Your Reality. . .

Some Have The Ability To See Your Reality - Here Are But A Few...
by The Old Hippie Because One Needs To “Know” What It Is Behind All The Delusion.

-  The Bailout Wouldn't Help Anyone But Rich Investors       “Whenever there was a choice to be made between markets and       free people -- between money and the common good -- the conser-       vatives chose money.  It's time to make them answer for it.”   -  “We're Gonna Frickin' Lose This Thing”  [again]       Too important to be missed, therefore I link to it again.   -  Project Censor’s Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009       They’ve been providing a great service to us for years.

“A Cynical Rant?”
“Flow” - “The scariest movie at the Sundance Film Festival” (Wired Magazine)
European Friends Write: “Are You Americans Crazy?”

“As long as the greatest crime of the 21st century remains unprosecuted,
we all...  can only blame ourselves, and deserve our collective fates.”

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A“Below The Fold” bonus - Just an update to something I wrote a while back...

The very few are winning - They are not stupid, nor are they incompetent.
The very few only care for the power of the control-of-the-control of... wealth.

The very few are educated, intelligent, efficient, and successful.
The very few have intelligently, efficiently, successfully transferred the wealth to themselves.

America is not the very few.  We, the other 99.x%, are America.
The wealth they stole, was our wealth.  It is now their wealth.  Their power.

We gave up securities, liberties, freedoms, so the very few could complete the theft.
We still are. . . Without protest, without revolt. . . With our children.

[ Update ] And now they blatantly come demanding $700 billion, (to over $1 trillion,) more -
To pay for their ‘investment’ crimes - Do you think anyone will stop them?

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Let’s See...

The Independent Voters On FOX Said Obama Won - That’s It, He Won.
by This Old Hippie Because Sometimes They Simply Can’t Hide The Truth.

So Sayeth FOX - So Believeth the Majority of American Voters
You know... the ones that never come to our blogs, never read us, nor watch us, nor listen to us.  And FOX could not hide, or misconstrue, their independent voters’ reactions to this first debate.  It doesn’t matter what any of the ‘experts,’ or talking-heads, liberal or conservative, say about it - FOX was forced to openly admit that - - -

“Obama won the debate.”  Therefore the FOX-Sheeple believe it, and they are, currently, sadly, insanely, unfathomably, and in unreal reality... the majority of the voters in this nation.



So - There may be some hope yet?

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“It really is true what they say...
Those who do not study the past, get an exciting opportunity to repeat it.”

Man - Jon & his staff did great with this one - Enjoy...

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The 32 Words. . .

The Whole of the “Bailout” Explained in Just 32 Words...
by Jason Linkins via The Huffington Post

A critical - and radical - component of the bailout package proposed by the Bush administration has thus far failed to garner the serious attention of anyone in the press.  And it is these 32 words from Section 8 of the bailout proposal... “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

If the democrats, (and ‘we the people,’) do allow this bailout - with those 32 words - still in the proposal, then the democrats, (and ‘we the people,’) deserve everything that those words imply concerning executive power over the rest of this nation’s governmental structures, (and ‘us.’)

Because it means no one can question them, nor regulate them, nor take any of them to court... for how they use ‘our’ $700+ billion... (actual estimate is now over one trillion dollars since they have now included their friend’s non-American banking institutions.)

Because - It will be, (legally, if signed into law,) none of our business.

That’s it in a nutshell.

They couldn’t make it any plainer, any simpler, any clearer.

This bailout doesn’t even cap the “golden parachute” pay of the corporate officers involved.
[- Update - Final bill, as signed, did cap them. - But the 32 words...? -]

It keeps getting more blatant, more insane, by the hour - But you, the people, keep allowing the justification of their sneers...  Don’t you?

FOX, and the corporatist MSM, are not telling the people this, in fact, they are openly implying the opposite, and the majority of American voters do not read us, do not watch us, do not come to our web sites and/or blogs.

The majority of American voters do not know about the import of those 32 words on their futures.  And I don't think that there is time enough left before the proposal is passed, (not to mention the election,) to fill them in, without a concerted effort by the mass media to impart the knowledge - Which you, and I both know -- just isn’t going to happen.

A final bit of trivia - Assuming the administration’s $700-billion scheme is approved, the total price tag for bailouts this year—including Bear Stearns, AIG and Freddie and Fannie - will be roughly three times greater than all other U.S. bailouts - combined.

This administration has borrowed more money from other nations - than all of the other past administrations - combined.

This administration’s military budget, (54% of our total budget) - is larger than all of the other nation’s military budgets - combined.

Are you seeing a trend here?  You should - Because you allowed it all.

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A“Below The Fold” bonus -related- article...

The Shadow Banking System is Unravelling
By Nouriel Roubini, Financial Times, September 21 2008

Last week saw the demise of the shadow banking system that has been created over the past 20 years.  Because of a greater regulation of banks, most financial intermediation in the past two decades has grown within this shadow system whose members are broker-dealers, hedge funds, private equity groups, structured investment vehicles and conduits, money market funds and non-bank mortgage lenders.

Like banks, most members of this system borrow very short-term and in liquid ways, are more highly leveraged than banks (the exception being money market funds) and lend and invest into more illiquid and long-term instruments.  Like banks, they carry the risk that an otherwise solvent but liquid institution may be subject to a self­fulfilling and destructive run on its ­liquid liabilities.

But unlike banks, which are sheltered from the risk of a run – via deposit insurance and central banks’ lender-of-last-resort liquidity – most members of the shadow system did not have access to these firewalls that ­prevent runs.

A generalised run on these shadow banks started when the deleveraging after the asset bubble bust led to uncertainty about which institutions were solvent.  The first stage was the collapse of the entire SIVs/conduits system once investors realised the toxicity of its investments and its very short-term funding seized up.

