Tannishblog

The Economic stimulus package just passed by congress is a joke. It will not affect our economy beyond furthering the budget deficit by $168 billion. The reason is simple: the money is already spent. The $1,500 I expect from the deal (if I read the fine print correctly) is mostly gone with a mortgage payment and a weeks groceries and gas. Poof! I will not be using it to buy that wall mounted, high definition television from the local store.

The idea of the US Government handing out checks is laughable. In the words of Shel Silverstein: “get your coat and grab you hat, son. There’s a nut down on the corner giving dollar bills away.”

Aparently I’m not the only one thinking this way. From MSNBC:

(J)ust 19 percent of the people surveyed said they planned to go out and spend the money; 45 percent said they’d use it to pay bills. And nearly half said what the government really should do is get out of Iraq.

Forty-eight percent said a pullout would help fix the country’s economic problems “a great deal,” and an additional 20 percent said it would help at least somewhat. Some 43 percent said increasing government spending on health care, education and housing programs would help a great deal; 36 percent said cutting taxes.

“Let’s stop paying for this war,” said Hilda Sanchez, 44, of Waterford, Calif. “There are a lot of people who are struggling. We can use the money to pay for medical care and help people who were put out of their homes.”

I concur.

My neighbor lady is 88 years old. Her husband died a few years back and they have no surviving children. A scattering of friends, neighbors and her husbands 2 elder brothers are her only lifelines. My wife shops for her, as she can’t drive anymore. As far as I know all she does during the day is watch television and read newspapers. Ever since her husband died, she’s been cleaning out her house of forty years of accumulation. She’s methodically cleaning up after her life, putting her affairs in order and awaiting the inevitable. Some days are good and some days are bad. What kind of life is that in terms of quality?

I think on this as I read a New York Times article on Assisted Suicide. Please read it, it may become a very important subject to you one day.

Gloria C. Phares, a 93-year-old retired teacher in Missouri, wrote:

“I was healthy until 90, and then Boom! Atrial fibrillation; deaf, can’t enjoy music or hear a voice unless 10 inches from my ear; fell, fractured my thigh and am now a cripple; had a slight stroke the day after my beloved husband died after 61 years of marriage.

“I’ve lived a happy life, but from here on out it’s all downhill. Is there any point in my living any longer? I’m not living — just existing. I very much want to die, but our society doesn’t let me. Oh for a pill to ease myself out and end my pain, pain, pain.”

No authority exists that has he right to tell anyone they cannot end their life. Not family, friends, the government nor the church can dictate what is best for any person. To the extent that all these entities will try to do so, is the extent to which our society is most wrongfully arrogant.

We have Assisted Living. Why not Assisted Dying. Its humane.

President Bush, acting as the Unitary Executive, is making secret deals with Iraq. Under the euphemism “Enduring Relationship,” a Declaration of Principles has been documented, which outlines in the most glowing terms, unending embroilment in the desert.

One of the “Principles” is “Supporting the Republic of Iraq in defending its democratic system against internal and external threats.” This is bothersome on many levels.

And under the law, the president is entitled to broker a status-of-forces agreement without congressional approval.

“The president, as the commander in chief, can enter into an agreement and in theory, certainly as complex an agreement as he deems appropriate and necessary under the circumstances,” says retired Gen. Michael Nardotti, formerly the Army’s top lawyer.

But in the case of Iraq, even the most optimistic assessments don’t expect the situation there to become as stable as Japan or South Korea for decades.

“Bases of the U.S. around the world are not situated in an occupied country,” explains Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi political activist who recently testified before Congress on this issue. “For example, U.S. forces in Japan can’t just go out of their bases and [set up] a checkpoint in Tokyo. They can’t go around Tokyo arresting Japanese people.”

And in Japan or South Korea, the U.S. military isn’t allowed to maintain internal stability. In other words, it can’t protect those governments from internal threats. Indeed, in South Korea, two governments have been overthrown in coups in the past 50 years. The U.S. military could not and did not intervene.

First we illegally occupy a sovereignty, destroy its government and prop up a puppetocracy in its place. Then we let the puppets kill the newly-deposed President. We next start negotiating - at gunpoint, of course - a business deal benefiting American oil companies. Since that failed, we are now negotiating to morph our armed forces into the Iraqi National Guard, to give us the right to protect the nation we broke from “internal and external threats.” We become their military. And, although unstated, I venture to guess that we will be the final arbiters as to who and what constitutes a threat.

Since the US is suffering the Pottery Barn effect (you break it, you buy it) with regards to Iraq, our Liar-in-Chief is tying up the loose ends of his failed hostile takeover bid of Saddam Hussein’s oilfields. As he does so, he is tying a noose around the necks of every single US Solider that will be killed in Iraq going forward, in perpetuity.

