McCain's Self-Destruction

The following is a quote from John McCain re
the Georgia-Russia border crisis:

"In the 21st century nations do not invade
other nations."....John McCain

Now is not this the man who is presenting
himself as the intelligent choice for
Commander-in-Chief? The man who says his
foreign policy credentials are so much
above Obama that Obama can't be trusted to
be a leader.

How stupid can the man (McCain)be, to utter
the above quote? Where was this quote when
he called for war against Iraq, or where was
it when he tried to link the anthrax poisioning
to Iraq, and where was it when he voted to
instigate the Iraq War?

Then, today, the man who McCain says is his
best friend, a man with whom he has held very
important discussions with, who just yesterday
McCain told that "we are all Georgians", a world
leader McCain claims, Georgia?, in an interview
with CNN's early morning news pulls the rug out
from under McCain and wants to know why McCain
is letting Georgia suffer after Georgia paid
something like $800,000 for U.S. protection.
Can it get any more embarrassing for McCain that
this?

Yet, the crisis in the polls is benefiting
McCain. Go figure! MR, where do you think that
kool-aid punch bowl is, that all these dumbed
down citizens are getting their bamboozlement
from?

Hey, speaking of 'bamboozlement', I just about
fell out of my lazy-boy Friday evening when none
other than Bill Moyers used that key word in one
of his stories. Your fame is spreading, man.....

BREAKING NEWS

Did that get everyone's attention? LOL. Don't
you like the hype of the news media...They use
the above title to keep everyone tuned into their
programs. The fourth estate is truly apart of
the elitist conspiracy to destroy the U.S. of the
Founding Fathers.

All morning, CNN has been running the above banner.
First, it was Russia breaks the negotiated cease
fire..Oh, they are so evil....

Lately it has been the U.S. miliatary according to
the Georgian President is to control the seaport and
major airport. The Pentagon is now saying it is just
a relief and humanitarian operation. Sure, with the
U.S. military?

Don't we have enough problems here in the U.S. to
deal with than in some half ass country around the
world? We are bankrupt, home values are collapsing,
the dollar is weak, more unemployment, consumer
purchasing down again, health care impluding, wages
down and stagnant, infrastucture falling apart,
let the litney go one. Yet, the neoconservative
Republican Party insists on rattling sabres in
Georgia...Can't people see through this B. S.? Any
land that has oil under it is fair game for the
neoconservative Republican Party to pillage and
rape, even our own. We are to worry about Georgia,
who was the one doing the attacking, and now that
they got stomped on, they run to their new found ally
and demand protection, while we have all these
domestic problems to deal with...If the Obama campaign
cannot see through all this B.S., and show that the
Republican Party is about oil, religion and money. they
are missing the boat. They ought to tie McCain and his
bellocosity up in a knot. McCain is fit to lead alright,
right into another and large war at the expense of any
domestic reforms. Do U.S. citizens want another war?

Bush Rhetoric on Russia Mocks his Invasion of Iraq

How ironic that George W. Bush finds fault with Russia's interference in Georgia but cannot see how it mirrored his actions in Iraq in March 2003.

Here is what George Bush said this afternoon:

It now appears that an effort may be underway to depose Georgia's duly elected government. Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century.

Sound familiar? It ought to. Simply change Georgia to Iraq and Russia to United States:

It now appears that an effort may be underway to depose Iraq's duly elected government. The United States has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century.

Odd stuff, but then all 8 years have been odd [and scary].

By the way, Mr. Bush said 'Russia' rather than 'Georgia,' but we're used to gluing and pasting his words to make an accurate English sentence.

U.S., Russia, and Georgia

The Russo-Georgia war in bad timing for McCain.
He's out trying to make the most about it, but
it would have played much better for him as an
"October Surprise".

Why is George Bush and why was Bill Clinton
involved in Georgia in the first place. Well,
there is long oil pipeline that runs through
Georgia to its port on the Black Sea. Why are
meddling in the affairs of the Russian political
sphere? Georgia was part of Tsarist Russia, and
it was where Stalin was born and raised. To
think Russia is going to let the Clinton and Bush
meddle at their back door is ridiculous. Would
the U.S. let Russia meddle in Cuba again? So, one
reason is oil, but another reason is that Bush wanted
to make Georgia his prime example of spreading freedom
and democracy. This is not the Sudetenland or
Austria in the 1930s. When will the U.S. learn not
to meddle in the internal affairs of other nations. Bush
goes to the olympic games in China and scolds the Chinese
about their human rights violations and lack of freedom.
And, the Chinese ignore him...While it's no surprise
that McCain supports the U.S. position in Georgia, and,
since Obama is part and parcel of the elitist governing
class, no surprise that he does too....Not a dimes worth
of difference.