The next step was the run on the big US broker-dealers: first Bear Stearns lost its liquidity in days.  The Federal Reserve then extended its lender-of-last-resort support to systemically important broker-dealers. But even this did not prevent a run on the other broker-dealers given concerns about solvency: it was the turn of Lehman Brothers to collapse.  Merrill Lynch would have faced the same fate had it not been sold.  The pressure moved to Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs: both would be well advised to merge – like Merrill – with a large bank that has a stable base of insured deposits.

The third stage was the collapse of other leveraged institutions that were both illiquid and most likely insolvent given their reckless lending: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, AIG and more than 300 mortgage lenders.

The fourth stage was panic in the money markets.  Funds were competing aggressively for assets and, in order to provide higher returns to attract investors, some of them invested in illiquid instruments.  Once these investments went bust, panic ensued among investors, leading to a massive run on such funds.  This would have been disastrous; so, in another radical departure, the US extended deposit insurance to the funds.

The next stage will be a run on thousands of highly leveraged hedge funds.  After a brief lock-up period, investors in such funds can redeem their investments on a quarterly basis; thus a bank-like run on hedge funds is highly possible.  Hundreds of smaller, younger funds that have taken excessive risks with high leverage and are poorly managed may collapse.  A massive shake-out of the bloated hedge fund industry is likely in the next two years.

Even private equity firms and their reckless, highly leveraged buy-outs will not be spared.  The private equity bubble led to more than $1,000bn of LBOs that should never have occurred.  The run on these LBOs is slowed by the existence of “convenant-lite” clauses, which do not include traditional default triggers, and “payment-in-kind toggles”, which allow borrowers to defer cash interest payments and accrue more debt, but these only delay the eventual refinancing crisis and will make uglier the bankruptcy that will follow.  Even the largest LBOs, such as GMAC and Chrysler, are now at risk.

We are observing an accelerated run on the shadow banking system that is leading to its unravelling.  If lender-of-last-resort support and deposit insurance are extended to more of its members, these institutions will have to be regulated like banks, to avoid moral hazard.  Of course this severe financial crisis is also taking its toll on traditional banks: hundreds are insolvent and will have to close.

The real economic side of this financial crisis will be a severe US recession.  Financial contagion, the strong euro, falling US imports, the bursting of European housing bubbles, high oil prices and a hawkish European Central Bank will lead to a recession in the eurozone, the UK and most advanced economies.

European financial institutions are at risk of sharp losses because of the toxic US securitised products sold to them; the massive increase in leverage following aggressive risk-taking and domestic securitisation; a severe liquidity crunch exacerbated by a dollar shortage and a credit crunch; the bursting of domestic housing bubbles; household and corporate defaults in the recession; losses hidden by regulatory forbearance; the exposure of Swedish, Austrian and Italian banks to the Baltic states, Iceland and southern Europe where housing and credit bubbles financed in foreign currency are leading to hard landings.

Thus the financial crisis of the century will also envelop European financial institutions.

The writer, chairman of Roubini Global Economics (www.rgemonitor.com), is professor of economics at the Stern School of Business, New York University

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

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Go Ahead. . .

Just Keep “Allowing” - Keep Denying The Realities - It’s Not Like It’s Actually Getting Worse - Much Worse - Blatantly And Faster.
by This Old Hippie Because The Sky IS Falling...

“A nation without the will, the courage, to revolt - is a nation doomed, and revolting.”
The Corporatists Say to America: ‘Give us the $700 Billion, or else...’
They demand that it be given to them - without regulation, without question, without any means to take them to court, in short - ‘Give us the money, and shut up.’  And you will allow ‘your representatives’ to do it.  Without any real protest, or revolt, as you have for
the entire history of this current sneeringly criminal administration.

The Melting Of The Arctic Permafrost - Is Real - Is Happening - And It Is Bad...
Giga Tons of CO2 and methane are being released, right now, and it’s rate of release is increasing.  Not that you would do anything to mitigate it, or do something ‘revolting’ to stop the corporatists... that are causing this to happen, through proven man-made global warming effects of their criminal profiteering.  At least you haven’t done anything real to stop them yet, except support their manufactured and purposeful denial - Right? - Even
as the reality ‘bubbles out’ of the melting permafrost.

Oh Come On - Admit It -  You’re denying the reality of this right now - Aren’t you?
Even though every single criminally profiteering lie, and every single prediction of the global warming effects and affects - has been proven, and proven to be happening more blatantly, and the global warming proven to be happening at an increasingly faster rate than all of the predictions so far.  This is not happening in some abstract future - It is happening now.  And you know it is all undeniable, that it is your immediate reality...

But for some unfathomable reason, you simply can’t find the will - nor courage - To revolt.

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Found this appropriate video at Crooks and Liars - Enjoy...

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Just A Note To Self --

Thought I'd Share This Thought With You...
by The Old Hippie Because the Ongoing “Allowed” is Still Being ‘Debated.’

{-The Way Many Picture Me-}

The fact that this nation’s citizens haven’t yet risen in revolt... Is...  Well...  Kind of... Revolting. (right?) Back in the mid-late sixty’s through the mid seventy’s, this old, (then young,) hippie rose up, marched, and protested, and I will again... But I don’t see the citizens rising as they did back then,

but of course, back then we still had a free-press diversified media, that actually let the people know, and actually explained, ‘the knowledge’ we needed to make informed decisions.

For now I'll continue my optimistically cynical web site and blog, and making comments at other various web sites and blogs, trying to ‘spread the word,’ but I feel even this is in vain, just singing to the choir - They don't read, or watch, or listen to us.

(sigh.)

If you allow them their open sneering crimes without stopping them, without punishing them, without sustained revolt - You have already lost.  And that is our situation in America today.

To paraphrase...  It’s the unfathomable and ongoing “Allowing,” stupid.

“Can't Say We Weren’t Warned”

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I'm putting a cut & paste copy of “We’re Gonna Frickin’ Lose This Thing” here,
just in case Adam McKay’s article goes out date at its original site.

“Stop saying that!” my wife says to me.  But this is not a high school football game and I’m not a cheerleader with a bad attitude.  This is an election and as things stand now, we're gonna frickin’ lose this thing.  Obama and McCain at best are even in the polls nationally and in a recent Gallup poll McCain is ahead by four points.

