Obama/Biden "We Will Bring Change" (In the Targets we Saber Rattle Against)

Biden gave a revealing speech last night. The excerpts I watched on Democracy Now today made me nauseous. I was cursing the TV as if it was Bush himself speaking idiocy, instead of the Vice agent of "hope and change".

It's not just that he mouthed the mandatory mantra about the "War on Terror". I didn't expect either of the corporate candidates to challenge that nonsense. It is forbidden speech to question how the largest military machine in the history of the planet can wage war on a noun. And putting more cops on the street? Did he see the streets of Denver? How can more cops fit on the streets?

And Obama has already threatened to attack Pakistan and called for more troops to Afghanistan, so that is expected.

But the saber rattling against China, India, and special guest villain, Russia, was outrageous. He claimed, and I quote, "Russia challenging the very freedom of a new democratic country of Georgia". And " we will hold Russia accountable for its action and we will help Georgia rebuild". And the crowd went wild! Are they nuts? Biden wants to send a billion dollars to help support the US puppet dictator, Sakashvilli, maintain his hold over the people of Georgia. The US is playing a very dangerous game with Russia, building bases all around it, placing missiles on its borders, supporting a government that actually killed Russian soldiers!

Sane people are appalled by these actions. But the Democrats waved their placards and cheered.

Biden claims to know that al-qaida is regrouping in Afghanistan and is planning more attacks. Really? If our bloated national security spy system knows that, why can't they stop it? It's sure not for lack of torture. What do our billions of dollars pay for? Or is this a trailer of coming attractions? 9-11 worked to bring the country in line for Bush. They couldn't have another attack under Bush (not counting the anthrax, which was an admitted inside job). But they sure can have another under a Democrat.

Not mentioned in the speech - Joe Biden supported the US attack on Yugoslavia, get this, to stop Serbia from preventing a breakaway province from seceding. Ironic? I think so. Shameless? Republican quality shamelessness.

Joe Biden announced that the government of Sudan attacking its own citizens made it lose its right to sovereignty! But not the government of Georgia.

Joe Biden supported the US attack on Iraq. And he arrogantly calls for breaking Iraq into 3 separate countries, which calls for massive ethnic cleansing (now being completed by the Bush team). (See Yugoslavia, above).

The Obama/Biden team pretend that the US is still able to bend the world to its will. Reality has no more hold upon their grand plans than it does on Bush's.

They Fired the Dreamers

I was watching an old Henry Fonda movie from 1942, or so. The plot is that he is a professor who announces that he is going to quote Vanzetti, of Sacco and Vanzetti fame. There is a great uproar, because the university is under pressure by the trustees to get rid of communists, or they won't get a new football stadium.

It ends that Fonda gives the lecture to a crowded auditorium, speaks out for academic freedom, university independence and freedom of speech, then reads the quote. He wins over everyone with his Enlightenment ideals, even the football players and the right wing trustee, and there is a parade with him hoisted onto the football players shoulders. And his wife comes back.

Oh, don't the commies who obviously wrote that script wish it were so. How'd that work out for them 10 years later, trying to explain the Bill of Rights to the House on Un-American Activities?

Ironically, later that day I watched a 9-11 truth video, with a besieged truther, standing on a corner in New York, trying to explain the difference between patriotism and blind nationalism to a group of foul-mouthed New Yorkers, who clearly were as amenable to learning as Joe McCarthy was.

And the quote from Vanzetti?

"If it had not been for this thing, I might have lived out my life, talking at street corners to scorning men."

I think he nailed it.

Yes, Dear

Have you ever been talking with your spouse and realize that they're not listening? So you start making stuff up? Like, "Hey, why don't we burn down the house and join the circus? And travel by camel across Brazil? Do you mind if I empty the savings account to pay for my boy toy?" And they nod assent and continue what they're doing.

That's the American public. The ruling class has gotten more and more brazen as they've realized that people just aren't paying attention.

Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The surge is going well. We all loved Ronald Reagan. Putting a massive weapon system in Poland is self defense against Iran. The Russians are paranoid for questioning our pure motives. We are all Georgians now. If the President does it, it's not illegal.

And the people that do pay attention are powerless, so the ruling class no longer feels that it needs to keep up appearances. There are millions of us who are sputteringly furious at the open corruption, the brazen lies, the shameless siphoning off of the public treasury, the criminal selling of public lands and resources, the depraved profit making off other people's misery and death. We are mad as hell, and we don't want to take it anymore.

As Cheney would say, "So?"

How Will the American Empire End?

Americans brag that we fought a war to end slavery. Well, some of us did. Some of us fought a war to preserve slavery. Anyway, what's the big deal about that? Other countries simply outlawed slavery, no war necessary.

Americans are self-righteous about other country's mistreatment of minorities. South Africa's apartheid, Israel's oppression of Palestinians, Russia's problem with Chechyna. My, they treat the original inhabitants badly! The US doesn't have that problem. The survivors of the original peoples of this continent are few, isolated, and not mentioned when pointing fingers at other countries.

Other countries have lost their empires. Rome, Spain, Turkey, Russia, England. They adjusted. What will the US do?

I have a bad feeling about this.

The only country to use the atomic bomb, the country that has killed millions of people since WW2 for the crime of wanting a better life, the country with the biggest military in history - are we just going to give up and let the next empire rise? Or are we going to try to take the world down with us?

Monday Aug. 11 Addendum:That didn't take long! Georgia, on Russia's border, and part of it for 200 years, with a US backed government, flush with American and Israeli weapons and training, attacked a province of Russians which seceded from Georgia years ago. Russia invaded to protect it's people and interests. Now the US corporate media is screaming that Russia invaded Georgia!

Apparently, the US is going to take the world down with us.