Capitalism and the myth

Capitalism, capitalism. How do I loath thee? Let me count the ways….

1. Few would argue with the conclusion that greed, selfishness, ruthlessness, and egocentrism are qualities that all of us humans possess, to varying degrees of course. Equally compelling is the argument that nearly all of us are capable of acting with kindness, compassion, justice, honesty, generosity, and empathy. Yet despite the sweeping epidemic of unnecessary suffering caused by torrential waves of avarice, self-centeredness, and brutality, our filthy moneyed elite, their well-compensated sycophants, and countless millions of deeply inculcated members of the working class defend the sacred cow of capitalism with the zeal of the Siccari. What a brilliant way to conduct human affairs and organize ourselves socioeconomically! Not only do we embrace the inevitability of our human frailties; we willfully and perpetually embrace a system that ensures that the worst elements of the human psyche will predominate AND which amply rewards those who act the most reprehensibly.

2. One of the idiocies advanced as a logical argument to justify the continued existence of the abomination of capitalism is that while it may be flawed, it is still better than any alternative. If capitalism is the best humanity can do, it’s time to cash in our chips and leave Earth to our non-human animal counter-parts. They may not have opposable thumbs and formidably sized frontal lobes, but at least they don’t engage in the systematic destruction of themselves and the rest of the planet. However, before we act too hastily and engage in mass Seppuku, perhaps it would make more sense to implement a mass reorganization of our socioeconomic structure, basing the new paradigm on far more egalitarian, sustainable, democratic, just, and rational principles. Or we could just keep destroying each other and the fucking planet….

3. Capitalismo has raped Central and South America nearly to death. Unlike the “Land of the Free,” most of those horribly victimized nations have a vibrant, thriving, and well-organized Left to stand in opposition to the scourge of humanity and the Earth. US-sponsored death squads, torture, disappearances, privatization, “free” trade, deregulation, union busting, evisceration of social programs, coups, and vilification of leaders with the audacity to defy the status quo of avarice on steroids have assailed our southern neighbors since we in the United States (the self-appointed champions of capitalism) began our wholesale exploitation, imperialism, and neoliberalism by “acquiring” half of Mexico. Let’s see now. Remind me again. How many invasions has that “dire threat” to humanity named Hugo Chavez launched? How much “collateral damage” has he inflicted?

4. Capitalism is an anachronism that long ago out-lived its usefulness (except to the morally rotten parasites comprising our de facto aristocracy) and has proven itself to be an abject failure as a means of human interaction and organization. It’s one step removed from feudalism, for Christ’s sake! (Oops! Sorry, I forgot about mercantilism—the transition to capitalism made such a difference). One of humanity’s strengths is our capacity to evolve. Given that, why in the hell do we stubbornly cling to a system that enables a fraction of a percent of the population to live in OBSCENE opulence while 35,000 of our fellow human beings die of starvation-related causes each day? Are the rest of us truly inane enough to believe that asinine myth that any of us has a REALISTIC chance of becoming the next Bill Gates, if we “just work hard enough.” Or that there is an ounce of moral virtue in pursuing the accumulation of excessive wealth?

5. Resting upon the “pillars” of greed, selfishness and hyper-competitiveness, capitalism is irrational and unstable. Crisis and resource wars are chronic and inevitable. How could we expect it to be otherwise? Unleashing some of the ugliest aspects of the human spirit and creating artificial shortages in a world of abundance (by allowing a select few to hoard most of the resources as “their property”), capitalism doesn’t exactly engender an environment of peace and brotherly love. While our filthy ruling plutocracy has allowed a degree of socialism to diminish their power to rape, pillage and plunder, they only did so to quell social unrest during times of serious instability (i.e. The New Deal). Meanwhile, reactionary elements in our “democracy” are consistently scheming to eliminate the use of public monies to actually benefit the public. Witness George Bush’s ongoing demands for an open purse to fund our insanely bloated military and the war crimes we are committing in Iraq. Compare that to his recent refusal to spend an additional $35 billion to provide health care for 3.9 million children. Bush and the moneyed interests for whom he is fronting are inflicting gaping, cankerous wounds upon humanity and the Earth. How much more obvious could it be? (And this administration isn’t an aberration; they are simply bold enough to reveal their agenda—that’s the scary part).