Coining vague catch phrases like “Enduring Relationship” or talk of an “Enduring Presence” in Iraq cannot sugar coat the reality that the US is an Imperial power creating a colony out of a previously autonomous nation. We’re there for the oil, and when it’s gone, we’ll leave. Not. Until. Then.

Luckily, people are asking the right questions, these days. Questions like “Is it legal.” the answer, as NPR notes, lies on the boundary between Agreement and Treaty. It’s down to semantics. Sadly, our government is ill equipped to handle the subtly of semantics. Bring in the lawyers.

Lawyering takes time, and our administration expects to broker this deal by Summer. We don’t have the time. We REALLY need to impeach these bastards.

Newsporn star Bill O’Reilly showed his brand of professionalism when he yelled and shoved a Barack Obama campaign staffer. Bill’s response: "I might have called him an SOB." A consummate professional.

As they say: "And now for something completely different." (OK - so I couldn’t think up a reasonable segue. Sorry.)

Wired Magazine outlines the Top Ten New Organisms of 2007, starting with hypoallergenic cats and ending with a yeast that can "Smell" poison. way cool.

“A kinder, gentler nation.” Remember those words? What ever happened to that idea?

Notwithstanding the absurdity of using such a phrase as political rhetoric, I remain partial to the idea - especially these days. It’s a bitter irony the utterer of those words is also responsible for the man who, as president, is presiding over the opposite national direction. One could say that all Presidents since Eisenhower have been steering our nation in that direction. The only difference is Our Mr. Bush has a deficit of subtlety.

Being kinder and gentler has its place, even in politics. Perhaps that is why Barack Obama surfaced as the Democratic winner in Iowa yesterday. The man exudes kindness and gentility. (being the most telegenic candidate by fair amount can’t hurt, either.)

While the O-man is not my favorite, I believe he is more electable than any other. Charisma is a large part of game, and Barack’s gleaming smile and steady confidence has projected him far already. And, I believe in his rhetoric about compromise. Having worked within the Illinois congress, he’s had a fair amount of challenge working for his constituency: Illinois being a Red State with a Blue lesion growing on it’s northeast corner. Hammering out the details is old hat even for such a youthful politician.

Dennis Kucinick is not so young, and he also has that Kinder, Gentler Nation aura. He’s my pick for the Presidency, although I suspect I’ll only get to vote for him in the Primaries. America is not about to elect a man that believes in Strength Through Peace. A flash flood of wisdom is unlikely to penetrate the grass roots of Political Ideology anytime soon.

But a man can dream, can’t he?

Or for a still unlikely - yet more realistic - fantasy, let’s Have Barack pick Dennis as his running mate when he accepts the nomination at the Democratic Convention. That would be amazing! Enter the Age of Carebear Politics. That thought is so “out there” even I can’t imagine the repercussions. But leading the world from the heart must be better than leading the world from the ass.

Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it.

Two headlines placed next to each other in the Washington Post’s daily email caught my eye. For clarity I’ll also include the first paragraph of each story - no more needs saying.

Bush Signs Domestic Spending Bill but Criticizes Pet Projects

WACO, Tex., Dec. 26 — President Bush signed a $555 billion domestic spending bill into law Wednesday, but not without taking a swipe at Congress for including pet projects that total about $10 billion.

Wars Cost $15 Billion a Month, GOP Senator Says

The latest estimate of the growing costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worldwide battle against terrorism — nearly $15 billion a month — came last week from one of the Senate’s leading proponents of a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq.

wow……..

All of a sudden, Mike Huckabee is a frontrunner in the Republican rat race. Is there anyone who truly believes that a Repub can win the White House after the ongoing catastrophe that is Bush/Cheney/Rice/Iraq/Iran??????

Really.

For those few people so seeped in denial, my condolences. No one can argue with a sick mind. However, no matter how idealistic, how inexperienced, how indoctrinate a Democratic candidate might be, there’s no chance a Republican has for the top seat. None.

So why bother to give Mike an inch of news coverage? Only to save face in the coming disaster of credibility when the house of cards perpetrated by the Bush administration, held up by the MSM, comes inevitably to fall. A weak overture, but the only available stance left to a  failed and failing institution

The NEWS as we know it is dead. Government, as we know it, has failed. Grass roots, restructuring politics, along with our adrift national identity, will regain - with strength - a rule "by the people, for the people." Or our Great Experiment will crumble. It has come to the Point of No Return.

Ask yourself: Where will you stand. Will you stand beside the Predatory Lenders, that steal your dreams? Will you stand beside the hospitals, drug companies, and their legions of lobbyists, who hold profits before public health? Will you stand beside the Gun Lobby, as they set aside Human Life, Human Decency, to increase monetary gains? And will you stand beside a military machine that is bent upon destroying innocents for the tactical advantage of controlling oil manufacturing and distribution? Ask yourself: where does your interest lie? What path most benefits your children?

