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2.20.2003
Watched the season finale of the bachelorette. I know, bad. But, its like my recent spat of football watching. Its not too good to get far away from what the majority of people do with their time. Its like trying to stay grounded. At least that's what I tell myself. Besides, it helps in conversation. I need something other than politics to talk about with people. With some 50% of people not aware that there were No Iraqis on the 9/11 planes I suppose a more nuanced conversation about foriegn policy kinda flies outta the window. Back to the Bucs and the Superbowl commercials.... Anyways, what I noticed is that everybody on the bachelorette was SO very mainstream! It didnt see like there was a whole lot of variety in the men that she had to choose from. I could not see myself on that show with my beliefs and opinions. I would stick out pretty bad. Anybody with any general ideas about ANYTHING would stick out. Of course, you may be saying, how obvious. After all they are on TV. The nesting place for the dominant commercial culture. Its not by accident that they spend alot of time visiting commercial businesses and being paraded about a plethora of merchandise. There was even an episode where they bring in a new extremely expensive sports car for Charlie to drive around. He seemed more interested in the car that he did Trista. In a way I have respect for the people that DID actually self destruct on teh show. At least that had a reason to be angry or embarrased. They let it hang out a little as opposed to being so damned boring that they just drifted out of existence. Its ironic that Television homes in on people that are interesting and they get lots of mileage out of people that act in strange and interesting ways, but at the same time they always pander to the mindless commerrcial bots that live to buy and buy to live. Hardly good television, but great consumers. Consumers make bad television. | 2.10.2003
ok, either the Bush Admin. is really bad at foreign policy or they have a master plan that will knock our socks off. I can't decide really. I mean, you look at the team and there are some fairly competent people on the staff. People like Powell and Rice and... and... well, that might be it really. They seem to be able to piece together a reasonable argument without resorting to insults and threats like Rumsfeld or Dubya. So, If they are just really bad at foreign policy they've been really really really bad. Its like showing your hand before you start to bluff. Lets have a look at what's happened. They've threatened the credibility of the United Nations and the Security Council. They have alienated large populations of Germans and French with their remarks. People in the United States are becoming skeptical of the war and we've made being our friends an ugly thing. Blair is taking a beating, Powell, who had the most credibility is looking more and more like a puppet for the administration pitching the war that nobody wants with paper thin evidence and bad logical arguments. Their burning through all their assets in a vain attempt to trump up a war that nobody really wants. Even the right wing and the Republicans are pretty luke-warm when it comes to cheering on this war. They see that there is no imminent danger to the US. Only the most paranoid of the pundits are gung ho for this invasion. They now have a real crisis in the form of North Korea that should demand some attention but is still getting back burner treatment because of the Iraq debacle. We are stirring up bad feelings in the middle east and creating a more fertile recruiting ground for Al Qaida. But... Lets suppose that there really is some plan. Then the only course of action that will work is to stop just short of invasion. They pull back at the last minute. Our allies are grateful not to have to fight, our enemies are grateful that we still have a brain and they get what they want. Military force and the credible threat of a deranged post 9/11 president create the results that are desired without a missile being fired. Britain looks good for sticking with the US, Germany and France look good for standing on principle, Saddam gets ousted and everyone goes away happy. Bush gets to talk tough about how he lead the world to the results we wanted without having to resort to force. As a little added bonus they also get all the domestic policies that would have gotten too much bad press without the Iraq issues taking up all the media's attention. The workers still get shafted but they vote for Bush anyway. I don't know... The odds right now are not good. I won't deny the possibility that scenario #2 could play out but I have very little trust in Bush and Rove and Rumsfeld and Cheney. They are still crooked, but the real question is; are they stupid too? But I don't know... | The Bush Plan seeks to do a very simple thing. Maximize military spending through the war on terrorism, missle defense and the invasion of Iraq. Increase the national debt, to kill govt spending on social programs, transfer wealth to the debt holders. Move as many public assets to private hands, including education, parks, land, health care, medicare, social security and charity. Reduce or eliminate taxation on sources of income that benefit the wealthy; income, dividends, capital gains. Maintain taxation of payroll taxes, or transfer that tax directly to the private sector (aka, privatize retirement, social security, etc) Reduce the means that workers have to battle corporate abuse; tort "reform", underfunded watchdog groups. Undermine worker protections, wages and legal recourse through international trade treaties. ----- When the government spends over $300 billion of defense spending, I cannot even fathom that much money, it does a few things: The corporations get lucrative contracts to build dodads for the DOD. The executives at the corporations get bonuses for their good fortune, they ask for better compensation The stock prices go up and the shareholders make their money, they can buy more stock, own more The executives can cash out some options and make some quick cash, they can buy more, own more In the foreseeable future the government is going to take on debt to finance their gluttonny of military spending then: The wealthy buy the government debt that will be paid for by the taxpayers The interest on the government debt will be paid for out of social spending. If Bush gets