September 5, 2008 archive

Original article by Jerry White, via World Socialist Web Site:

Corporations continue to slash tens of thousands of positions while workers still on the job are working harder for less money, according to reports on the US economy released this week.

John McCain Agent of Change

Of Changing His Mind On The Issues

To Placate Religious Extremists  

Unemployment up for 8th straight month. Rate jumps to 6.1 percent

CNN

McCain Vows to End ‘Partisan Rancor,’ Seizing Theme of Change From Rival  



By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MICHAEL COOPER

Published: September 4, 2008  

ST. PAUL – Senator John McCain accepted the Republican presidential nomination Thursday with a pledge to move the nation beyond “partisan rancor” and narrow self-interest in a speech in which he markedly toned down the blistering attacks on Senator Barack Obama that had filled the first nights of his convention.

Standing in the center of an arena here, surrounded by thousands of Republican delegates, Mr. McCain firmly signaled that he intended to seize the mantle of change Mr. Obama claimed in his own unlikely bid for his party’s nomination.

U.S. Spied on Iraqi Leaders, Book Says

Woodward Also Reveals That Political Fears Kept War Strategy Review ‘Under the Radar’

By Steve Luxenberg

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, September 5, 2008; Page A01  

The Bush administration has conducted an extensive spying operation on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, his staff and others in the Iraqi government, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward.

“We know everything he says,” according to one of multiple sources Woodward cites about the practice in “The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008,” scheduled for release Monday.

The book also says that the U.S. troop “surge” of 2007, in which President Bush sent nearly 30,000 additional U.S. combat forces and support troops to Iraq, was not the primary factor behind the steep drop in violence there during the past 16 months.

USA

Georgia lawmaker describes Obama, wife as ‘uppity’



By Halimah Abdullah | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON – A Republican lawmaker is facing criticism over using the racially charged term “uppity” to describe Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, on Thursday.

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia used the word in a conversation with reporters just outside the House chamber about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama.

According to The Hill newspaper, a Washington publication, Westmoreland said, “Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they’re a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they’re uppity.

Christ on a cracker what an awful spectacle.  Pissy, vacuous, hypocritical, pompous, dishonest, bitter – all the worst of America splashed on an embarrassingly big, Soylent Green screen.

Oh, and can I just ask one question?  Did John McCain actually do anything after he got out of Nam?

Besides a mercifully brief part of the bio movie recounting the touching story of how Cindy and he first met (John was still married and they both lied to each other about their ages), you’d never know from his three-day enshrinement into the Halls of High Goopertude that McCain had ever left Hanoi.

Of course, this would all be simply pathetic if it wasn’t so goddamn scary.  

“Stand up to defend our country from its enemies. Stand up for each other; for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America. Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We’re Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.”

You have to watch the video to get a full appreciation of the desperately hysterical, nothing-to-lose atmosphere, but give that segment a German language dub and it would sound eerily like Goebbels announcing the Soviets had just crossed the Oder.

And speaking of flirtations with Fascism, how about this guy’s speech?

Like a bad, way-Off-Broadway Mussolini biopic starring Don Rickles.

What a hockey puck.

And Mrs. Mooseshooter notwithstanding, does anyone doubt that the election of these Christian Corporatists would indeed bring real change in this country, as they claim?  Change not for the better, of course, but in ways that the Founding Fathers sought every Constitutional obstacle to prevent?

Let’s face it: if this authoritarian nightmare of a political convention doesn’t get you off your ass to vote, and convince others to do the same, then you simply don’t understand what is at stake here.

Below the fold you will find 9/11: The Day The World Stood Still, a film that was produced for the 2008 Republican National Convention.

It’s only 2:48 and this copy played correctly for me twice, but you don’t have to watch it on my account, indeed I never want to watch it again; but I do have some observations I’d like to share.

The first is that if this really is the one shown live (and I can’t prove it myself as the whole dreary affair tonight put me to sleep, thank goodness I set my alarm otherwise I would have missed TDS/TCR entirely), there are no images of people actually jumping out of the World Trade Center that I could see although it does show the second plane hit in slow motion and the voice over talks about it.

A more disturbing observation is that the opening line is- “The first attack occured in Iran.  444 Days, America held Hostage.”

Flat Fucking Not True!

Are we having a McSame Senior Moment™ again?  How many times do we have to say that Sunni’s (like Al Queda) and Shia’s (like Iran and most of Iraq) are as different as Irish Catholics and Protestants!

There is no relation between 9/11 and the Iran Hostage Crisis AT ALL!

It’s as big a lie as the one that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11.

It is THE SAME LIE as a matter of fact!

Now I hesitate to read tea leaves, but to me this indicates that the Republican Party wants to commit another war crime and guess what?  This time we lose!  There is absolutely no way we can keep the Straits of Hormuz open however much damage we inflict on Iran and the likelihood is that we isolate and destroy our occupation force in Iraq (basically our whole Army and Marine Corps) and mobilize the entire Islamic world against us.

And that’s an optimistic scenario, could be that the whole world gets together to put us down like the rabid mad dog Nazi’s we are.

Much like the police state evident at the RNC one of the premier websites promoting real news about the elite scumbags of the “Illuminati” and their minions is routinely “going down”.  It has happened several days in the past week and is the subject of much discussion on the anti-New World Order lists.

Jeff Rense, proprietor of www.rense.com features the daily din that counters the junior high school mentality of lamestream media.  Yes there are more intellectually oriented places one can go for real news but most often the updates are weekly or even monthly.

Now one could associate these types of sites with “right wing” ideology or most commonly with the term “tin foil”.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/ra…

Our internet is very soon going to look like the one in China so it might be best to think about how one could get along without it.

My daily favorites don’t include lamestream.

http://www.pilotsfor911truth.org/

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/

http://www.wearechange.org/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/

http://www.augustreview.com/

Lightyears above party politics.