John Perkins Why We're At War

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ohn Perkins is the author of Several books which lay bare the harsh realities of contemporary Global Economics.  The first book which hit America hard, was Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.  Perkins tells how he got into being a an Economic Hit Man, and the appalling damage he helped to create.  He walked into the offices of Latin-American presidents and threatened them with death if they refused to play ball with the American "Corporatocracy."  Many capitulated.  Some did not.  And those who refused to play with the corporations were assassinated within months of the office visit, by what Perkins tells us are called the Jackals.

Somewhere along the way, Perkins had a change of heart and turned against the Corporatocracy.  Now he writes of his experiences as an Economic Hit Man; exposing the cynical and exploitative activities of the wealthy corporations, and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund which are, more than any other thing, corporate tools of expedience.  Perkins describes a typical office visit as one in which he walks in and in the most pleasant and civilized tones lets it be known that all the president of this country, or that, need do, is accept a loan of hundreds of millions of dollars from the World Bank, or the IMF, and all will be well.  What he does not explain, is that the lion's share of the money will go to the oil corporations as they dig and exploit the natural resources of the country; so it is the oil companies, Halliburton, Bechtel, BP, CitiBank, Bank of America, all of the biggies who then will descend upon the country like a plague, and nothing can be done to stop them because the interest is so huge that it can't be paid off ever.  And that is just fine with World Bank and IMF, because they have done their job of opening the country up like an oyster.  And if the president does not graciously accept this immense sum on behalf of his country, or, on behalf of himself and his family if he wishes, and is just a little more corrupt than most, then he can rest assured that within several months he will no longer be among the living.  

Perkins speaks to college students and Peace activists, doing his best to light a fire under people in this country to change the situation before it's too late.  This is the context in which I first encountered John Perkins. As the local University opens its doors to the townies, though this was not a student sponsored event; but was a presentation of Peaceworks, a local grassroots organization of peace activists. We bought several of his books and presented them to him afterwards for his autograph, an activity by which we've accumulated a library of books signed by their authors.  He signed our books.  What he wrote on the flyleaf was "To Bill,  this is your time.  Don't waste it! John Perkins" 

These videos document a speech he delivered to the National Convention of Veterens For Peace.  These are long documentaries comparatively, but so important.

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Rethinking Afghanistan

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oes anybody really understand why America is still, after an exhausting 9 years, fighting in Afghanistan?  I'm just saying.  Supposedly, the armed forces are taking out the Al Quaida terrorists who are being harbored there.  But according to the latest intelligence there are no more than 100 members of that organization left in Afghanistan.  Anybody see the logic of spending billions each year on armaments, troops and innocent people's lives?

Anybody?

Because I do not!

If the reasons given for the occupation of Afghanistan are actually the reasons why we are there, then the only logical action is to clear out tomorrow.  But President Obama continues to fabricate insubstantial reasons.  His latest defense of the war there contains no factual information. It is all a big, useless exercise in Moonbeaming.  And in fact, this places the Afghanistan War in the same league with Viet Nam and Iraq.  Fake wars whose only real purpose was to enrich a few war-profiteers.  Considering that the latest polls show that more than 60% of the American public now want this war over with!  Done!  Finished!  Ended!

Take a look at some very smart people in this video, discussing this very issue.  Robert Greenwald and Thom
Hartman.  When these guys speak truth they will make you so angry that by the end you'll want to go out and pass out flyers for Peace in the Middle East.♦

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Replacing Repealed Health Care With...?

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irst of all, the Republicans are really serious about doing as much damage as they can get away with; and first on the list is getting rid of Health Care Reform.  This may well turn out to be a serious error in strategy.

How so?

As most good sales people know, if you want to motivate someone to buy something, first you put the product in front of them.  Let them get comfortable with it.  Then take it away.  Suddenly they will feel a big empty void  And voilá!  Another fine product sold.  In the same way, the debate over health care reform was long and bitter; and when it passed, there was a finality to it.  We were into a new and more civilized era.  So, if the Republicans actually do remove it  there just might be a big reaction across the nation that the newly arrived Republican Congress is not looking for.

So efforts to repeal may be a blessing in disguise.  Follow that with the cutting of Social Security and the Republican Party can kiss the White House goodbye in 2012.  

But Americans are starting to fight back.  It becomes apparent that the GOP is not merely the party of NO,  it is now the party of We Hate Americans But We Really Hate Seniors.  So Alan Grayson's summary of the Republican outlook regarding health care was dead on:

"Republicans to seniors:  Hurry up and die!"

