex and the many companies created by privatizing services that the military once provided for itself at far lower costs. It would be interesting to know the percentage of the $700+ billion “defense” spending that goes to private companies. In American “capitalism,” an amazing amount of taxpayers’ earnings go to private firms via the government. Yet, Republicans scream about “socializing” health care.
Republicans and Democrats saw opportunities to create new sources of campaign contributions by privatizing as many military functions as possible. There are now a large number of private companies that have never made a dollar in the market, feeding instead at the public trough that drains taxpayers of dollars while loading Americans with debt service obligations.
Obama inherited an excellent opportunity to bring US soldiers home from the Bush regime’s illegal wars of aggression. In its final days, the Bush regime realized that it could “win” in Iraq by putting the Sunni insurgents on the US military payroll. Once Bush had 80,000 insurgents collecting US military pay, violence, although still high, dropped in half. All Obama had to do was to declare victory and bring our boys home,
thanking Bush for winning the war. It would have shut up the Republicans.
But this sensible course would have impaired the profits and share prices of those firms that comprise the military/security complex. So instead of doing what Obama said he would do and what the voters elected him to do, Obama restarted the war in Afghanistan and launched a new one in Pakistan. Soon Obama was echoing Bush and Cheney’s threats to attack Iran.
In place of health care for Americans, there will be more profits for private insurance companies.
In place of peace there will be more war.....
.... Obama’s credibility is shot. And so is Congress’s, assuming it ever had any. The US House of Representatives has just voted to show the entire world that the US House of Representatives is nothing but the servile, venal, puppet of the Israel Lobby. The House of Representatives of the American “superpower” did the bidding of its master, AIPAC, and voted 344 to 36 to condemn the Goldstone Report.
In case you don’t know, the Goldstone Report is the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. The “Gaza Conflict” is the Israeli military attack on the Gaza ghetto, where 1.5 million dispossessed Palestinians, whose lands, villages, and homes were stolen by Israel, are housed. The attack was on civilians and civilian infrastructure. It was without any doubt a war crime under the Nuremberg standard that the US established in order to execute Nazis.
Goldstone is not only a very distinguished Jewish jurist who has given his life to bringing people to accountability for their crimes against humanity, but also a Zionist. However, the Israelis have demonized him as a “self-hating Jew” because he wrote the truth instead of Israeli propaganda.
US Representative Dennis Kucinich, who is now without a doubt a marked man on AIPAC’s political extermination list, asked the House if the members had any realization of the shame that the vote condemning Goldstone would bring on the House and the US government. The entire rest of the world accepts the Goldstone report.....
.... Moving from the tip of the iceberg down, we have Ambassador Craig Murray, rector of the University of Dundee and until 2004 the UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan, which he describes as a Stalinist totalitarian state courted and supported by the Americans.
As ambassador, Murray saw the MI5 intelligence reports from the CIA that described the most horrible torture procedures. “People were raped with broken bottles, children were tortured in front of their parents until they [the parents] signed a confession, people were boiled alive.”...
.... “I was absolutely stunned,” says the British ambassador, who thought that he served a moral country that, along with its American ally, had moral integrity. The great Anglo-American bastion of democracy and human rights, the homes of the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights, the great moral democracies that defeated Nazism and stood up to Stalin’s gulags, were prepared to commit any crime in order to maximize profits.
Amb. Murray learned too much and was fired when he vomited it all up. He saw the documents that proved that the motivation for US and UK military aggression in Afghanistan had to do with the natural gas deposits in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The Americans wanted a pipeline that bypassed Russia and Iran and went through Afghanistan. To insure this, an invasion was necessary. The idiot American public could be told that the invasion was necessary because of 9/11 and to save them from “terrorism,” and the utter fools would believe the lie.
“If you look at the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, as against other NATO country forces in Afghanistan, you’ll see that undoubtedly the US forces are positioned to guard the pipeline route. It’s what it’s about. It’s about money, its about energy, it’s not about democracy.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23...
Guess who the consultant was who arranged with then Texas governor George W. Bush the agreements that would give to Enron the rights to Uzbekistan’s and Turkmenistan’s natural gas deposits and to Unocal to develop the trans-Afghanistan pipeline. It was Karzai, the US-imposed “president” of Afghanistan, who has no support in the country except for American bayonets.