Something is not right.  We have a terrific candidate and a terrific VP candidate.  We’re coming off the worst eight years in our country’s history.  Six of those eight years the Congress, White House and even the Supreme Court were controlled by the Republicans and the last two years the R’s have filibustered like tantrum throwing 4-year-olds, yet we’re going to elect a Republican who voted with that leadership 90% of the time and a former sportscaster who wants to teach Adam and Eve as science?  That’s not odd as a difference of opinion, that’s logically and mathematically queer.

It reminds me of playing blackjack (a losers game).  You make all the right moves, play the right hands but basically the House always wins.  I know what you’re going to say “But I won twelve hundred dollars last year in Atlantic City!”  Of course there are victories.  The odds aren’t tilted crazy, but there is a 51%-49% advantage.  And in the long run, the house has to win.  The house will win.

So what is this house advantage the Republicans have?  It’s the press.  There is no more fourth estate.  Wait, hold on...I’m not going down some esoteric path with theories on the deregulation of the media and corporate bias and CNN versus Fox...I mean it: there is no more functioning press in this country.  And without a real press the corporate and religious Republicans can lie all they want and get away with it.  And that’s the 51% advantage.

Think this is some opinion being wryly posited to titillate other bloggers and inspire dialogue with Tucker Carlson or Gore Vidal?  Fuck that.  Four corporations own all the TV channels.  All of them.  If they don’t get ratings they get canceled or fired.  All news is about sex, blame and anger, and fear.  Exposing lies about amounts of money taken from lobbyists and votes cast for the agenda of the last eight years does not rate.  The end.

So one side can lie and get away with it.  Now let’s throw in one more advantage.  Voter caging and other corruption on the local level with voting.  Check out the article here on HuffPost about Ohio messing with 600K voters.  If only five thousand of those voters don’t or can’t vote that’s a huge advantage in a contest that could be decided by literally dozens of votes.  That takes us to about a 52 to 48% advantage.

I’m not even getting into the fact that the religious right teaches closed mindedness so it’s almost impossible to gain new voters from their pool because people who disagree with them are agents of the devil.  I just want to look at two inarguable realities:  A) we have no more press and  B) the Repubs are screwing with the voters on the local level.

I’m telling you, we’re going to lose this thing.  And afterwords we’ll blame ourselves the same way we did with Gore and Kerry (two candidates a thousand times more qualified to lead than W Bush.)  Just watch...  McCain wins by a point or two and we all walk around saying things like “Obama was too well spoken.”  “Biden wasn’t lovable enough.”  “I shouldn’t have split those eights.”  “Why did I hit on 16?  Why?!”

So what do we do?

1) We give definitive clear speeches like Biden and Obama gave the other day about how no one talked about any issues at the Republican Convention and how they outright lied.  But we do them over and over again.  2) We use the one place where it’s still a 50-50 game -- the internet -- as much as we can.  3) But most importantly we should bring up re-regulating the media and who owns it and what that conflict of interest is a lot more.  By pretending there’s no conflict of interest we’re failing to alert the public that they’re being lied to or given a looking at a coin at the bottom of a pool slanted truth.  Every time a pundit or elected official is on any TV news program it should be a polite formality to mention that GE has made such and such billions off the war in Iraq by selling arms or that Murdoch is a right-wing activist with a clear stake in who wins and who taxes his profits the least.  Disney, GE, Viacom, and Murdoch -- all want profits and the candidate and agenda that will get in their way the least.

Obama and Biden should also create a “master sound bite sentence” and repeat it hundreds of times.  It should be so true that even the corporations can’t screw with it when it makes the airwaves.  Here’s my attempt: “Katrina, four dollar gas, a trillion dollar war, rising unemployment, deregulated housing market, global warming...no more.”

This race should be about whether the Republican Party is going to be dismantled or not after the borderline treason of the past eight years.  But instead it is about making the word “community organizer” a dirty word and a beauty queen who shoots foxes from a plane.  Someone is not in any way doing their job and it’s the press.  Or more specifically, that job no longer exists.

Probably the worst offenders are the pundits who take the position that it’s all just a game and say phrases like “getting a post-convention bump” or “playing to the soccer Moms.”  This isn’t a game of Monopoly or Survivor.  There are real truths that exist outside of the spin they are given and have an effect on lives.  250,000 Iraqi civilians are dead because we let our reality be distorted by the most effective propaganda machine in fifty years, the corporate American press.  Money and jobs are flying out of this country as our currency becomes worthless and we’re talking about the fact that McCain is a veteran.  If someone busted into your house and robbed you would you then forgive them if you found out they were a veteran?  Of course not.  So why are we forgiving McCain for selling out his country by supporting the Bush agenda?

This is it folks.  If McCain takes power we fade and become Australia in the seventies: a backwoods country with occasional flashes of relevance.  Except we’ve got a way bigger military and we’re angrier.  People will get hurt and we’ll pay the bill for the bullets.  I’m telling you, unless we wake up, we’re gonna lose this frickin’ thing.

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Right---!

Pelosi Says She Won’t Let Them Have Another Blank Check...
by This Old Hippie Because No One Has Spoiled My Optimistic Cynicism yet.

“Pelosi Balks at Bailout Scheme”
Nancy Pelosi isn’t buying into the idea of a $700-billion
gift basket for Wall Street without any strings attached.

You have got to be kidding me.  “She’s” not going to let them away with it?!?

Can you name -anything- that the oligarchical corporatists have not gotten
away with in the last eight years?  Can you name even one single thing?!?

Seriously - I'm asking, as I assume most reality-based citizens are right now.

It’s now a bit dated, but you may find this of interest? “Got Away With It”

Also, (three years later,) I listed... “Yes - I’m Angry”

Which lead to... “Let’s See...”

Remember how Pelosi was not going to give BushCo a blank check the last
time they ‘requested’ it?  Remember how she pontificated - ever so loudly -
that she wouldn’t do it... right up to when she did do it?

