September 26, 2009 archive

And the lies just keep on coming.  When Iran announced the existence of its second nuclear site, something the U.S. has apparently known about for years, Barack Obama once again followed Bush-Cheney policy by lying about Iran’s nuclear activities.

Obama joined the leaders of Britain and France in accusing the Islamic republic of clandestinely building an underground plant to make nuclear fuel that could be used to build an atomic bomb. Iranian officials acknowledged the facility but insisted it had been reported to nuclear authorities as required.

Obama should try reading intelligence reports, like 2007’s National Intelligence Estimate (the combined consensus report by all sixteen known U.S. intelligence agencies), which stated quite clearly that there is no concrete evidence of a weapons program in Iran.  In July and August of this year, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed the lack of evidence although it refuses to state anything definitively.  Yet still Obama, the D.C. political establishment, and the corporate media continue to lie to the contrary.

We’ve already been lied into one failed war, lied into ramping up another failed war, are so hurting for fresh soldiers that the Pentagon is now actively accepting white supremacists, yet still the establishment seeks to lie us into another conflict.

For THIS we elected a Democrat to the presidency?

Burning the Midnight Oil for the Next American Revolution

Now up at Agent Orange

As people look back to the decade just past, and as we look ahead to the long, hard job ahead of us, many people describe the decade in many different ways – tumultuous, chaotics, catastrophic, liberating, tragic, joyous – but it seems that nothing recycles so easily as a phrase, and so the punditry online seem to have settled on The Roaring Teens.

But consider how it could have all gone so badly wrong, had the American Empire not collapsed. Whether you were thrilled or dismayed by the Roar in the Roaring Teens, consider what might have happened to our revived Republic had history taken a different turn in the aftermath of the Currency Collapse of 2011.

It is this perspective I wish to offer, since I can recall the New Year of 2010 arriving, and I feared much of what did in fact happen in 2011 – and yet because I did not see the possibility of the liberation of our nation from our self-imposed shackles of Empire, I did not for a minute imagine what the decade would bring.

I know this is going on the front page and I will try the best I can to make every effort to earn that privilege, given my subject matter.

We’ve had some uproars with Underdog’s essay, where he is grappling with how to respond to authority on a blog.

Today I encountered a bit of that as well and was challenged as to my own thinking.  I imagine this, in a way, like Underdog was the big brother, getting kicked around first so that by the time I got dealt with it was far less being kicked around-ish.  As the youngest of six children, well, my parents were pretty worn down by the time it came to tell me what to do.  Heh.

I don’t consider Meteor Blades primarily as someone who posts at Daily Kos, someone who has taken on the job of Moderator in Chief, even though he has accomplished a great deal in that area.

To me, he is much bigger than that.  Just google him.  I’ve seen him post on one particular website which was begun as a hate-Daily-Kos site – he was excoriated and sarcasm and bile was dripped all over him.  It didn’t seem to faze him much.  I’ve seen him at Booman.  And of course he has posted here as well, since the beginning of Docudharma.  He came here as well to DD to pay Underdog the respect of addressing his concerns.

Underdog was amazing in how he allowed all of us to experience his innermost feelings in a very difficult situation.  He opened himself up fearlessly.

How much authority are any of us willing to obey?  What is obedience, anyway?  If it is voluntary, then that’s a far different experience than if we are either forced or coerced or tricked etc.