Amb. Murray was dismissed from the UK Foreign Service for his revelations. No doubt on orders from Washington to our British puppet.
Read Full Story at informationclearinghouse.info »
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hyperbola
Military brat (14th generation American) with unassuaged wanderlust. By age 11, schools in four states and three foreign countries (in 3 languages). Left home at ...
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hyperbola1 week, 5 days ago
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Well Klarissa, it is an indication of your level of knowledge and argument that you probably didn't even recognize that this article was written by a Republican - namely Reagan's Asst. Secretary of Treasury. Frankly he is right on the money bout the role of "elite corruption" in both our political parties. The only real difference between them is that the Democrats still "pretend" to care about average Americans, whereas the GOP has gone completely off the deep end into religious and racist fanaticism.
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CHAM1 week, 5 days ago
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Thanks for this excellent post Hyperbola.
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You will get the usual Conservative, Republican, rants against any statements made against their heroes.
But Roberts Article is on target and echoes the reality that the American people are being drug around by the nose by our Political Two Party system for the benefit of Private Financial interests.
In other words what Congress and the the White House and their ancillary functions do is not in the best interests of the people. Their activities increasingly place a financial burden on the individual taxpayer, enrich Private Corporate interests, and allow the "Elite" crowd to accrue more power to control the masses.
In return, the Party faithful enable this criminal activity because its the Party line. They, in essence, are enabling their own destruction.
I, for one, would like to see people interested in either agreeing with this post, or disagreeing with it, post FACTUAL data to support their statements.
If those who think this is against their Party dogma and therefore want to disagree with what Roberts has written, could you provide links to those things you challenge as not being true? It intrigues me as to why people work against their own best interests favoring a Corporate America.-
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CHAM1 week, 5 days ago
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I decided to give a place to go to review much information about the torture of Children of detainees, because I know that many Republican people will act as though it is just more liberal lying. Of course they won't go look up anything for themselves because the current Republican plan is just to impede, lie, or cover-up any foul deeds committed by their beloved heroes, Bush and the Neo-Con bunch.
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Anyway, for anyone who is interested, go to this site where you can find a weeks worth of reading concerning torture, and yes the torture of children. I would recommend starting by googling "The Strange Story of Asfia Siddiqui". Then follow links from there or go to Freedetainees.org.
Anyone who can read these reports of torture, torture of children,renditions, and just plain disappearances from U S custody with current whereabouts unknown and not see something wrong with the Bush Administration and the continuance of those horrid practices by Obama, must not be a moral human being.
Ironically a survey of Fundamentalist Preachers early this year showed that the majority of those Preachers supported the actions of Bush. Either they don't have a clue of what has been going on or their self labeling as Christians is misplaced. -
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Thinker221 week, 4 days ago
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> I, for one, would like to see people interested in either agreeing with this post, or disagreeing with it, post FACTUAL data to support their statements.
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Very well. Here is some factual data, CHAM:
According to the opening statement of the article " The US government is now so totally under the thumbs of organized interest groups that “our” government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate.
The article says NOTHING about "organized interest groups" promoting the interests of "concerned people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate".
This, apparently, means that the "concerned people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate" are SO DUMB that they're INCAPABLE even of creating organized interest groups of their own. Alternatively, the story about "US government is now so totally under the thumbs of organized interest groups that “our” government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people" is no more than a fruit of someone's imagination.
Which one of these two possibilities is closer to the FACTUAL data, in your opinion?
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CHAM1 week, 3 days ago
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Thinker
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I copied and pasted this from the article.
"The US government is now so totally under the thumbs of organized interest groups that “our” government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate."
And here is your complaint. I copied it from your post and pasted it here.
"The article says NOTHING about "organized interest groups" promoting the interests of "concerned people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate".
Looks to me like it does state "organized interest groups".
So Thinker - you're wrong again. Why do you suppose you just continue to be wrong?
How about it people - what do you think? Does Thinker have a valid complaint, or is he just being the same old Thinker?
I do think the American people are too Party Loyal for their own good and this can certainly be construed to mean that the American people are dumb to keep bringing back the criminals.