She, and ‘our’ co-congresspersons, did just that - Gave them the blank check.

One last cynical link... -“We Are So Fucked”-
 

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Found this appropriate video at Crooks and Liars - Enjoy...

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Enjoy. . .

A Wonderful Video Adaption of the song “The Tide Is Turning”
by Roger Waters’ from his mini-movie “Radio KAOS” - Enjoy. . .



For those who have an interest - I've put the entire movie Below The Fold - I suggest the DVD.
This mini-movie is 21 years old, (1987) - But it is more than excellent.

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“Radio KAOS”  by Roger Waters
[ Total run time for this mini movie = 19:27 ]

[Part I - 9:37]


[Part II - 4:46]


[Part III - 5:04]

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Quote of the Day, Week & Month...

This Says More About the State of ‘Our’ Nation than Most Things.
by ‘Cernig’ at Crooks and Liars.

[The following original quote may be found at Crooks and Liars, linked here.]

Charges Dropped Against Reporters Arrested At RNC
By: Cernig on Saturday, September 20th, 2008 at 10:00 AM - PDT

Charges are being dropped against over two dozen journalists, including Amy Goodman and her two producers, arrested during the crackdown on protests at the Republican convention in St. Paul. Goodman’s charge of “obstructing the legal process” has been dropped, as have felony riot charges against her colleagues Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar.  Other dropped charges are mainly for “unlawful assembly”.

The city’s mayor had a truly gag-worthy Orwellian statement on the subject:

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said Friday that the city attorney’s office recommended against prosecuting reporters for the misdemeanor charge.

“This decision reflects the values we have in St. Paul to protect and promote our First Amendment rights to freedom of the press,” Coleman said in a statement.

He added, “At the scene, the police did their duty in protecting public safety.  In this decision, we are serving the public’s interest to maintain the integrity of our democracy, system of justice and freedom of the press.”

One has to wonder if this was the plan all along, and the real intention was simply to inhibit reporting of abuses against protestors.  Or maybe they’re hoping that with the reporters out of court, the media won’t be so interested in covering the 800 or so other arrests.  With over forty journalists arrested, there should surely be at least some investigation of police officers involved for trumping up charges too:

Upon learning of the news, Democracy Now! Host, Amy Goodman said, “It’s good that these false charges have finally been dropped, but we never should have been arrested to begin with.  These violent and unlawful arrests disrupted our work and had a chilling effect on the reporting of dissent.  Freedom of the press is also about the public’s right to know what is happening on their streets.  There needs to be a full investigation of law enforcement activities during the convention.”

But I’ll bet that won’t happen.

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A reprising of past videos that you might have missed, that convey the big picture.

First two of my own quotes...

“Those Inside History, See It The Least.”

“Every Successful Political Conspiracy is now referred to as... The Government Of...”

Now the videos...

Zeitgeist - The Movie
[ The link to the official site. ]




The following is a “Below The Fold” Bonus video...
A presentation of Sara Thomsen’s beautiful, sad and haunting, yet inspiring song.  A song she created as a question... before Bush was “selected” after the 2000 national election.

Is It For Freedom?...




Maybe this video will help to put your “allowing” of their crimes into perspective?




A “Below The Fold” bonus -related- Video...  Enjoy...

Barack Obama, “They Must Think You’re Stupid”  [5:08]

A “Below The Fold” Bonus - The 6/20/08 “Inside USA” interview with Noam Chomsky.

PART I  [8:33]


PART II  [13:14]



A “Below The Fold” bonus -The Most IMPORTANT Video You'll Ever See- (part 1 of 8)

“And probably the most boring.  But then again, when I told that to my students
and had them give me feedback, most said that if you followed along with what
the presenter, (a professor emeritus of Physics at Univ. of Colorado-Boulder,)
is saying, it's quite easy to pay attention, because it is so compelling.”

- Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - 
[Each ‘Part’ is approximately 10 minutes, and well worth the time.  Enjoy an excellent lecture...]




A“Below The Fold” bonus video...
“The Constitution is Just a Goddamn Piece of Paper”  -- G. W. Bush




“NO END IN SIGHT”
THE definitive documentary about the Iraq debacle

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An Excellent Site. . .

If You Doubt They Share Boards of Directors, Then Link To. . .

They Rule...

The following picture is just one tiny example, of just one of the many companies that one can ‘map,’ showing the other companies that it shares board members with, at this excellent site.  Spend quality time there, it is truly well worth anyone’s time.  Hell, do something radical, like
maybe allow yourself to send its existence, and a link to it, to others in your family or friends?



For more info, on just the media corporations sharing of boards of directors, see...
“Big Media Interlocks with Corporate America”

“It’s the “ALLOWING” stupid.”  But you also know you. . .

“Can’t Say We Weren’t Warned...”  Which leads to...

“We’re Gonna Frickin’ Lose This Thing”

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Just go to www.theyrule.net - Spend quality time making the “maps” you can create with this wonderful site - Put a company on the map, then have it show the ‘Directors,’ then point to each member, and click on the ‘Companies’ choice to see what other company’s boards that member sits on.  [ You will be, (or should be,) surprised at many of the “connections.” ]

That is how I created the simple example map above - Showing the 15 board members of Coca-Cola, and the 8 members of its board that are shared with 11 other companies.

Here is an extra bonus map I just created of Exxon-Mobil’s Board of Directors...

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Beating That Dead Horse...

The Complex Simplicity of the Simplistic Complexity...
by The Old Hippie Because You Keep “Allowing,” Hasn’t Sunk In Yet.

The Federal Reserve, is not federal, nor has any reserves. It is a private corporation, and controls the money, all of it, in this nation. Free Speech Zones, mean you do not have free speech by definition. They are not incompetent, nor stupid, they do know what they are doing. Absolutely nothing matters to them, other than that they control the wealth. You, and I, and the rest of the lower 99.?% of us, are not them. 50% of all populations, (e.g. America,) have below average IQs. The myth of Christ proved to be very powerful, and very-very profitable. Our media, in reality, is owned and controlled by just five corporations.