6. Thanks to our slightly adulterated yet plenty virulent infestation of capitalism, the United States is not the “Christian nation” it touts itself to be. While we certainly abide by the Golden Rule in the sense that “he who has the gold makes the rules,” there is little about the manner in which we conduct ourselves as a nation (particularly in terms of foreign policy) of which the person meeting the Biblical description of Jesus Christ would have approved. Let’s just run through a few highlights. We have killed millions of Iraqis via two invasions and barbaric economic sanctions (the sanctions alone killed over half a million children—they’re on your tab, Bill Clinton)—and these are people who NEVER attacked us nor posed a true threat to our “national security.” We arm and support Israel, the diseased enforcer of the mental illness known as Zionism. Ethnic cleansing. Now there’s a spiritually nourishing Christian pastime for you. We revere, idolize, and empower talented, “beautiful” people whose moral evolution came to a screeching halt at about age five. They are our CEOs, politicians, celebrities, athletes, billionaires, pundits, and Wall Streeters whose smug, hubristic “all-American” mugs, talking heads, and ‘surgically enhanced’ bodies are blasted into our homes 24/7 via Fox, CNN, ABC, and a host of other disseminators of the fetid garbage of infotainment. Sorry folks. Calvinism is about as close as our culture comes to the compassion and love modeled by Christ. And with John Calvin in the saddle, we fall significantly short of that mark. As his unwitting disciples, we are imbued with cynicism and self-hatred (we are, after all, “original sinners”), a sadistic desire to inflict ample doses of punishment for the smallest of transgressions (hence the US having the largest prison population in the world—comprised largely of non-violent drug offenders) and the notion that being rich means one has acquired God’s stamp of approval. (Thoughts of camels, needles, and kingdoms of heaven keep throwing me into a horrid state of cognitive dissonance in my desperate efforts to be a good little capitalist by embracing Part III of the Calvinist doctrine…..). Somehow I don’t think Christ had capitalism in mind when he preached the Sermon on the Mount…..

7. Let’s consider sustainability and consumerism for a moment, shall we? Two more of capitalism’s noxious, life-extinguishing qualities are its demand for infinite growth and its unavoidable “dilemma” of excess production. Problem number one is insoluble, but we can simply let our grandchildren worry about our insane insistence on maintaining a system demanding infinite resources from a finite world. As for excess production, that one is simple. We have the most advanced agitprop industry (Madison Avenue) and the most powerful delivery devices (the mainstream media) in the history of humanity churning out alluring appeals to consumers to buy what they don’t need, can’t really afford, and may never even use.

8. As an “added bonus” to the wounds it inflicts upon humanity as a collective, capitalism also causes serious character malformations in individuals. As infants and young children, human beings naturally believe themselves to be the center of the universe. In order to “succeed” (and sometimes just survive) in the rat race of capitalism, as we mature we begin viewing our narcissism as an attribute. Rather than shedding it, we nurture it with the tenderness of the most devoted of mothers. Looking out for number one, careerism, an obsession with winning, acquisitiveness, and putting money and appearances ahead of principles and people are considered to be virtues in this violently seething cesspool we euphemistically call a culture.

9. Perhaps most disturbing of all is the way in which capitalism’s relentless advocates have managed to bamboozle billions of people into equating it with democracy. Diabolical to its core, but sheer genius nonetheless. Concluding that capitalism and democracy are somehow synonymous is a bit like saying that Dick Cheney and the milk of human kindness relate to one another in even a very remote fashion. (Have you seen the myriad pictures of his evil grimaces floating around the Internet? Despicable creature that he is, he doesn’t even attempt to mask his malevolence). Capitalism is naturally hierarchal, authoritarian, and brutal. Corporations, the legal vehicles for the plutocracy to maximize their profits while minimizing liability, are structured as tyrannies. What the hell is democratic about dog eat dog, law of the jungle, and every man for himself? Besides, if we uber-capitalists here in the United States are truly “democratic,” and we “elected” a depraved idiot like W to what is ostensibly the most powerful position in the world, what does that say about us?

George Bush, Dick Cheney, et al aren’t anomalies or accidents. They are the naked face of savage capitalism evolved to its ultimate and inevitable state, which is embodied by corporatism, monopolism, cronyism, imperialism, and fuck-everyone-but-the-rich-ism.

