Watch out, America!

From After Dowinging Street, Phil Rockstroh

Animus, ignorance, and magical thinking are a tragic mix and, I'm afraid, that vintage of mind is the hideous wine of our times. The social criteria that gives rise to fascism is in place in the U.S. and those in positions of power have a strong interest in seeing things remain that way. All we can do is what folks (a minority) have always done . . . exile or resistance

Get it, USA?

Glenn Greenwald again pierces the veil on the phony "corporate" media in the United States.

Referring to a set of responses to questions regarding the willingness to meet with foreign atagonistic leaders, Matthews and some blackshirt at the Weekly Standard concluded (of course) that Obama was too far left because he is not an empire isolationist.

In other words, he's not the Pentagon's boy, like Matthews, everybody at the Weekly Standard, and the rest of the corporate right wing media.

The fascists are still in the closet, but its hard to hide behind comments like, "That's why Hillary will win this thing," by propaganda outlets like Chris Matthews.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html

And what of polling data that shows exactly the opposite? Who cares? Beltway wisdom is more representative of what Americans believe than what Americans actually believe. From the latest Rasmussen Reports poll:

Forty-two percent (42%) of Americans say that the next President should meet with the heads of nations such as Iran, Syria, and North Korea without setting any preconditions. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 34% disagree while 24% are not sure.

That question came up during last Monday's Presidential Debate with Illinois Senator Barack Obama saying he would commit to such meetings and New York Senator Hillary Clinton offering a more cautious response. Democrats, by a 55% to 22% margin, agree with Obama.

This is precisely the same process that causes one to hear endlessly from Beltway pundits about how Democrats will be in big, big trouble if they keep up with these investigations because "Americans" sure don't like that, even though polls continuously show that Americans overwhelmingly want Congress to investigate the Bush administration even further. The claim that Congress is "going to far" or "neglecting the people's business" or "engaged in witch-hunts" are actually embraced only by minorities. But that is what the government-defending Beltway media believes; hence, they repeatedly assert as a mantra-like chant, based on nothing, that opposition to more investigations is the "centrist position," that Americans do not like Congressional probes and see them as unjustifiably obstructionist.

It is not difficult to understand why Americans are supportive of Obama's pro-diplomacy instincts. It is because they have seen the alternative for the last six years and know that it is a petulant refusal to speak to the Bad People that is the real fringe, dangerous, extremist position. Indeed, the actual fringe extremism on this issue was vividly illustrated on the same Chris Matthews Show, by the very same Stephen Hayes, the Serious right-wing national security scholar and all-around tough guy:

Another Masterpiece!

Thanks, Russ

(crossposted at DKos.com)

You are eminently reasonable, sir, and your leadership has been a beacon of truth in a dark era of fear and dishonesty in Washington.

We have to have our priorities straight. There are many, many problems facing the country right now.

Some might even say that the democratic legislatures established by our Constitution are no longer capable of administering the vast oversight and prodigious managerial issues of the United States of America.

If that were true, then we would be better off with a dictator, like Augustus, to "strengthen the body politic" and "unify our political will."

There are many people--especially among those in power now--who would welcome such a solution here. With a dictator in power, the legislature would be free to turn its attention and energy to more manageable, less nettlesome matters.

I don't really believe you are proposing we become a dictatorship, but that is the endpoint of your logic.

Our representatives either stand for us and our sovereignty as the foundation of authority for government, or else they stand for somebody else to hold dominion in the United States of America, either a dictator, an oligarchy, or some other governing force--the military, perhaps.

The point is, Senator, these abuses are being visited on the people not only by and because of the President and Vice President and their Cabinet members, but because the government is not effectively serving the people's interests in national affairs.

Our representatives are always seeking "more practical" solutions than the ones that really go to the heart of the issue: a loss of citizen involvement and empowerment.

If you think you can accomplish anything progressive with BushCo in office, I suggest you are trying to blunt the rightful aim by the body politic to recover its authority from those who seek to prevent us from governing ourselves.

You really don't have the right not to impeach, either, because you are sworn to defend our Constitution. It is now in danger. There is no "other business" for Senators in a democracy. That's really an excuse for accommodating a dictator and sacrificing the right of the people to govern ourselves.

