Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Wednesday's News

Iran and Us

It’s not a matter of when the civil war in Iraq escalates into a larger, regional battle, but the more pertinent question is how soon that will happen. Iran has been assisting Iraq’s Shiite militias with weaponry and resources in somewhat of a covert fashion. These weapons are used against Sunnis and US troops alike, but only recently did Bush feel the need to remind the world that Iranians who fire upon us will be responded to with lethal force. It’s just more rhetorical nonsense from the King of Rhetoric himself, but the message indicates some more coded information. We, the US, are afraid of Iran’s involvement in the skirmish. Our military is stretched too far, our people are war fatigued, and the entire known universe thinks we suck right now. Unlike the country we’ve invaded and are having a tough time getting in order, Iran has a military, and is eager to secure a totally Shiite governed Iraq. That would spell out more trouble for US policy makers and certain death to any Iraqi Sunni. To me, it seems inevitable.

If the US pulls out now, or soon, Iran will move in immediately and increase its power in the region. If the US stays and polices an entire country of death and chaos, Iran and Shiite militias, which are one in the same, will wear the Giant down little by little until our military feels they can’t continue anymore. That could take decades and many more American deaths. There is no easy answer.

Regardless of how it plays out, America will once again go down in the history books for another boneheaded decision to remove Saddam from power. Sure, Iraqis didn’t have the best situation under his regime, and yes, he was a vicious tyrant. But what we’ve done is accelerated the deterioration of stability in what amounts to an entire continent of people and governments. And for what?

Our government lied to us in justifying their financial and commercial ambitions in Iraq. Then followed by refusing to admit they’d made a mistake. They even have gone as far as to scapegoat select cronies within the administration when evidence turns up that they lied. Their actions have caused thousands of people to be tortured to death, millions more displaced from their homes, and have exemplified to the world how our leaders and ‘powers that be’ are nearly sub human when it comes to securing their expensive means to their greedy ends. I get the feeling that they don’t care about the welfare of anyone at all, American or foreign. How can anyone believe anything they say? They’re worse than children who have been caught in a lie and refuse to confess. And these people lead our country. They make the decisions that affect our lives. I don’t get the feeling people fully understand that. Think about any and every decision they’ve made and tell me how you’re life has been improved from these decisions. The American people are more uninformed and unaware than ever before even with such technological marvels as the Internet. Our global outlook may be damaged beyond repair and our middle class is shriveling under the Bush magnifying glass. We’ve accumulated an insurmountable debt, most of which China has bought and our economy went from pretty strong to laughably fragile.

Whoever takes the reigns of this shit storm will not succeed. We have broken a large, important part of the world and we will feel a nasty backlash because of it. It is not a proud time to be an American and in our efforts of ‘securing world peace’, we’ve managed to make worldwide relations more tenuous than ever. Let’s just hope we’re praying to the right God.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Friday's News

Wiretapping of the NSA and the reality it reflects

The wiretapping civil suits against the NSA are about to get underway, and one of the cases will be tried right here in Cincinnati. Reports today outline the shadowy, unorthodox methods that the NSA has been filing it's reports on the case. Experts point out that attorneys traditionally exchange files for examination, then open the files to the public. Not in this case. The NSA is keeping the documents in their headquarters and only allowing the judges to read the files and not keep copies for themselves. In a sense, they don't want us to see how they got caught.

Why should the NSA start playing by any agreed upon rules at this point? They've already violated the privacy of select Americans without a court order to do so and that's only what we know about. Imagine the countless infractions that go unnoticed or unchecked throughout every defense govt. agency. We all knew Big Brother existed. We, or at least I, never thought they would get caught with their hands in our cookie jars. At least not until they were ready to get caught, that is.

The whole issue provokes the question of how free are we really? How do you gauge something like that? Sure we can vote for public officers, but that's shown to be a faulty, if not a rigged, enterprise as well. We can spend our money and time as we please, but the govt. administered social constructs that have made certain we do so on their terms. That means we spend time working to make money that we spend on crap we've never needed in the first place. I worked out at my school's rec and out of 500 people I saw, maybe twelve who didn't have ipods (it's only fair to confess that I too would like to have one). We have freedom of expression, but the rigid limitations on that issue have been debated for eons. Speak any kind of dissenting truth and you're casted away labeled as a conspiracy theorist. Endorse one thing strongly enough and you're biased and therefore less credible about that of which you endorse. The word 'freedom' is difficult to precisely define. Are we not provided guidelines and recommended ways to spend our lives through media outlets and community leaders? Do we not fall into place among the mass of sheep being herded through this society of consumption and waste? We, the subjects of the all powerful capitalist puppet masters, dance accordingly to the pull of their strings. We jump when we're told and out casted when we refuse. That is a sickening kind of freedom.