Whose majority of Boards of Directors are all share by the same people.
Those shared directors are also shared with the extractive energy, pharmaceutical, HMO,
ag-chem, and the military-industrial-complex corporations.
All of which are experiencing record profits, as the cost of everything you need climbs.
This nation’s military budget is 54% of our total budget.
And that 54% of our budget is greater than the combined military budgets of all the other nations.
As of the most recent figures, .001% now control 1/5 of the planet’s total wealth.
None of them care about you, nor your family, nor your friends.
Nor do they care about your job, or your health, or your environment, or your future.
You are not one of them.  You are not their friend.

But yet. . .

You keep allowing yourself to react to their manipulations of your needs, as if you are.

Ask yourself - What have you done to prove that wrong?  “Revolting,” isn’t it?

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A“Below The Fold” bonus -related- (and reprised,) article...

Why An Economy for All?
[ emphasis are mine, not the author’s ]

“Conservatives call it the “greatest story never told,” an economy in which jobs are up, profits are up, stock prices are healthy, productivity is increasing, and inflation is low.  In reality, today’s economy is more reminiscent of the Gilded Age.  A few people at the top are profiting handsomely, but the myth of a booming economy does not reflect the everyday experience of working class Americans.  In fact, most Americans think we are either in or near a recession.

A majority of Americans struggle with stagnant wages and rising costs of living.  They see good jobs getting shipped abroad while companies use global competition as a bludgeon to exact cuts in health care, pensions and other benefits for the jobs that are here.  For the first time, parents worry that their children won’t be better off than the generation before them.  As the housing bubble bursts and millions of Americans face foreclosure on their homes, Americans’ economic situation is only going to get worse.”

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Too Late For “Wake-Up” - - - ?

Kimberly-Clark Said They Don’t Use Old-Growth Trees...
by Greenpeace

They Lied...

Shocking new photos released today reveal the existence of a massive stockpile of old-growth logs that are destined to become disposable products like Kleenex tissue and Cottonelle toilet paper for tissue giant Kimberly-Clark Corporation.  The logs originate from the Ogoki Forest, the single most ecologically valuable area left in Ontario’s southern Boreal Forest and the site of growing controversy.



If you buy their products, then you are definitely “allowing” and supporting your own destruction, and the Kimberly-Clark Corporation also definitely appreciates your support, as they sneer all the way to their bank. . .  with your supporting funds.

“It’s the “ALLOWING” stupid.”  But you also know you. . .

“Can’t Say We Weren’t Warned...”  Which leads to...

“We’re Gonna Frickin’ Lose This Thing”

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At least it’s not too late to go sign the “Take Action”

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Does It Speak For You?

A Quote That Speaks For Many, Including Myself...
by The Old Hippie Because You Still Aren’t Stopping Them, At Least Not Yet.

“I can’t think of any precedent, at least in America, for the blizzard of lies since the Republican convention.  The Bush campaign’s lies in 2000 were artful — you needed some grasp of arithmetic to realize that you were being conned.  This year, however, the McCain campaign keeps making assertions that anyone with an Internet connection can disprove in a minute, and repeating these assertions over and over again... “[The] Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney.  If the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much, much worse.” -- Paul Krugman [Found at => The Crisis Papers]

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Also - for a further perspective...
Here is another recent quote of significance...
[Also found at The Crisis Papers]

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.  The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.  It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

-- Joseph Goebbels, Propaganda Minister, Nazi Germany.

Needless to say, I find The Crisis Papers web site’s weekly postings of value.

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Your Reality. . .

Some Have The Ability To See Your Reality - Here Are But A Few...
by The Old Hippie Because One Needs To “Know” What It Is Behind All The Spin And Lies.

-  “Counterfeit Democracy”       Does the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement contain...       provisions that would actually do these things? [see orig. article]       There's no way to know, because the treaty text remains secret.   -  “We're Gonna Frickin' Lose This Thing”  [again]       Too important to be missed, therefore I link to it again.   -  “Another One Bites the Dust:”       What’s Behind the Crash of Lehman Bros

A Cynical Rant?”
“Big Media Interlocks with Corporate America”
[reprised-It’s important]

“As long as the greatest crime of the 21st century remains unprosecuted,
we all...  can only blame ourselves, and deserve our collective fates.”

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A“Below The Fold” bonus [2:53] video... A Bill Moyers Journal report...

“Rage on the Radio”

This link it to the video, the above links are to the original web site concerned with this video.

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL takes a tough look at the hostile industry of “Shock Jock” media with a hard-hitting examination of its effects on our nation’s political discourse.  The JOURNAL traveled to Knoxville, where a recent shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church has left the pastor asking what role hateful speech from popular right-wing media personalities may have played in the tragedy.  “A lot of people are hurling insults from the safety of television studios, the safety of radio studio, the safety of cyberspace,” says Rev. Chris Buice, “So that’s a void in our community — the chance to be in the same room and to have these exchanges and remember the humanity of the person on the other side.”

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J-F-C-!

“How Much More” - “What Does It Take” - All Meaningless Now...
by This Old Hippie Because We All Deserve What We All Have Allowed.

How many times, and in how many ways, can one ask any of the “WTF” type of questions...  Before they lose their meaning, their justified impact?  I think we all know now.

We all redundantly stated, proved, and shouted that the impossible was becoming all of our realities, that our nation was, (and still is,) being eaten away from within, and that ‘enhanced’ corporatist robber-barons have taken-over our government - lock, stock, and barrel.