And they send Sarah Palin out to scream "Death Panels!  Death Panels!"  to throw the Tea Baggers off the track; and maybe even convince a few morons that the Republican leadership's hearts are in the right place.  But now that the dust has settled, we see plainly that they never had hearts to begin with,  and their motives are projected onto the horizon in stark relief.  So, regarding health care, Republican Congressmen from Boner  to McConnell, to Simpson, Rush Limbaugh, et al, they want everything for themselves and nothing for you.  Well, at least that gives them get high marks for consistency.  

They are claiming that they have a mandate from the American people to repeal, but they're just whistling in the dark on that score.  The American people are so against the Republican repeal of the very imperfect health care bill, by a factor of at least 65%,  it is difficult to understand where they would get the nerve, or the stupidity to make such an error in strategy.  Here is what happened recently, at one Town Hall Meeting.

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But then too, today, Paul Krugman reminded everyone that the Health Care Insurance bill which finally got passed was the very bill which the Republicans themselves came up with back in the '90s. The madness which is inherent in the words and actions of the current batch of Congressional Republicans is not merely inconsistent and hypocritical, it is downright stupid and against the Common Good.  So what else is new?

Right Wing Hatred

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Of course the Republicans are going to deny any and all accusations that their violent rhetoric and imagery were responsible for the tragic shooting in Tucson last Saturday.  Wouldn't you?  Especially if you knew you were guilty as Hell.  But--- as has been pointed out with numbing frequency,--- the right has no honor.  George Orwell knew what conservatives were, way back in the day: pigs.  A pig doesn't willingly share and always wants more.  Conservatives are people without conscience.  Probably that is why they insist on giving themselves awards all the time.  Big, obscene looking, gold awards.  Which is most likely why Lauren Valle, the woman who tried to give a mock  award to Rand Paul, at one of his rallies, was beaten to the ground and held immobile by RP volunteers until Paul's campaign coordinator, Tim Profitt, arrived and first, stepped on her shoulder, and then on her head and face.

Please tell me when a liberal ever intentionally stepped on a conservative's face.

But then too, we forget that conservatives are authoritarians.  Authoritarians can't help themselves from hating anyone who does not kowtow to authority.  That is to say, anyone who disagrees with conservative ideas.  And their particular conservative ideas.  It is simply a feature of the personality structure of authoritarians.

Hatred is what conservatives eat for breakfast. Asking a conservative authoritarian to stop the hatred is tantamount to asking them to cut off their arms and legs.

Back to Rand Paul and his campaign coordinator, Tim Profitt.  Even though Profitt was banned from further contact with the Paul campaign, his statement to the media was memorable, if only for its stunning lack of remorse.  Profitt told the reporter that he felt the he deserved an apology from the woman whose face he crushed with his boot when she was being held down by other volunteers.  So obviously despicable was the act that one of the rally bystanders shouted out, "Hey, hey, none of that!  Stop that."

"I'm sorry that it came to that," Proffit said in his statement to the media. "And I apologize if it appeared overly forceful, but I was concerned about Rand's safety."  For a Tea-Bagger that is probably as apologetic as it gets.

She was taken to the hospital with a dislocated shoulder and a concussion.

But Profitt was not through.  As a Tea-Bagger he had still more atrocious behavior yet to reveal.

"I don't think of it as that big of a deal." Profitt said.  "I would like her to apologize to me to be honest with you."

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Tim Profitt, campaign coordinator and racist Tea-Partier Rand Paul

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Doesn't that just sound like the sort of thing you would expect a Rand Paul supporter to say?  And it took Rand Paul quite a long time to make any kind of a statement regarding the disgraceful event.  And when he finally did say something he said how difficult crowd control was.  He referred to the event as an "altercation."  An altercation is when two motorists shout out the window at each other in traffic.

Sounds like Profitt is one of the the worst of the baddies in a Hollywood action thriller. One of those comic book one-dimensional villains.  Only the unredeemably rotten-to-the-core conservatives twist reality so insanely that they insist that they are the ones who have been wronged.

Remember Clarence Thomas' "Uppity nigger" speech to Congress in which he portrayed himself as an unfairly accused victim of racism.  And the GOP turned a blind eye on the fact that that the evidence against Thomas as a sexual predator was overwhelming.  Bottom line:  It worked.

This is precisely the tactic of the GOP, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin, in denying responsibility for the Arizona shooting.♦          

Sarah Palin and Republicans Deny Connection to Az Shooting

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emocratic Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head earlier today in Arizona, and six other innocent bystanders were killed by the same gunman, including a Federal judge. In all, the final tally was 20 people, six deaths and 14 others wounded in various degrees.  Jared Lee Loughner, is the killer's name.  So many incidents of violence by yet more unhinged conservatives.

This is an event of huge proportions.