The fact that Big Brother is slipping is concerning. America as a superpower is, if not in it's decline, at least in it's twilight. China is rapidly catching up and our nations leadership can be called anything but strong. The masses are becoming increasingly out of touch with reality and the national debt is now laughable. At least I'm laughing. If the agency who spies on it's people and it's enemies alike, the agency we're to fear but not notice, can't go about their work efficiently, then what can US citizens feel confident about?

I think the way the US allowed it's people to become genuinely dumber within the past 50 years is beginning to show it's side effects. Didn't the powers that be 50 years ago foresee this when they decided a dumber population would be easier to control? It worked it's way to the top and now we are being lead by extremely average, if not below average, elected officials. Dummies electing dummies is how I see it.

Good day.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Today's News

1/24/07

Thursday’s Headlines

Scooter the Scapegoat
Poor Scooter Libby. He thought he was safe in a camp of ruthless war hawks, only to become exhibit A on why people, no matter what their political rank, are not to trust our esteemed policy makers and war planners. Bush lied to the world about Iraq’s attempts to acquire ‘yellow cake’ for their mythical WMD’s. He knew it was false the entire time. All the White House pricks knew it was false, but it became necessary to build a justification for invading a country to pillage its capital and resources. They also knew the excuse wasn’t going to fly forever, and that sooner or later, the world would catch on to their deceit. Enter Scooter. He’s an ideal fall guy. Too many people know who Karl Rove is and of how he attends the top-secret meetings within the white house. They want to protect Rove, so they throw Libby to the wolves instead. After all, someone’s gotta burn for this.

This type of blame deflection seems to be a pattern. Rumsfeld faced the same heat. The war was falling apart, so they fire a cabinet member who’s on TV a lot, blame him for what went wrong (through actions, not explanations), and take all the heat off themselves in the process. It happens in sports all the time. A coach is hired on to a bad team with no talent, the team loses, the coach is fired and the blame of the losing season leaves with him. The owner is spared, the players are spared, and the fans feel placated. Rumsfeld was a fall guy too. The administration knew the war wasn’t going to go well. But regime change, liberating the Iraqi people, and stabilizing the region weren’t the real objectives for why the US invaded. We’ve established the oil contracts to the big petroleum companies while stating publicly how Iraq will control and retain profits from their oil, when really, Iraq will control less than a third of it. We’ve established groundwork to maintain a huge military and diplomatic presence there that will last forever. We’re doing our best to force our culture upon the people so that they will begin to buy things they have never needed before in order to help our economy at home, which really is the global economy anyway. Our real objectives have been completed. Back to the point.

Scooter Libby and Donald Rumsfeld are terrific examples of how the financial super powers will not only eliminate any opposition that stands in their way, but of how they’ll actually orchestrate and plan on forcing the blame for their unethical policies on the ‘yes men’ they employ. It allows the unchecked empirical global domination of capitalism to continue it’s voracious consumption of the world and it’s peoples.

I watched the State of the Union but didn’t really listen. Does it matter what he says anymore? He’s cried wolf so often that I can no longer even hear his voice. And when he is called on the carpet for his obvious dishonesty, he fires a pawn to save face.

American Cars

It was reported today American car companies continue to lose money hand over fist. Why on earth, would anyone buy a new American car? What benefits or advantages do American cars feature that foreign cars don’t? A person only buys a new American car in order to save peoples jobs at plants and factories. I think it’s amusing that Americans will do anything to get over on the next man, but we somehow have a soft spot for US automakers. Gimmie a break. First of all, Americans should be weaning themselves off of personal automobile dependence anyway, but we’ll get into that another day. The only reason those car companies haven’t closed up shop is the other rich fuckers keeping them afloat. It’s a very political scene. We need strong domestic markets to point to when hippies start screaming about globalization, even though we don’t make anything all that well in this country. We’re fed stories of all the poor people being fired from these plants, yet we rarely read anything about the small business owners forced into bankruptcy by neighboring corporations. I say let Ford die a slow, agonizing death. Let a wealthy white American executive feel the sting of a laze fare economy that they constantly impose on foreign and small domestic markets. It’s about time at least one of them faced the music.



That’s all I have time for today, but there are plenty of other stories I‘d like to address. I’ll try to keep up with these blogs more consistently, but as you all know, time is a valuable commodity. Now that the Bengals are finished (not that the painful news stories don’t continue to flood in – fucking Joseph!), I’ll try to open the range of topics I write about. Good day.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

This is the new home for the caged one - Mojokong. Those who have read previous blogs on Myspace will continue to be notified when new blogs are posted. Thanks to all who read this blog, and good day.