Historically unprecedented transfer of wealth, recently quite blatantly.
.001% now control 1/5 of the Total World’s Wealth.
Replacement of the entire Federal Regulatory structure with corporatist sycophants.
Creation of a legalization of “Free Speech Zones.”
Creation of a legalization of the torture of human beings.
The ending of Habeas Corpus protections.
Close to 50 million citizens without any healthcare protection.
56 million more citizens without access to any primary care physicians.
But corporate taxes were cut to the health corporations, as they are making record profits.
Energy corporations also experiencing record profits, but again their taxes were cut.
As our gas/energy prices also climbed to record levels, with no end in sight.
And not only were their taxes cut, their record profits were “protected.”
Global warming weather events increasing - at an increasing rate.
A legalization of preemptive war instituted, proven to only profit the profiteers.
Unprecedented amount of civilians killed.
Unprecedented numbers of troops committing suicide.
Unprecedented numbers of troops coming home with unprecedented wounds, and problems.
But yet the “Support the Troops” GOP reps in congress, vote to cut funding to them.
761 American bases, and growing, around the planet.
Out of a $2.65 trillion national budget, 1.449 trillion (54%) goes to the military.
And almost all of that going to the military-industrial-corporations.
Unprecedented economic breakdown and bankruptcies filed, and increasing.
And Did I mention?  The “MSM” proven to be complicit with the corporatists' agenda.

But yet the top 1% are doing just great, actually their “economy” is improving.

And “we all” just kept allowing it get worse and worse and worse. . .

I think we all know now, that it just might be too late to say - - -
WTF, or what does it take, or how much more, or wake-up before it’s too late...

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Sorry nothing else - I just had to get it off my chest - again.

Oh yeah. . .  Have a nice day.

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But... But...

Mythical Reality In What Remains Of Our Constitutional Democracy.
by The Old Hippie Because the Ongoing “Allowed” Destruction is Not a Myth.

{-The Way Many Picture Me-}

If you are explaining - and not the media - to the masses, then you have already lost.  And that is our situation in America today. Because the media, (the corporately controlled MSM,) has proven itself to be openly complicit with this corporatist administration, there is little chance that the masses will absorb the truth, or comprehend the political realities of their vote.  It is the only explanation for ‘the myth matters more than the truth’ in America today, which is “our” reality now. As long as you allow them to controls who votes, and you allow their machines to count the vote, you have already lost.  And that is also our situation in America today.

If you allow them their open sneering crimes without stopping them, without punishing them, without sustained revolt - You have already lost.  And that is our situation in America today.

To paraphrase...  It’s the unfathomable and ongoing “Allowing,” stupid.

“Can't Say We Weren’t Warned”

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I'm putting a cut & paste copy of “We’re Gonna Frickin’ Lose This Thing” here,
just in case Adam McKay’s article goes out date at its original site.

“Stop saying that!” my wife says to me.  But this is not a high school football game and I’m not a cheerleader with a bad attitude.  This is an election and as things stand now, we're gonna frickin’ lose this thing.  Obama and McCain at best are even in the polls nationally and in a recent Gallup poll McCain is ahead by four points.

Something is not right.  We have a terrific candidate and a terrific VP candidate.  We’re coming off the worst eight years in our country’s history.  Six of those eight years the Congress, White House and even the Supreme Court were controlled by the Republicans and the last two years the R’s have filibustered like tantrum throwing 4-year-olds, yet we’re going to elect a Republican who voted with that leadership 90% of the time and a former sportscaster who wants to teach Adam and Eve as science?  That’s not odd as a difference of opinion, that’s logically and mathematically queer.

It reminds me of playing blackjack (a losers game).  You make all the right moves, play the right hands but basically the House always wins.  I know what you’re going to say “But I won twelve hundred dollars last year in Atlantic City!”  Of course there are victories.  The odds aren’t tilted crazy, but there is a 51%-49% advantage.  And in the long run, the house has to win.  The house will win.

So what is this house advantage the Republicans have?  It’s the press.  There is no more fourth estate.  Wait, hold on...I’m not going down some esoteric path with theories on the deregulation of the media and corporate bias and CNN versus Fox...I mean it: there is no more functioning press in this country.  And without a real press the corporate and religious Republicans can lie all they want and get away with it.  And that’s the 51% advantage.

Think this is some opinion being wryly posited to titillate other bloggers and inspire dialogue with Tucker Carlson or Gore Vidal?  Fuck that.  Four corporations own all the TV channels.  All of them.  If they don’t get ratings they get canceled or fired.  All news is about sex, blame and anger, and fear.  Exposing lies about amounts of money taken from lobbyists and votes cast for the agenda of the last eight years does not rate.  The end.

So one side can lie and get away with it.  Now let’s throw in one more advantage.  Voter caging and other corruption on the local level with voting.  Check out the article here on HuffPost about Ohio messing with 600K voters.  If only five thousand of those voters don’t or can’t vote that’s a huge advantage in a contest that could be decided by literally dozens of votes.  That takes us to about a 52 to 48% advantage.

I’m not even getting into the fact that the religious right teaches closed mindedness so it’s almost impossible to gain new voters from their pool because people who disagree with them are agents of the devil.  I just want to look at two inarguable realities:  A) we have no more press and  B) the Repubs are screwing with the voters on the local level.

I’m telling you, we’re going to lose this thing.  And afterwords we’ll blame ourselves the same way we did with Gore and Kerry (two candidates a thousand times more qualified to lead than W Bush.)  Just watch...  McCain wins by a point or two and we all walk around saying things like “Obama was too well spoken.”  “Biden wasn’t lovable enough.”  “I shouldn’t have split those eights.”  “Why did I hit on 16?  Why?!”

So what do we do?

1) We give definitive clear speeches like Biden and Obama gave the other day about how no one talked about any issues at the Republican Convention and how they outright lied.  But we do them over and over again.  2) We use the one place where it’s still a 50-50 game -- the internet -- as much as we can.  3) But most importantly we should bring up re-regulating the media and who owns it and what that conflict of interest is a lot more.  By pretending there’s no conflict of interest we’re failing to alert the public that they’re being lied to or given a looking at a coin at the bottom of a pool slanted truth.  Every time a pundit or elected official is on any TV news program it should be a polite formality to mention that GE has made such and such billions off the war in Iraq by selling arms or that Murdoch is a right-wing activist with a clear stake in who wins and who taxes his profits the least.  Disney, GE, Viacom, and Murdoch -- all want profits and the candidate and agenda that will get in their way the least.