All the more so since it was originally Sarah Palin who "targeted" Gifford by name as well as by district in her map in which she targeted 20 Democrats in crosshairs.

This, no doubt will injure Palin in her quest for more and more power.  She already has the undying support and adulation of the lunatic fringe. But more importantly, there has been no word at all, from the right wing Republican leadership.

Notice that Whoopi Goldberg makes a very important observation in this video.  "For all the talking heads, if any violence comes out of this, it will be on your hands."  She did not mention Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, all of whom use militaristic war terms in their ever increasing violence laden rhetoric.  At a rally last spring, Glenn Beck called upon his disciples for all liberals to be removed, destroyed, eliminated.   O'Reilly has denied several times that he has any responsibility, especially in the shooting deaths not only of a much loved doctor who gave his time pro-bono to help women who needed abortions, but also the man who entered a church in Tennessee, a congregation of Unitarian Universalists in the sanctuary of the church during the service.

What is now very clear, is that the right wing rhetoric of hatred and violence must stop.  Human decency demands it.  Yet the talking heads at Fox News have almost talked themselves out of any and all responsibility for these many tragic events.    

This catastrophe marks the end of access.  Public access to celebrities and politicians.  No more Congress On Your Corner appearances at the local Safeway or Mall.  Security at Red Carpet events will have to be increased ten-fold.

Most people by now have seen the third video--- of the Americans for Prosperity Rally where the protesters, ultra-conservatives all, display disgraceful behavior toward a handicapped man.  But some have not seen it.  This is the sort of thing which must be stopped.  The Koch brothers are the big moneyed, unseen hands, funding this entire rally and The AFP astro-turf organization.

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Fascinating to see the right wingers go into overdrive to spin this thing away from themselves. Kinda like a man who sneaks a silent but toxic fart in a crowded elevator and then purses his lips and wrinkles his brow at an innocent little old lady next to him, so as to make everyone think it was her that did the terrible deed. That's the GOP congressional leadership burning rubber, spinning their wheels, to disavow any responsibility for this unspeakable tragedy. But this time they can't get away with it.

Not so far in the past, Bill O'Reilly brazenly denied any responsibility for the murder of Doctor George Tiller, the deeply compassionate abortion doctor, despite the fact that for months Billo had been using violent imagery while demanding retribution from his TV audience to punish the good doctor. 

"Baby Killer" is how O'Reilly referred to Doctor Tiller.  Tiller risked his reputation and his life due to the cranks on the right.  He was willing to do what very few doctors do: handle late stage abortions.  But somebody has to do it.  He was a very brave and compassionate man.   

Glenn Beck called on his Tea Party disciples to get rid of the dangerous liberals. "All liberals must be eliminated," Beck said.

Sarah Palin has denied any responsibility and even went so far as to deny that her infamous map with trigger cross hairs targeting 20 Dems who voted for the health care reform bill, were actually the cross hairs of a gun. What she said at the time, was, "Don't retreat. Reload." No, those weren't gun cross hairs.

Then what were they? Elvish runes?

The Truth is out there staring us all in the face, and there's no way the right can spin it away from themselves and still maintain a shred of intellectual honesty or just plain human decency. But then the right has never really cared much about such things as intellectual honesty and human decency. Just as they always do--- they leave turds floating in the public pool and then try to claim the left made them do it. Whenever they get caught they cry "it's really the fault of the liberals!"

ROTFLMAO

They must think the whole world is way stupid and that they, the usual GOP talking heads, sound really convincing. But this time they don't. Not convincing at all. I have little doubt that the GOP wordsmith, Frank Luntz, the guy who has come up with so many negative spins, such as Obama-care, and Job killing, and tax-relief is holed up in a hotel room somewhere in downtown DC, working his pencil to a nub trying to spin the Republican Party's way out of this mess. But so far, the right presents a picture of drowning men grasping at straws. The GOP just doesn't have the moxie to own their own shit.

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The Republican Takeover and Repealing Health Care Reform

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n the day that Republican Leadership in DC renounces their own lavish health insurance benefit program is the very day I will be happy to listen to legitimate arguments about why it's necessary to repeal the lame, watered-down, verging on piss-poor, lobbyist dictated program afforded to the people of America, which, by the way, contain less than half the benefits of people throughout the rest of the world.  Not to mention the fact that, more than 70% percent of Americans, left and right, are strongly against any tampering with the health care reform bill as it is.  Hey, the bill Congress finally did pass at least leaves the insurance companies still standing.  That is a lot more than I would have done were I to rule the world for even half an hour.

It is simply immoral and unethical to rip big profits off of anybodies' health.  Yeah, that's right, to reap obscene profit and bonuses from health care for the working class is just that---an obscenity!  Not only do Americans, in general, oppose this proposed repeal but so do more than 90% of the medical community.