Slice it, it dice it and spice it any way you prefer. A pile of shit is a pile of shit by any other name. Capitalism is just that from the standpoint of compassionate, moral, and intelligent human beings. One exceptionally virtuous person, Archbishop Don Helder Pessoa Camara, who was a progenitor of Liberation Theology and an unwavering champion of the poor, once remarked, “To examine capitalism is to indict it.”

Unfortunately, capitalism remains the 800 pound gorilla in the room. There is little doubt that its countless millions of fiercely loyal minions amongst the working class and poor will continue heeding their indoctrination, daring us to pry their copies of Atlas Shrugged “from their cold dead hands.” And we can count on the fact that the likes of the Mars heirs, Richard Mellon Scaife, and their ilk are not destined to experience profound spiritual awakenings anytime soon.

Yet there is hope. Capitalism exists in a state of perpetual crisis. Inequality is on the rise, globally and domestically. Our lords and masters are beginning to fall victim to their own hubris as they practice their predations more and more overtly. Palliatives can only delay the system’s inevitable collapse for so long. Sooner rather than later the deepening undercurrent of social unrest will burst the levees of injustice asunder.

Relative to what’s coming, the Great Depression was a mere warm-up. Yet in adversity there lies opportunity. Our US gulag, often referred to as the prison industrial complex, will serve as excellent quarters for the irredeemable scum stalking the corridors of power in DC, the Walton clan, Larry Ellison, and the rest of the parasites atop the capitalist pyramid.

Or perhaps things will take a more Jacobin turn and we won’t need to waste any more precious resources on these predatory sociopaths….

Fuck you, capitalism; fuck you…..

H.L. Mencken

All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both. One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them. All it can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives. The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.




Nature abhors a moron.

The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.

Immorality is the morality of those who are having a better time. You will never convince the average farmer's mare that the late Maud S. was not dreadfully immoral.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.

Platitude — An idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.

Remorse — Regret that one waited so long to do it.

Self-respect — The secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.

Truth — Something somehow discreditable to someone.

We are here and it is now: further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

Historian — An unsuccessful novelist.

Christian — One who is willing to serve three Gods, but draws the line at one wife.

The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.

The theory seems to be that so long as a man is a failure he is one of God's chillun, but that as soon as he has any luck he owes it to the Devil.

Judge — A law student who marks his own examination-papers.

Jury — A group of twelve men who, having lied to the judge about their hearing, health and business engagements, have failed to fool him.

Lawyer — One who protects us against robbers by taking away the temptation.

Jealousy is the theory that some other fellow has just as little taste.

Wealth — Any income that is at least $100 more a year than the income of one's wife's sister's husband.

Misogynist — A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.

A man may be a fool and not know it — but not if he is married.

Bachelors know more about women than married men. If they didn't they'd be married, too.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

Theology — An effort to explain the unknowable by putting it into terms of the not worth knowing.

Creator — A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.

Sunday — A day given over by Americans to wishing that they themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their neighbors were dead and in Hell.

A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.
Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.

Q: If you find so much that is unworthy of reverence in the United States, then why do you live here?A: Why do men go to zoos?

Bertrand Russell quote

I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology.... Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Of these the most influential is what is called `education.' Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the press, the cinema, and the radio play an increasing part.... It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment.

The subject will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under a scientific dictatorship.... The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity. But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark gray.

Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.

Good quotes

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters."

It's an oral history. It was passed down, word-of-mouth, father to son, from Adam to Seth, from Seth to Enos, from Enos to Cainan, for 40 generations, a growing, changing, story, it was handed down, word-of-mouth, father to son. Until Moses finally gets it down on lambskin. But lambskins wear out, and need to be recopied. Copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of an oral history passed down through 40 generations. From Hebrew it's translated into Arabic, from Arabic to Latin, from Latin to Greek, from Greek to Russian, from Russian to German, from German to an old form of English that you could not read.

Through 400 years of evolution of the English language to the book we have today, which is: a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of an oral history passed down through 40 generations.

You can't put a grocery list through that many translations, copies, and re-telling, and not expect to have some big changes in the dinner menu when the kids make it back from Kroger's. And yet people are killing each other over this written word.