Obama and Biden should also create a “master sound bite sentence” and repeat it hundreds of times.  It should be so true that even the corporations can’t screw with it when it makes the airwaves.  Here’s my attempt: “Katrina, four dollar gas, a trillion dollar war, rising unemployment, deregulated housing market, global warming...no more.”

This race should be about whether the Republican Party is going to be dismantled or not after the borderline treason of the past eight years.  But instead it is about making the word “community organizer” a dirty word and a beauty queen who shoots foxes from a plane.  Someone is not in any way doing their job and it’s the press.  Or more specifically, that job no longer exists.

Probably the worst offenders are the pundits who take the position that it’s all just a game and say phrases like “getting a post-convention bump” or “playing to the soccer Moms.”  This isn’t a game of Monopoly or Survivor.  There are real truths that exist outside of the spin they are given and have an effect on lives.  250,000 Iraqi civilians are dead because we let our reality be distorted by the most effective propaganda machine in fifty years, the corporate American press.  Money and jobs are flying out of this country as our currency becomes worthless and we’re talking about the fact that McCain is a veteran.  If someone busted into your house and robbed you would you then forgive them if you found out they were a veteran?  Of course not.  So why are we forgiving McCain for selling out his country by supporting the Bush agenda?

This is it folks.  If McCain takes power we fade and become Australia in the seventies: a backwoods country with occasional flashes of relevance.  Except we’ve got a way bigger military and we’re angrier.  People will get hurt and we’ll pay the bill for the bullets.  I’m telling you, unless we wake up, we’re gonna lose this frickin’ thing.

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Let's See. . .

Just Your Current Situation via Reality-Based Information...
by The Old Hippie Because You Keep “Allowing,” And So Far...  Nothing else.

-  Naomi Klein Strikes Back at Critics of Her ‘Shock Doctrine’ Book       “The Shock Doctrine” has withstood a year's worth of intense media       scrutiny in dozens of countries ... this is the benefit of a methodology that       is grounded not in anecdotes but in thousands of sourced facts and figures.   -  Twenty-Six Things We Now Know Seven Years After 9/11       Each year around the anniversary of 9/11, I summarize what we ordinary       citizens have learned since that awful day in 2001.  This is the 7th annual       look backwards, a 2008 update that contains new information and surmisings       about those horrific events and what followed.

Quote of the Week

St. Paul was not ultimately about selecting a presidential candidate.  It was about the power of the corporate state to carry out pre-emptive searches, seizures and arrests.  It was about squads of police in high-tech riot gear, many with drawn semiautomatic weapons, bursting into houses.  It was about seized computers, journals and political literature.  It was about shutting down independent journalism, even at gunpoint.  It was about charging protesters with “conspiracy to commit riot,” a rarely used statute that criminalizes legal dissent.  It was about 500 people held in open-air detention centers.  It was about the rising Orwellian state that has hollowed out the insides of America, cast away all that was good and vital, and donned its skin to shackle us all...

St. Paul is a window into our future.

Chris Hedges

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A“Below The Fold” bonus -related- article...

Why An Economy for All?
[ emphasis are mine, not the author’s ]

“Conservatives call it the “greatest story never told,” an economy in which jobs are up, profits are up, stock prices are healthy, productivity is increasing, and inflation is low.  In reality, today’s economy is more reminiscent of the Gilded Age.  A few people at the top are profiting handsomely, but the myth of a booming economy does not reflect the everyday experience of working class Americans.  In fact, most Americans think we are either in or near a recession.

A majority of Americans struggle with stagnant wages and rising costs of living.  They see good jobs getting shipped abroad while companies use global competition as a bludgeon to exact cuts in health care, pensions and other benefits for the jobs that are here.  For the first time, parents worry that their children won’t be better off than the generation before them.  As the housing bubble bursts and millions of Americans face foreclosure on their homes, Americans’ economic situation is only going to get worse.”

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It’s “The Anniversary” - -

Another Year Gone...  And Guess What. . . ?
by The Old Hippie Because It Has Gone Past The Surreal And The scary Ridiculous.

They all are still in power.  Still sneering at our lack of will to stop them, punish them, for their multitude of crimes, that have now been more than obviously proven, beyond anyone’s doubt... to be purposeful, sociopathic, and criminally profitable to only their very-very-few. But yet, not to kick a dead horse, again...  Where’s the outrage?  Where are the protests?  Where’s the stopping-of-the-allowing?  Where’s the impeachment?  Why are my fellow American “citizens” not making any effort to stop, and punish these openly sneering criminals that are destroying our Constitutional Democracy from within... for nothing more than profits to only their-very-few?

Maybe this video will help to put your “allowing” of their crimes into perspective?


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Two “Below The Fold” Bonus Ancient Articles links...

(1) Last year's censored “Big Media Interlocks With Corporate America” article.
From the research team at → Project Censored ← at Sonoma State University.

Bonus Ancient Article Link

-  AND  -

(2) Part I -and- Part II of the “George Bush Meets The Environment”

Both of which are well worth anyone’s time - Enjoy.

-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -

That’s it for this week - Wonder if there will be reason to post any non-cynical, or non-redundant, or non-repetitive rants in the coming days?  Also, one final thought for this week...

They sociopathically, (and arrogantly,) killed Robert, John, and Martin, et al, and “hope” before, (and btw, they did get away with the murders,)...  Do you think they’ll let Obama survive, -if- he does become a real threat to the corporatists’ power, or to the profits to their-very-very-few?

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Your Reality. . .

Some Have The Ability To See Your Reality - Here Are But A Few...
by The Old Hippie Because One Needs To “Know” What It Is Behind All The Spin And Lies.

-  “The Family”       Just how dangerous are evangelical zealots?  A close and disturbing       look a group known as The Family, and its disturbing and apparently       widespread influence on mainstream political culture.   -  “We're Gonna Frickin' Lose This Thing”  [again]       Too important to be missed, therefore I link to it again.   -  “It’s Time To Hold Them Accountable.”       Bullshit, it’s long past that time.  (See proof links below.)