Here is where the Republicans have got it all wrong:  3% of Americans say that the deficit should be paid for by eliminating Social Security.  4% percent say Medicare is the problem.  But 61% of Americans say we must raise the taxes on the rich.  That's an awfully big gap, there.  And just why is it that the Repukes insist on this extension of the tax cut for the richest Americans anyway? We know that they are little more than lackeys for rich corporations.  But most of the rich are fair minded people who say they would not mind paying more in taxes. Something does not add up!

We have seen too much damage to America brought about entirely by health insurance companies trading on Wall Street promising to pump out profits for investors.  Capitalism is antithetical to Christianity.  For all practical purposes, the GOP is the party, not merely of NO, but the party of the true Anti-Christ!    

Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand and all the lobbyists on K Street, can suck my cock!

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The Common Good

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he phrase, the common good, is everywhere these days.  My wife brought home a container of eggnog and on the side, in the self-promotion copy, there it is:  even the dairy farmers are using ringing phrases such as The Common Good. The commercial use of the phrase took me aback. True the dairy farm is an organic farm.  The use of the word Organic is certainly code for liberalism.  A liberal farmer is almost a contradiction of terms.  The usual farmer is one who feels that paying taxes is a form of socialism or communism, and those who believe in that stuff are thieves who are trying to pilfer money from the farmers pocket.

But now, this commercial use of the phrase opens the door for corporations to use the phrase which we have taken as our shibboleth for liberalism.  But if John Boehner can claim that he speaks on behalf of the American people, and it is a stretch to think that this might have even a grain of truth, I worry that banks can claim that they too, are working for the Common Good, even though it is all too apparent that the banksters are working for their own individual self-interest and to that end feel entirely free to be the ones who are actually lifting the farmer's wallet.  Come to think of it, Fox News has made such an issue of this Common Good thing that no right winger would ever use it for any reason.

If you think that my statement about the thievery of banks is too un-generous, consider that the farmers of North Dakota formed their own state bank.  Why?  Because the banks were too aggressively giving the farmers a raw deal over too long a time. Check it out.  Banks will steal anything not nailed down.      

I first came to be introduced to the phrase one night at dinner at a restaurant, on a recent visit  to Rome, Italy with 2 Jesuits.  Quite liberal Jesuits, at that.  Obama had just been elected.  Europeans were giving us, my wife, Marian and me, thumbs up, because they loved the idea of Obama as president. We all were euphoric.   My brother, Jim, the other Jesuit, got us settled in our rooms in the 17th Century pallazzo Papal owned Jesuit residence.  Then he and his fellow, Jesuit, David, took us out for dinner at one of those sublime little bistros just around the corner, in Rome.  In the course of conversation it became apparent that in America, as well as the rest of the world, Capitalism has failed us miserably.  These are the death throes of a corrupt crony capitalism.  And the reason, it also became all too crystal clear,  was, or is greed, or overweening self interest.  "Where's mine?" and "what will happen to me?" are the whimper and whine of the self-absorbed.  
As the light dawned on me that the paradigm was worn out and a new paradigm is needed, I groped for a word or phrase.  David, the Jesuit from Scotland, handed the phrase to me.

"The Common Good," David said, "is what you are looking for." He said it simply and quietly. But as I was ready to hear it, perhaps for the first time, he might as well have been shouting it from the roof top.  The Common Good thundered into my ear.  And has never left.      

But now, that it is being bandied about in the interests of commerce, what is to stop the evil corporations, indeed, all of Wall Street, from using the phrase.  To draw the unsuspecting in.  The old fable of the wolf in sheep's clothing.  They lie about everything else, so why would they not lie about the use of this phrase.

We will have to, at some point define the term--- narrowly.  To please the critics.  Though clearly many Republicans dislike the phrase.  There is a video on YouTube where the Republicans on Fox News immediately yell "Socialism!" at the mention of The Common Good!  But, on the other hand, let them yell their loudest.  I am a socialist.  A Democratic Socialist.  People without morals, without ethics, who are utterly devoid of real humanity are not worth listening to.  Indeed they only listen to each other.  Truth is that which is so.  That which is not truth is not so.  So---Who would not say these beings are self-destroying ciphers and liars?  They not only are against the common good, but they are against everything that is decent and wholesome.  Like the Bush regime, they will lie, steal and murder anyone who should be so unlucky as to get in their way.  Is this not the way of the Anti-Christ?

At the very least, are they not The Hollow Men T.S. Elliot warned us about?

I am sorry to have to say this,  but the truth is I put these videos on the page in precisely the reverse order.  So if you watch the last one first and the fist one last they will make more sense.♦

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