Time for Rabble Rousing, After all, It's Summertime

I haven't been able to get a post of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Live Earth in New Jersey.

So here's the transcript.

Now we've all heard the oil industry and the coal industry and their indentured servants in the political process telling us that global climate stability is a luxury that we can't afford. That we have to choose now between economic prosperity on the one hand and environmental protection on the other. And that is a false choice.

In 100% of the situations, good environmental policy is identical to good economic policy --- if we want to measure our economy, and this is how we ought to be measuring it, based upon how it produces jobs and the dignity of jobs over the generations, how it preserves the values of the assets of our community and how it averts the catastrophe of global warming.

If, on the other hand, we want to do what they've been urging us to do on Capitol Hill which is to treat the planet as if it were a business in liquidation, convert our natural resources to cash as quickly as possible, have a few years of pollution based prosperity, we can generate an instantaneous cash flow and the illusion of a prosperous economy. But our children are going to pay for our joyride with denuded landscapes, with poor health, with huge cleanup costs and with climate chaos which is going to amplify over time and that they will never be able to pay.

Environmental injury is deficit spending. It is a way of loading the costs of our generation's prosperity on to the backs of our children. Climate change is upon us. Its impacts are going to be catastrophic and we are causing it. The good news is, we have the scientific and technological capacity to avert its most catastrophic impacts. We only need the political will.

If we raise fuel economy standards in our automobiles by one mile --- we generate twice the amount of oil that is in the Arctic National Wildlife Refugee. If we raise fuel economy standards by 7.6 miles per gallon we yield more oil than we now import from the Persian Gulf. We can eliminate 100% of Persian Gulf oil.

Think about what that would do for our economy, for our foreign policy, for our global leadership, it would dramatically improve our balance of payments, reduce our national debt and make all of us more prosperous and more independent and spare us from wars in the Mid-East that are costing us, already, a trillion dollars and from entanglements with Mid-Eastern dictators who despise democracy and are hated by their own people.

Now you've heard today a lot of people say that there are many little things that you all can do today to avert climate change on your own. But I will tell you this, it is more important than buying compact flourescent light bulbs or than buying a fuel efficient automobile. The most important thing you can do is to get involved in the political process and get rid of all of these rotten politicians that we have in Washington D.C. --

Who are nothing more than corporate toadies for companies like Exxon and Southern Company, these villainous companies that consistently put their private financial interest ahead of American interest and ahead of the interest of all of humanity. This is treason and we need to start treating them now as traitors.

And they have their slick public relations firms and their phony think tanks in Washington D.C. and their crooked scientists who are lying to the American people day after day after day. And we have a press that has completely let down American Democracy. That's giving us Ana Nicole Smith and Paris Hilton instead of the issues that we need to understand to make rational decisions in a democracy - like global warming.

And so I am going to tell you this, that the next time you see John Stossel or Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity --- these flat-earthers, these corporate toadies, lying to you, lying to the American public, and telling you that global warming doesn't exist --- you send an email to their advertisers and tell them that you are not going to buy their products anymore.

And I want you to remember this, that we are not protecting the environment for the sake of the fishes and the birds, we are protecting it because nature is the infrastructure of our communities. And if we want to meet our obligation as a generation, as a civilization, as a nation, which is to create communities for our children that provide them with the same opportunities for dignity, and enrichment, and good health, and prosperity, and stability as the communities that our parents gave us, we've got to start by protecting our environmental infrastructure.

The air we breathe, the water we drink, the wildlife, the public lands, the things that connect us to our past to our history that provide context to our communities and that are the source, ultimately, of our values and our virtues and our character as a people and the future of our children.

And I will see all of you on the barricades.

John Edwards - Steelworkers: Trade

Conyers/Stephanopoulos

I read about Conyers's appearance on This Week.

I posted this comment to Think Progress:

The government is full of paid off corporate stooges whose job is to keep the people quiet while big-money special interests rape and ravage the country.

The people don't want to think about the nightmare they're fabricating for future generations of Americans, so they watch more tv and go shopping.

As long as I can watch baseball and NASCAR, shop at WalMart and drink coffee at Starbucks, why should we care if the country is a fascist military police state with all public information controlled by the Pentagon and their handpicked media minions?

Countdown Special Comment: Bush, Cheney Should Resign