Tonight's Best Perseid Meteor Shower

"The time to look is during the dark hours before dawn on Tuesday, August 12th," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "There should be plenty of meteors--perhaps one or two every minute."

The best of the meteor shower is on August 12 [morning of]. After the first-quarter moon sets, around 2 a.m., meteors should be more easily visible until dawn. You may see dozens of meteors per hour.

Try to escape the city glow and find a dark, secluded spot where oncoming car headlights will not periodically ruin your sensitive night vision. Backyards are often ideal spots.

Once you have settled at your observing spot, lay back or position yourself so the horizon appears at the edge of your peripheral vision, with the stars and sky filling your field of view. Meteors will instantly grab your attention as they streak by.

Set the alarm and wake up your children to watch this natural fireworks. It may inspire a life-long interest in space and science. It's worth a few hours of lost sleep.

Theocratic Republican Party

As I have mentioned in previous comments,
the tradition Republican Party prior to say
1976 has been transformed over the past 30
years into the neoconservative Republican
Party. Whereas the previous Republican Party
from 1854 to recent times(maybe 1980 with the
election of Reagan)was a secular national
Party, the neoconservative Republican Party
of 2000-2008 has adopted narrowly defined
theological beliefs to represent a rigid
agenda.

This is demonstrated by the following:
(1) The leader of the Republican Party, speaks to
God and tells the world that he does. God
"advises" him on the correct policy;
(2) The Party says that it is composed of true
believers and encourages religious institutions
to support and vote for its philosophy, programs,
and candidates;
(3) Republican Party says that all levels of
government structure should be guided by religion;
(4) Elected members of the Republican Party demand
that domestic and foreign policies should be
based on christian religious philosophy and
biblical views.

There it is - a first in United States history. We
have the first religious party in our history.
Is there little doubt then, why the neoconservative
Republican Party undermines the Constitution of the
United States? The Constitution of 1789 as written
by our Founding Fathers is inimical to a religious
national government. The change of the Republican
Party, 1975-2008, from traditional conservatisim
to the neoconservative Republican Party has meant an
important change in our domestic and foreign policy.
Domestic policy is now debated over christian religious
beliefs and foreign policy is based on evil vs. good
and who is to control the sacred lands of the bible.
In this concept of foreign affairs, diplomacy is not
needed. Military might and the use of surrogate
nations to form a "coalition of the willing" is used
to fight pre-emptive wars against any perceived "evil"
world nation.

The question now is will we let this stand, or will
the neoconservative Republican Party be seen for what
it is. Will the Democratic Party show this to the
people of the United States? So far, the record of
the Democratic Party, except for a few voices crying
in the wilderness(Kucinich comes to mind), has been
take an hands off position. Obama now waves the flag,
calls for maintaining and increasing federal funding
of faith based initiatives, an increased military
presence in Afghanistan, and possible interference in
the internal affairs of Pakistan. Where's the opposition?
Stiffled it seems!

The New American Empire and the White Rose

Mother Jones writer Justin Elliot penned an article, Don't Know Much About History, in this month's magazine that cries out at the American citizen. Lots of my generation read this title and start humming the Sam Cooke song from the 50's. Interestingly they knew much more history than did those born that year.

Elliot's piece discusses the 2002 Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA) 85-page monograph called "Military Advantage in History". Many of the better teachers of history have already taught the 20 or so military advantages to their students, a lesson that many students find much more interesting than memorizing the kings of England.

Elliot notes: It examines four empires, or "pivotal hegemonic powers in history," to draw lessons about how the United States "should think about maintaining military advantage in the 21st century." And, more importantly, the author says:

"Though the report is far from revelatory, it provides a window into a mindset that unselfconsciously envisions the United States as the successor to some of history's most powerful empires."

This is the neocon philosophy in a nutshell [or bomb shell to be more exact.] The Mongols, Macedonians, Napoleon, and the Romans were cited as examples of one or more of the 'military advantages' that help them beat their competitors.

The author says, 'Several historians who reviewed the study differed on its quality and meaning. Walter Scheidel, a Stanford professor of classics and the coauthor of a forthcoming survey of ancient empires, called it "a successful distillation of relevant information and scholarship complemented by very interesting systematic analysis."'