Here's a tip: If you're killing someone in the name of God — you're missing the message

Taxes, the IRS and bullshit

With a little help from the good folks at WRH


Publication 525 (2008), Taxable and Nontaxable Income


See top of page for said topic after clicking the link.

Examples:

Page 33:"Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on form 1040 line 21, or on schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self employment activity."

Page 34:"Kickbacks. You must include kickbacks,side commissions, push money, or similar payments you receive in your income..."

Page 35:"Stolen property. If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year, you return it to its rightful owner"

Page 36:"Bribes. If you receive a bribe, include it in your income. "


My question is this: If they can TAX it, why can't it be a legal way to earn a living? I am thinking some insane lawyer with nothing to lose could have a great case for this. Should it not be ILLEGAL to tax ILLEGAL money? If they can legally tax it, you should be able to legally earn it. The irony is just off the charts here. The IRS wants you to admit you committed a crime but thats not important, they just want their cut of the COMMERCE.

This reminds me of a book I read about how all crimes are just commercial crimes of impeding COMMERCE. http://www.freedomfiles.org/mary-book.pdf Page 51 is interesting, but true.

Killing someone while driving intoxicated is impeding commerce. The Govt figures they can get so much taxes out of a person before they die at the avg age of 72. If you kill someone at the age of 25, the Govt loses all the potential taxes they could have taken from that person. You impeded the commerce of the Federal Govt. ALL crimes are crimes of commerce. Either you are stopping yourself from paying taxes or you are stopping someone else from paying taxes when you commit a crime.

The "System" is in place to keep commerce running smoothly and making money. Police depts, traffic lights, technology and all other things that make our lives faster and easier.

Seatbelt laws, speed limits, and other B.S. laws that really dont make sense actually make sense if you think of it in terms of stopping commerce. All of these laws are designed to keep you safe from yourself and PAYING TAXES TILL YOU DROP. That is why OSHA exists. You think the Govt actually gives a rats ass about your safety?? NOPE, just keeping you alive so you can continue to pay taxes.

Seatbelt laws are B.S. because if they were concerned about SAFETY, there would be mandatory seatbelts on every school bus in this country. But there are no seatbelts on school buses, so it's a direct contradiction to what "they" tell us thereby making it a BULLSHIT law.

Kinda makes sense in a strange way because when someone with a sizeable income gets killed, no stone goes unturned to find the killer. When a crack ho dies in the ditch, nobody looks really hard for her killer. The difference? The amount of TAXES the Govt would have been able to confiscate from each one. The authorities need to find the bastard who impeded commerce by killing the rich tax payer.

The ONLY way to tax illegal income is for taxes to be illegal in the first place. Anything else is a direct contradiction.

Israel again...

Cheney wanted Israel to attack Hezbollah for war with Iran

Press TV 'Fine Print' broadcast just conveyed (via streaming video link at top of www.presstv.com) that Cheney wanted Israel to attack Hezbollah to have war with Syria and Iran and is furious that Israel didn't follow through with such which would have been in accordance with the rest of the 'A Clean Break' agenda (access the 'A Clean Break' link on the upper right side of http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.COM). Press TV's 'Fine Print' broadcast also conveyed that Israelis studied Nazi Warsaw Ghetto war crime tactics for Gaza attack!

Subject: Gaza Is the Future Israel's on a rampage and here's why

Date: Monday, January 12, 2009, 4:24 AM

Gaza Is the Future Israel's on a rampage and here's why

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=14046


You can read about the 'A Clean Break' agenda (which Raimondo discusses in the above article) via the 'A Clean Break' link on the upper right side of http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.COM

'A Clean Break' (War for Israel) agenda of the Likudnik JINSA/CSP/PNAC Neocons (pages 261-269/318-321 of James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book):

http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/02/clean-break.html


Dr. Stephen Sniegoski also discusses the 'A Clean Break' (war for Israel agenda) in his 'The Transparent Cabal' book:

Dr. Stephen Sniegoski discusses his 'Transparent Cabal' book:

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=99445


Former Pentagon Chief Perry: Iran Crisis Soon

http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/obama_nuclear_challenges/2009/01/08/169238.html?s=al&promo_code=7764-1


Clinton to Name AIPAC/WINEP associated (and Iran war advocate) Dennis Ross as top advisor on Mideast, Iran: http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=101635


Philip Giraldi on coming war with Iran:

http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/12/call-for-phillip-giraldi-about-pretext.html


Obama and the Danger of his Middle East Policies:

http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/11/obama-and-danger-of-his-middle-east.html


Additional about Gaza and the war for Israel agenda at: http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.COM

Israeli Propaganda at its FINEST!!!

israeli spokesman gets shut up by Alex Thomson

WOW! The bullshit coming from the Israeli "spokesman" is just too much to fathom. Blame the victim!! Those dead and starving Palestinian kids made us do it!! LMFAO!!!