And Thinker, I don't really give a damn what you think you think. I do wish we could have an intelligent conversation but you just don't seem to be up to it.-
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Thinker221 week, 3 days ago
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> Looks to me like it does state "organized interest groups".
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Well, it does... but it DOES NOT say anything about "organized interest groups" promoting the interests of "concerned people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate". If such "organized interest groups" promoting the interests of "concerned people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate" existed then (at least, according to the article) these groups would be able to make “our” government able to respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate. According to the article, however, ""our” government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate" and this, in turn, means that "organized interest groups" promoting the interests of "concerned people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate" either do not exist or do not have the power to hold the US government totally under its thumbs which, again, contradict the statement saying that "the US government is now so totally under the thumbs of organized interest groups that “our” government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate."
I have to apologize for the lengthy explanation of my pretty basic statement but I believe that it was necessary to help you in comprehending it.
> So Thinker - you're wrong again. Why do you suppose you just continue to be wrong?
I do not suppose, it, CHAM. YOU do and the reason its pretty simple:either you pretend to not understand simple English statements or, alternatively, your mantal abilities are genuinely that limited.
I'll try to make it even simpler for you this time: The article claims that "organized interest groups" rule the government and therefore the government does not represent the interests of the people who elected it. If, however it was the case, the "people" would create even more powerful "interest groups" to make the government respond to THEIR concerns (after all, the 'people' are the majority). Apparently, such powerful "interest groups" representing the "people" do not exist adn THIS was what my question was all about.
> I don't really give a damn what you think you think. I do wish we could have an intelligent conversation but you just don't seem to be up to it.
You're certainly right here, CHAM. No one can force you to give anything about MY thoughts and NO, I'm definitely not up to YOUR level of intelligent conversation. I'm impressed by facts and logic, not by lies and insults.
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CHAM1 week, 3 days ago
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Well Thinker
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I thank you for agreeing that you are not up to my level of intelligent conversation, but what the hey, I'll talk down to your level, that might help you. If you are impressed by facts and logic, please tell me what you are claiming I lied about. In the meantime please do some of the googling that I asked another on this thread to do. You can find something to fret about there also.
If you haven't done that then how about taking one paragraph at a time (starting with the first one ).
In Paragraph 1, I agree that our Government is so wrapped up in Special Interests, that the people's interest is subordinated.
I would prefer that the words "can no longer" have read "does no longer" because they could do otherwise, they just don't.
I am more inclined to say that the votes against the sitting President come about more because of "Party Loyalty" instead of out of "frustration" . And the last sentence is mere speculation.
What is your opinion about paragraph one?
Who I am:
I am an Independent, Baptist, retired guy with an MS in Operations Management. Retired from an International Company where I was a Director. Now run a consulting service.
I feel our country is sliding into an Oligarchy, if not a Kleptocracy. I feel that the people who run this country are not necessarily citizens of America.-
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Thinker221 week, 2 days ago
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> If you are impressed by facts and logic, please tell me what you are claiming I lied about.
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You've copied and pasted the following statement which can not possibly be true:
"The US government is now so totally under the thumbs of organized interest groups that “our” government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate."
AS I've explained earlier if this was true the "American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate" would create organized interest groups of their own. The purpose of these organized interest groups would be to put the US government under ITS thumb thus making sure that it (the US government) would ONLY respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate. This, however, contradict the original assumption thus proving that it was false.
Now, when I've answered your question can you produce some facts and logic to impress me? I'm NOT impressed by insults.
I do not care who you are.
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CHAM1 week, 1 day ago
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Well thinker, I disagree with you when you claim that our Government is not under the thumbs of Organized Interest Groups.
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While it is true that the people COULD create their own Organized Interest Groups to take control of the Government, the fact is they don't. There are too many people like you who are too Party Loyal.
As I've said before Party Loyalty is killing this country.
As long as you won't admit to wrong doing by your Party, and neither do the Democrats, No one will be able to persuade you, and neither will facts. You just ignore them.
Who I am doesn't matter, but I do go read the links and the references in posted articles. I can tell you don't. What you have done is blather on and on about the nuance of what was said and you have ignored the whole gist of the article.
And I have allowed myself to be drug into a inane discussion with a ignorant actor like you. The shame is on me.
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