“Can't We Weren’t Warned.”
“Big Media Interlocks with Corporate America”
“Yes - I'm Angry”
“Zeitgeist - The Movie”

Bush Actually Did Say It...  (And You Did “Allow” The Very Few To Prove It.)

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face.

It's just a goddamn piece of paper!”

George W. Bush

[For those who doubt he actually said it - Here is the quote’s verification link.]

“As long as the greatest crime of the 21st century remains unprosecuted,
we all...  can only blame ourselves, and deserve our collective fates.”

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A“Below The Fold” bonus [2:53] video...

“Your New Job”

Watch, then please... Go sign the petition.

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Enjoy. . .

A David Letterman Global Warming Rant - Enjoy...



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Just the rant.  Nothing else at this time... Hope you enjoyed the rant.

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Best Article Of The Week?

The Best “Big-Picture” Article Of The Past Week?
by The Old Hippie Because If You Didn't Read It, How Can You Say... “I Know.”

“We're Gonna Frickin' Lose this Thing”

“Stop saying that!” my wife says to me.  But this is not a high school football game and I’m not a cheerleader with a bad attitude.  This is an election and as things stand now, we’re gonna frickin’ lose this thing.  Obama and McCain at best are even in the polls nationally and in a recent Gallup poll McCain is ahead by four points.

[ link to entire original article. ]

“As long as the greatest crime of the 21st century remains unprosecuted,
we all...  can only blame ourselves, and deserve our collective fates.”

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A “Below The Fold” bonus -related- Video...  Enjoy...



http://www.werenotgoingdown.com/ the link to the his website, where he says, in confession;

My name is Freddy Wexler. I’m a singer and a songwriter here in New York City.  I’ve spent the last year of my life trying to get a record contract so I’ve been writing, and performing, and spending a lot of hours in the recording studio.  So maybe that's my excuse for being completely blind to what's been going on in this country.

I was talking to a friend on the phone last week and he asked me who I was gonna vote for.  I said, I don't know.  Does it matter?  He kinda jumped on me for that which was surprising because I never thought of him as being all that political either.

When I got off the phone I decided to go online and see if I could find a reason to care about this election.

I don’t wanna be overly dramatic, but I felt like a guy who had just woken up from a four year coma.  Just surfing around, I saw pictures of the war, and pictures of New Orleans after Katrina, and I read a bunch of articles about how screwed up everything is right now.  At one point, and this is at like 2 in the morning, I called my girlfriend and woke her up.  She actually watches the news and has political discussions with her friends, but I'm always busy doing something else.  So she answers and I said, “How could you put up with a guy who has absolutely no idea what’s happening in the world?”

I knew there was a war going on but I never took the time to try and figure out WHY we are at war and what is going on over there.  When it all started coming together for me...that hundreds of guys MY age are getting their arms blown off by roadside bombs while I’m trying to pick out a cool t-shirt for a concert.  It’s ridiculous.  I’m embarrassed.  Seeing those pictures and reading about what’s really going on, it hit me that I can’t be blind anymore.

That same night, I wrote a song about that night.  My revelation that I have to do something.  That we ALL have to do something.  That everyone like me in their 20’s, whose so busy trying to get their life started, has to stop for a minute and think about how to save our country.

For the first time in my life, I feel like my music and my songwriting has a true purpose beyond just getting me a record deal.

So I finish writing this song, then I jump on my piano and work out the music.  I stayed up all night.  At 7am I called my friend Matt, another musician and I asked him to come over and help me.  At 10:00 that morning, Matt and I were at my girlfriend’s apartment with a piano and a guitar, and a guy with a video camera.

The video and the song is called “We’re Not Going Down.”  If the message hits you, if you've been like me, just completely unaware and you realize it's time to stand up and do something, then I ask that you email the link to the video to as many of your friends as you can.

So here it is...
WE’RE NOT GOING DOWN

-- Freddy Wexler

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We Got Lucky...

All Of The Hurricanes Just Missed Us This Season, So Far.
by The Old Hippie Because Some Inquiring Minds Wish To Know...

Gustav, Hanna, and now Ike, have all just missed us - We been lucky, to say the least, so far....

Between my ISP crashing, and being down for going onto four days now, moving the web site because of it, (new URL here,) and worrying about the hurricanes...  My postings here have been a bit erratic, for which I do apologize - It will get better.

For now enjoy a bit of truth... (yes - I know - He is a politician, But this is a speech of truth...)

Barack Obama, “They Must Think You’re Stupid”  [5:08]

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Nothing else for now...

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But... But...

Mythical Reality In What Remains Of Our Constitutional Democracy.
by The Old Hippie Because the Ongoing “Allowed” Destruction is Not a Myth.

{-The Way Many Picture Me-}

761 American military bases around the planet - That many “foreign bases is a remarkable example of imperial overstretch - even more so considering that official military reports understate the actual size of the US footprint.  (The official figures omit espionage bases, those located in war zones, including Iraq and Afghanistan, and miscellaneous facilities in places considered too sensitive to discuss or which the Pentagon for its own reasons chooses to exclude—e.g. in Israel, Kosovo, or Jordan.)” Total U.S. Budget = $2.650 trillion, (1.449 trillion [54%] is for the military, 1.210 trillion [46%] for everything else.)  “Our” military budget is greater than all of the other nations’ budgets... combined. [source link]

This administration has borrowed more money from foreign nations, than all of the other previous administrations... combined.

Our national debt is now well over $9 trillion, and climbing, and it is now the highest it has ever been... in our entire 232 year history.

We have imprisoned more of our own citizens, in raw numbers, and in percentage of population... than any other nation in the entire written history of this planet.

We are the only 1st or 2nd world nation without universal healthcare.

We are the only 1st or 2nd world nation without habeas corpus protection.

“Can't Say We Weren’t Warned”

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A “Below The Fold” Bonus - The 6/20/08 “Inside USA” interview with Noam Chomsky.

PART I  [8:33]


PART II  [13:14]

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