More Israeli bullshit

When the Truth is Anti-Semitic.


UK paper confirms Israel is using White Phosphorus on Palestinians
The "Chosen People" breaking out the good weapons!


50 More Children's' Bodies In IDF Holocaust House


Hackers Deface NATO, US Army Web Sites
Another obvious false flag. Remember the letters that came with the Anthrax attacks? They were written to appear to be from Muslims. But whether you think Philip Zack or Stephen Hatfill was the actual culprit, the letters were clearly fakes to frame Muslims for the crime.


Obama urges delay in digital TV transition
Obama fiddles (with the TV) while Gaza burns.


NYPD Wants to Jam Cell Phones During Terror Attack
So when the terror attack comes (and it WILL), they dont want you calling anyone? TOo afraid what the last cell phones picked up on 9/11?


War in Gaza: Israel accused of shelling house full of children


IS this the NY Times???


Atheist bus adverts claiming 'There's probably no God' are reported to watchdog
"BURN THEM! BURN THEM! Er, I mean, SUE THEM! SUE THEM!" -- Cardinal Fang
The solution to this is easy. When God shows up in person (with his ID) at the Advertising Standards Authority, then they can take down the banners.

Until then, there is no truth involved here. It is only a difference of opinion.
Throughout history, a wide variety of religions worshiping Molech, Baal, Odin, Jupiter, Zeus, Ahura Mazda, Jehovah, Allah, Quetzalcoatl, Coatlicue, Vishna, and others far too numerous to elucidate here have come and gone.

The followers of each of these religions believed that theirs was the true faith and contained within it the correct answers to life's great questions. All too often, as will be seen below, followers of a faith were ever eager to cut the throats of those who disagreed with them.

But on many of the most basic aspects, mankind's multitude of religious thoughts contradict each other. On what would seem to be the most basic truth of all, just how many gods there are, the various religions throughout the world are in complete disagreement. It therefore follows that most of the world's religions, if indeed not all of them, do not have the correct answer to the basic question of how many gods there are. They cannot. For one to be correct means the others are incorrect. Yet the followers of each religion believe they are correct, even though this is impossible.

Ergo, belief that one is correct is not in and of itself proof that one is correct.

If one posits the existence of a god or gods able to communicate their presence to human minds, then as an inevitable result of the existence of that god or gods, it would be expected that all humans, or at least the priests who claim communications with the god(s), would have a unanimity of opinion as to how many gods there are.

Likewise, if one posits the existence of a god or gods able to communicate their existence to human minds, then as an inevitable result of the existence of that god or gods, able to communicate to human minds, all theologies would be in accord, and there would be no need for missionaries, let alone inquisitions and holy crusades.

But there is a diversity of opinions as to how many gods there are. And there are missionaries, crusades, the inquisition, and the burning of a million heretics.

The world is not as it would be if there was a god or gods which could communicate their existence to the minds of humankind. None of the conditions which must inevitably follow the existence of a god or gods able to communicate their existence to the minds of humankind can be found anywhere on Earth.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum, no such gods exist.

Palestine

To all the morons who say Palestine never existed

Propaganda

BREAKING NEWS : Agents Provocateurs in anti-Israeli clashes?
We should seeing spray-painted swastikas start to show up as Israel plays for more pity.



Vandals hit Knoxville Jewish Temple, Synagogue
Right on cue!! I spoke too soon

The Rothschild Octopus

The Rothschild Octopus

If you really want to know how the world is controlled, this is a great article.

Israel says NO CIVILIAN CASUALTIES

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3b3_1230864719

Right after Israel bombed a market. Doing the Lords work!! You would think a Jesus-guided smart bomb would have better aim....

The world domination plans by Neo-Cons

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/5834/pnacplanwo7.jpg

Its all about the OIL.