his elimination on dividend taxation then: The money that the defense contractors pay to shareholders will be tax free, a direct transfer of wealth to the shareholders. Corporations already have ways of preventing the taxation of corporate income. Usually by stating that they dont make any money. Despite stating to Wall Street that they make more and more money all the time. If Bush can get the drop in income tax rates: What little money that the rich earn from non-interest income will be taxed at a lower rate. Things like outrageous salaries. If Bush gets the elimination of the estate tax: The wealthy will be able to hoard their money and pass it down to their kids so they will become wealthy by birth. What you will see is that government tax money will flow into the treasury from workers who will still pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes. The govt will give that money to corporations, in the form of direct subsidies, government contracts, and tax incentives. Corporations will take their profit and distribute it amongst the shareholders with dividedends and the executives through perks and salary. The wealthy will use their income from the government to buy more stocks, land, businesses. The worker will fund the government through their taxation, they will see reduced wages due to international trade laws and will spend the rest of their money buying subsistence products that benefit the corporations as well. Basically, from a worker point of view, we work for free. We work to pay for a government that transfers the wealth we create to a ruling class that is free of taxation and who reap the overwhelming benefits of corporate wealth production. All of our income is taxed at least three times, income tax, payroll tax, sales tax, and a profit tax to Wall Street, which is essentially a fee to receive the products that the workers create. | 2.07.2003
Who Pays and When? An Assessment of Generational Accounting "In a sense, all of the government's prospective spending is an implicit liability. That is, people expect government to provide a legal system, national defense, public works, education for the young, a safety net for the poor, an income floor for the old, and so on. Similarly, prospective revenue is an implicit asset of government because people expect to pay taxes to finance such spending. The deficit does not record such implicit obligations because they do not represent binding claims. For example, retirees have no legal claim to the Medicare benefits they expected when they retired. Technically, the Congress could reduce the benefits at any time, even though people had planned on receiving higher benefits. Nevertheless, government has a duty to try to meet its implicit commitments. It could not capriciously change taxes or benefits without losing its reputation for keeping its implicit word and treating people fairly. The ability to govern ultimately rests on such a reputation." I wonder if the Bush Admin has read this? bruceblog@peoplepc.com | An elected representative government reflects the public opinion. The public opinion is in a large part formed by the information that people are given. Therefore the greatest crime that mass media can commit is the selective withholding of information. I dont think the media are trying to shape the public perception on an individual and intentional basis (except for obvious right wing propaganda networks and radio). For at least the large national media I belive that David Shaw has the right of it. I switched on the local news coverage of the Powell Speech and watched with great interest. I was very excited to see what I thought would be a discusion of this evidence. Instead, the minute after the speech was over EVERY SINGLE STATION switched over to their talking head who was mumbling on about how we just watched Colin Powell.... blah blah blah. Then they trotted out some commentator to tell us what they thought of the speech, all this while the whole process was still underway! They were so anxious to be the first ones to get their faces on the screen that they all switched over practically before the last words were out of Powell's mouth. After the obligatory talking heads yammering they switched back... to JENNY JONES!!!! hurrah for the media! Instead of airing the comments from the rest of the world including a rebuttal of Powell by the ambassador from Iraq they went back to their horrendous daytime programming. So instead we were offered Sargent Moses yelling at a 12 yr old kid to get him to stop cussing at his momma. great. I switched back to listening to NPR, without which I would be just another ignorant american. You have your choices in this society, you either hunt through the internet for the informtion you need or you turn to somethign like NPR, where you get actual coverage of events. I also have to give credit to C-Span as well. I don't have cable here but I do see C-Span occasionally and I am always impressed. The network news channels are a disgrace to our democratic society. They should be laughed off the screens. We should demand a return of the airwaves that they have been making billions of off for years and not even having the decency to air remarks about a looming war! | 2.06.2003
Listening to David Corn from the The Nation on the radio this morning I had the awful realization of just how hard it is to be a liberal in the news. Just how do you present a nuanced anti-war message in the face of the pro-war mantra that is being put forth by the Bush Administration and the think tanks that support them? The threat of being anti-american is always looming even though you may not see yourself as anti-american. Addressing the notion that just because we have the power doesnt mean we should use it in part depends on a philosophy so off the radar in America that I think it would require a small history lesson just to begin. When the liberal arguement against war depends on the idea of not only root causes but predictable consequences, going into an environment that addresses neither history nor consequences is a daunting task. When the common consensus is that we act justly, morally and without regard for our own power then how do you address that we do not always act thusly. The President of the United States stands before the people and says that we act with the power of morality and providence. History states otherwise. How do you argue from history in what is in effect an a-historical