Ask yourself: What is the Lesser Evil - and, isn’t is still evil? Is it justified?

My hometown of Chicago has unveiled a planned upgrade to its already extensive surveillance system. No longer the “Hog Butcher* to the World”, the City of Broad Shoulders is morphing into the City of Big Brother.

If that’s what helps us clinch the 2016 Olympic bid, I’m all for it. I’ve seen some of the cameras hanging off lampposts about town. The neighborhoods so decorated could use a constant eye. There’s a fine line between oppressive oversight and community service. Even the most well-intentioned neighborhood watch program is vulnerable to misuse. Until that occurs, I say: bring on the bots!

*Thanks, Travis

Filed under the tab of “I Wish I Wrote That,” is Chris Rowthorn’s blistering assessment of the Florida University Taser Incident as found on Smirking Chimp.

The four players in the present-day American political drama were all represented at the University of Florida on Monday:

1) Andrew Meyer writhing on the ground in agony represents the Constitution and the freedom of speech and the protection from unlawful arrest that it enshrines.
2) The police holding Mr. Meyer to the ground and inflicting torture with 50,000 volts of electricity represent the fascist forces in America led by George W. Bush and their attempts to kill the Constitution.
3) John Kerry droning impotently on in the background and allowing the torture to occur through his shameful lack of courage and principle represents today’s Democratic Party.
4) The majority of the students who sat passively by while one of their own was tortured for speaking out represent the largely apathetic American populace.

And, of course, after the fact, the fifth and perhaps most important player in the drama made its inevitable entrance: the press. Major press outlets and even some supposedly left-wing political blogs were united in suggesting that Mr. Meyer actually deserved to be tasered because of his history as a prankster. Thus, the American media has sanctioned the torture of an American citizen who exercised his freedom of speech. In this they stand firmly in the tradition of all fascist states, in which certain undesirables and those who dared to speak out were officially sanctioned as targets of violence.

After the smoke clears, no one is left standing. All the implemented capable have crept away. But that’s on the inside: on the outside, America has become a Terrorist Organization as well. From The Truth Will Set you Free comes a post called “Shake and Bake” that graphically illustrates (you’ve been warned) the effect of US Military policy in the 2005 pacification of Falluja. Apparently, Shake and Bake is the cutesy name for alternating rounds of high explosives and rounds of white phosphorus.

Although white phosphorus often has no effect on clothes, when it makes contact with a person’s skin, it will burn it down to the bone. If the gas is inhaled, it will blister the throat and lungs, causing rapid suffocation, burning the body from the inside.

How many gallons of blood does it take to refine a gallon of gasoline? How long will we remain the Apathetic Americans? How much longer can this go on? These are questions you should ask yourself. No possible answer can remotely satisfy.

Florida seems to be the testing grounds for the New American Century, wherein fear acts as crowd control and police brutality becomes de rigeur. It is become the breeding ground of the modern police state. Unfortunately, the crowd hasn’t quite gotten the message yet. The State that Tasers unruly children has turned its Protectors of the Peace against a more conventional target: liberal college students. From Chicago Tribune:

A University of Florida student was Tasered and arrested after trying to ask U.S. Senator John Kerry about the 2004 election and other subjects during a campus forum.

Videos of the incident posted on several Web sites show officers pulling Andrew Meyer, 21, away from the microphone after he asks Kerry about impeaching President Bush and whether he and Bush were both members of the secret society Skull and Bones at Yale University.

“He apparently asked several questions — he went on for quite awhile — then he was asked to stop,” university spokesman Steve Orlando said. “He had used his allotted time. His microphone was cut off, then he became upset.”

As two officers take Meyer by the arms, Kerry, D-Mass., is heard to say, “That’s alright, let me answer his question.” Audience members applaud, and Meyer struggles to escape for several seconds as up to four officers try to remove him from the room.

Meyer screams for help and asks “What did I do?” as he tries to break away from officers. He is forced to the ground and officers order him to stop resisting. Meyer says he will walk out if the officers let him go.

As Kerry tells the audience he will answer the student’s “very important question,” Meyer struggles on the ground and yells at the officers to release him, crying out, “Don’t Tase me, bro,” just before he is Tasered. He is then led from the room, screaming, “What did I do?”

Must have been some questions!

Liberal use of Tasers on liberal arts students conjures flashback images of the police in Valve Software’s brilliant near-future PC adventure Half Life 2, wherein masked and black suited militia freely use stun batons on the oppressed citizenry.

It’s an odd coincidence that such behavior occurs in Jeb Bush’s former territory. Rigging election results was just an appetizer for an insidious creep toward greater martial control. Be forewarned.