The OTHER side of the argument

http://palestinian.ning.com/forum/topics/the-other-side-of-the-story

Yup, sure looks like the Israelis got the short end of that stick, huh? What a bunch of psychopaths but I am positive Faux News will find a way to spin this into a positive. Israel is nothing more than a nation of demented, psychopathic murderers . They are involved in just about every ugly thing going on across the planet from their tribal control of the porn industry; to drug trafficking, human traffic, child murder, the crashing of the world financial systems, and 99% of the world’s terror attacks. It ‘s got to be really tough being an eight hundred pound gorilla in a cage match with a canary ….and to get the people to TAKE YOUR SIDE. I don’t know, somehow Israel gets it done. It’s like some 6’8” serial rapist claiming that the 80 pound 13 year old girl he was doing made him do it AND you believed him. Most of you still do anyway.




Attributed to Les Visible over at Smoking Mirrors

Bush's final FUCK YOU!!

The administration is rushing to enact a host of last-minute regulations that will screw America for years to come

by Tim Dickinson


With president-elect Barack Obama already taking command of the financial crisis, it's tempting to think that regime change in America is a done deal. But if George Bush has his way, the country will be ruled by his slash-and-burn ideology for a long time to come.

In its final days, the administration is rushing to implement a sweeping array of "midnight regulations" - de facto laws issued by the executive branch - designed to lock in Bush's legacy. Under the last- minute rules, which can be extremely difficult to overturn, loaded firearms would be allowed in national parks, uranium mining would be permitted near the Grand Canyon and many injured consumers would no longer be able to sue negligent manufacturers in state courts. Other rules would gut the Endangered Species Act, open millions of acres of wild lands to mining, restrict access to birth control and put local cops to work spying for the federal government.

"It's what we've seen for Bush's whole tenure, only accelerated," says Gary Bass, executive director of the nonpartisan group OMB Watch. "They're using regulation to cement their deregulatory mind-set, which puts corporate interests above public interests."

While every modern president has implemented last-minute regulations, Bush is rolling them out at a record pace - nearly twice as many as Clinton, and five times more than Reagan. "The administration is handing out final favors to its friends," says Véronique de Rugy, a scholar at George Mason University who has tracked six decades of midnight regulations. "They couldn't do it earlier - there would have been too many political repercussions. But with the Republicans having lost seats in Congress and the presidency changing parties, Bush has nothing left to lose."

The most jaw-dropping of Bush's rule changes is his effort to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act. Under a rule submitted in November, federal agencies would no longer be required to have government scientists assess the impact on imperiled species before giving the go-ahead to logging, mining, drilling, highway building or other development. The rule would also prohibit federal agencies from taking climate change into account in weighing the impact of projects that increase greenhouse emissions - effectively dooming polar bears to death-by-global-warming. According to Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, "They've taken the single biggest threat to wildlife and said, 'We're going to pretend it doesn't exist, for regulatory purposes.'"

Bush is also implementing other environmental rules that will cater to the interests of many of his biggest benefactors:

BIG COAL In early December, the administration finalized a rule that allows the industry to dump waste from mountaintop mining into neighboring streams and valleys, a practice opposed by the governors of both Tennessee and Kentucky. "This makes it legal to use the most harmful coal-mining technology available," says Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. A separate rule also relaxes air-pollution standards near national parks, allowing Big Coal to build plants next to some of America's most spectacular vistas - even though nine of 10 EPA regional administrators dissented from the rule or criticized it in writing. "They're willing to sacrifice the laws that protect our national parks in order to build as many new coal plants as possible," says Mark Wenzler, director of clean-air programs for the National Parks Conservation Association. "This is the last gasp of Bush and Cheney's disastrous policy, and they've proven there's no line they won't cross."

