Steny Hoyer shares Facts

Here's an easy-to-read indictment of failure:
Quotes & facts of the (now past) U.S. administration
from the office of U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer
(.pdf file; from 9 Sept. 2008; great data!)

Duped !

Back in September 2008, under the laissez-faire "free market" regime of George W. Bush (Dick Cheney presiding), we were suddenly informed the USA & world economy were in a doomsday financial crisis. We needed market intervention. We had to provide huge amounts of public funding to certain private firms (to the very same people who had put their firm in trouble) and -- (drum roll) -- we needed to do it quickly! With little review or forward planning! Hurry!

The resulting Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, and TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program) led to a feeding frenzy. Banks & major financial firms consumed many hundreds of billions of dollars in low-cost monies. Soon they were demanding more funds. Market discipline was circumvented; regulatory agencies were kept weak; the inept remained in place.       (Wikipedia 1 - 2 - 3 articles)

If told
"act fast or it's the end of the world"
  -- be very cautious...

We was duped.

Stop Speculation Now!

"What the Obama administration is doing is far worse than nationalization: it is ersatz capitalism, the privatizing of gains and the socializing of losses. It is a "partnership" in which one partner robs the other. And such partnerships - with the private sector in control - have perverse incentives, worse even than the ones that got us into the mess."
-- Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1 Apr 2009, New York Times

The financiers and bankers have built a speculative bubble. It can't be unraveled by the bartering of politicians. Speculators are far better at their own game. We cannot win. Don't throw good money after bad. Don't re-fund the same semi-skilled scum who've caused the problem.

The Flim Flam Scam

Our world has too many examples where ignorance results in rape (actual or metaphorical). Consider here the despoiling of peoples, nations and regions. Our widespread economic collapse is due to financial manipulations, insolvency, hostile resource grabbing, & war; personal foreclosures beautifully highlight the brutality of capitalism. Alternative approaches, (e.g. social democrats or religious-based political parties) seek to provide some safety net and measure of reason, but they are also centrally flawed. We need new models, because theocracy, fascism, ultranationalism, unlimited greed & xenophobia are highly-dangerous substitutes for ignorance. (more to come)

Weasel 101: Managing Euphemism

Administrators team with media in maintaining orthodox thought among the inhabitants of a command region. The US Government under President George W. Bush was notably successful in maintaining a disciplined use of euphemism to cloak what could be construed as crimes against humanity or war crimes. "Enhanced interrogation" or "aggressive technique" labels were a mask for torture. Let's be clear: using information often supplied by low-reliability paid informants, US forces seized people. These detainees were transferred hooded & shackled to military prisons (at Guantanamo and elsewhere). Still held without charge, they were stripped naked, doused with cold water, kept awake with loud music or continuous 20+ hour interrogations. Many were forced to maintain stress positions, threatened or attacked by dogs, or held underwater and drowned ("waterboarded") and then revived. Some were kept in isolation cells for months or years - uncharged, without access to the minimal comforts guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions. This US system flaunted the 1984 UN Convention against Torture. Those responsible for torture: US political leaders and staff affiliates, Department of Justice lawyers, interrogators from the US Department of Defence etc., should be prosecuted, convicted & imprisoned for their crimes.

"The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of "a few bad apples" acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees. Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority." -- Senate Armed Services Committee Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody

Womb Wranglers

US President Obama's pro-choice support is being attacked by the Roman Catholic Church and ultra-Right activists. These 'womb wranglers' are concerned about contraception and / or terminated pregnancy: they claim to be supporting a right-to-life.

It is sufficiently clear that almost nobody in the pro-choice population is truly "supportive" of abortion: most deplore & deeply regret the practice. The opposite camp nonetheless demonizes their opponents as killers.

Many might simply wish to avoid the topic. But taking a stand can become urgent. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, has been rigid, dogmatic and punishing. In a recent case. "A nine-year-old Brazilian girl was raped by her stepfather and pregnant with twins. The doctors judged that the small and undeveloped body of the girl did not have the ability to carry the one child let alone two and thus decided to perform an abortion. The nine-year-olds’ mother gave her consent to the procedure, which was made the 4th of March 2009. The Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho decided to excommunicate the mother and the doctors the 6th of March. Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, said that the twins the girl was carrying had the right to live: "It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated. Life must always be protected...""

A parallel band of zealots were responsible for the Bush administration allowing doctors and health professionals to choose to refuse treatment to people whose opinions or lifestyles they disagree with. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt claimed it was the "right of a physician to practice medicine according to his or her moral compass" -- but is it proper to refuse access to health care or medicines? I think it is wrong that licensed professionals (enjoying a protected profession with high barriers-to-entry and enforced scarcity) can thus withhold treatment. Their vision of right-to-life thus only applies to those who agree with them (or to the angelically pure preborn) but for others: "fuck 'em - let them die."

Ending Discrimination?

The British government is in the news as discussing an end to the ban on the heir to the British throne marrying a Roman Catholic (the monarch is head of the Church of England). It all sounds dandy.

But what of the gross sexual discrimination by the Roman Catholic Church in banning women from becoming priests, bishops, cardinals or pope? They scam around the issue by claiming it's outside their control - that "the Church has no authority" with such Divine Law. I say, poppycock! Let's give it a try. Perhaps God will punish the Church, but more likely it's already being punished for misunderstanding Divine Law...

Distorted Face

Major General Geoffrey D. Miller
now retired.

Celebrated in the US Pentagon's Hall of Heroes.
Maj. Gen. Miller’s awards include seven Legions of Merit, Defense Superior Service Medal, Distinguished Service Medal (with Oak Leaf Cluster) and Defense Distinguished Service Medal.

The US Army News Service describes him as "a role model, innovator, and a leader... Our Army asked Geoff Miller to tackle two of the toughest jobs in the Global War on Terror." Commander of Guantanamo, and subsequently Commanding General of Detainee Operations in Iraq, he was "willing to do the heavy lifting of detaining suspected insurgents and developing critical intelligence to help win the war."

He advocated innovative ways to "soften up" the as-yet uncharged detainees for interrogation.

He is under investigation for War Crimes in the USA & Europe.

One of many, responsible for torture.

What should he have done?
Did he provide honorable service? Or did he dishonor his nation?

Read "Break Them Down" by Physicians for Human Rights for some gruesome details...

Cheney, Cheney, bourgeoisie

Dick Cheney / George W. Bush will never be accused of elegance. They are fundamentally small & vindictive. They utilized fear to corral the American people into emasculation. Cheney now brays from a fancy manor that Obama's new government opens our nation to attack. Let's clearly recognize: Cheney, Bush & their cronies were asleep at the helm for 9/11: Cheney busily being tutored by Kenny Lay & his Enron boys; Bush golfing & pruning bushes in Texas (when the planes actually hit the WTC & Pentagon, Bush was visiting brother Jeb in Florida & chatting with school kids). Oops - 2,974 dead.

Extra-judicial disappearance & torture were not sustainable or proper. 'Tough measures' did nothing to fix the underlying causes of discontent and outburst.

But what should Americans focus on - the 2974 unfortunate dead, or the 285,699,109 who survived? We lost a lot, but not 1%, not one tenth of 1%, but 0.00001 (or 1 of 100,000). The attack was a terrible tragedy for the killed & their loved ones, but the grand majority of us survived. PRAISE THE LORD.