society? Anti-war arguements are ill-suited for the compact talking points type programming that passes for news and editorial debate. Despite the fact that stations like CNN, Fox, MSNBC and their ilk are 24 HOUR news stations they condense discussion to near microscopic proportions. Rarely do you get a debate that extents far past what are in effect the opening salvos. Whoever can present the most direct to the gut arguement comes across better. What better than fear to get to the minds of people? "Saddam is evil, we must destroy him before he gets us, support the president, remember what happened on September 11th!!" Its easy, I could be a pro-war commentator, especially when you have people in authority pushing the cause. Its safe to say that without the vocal support of people in the Bush administration for making war the case would take much more time and effort. When an authority figure takes a stance on an issue then the onus of proof falls on the opposition. Never mind the fact that the President on his bully pulpit can advance his cause with discredited information and rhetoric. How can you argue that the weapons inspectors where not "thrown out" when the president says so right on TV, in front of all the world and the assembled officials of the state? Thrown out, more like pulled out before the bombing, and were indeed acting as spies for the United States. The facts shifts the blame away from the enemy, but to where? People refuse to believe that the government that runs the US will act in ways that are not consistent with its public stance on issues. So the blame has no place to rest. Saddam gassed his own people. Right, ok, except that the United States was aware of this action and was not at all perturbed by it. They saw Saddam's actions putting down the Kurds as preffered to watching their ally in the war with Iran losing power. The phrase "his own people" is noteworthy in the sense that in america we have commited great acts of violence and aggression on what could be called "our own people". The charge could easily be leveled that the US has killed and enslaved "its own people" on many occasions. Yet, historians would point out that slaves and natives would not usually be not be considered "our own people" in that time and place. I suppose Saddam would say the same of the Kurds. But these arguements are around the net so I wont go further. WE ARE NOT AT WAR What seems to be the problem is that the consensus is that we are "at war", and that an invasion of Iraq is a neccesity. I consider both to be false. But if its the basic assumption going into a discussion then how do you debate the issues. I think anti-war activists should stress that we are not at war. We should reduce the chances of future terrorism events but that the war paradigm is an inappropriate one. We cannot invade ourselves to safety. As much as people like to talk about the new world post Sept 11, many still see the miltary solutions of pre-Sept 11th as the best approach, with their only new arguement being that we should reduce the debate and lower the safeguards. In an honest debate we would admit that our military involvement in all parts of the world fuel the ideologies of terrorism. But since we are a society dependent on military power we see it as our only means of addressing issues. If there is a message from 9/11 it is that military solutions are irrelavent. Our attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq are attempts to justify the usefulness of miltary might in the wake of its proven impotence. We are not at war! We are threatening to invade a country based mainly on circumstantial evidence. More importantly, the decision to invade is ours to make despite what you hear people say that we are somehow "forced" by a post 9/11 world. We will go to war as a choice. We will destabilize an area of the world that already serves as the hotbed of terrorism. Chaos breeds more terrorism. Our goal should be to reduce chaos which means that we should reduce the disparity in this world. We will not do this because we need the poor and desperate to fuel our economic needs. We are not at war! Anti-war people should have the gumption to say that. Even though the media has bought the Bush Administration lie that we are at war. We should take the lead in opposing the Orwellian notions of perpetual war that is being promoted. If we are at war now, I would hate to see when we are really at war. | 2.04.2003
CPAC - THE AXIS OF EVIL ! ! ::shudders:: Our own Oklahoma right wing nut was a speaker. James Inhofe (R-OK) was first elected to the Senate in 1994 to complete the unexpired term of Senator David Boren. He is a member of the Armed Services Committee, the Environment & Public Works Committee, the Intelligence Committee and the Indian Affairs Committee. Senator Inhofe plays a leadership role on defense and national security issues. ------- On an interesting side note; I did a little bit of research (of the point and click variety) on KFAQ here in Tulsa and its interesting to note that the parent comapny of the radical right wing station where Michael Savage preaches that "That English is our national "glue." also owns several hispanic radio stations around the country and owns the radio station that broadcasts the packers, the only NFL team to be community owned. oh... | Norman Schwarzkopf on Donald Rumsfeld "It's scary, okay?" he says. "Let's face it: There are guys at the Pentagon who have been involved in operational planning for their entire lives, okay? . . . And for this wisdom, acquired during many operations, wars, schools, for that just to be ignored, and in its place have somebody who doesn't have any of that training, is of concern." | 2.02.2003
"I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." President George W. Bush Damn, that was the quote I looked for right and left the other day. Now I just ned to remember why I needed it. Its like I remember to move my right foot forward then I forget which one goes next.... Here I stand. I would like to take a second to apologize to the rest of the world. It must be a bit frightening to watch the leader of the most heavily armed country in the history of the human race quoting from the Bible and speaking of providence. Nothing would scare me more than an armed fundamentalist! I apologize, and there are people here that are working hard to end the "reign of (t)error" Bruce | |
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