BIG OIL In a rule that becomes effective just three days before Obama takes office, the administration has opened up nearly 2 million acres of mountainous lands in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming for the mining of oil shale - an energy-intensive process that also drains precious water resources. "The administration has admitted that it has no idea how much of Colorado's water supply would be required to develop oil shale, no idea where the power would come from and no idea whether the technology is even viable," says Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado. What's more, Bush is slashing the royalties that Big Oil pays for oil-shale mining from 12.5 percent to five percent. "A pittance," says Salazar

BIG AGRICULTURE Factory farms are getting two major Christmas presents from Bush this year. Circumventing the Clean Water Act, the administration has approved last-minute regulations that will allow animal waste from factory farms to seep, unmonitored, into America's waterways. The regulation leaves it up to the farms themselves to decide whether their pollution is dangerous enough to require them to apply for a permit. "It's the fox guarding the henhouse - all too literally," says Pope. The water rule goes into effect December 22nd, and a related rule in the works would exempt factory farms from reporting air pollution from animal waste.

BIG CHEMICAL In October, two weeks after consulting with industry lobbyists, the White House exempted more than 100 major polluters from monitoring their emissions of lead, a deadly neurotoxin. Seemingly hellbent on a more toxic future, the administration will also allow industry to treat 3 billion pounds of hazardous waste as "recycling" each year, and to burn another 200 million pounds of hazardous waste reclassified as "fuel," increasing cancer-causing air pollution. The rule change is a reward to unrepentant polluters: Nearly 90 percent of the factories that will be permitted to burn toxic waste have already been cited for violating existing environmental protections.

Environmental rollbacks may take center stage in Bush's final deregulatory push, but the administration is also promulgating a bevy of rules that will strip workers of labor protections, violate civil liberties, and block access to health care for women and the poor. Among the worst abuses:

LABOR Under Bush, the Labor Department issued only one major workplace-safety rule in eight years - and that was under a court order. But now the Labor Department is finalizing a rule openly opposed by Obama that would hamper the government's ability to protect workers from exposure to toxic chemicals. Bypassing federal agencies, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao developed the rule in secret, relying on a report that has been withheld from the public. Under the last-minute changes, federal agencies would be expected to gather unnecessary data on workplace exposure and jump through more bureaucratic hurdles, adding years to an already cumbersome regulatory process.

In another last-minute shift, the administration has rewritten rules to make it harder for workers to take time off for serious medical conditions under the Family and Medical Leave Act. In addition, the administration has upped the number of hours that long-haul truckers can be on the road. The new rule - nearly identical to one struck down by a federal appeals court last year - allows trucking companies to put their drivers behind the wheel for 11 hours a day, with only 34 hours of downtime between hauls. The move is virtually certain to kill more motorists: Large-truck crashes already kill 4,800 drivers and injure another 76,000 every year.

HEALTH CARE In late August, the administration proposed a new regulation ostensibly aimed at preventing pharmacy and clinic workers from being forced to participate in abortions. But the wording of the new rule is so vague as to allow providers to deny any treatment that anyone in their practice finds objectionable - including contraception, family planning and artificial insemination. Thirteen state attorneys general protested the regulation, saying it "completely obliterates the rights of patients to legal and medically necessary health care services."

In a rule that went into effect on December 8th, the administration also limited vision and dental care for more than 50 million low-income Americans who rely on Medicaid. "This means the states are going to have to pick up the tab or cut the services at a time when a majority of states are in a deficit situation," says Bass of OMB Watch. "It's a horrible time to do this." To make matters worse, the administration has also raised co-payments for Medicaid, forcing families on poverty wages to pay up to 10 percent of the cost for doctor visits and medicine. One study suggests that co-payments could cause Medicaid patients to skip nearly a fifth of all prescription-drug treatments. "People who have nothing are being asked to pay for services they rely upon to live," says Elaine Ryan, vice president of government relations for AARP. "Imposing co-pays on the poorest and sickest people in the United States is cynical and cruel."

NATIONAL SECURITY Under midnight regulations, the administration is seeking to lock in the domestic spying it began even before 9/11. One rule under consideration would roll back Watergate-era prohibitions barring state and local law enforcement from spying on Americans and sharing that information with U.S. intelligence agencies. "If the federal government announced tomorrow that it was creating a new domestic intelligence agency of more than 800,000 operatives reporting on even the most mundane everyday activities, Americans would be outraged," says Michael German, a former FBI agent who now serves as national security policy counsel for the ACLU. "This proposed rule change is the final step in creating an America we no longer recognize - an America where everyone is a suspect.

John Podesta, the transition chief for the Obama administration, has vowed that the new president will leverage his "executive authority" to fight Bush's last-minute rule changes. But according to experts who study midnight regulations, there's surprisingly little an incoming executive can do to overturn such rules. The Bush administration succeeded in repealing just three percent of the regulations finalized before Bill Clinton left office in 2001. "Midnight regulations under Bush are being executed early and with great intent," says Bass of OMB Watch. "And that intent is to lock the next administration into these regulations, making it very difficult for Obama to undo what Bush just did."

To protect the new rules against repeal, the Bush administration began amping up its last-gasp regulatory process back in May. The goal was to have all new regulations finalized by November 1st, providing enough time to accommodate the 60-day cooling-off period required before major rule changes - those that create an economic impact greater than $100 million - can be implemented.

Now, however, the administration has fallen behind schedule - so it's gaming the system to push through its rules. In several cases, the Office of Management and Budget has fudged the numbers to classify rules that could have billion-dollar consequences as "non-major" - allowing any changes made through mid-December to take effect in just 30 days, before Obama is inaugurated. The administration's determination of what constitutes a major change is not subject to review in court, and the White House knows it: Spokesman Tony Fratto crowed that the 60-day deadline is "irrelevant to our process."

Once a rule is published in the Federal Register, the Obama administration will have limited options for expunging it. It can begin the rule-making process anew, crafting Obama rules to replace the Bush rules, but that approach could take years, requiring time-consuming hearings, scientific fact-finding and inevitable legal wrangling. Or, if the new rules contain legal flaws, a judge might allow the Obama administration to revise them more quickly. Bush's push to gut the Endangered Species Act, for example, was done in laughable haste, with 15 employees given fewer than 36 hours to review and process more than 200,000 public comments. "The ESA rule is enormously vulnerable to a legal challenge on the basis that there was inadequate public notice and comment," says Pope of the Sierra Club. "The people who did that reviewing will be put on a witness stand, and it will become clear to a judge that this was a complete farce." But even that legal process will take time, during which industry will continue to operate under the Bush rules.

The best option for overturning the rules, ironically, may be a gift bestowed on Obama by Newt Gingrich. Known as the Congressional Review Act, it was passed in 1996 to give Congress the option of overriding what GOP leaders viewed at the time as excessive regulation by Bill Clinton. The CRA allows Congress to not only kill a new rule within 60 days, but to do so with a simple, filibuster-immune majority. De Rugy, the George Mason scholar, expects Democrats in the House and Senate to make "very active use of the Congressional Review Act."

But even this option, it turns out, is fraught with obstacles. First, the CRA requires a separate vote on each individual regulation. Second, the act prohibits reviving any part of a rule that has been squelched. Since Bush's rules sometimes contain useful reforms - the move to limit the Family and Medical Leave Act also extends benefits for military families - spiking the rules under the CRA would leave Obama unable to restore or augment those benefits in the future. Whatever Obama does will require him to expend considerable political capital, at a time when America faces two wars and an economic crisis of historic proportions.

"It's going to be very challenging for Obama," says Bass. "Is he going to want to look forward and begin changing the way government works? Or is he going to look back and fix the problems left by Bush? Either way, it's a tough call."

More pics of "Rockets"

http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/12/26/kawther-salam-the-rockets-of-hunger-and-israeli-propaganda/

I popped bigger fireworks than this 3 nights ago.

Israel and its propaganda

HAMAS rocket hits Israel!

A picture of the "rocket". Looks a little fishy to me, rockets need guidance systems and a special fuel. This thing looks like a welding coupon with fins. This is just bad propaganda.

Another "Rocket". Notice the five NASA type boosters on this hi-tech piece of equiment. Do the Israelis really think everyone is this stupid? This is the worst propaganda I have seen in a LONG time. So this is what the Palestinians have and the Israelis have Nukes, Apache gunships, Tanks, and F-16's.

Another example of a "Rocket". This one has SEVEN NASA type booster engines!!! It's extra special! The fins are a little crooked but the Israelis will claim it was bent when it hit an Israeli daycare or some bullshit story.

Ever notice how the Gaza strip is always a hotbed of "Terrorists" but the West Bank never acts up? Well, I do know for a fact that the Gazans happen to own the rights to the very large natural gas field right offshore. Hmmm.....A country claiming to be hit by "terrorists" then going in with guns blazing and finding NOTHING. Then they grab oil and gas resources......Where have I heard that before?