Enter America as the newest candidate for 'pivotal hegemonic power' master of the world. The neocons who moved George W. Bush into identifying the three 'axis of evil' states and the invasion of Iraq, have forgotten one important difference in their lust for world power: the history book. Not only that but cinema as well.

Two movies have been made about the underground resistance movement in NAZI Germany- The White Rose, Die Weissen Rose, and Sophie Scholl: The Final Days. The films document the work of five German students who distributed leaflets to other students that called attention to the foolish propaganda that the Nazis were promulgating about German world power.

The 2nd White Rose leaflet stated: "Since the conquest of Poland three hundred thousand Jews have been murdered in this country in the most bestial way ... The German people slumber on in their dull, stupid sleep and encourage these fascist criminals ... Each man wants to be exonerated of a guilt of this kind, each one continues on his way with the most placid, the calmest conscience. But he cannot be exonerated; he is guilty, guilty, guilty!"

A powerful indictment of the German people and a call to resistance. The White Rose members printed their explosive leaflets in secret knowing that what they were doing was considered espionage by the Nazis. One from the 1st leaflet says, "Nothing is so unworthy of a civilised nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes — crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure — reach the light of day?"

From the 5th leaflet: "Freedom and honour! For ten long years Hitler and his coadjutor have manhandled, squeezed, twisted, and debased these two splendid German words to the point of nausea, as only dilettantes can, casting the highest values of a nation before swine."

Some readers of this blog will readily see a connection between what these White Rose members bravely wrote in 1942 and the policies of the Bush Administration. It is frighteningly similar. Propaganda is powerful and Karl Rove clearly was a student of Joseph Goebbels.

The reason, I believe, that America will not become that pivotal hegemonic world-power is because there are many citizens who know history and are not afraid to speak their minds. After all, the First Amendment guarantees the right to speak freely. We do not have to print leaflets in dark rooms: the Internet is our leaflet-distributor system. This information outlet is the bane of scoundrels and dictators and it should keep this nation from moving to first place in world empire.

Does the McCain Team Pay the Toledo Blade?

Sure enough and right on schedule, The Blade posts the anti-Obama op ed written by the anemic Jack Kelly each Saturday. The Blade cuts its Letters to the Editor section in half in order to give space to the anti-Democrat column of Kelly.

Today the GOP hack penned one titled, Obama's energy plan nonsense. Before I read it I knew what Kelley's 'solution' to the energy crisis would be: more drilling. Gee, who would have imagined that? [wink, wink]

Kelly takes the side of the obese oil companies and says, "Punitive taxation of oil producers seems a peculiar way to encourage them to produce more oil." Actually Obama isn't too interested in more oil at all, but this fact apparently goes right by the author.

Kelly makes this statement:

Remember how he hooted at suspending federal gas taxes as a primary-season stunt"? the San Francisco Chronicle's editors asked. "Now he wants $1,000 rebate checks mailed out to families, paid by a windfall profits tax on the oil industry that was tried and dumped in the 1980s."

Oh really? So Mr. Kelly thinks the suspension of the federal gas tax was a good idea? I have yet to hear an economist tout that plan as anything more than a gimmick. Kelly apparently is into gimmicks as a solution to the energy problem. Figures.

Kelly finishes his weekly anti-Obama tirade by dissing the other part of the Obama plan: plug-in hybrid vehicles. What does he offer as proof of that as a fallacy? He says:

"No current plug-in hybrid gets better than 69 mpg. It will take more than the wagging of Mr. Obama's tongue to more than double that within six years."

Really? Apparently Kelly is also an amateur photovoltaics engineer too boot. No chance to do that, eh Mr. Kelly? So, American engineers are incapable of upgrading the electric car in the next six years? The fool. Apparently Kelly also hasn't been keeping up with the latest trends such as the German-made Loremo that gets 100 mpg. Yes, it's a gasoline auto. Apparently Mr. Kelly is way too busy reading his right-wing conservative papers to understand that engineering has moved beyond the Jeep or the Studebaker.

The Toledo Blade and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette become laughable media fools when they feature columnists like Jack Kelly who are nothing more than GOP pimps masquerading as journalists.

Walmart's Anti-Democrat Strategy

The Wall Street Journal and MSNBC reported that managers at Walmart have been told to pass the word around to the employees that electing Democrats in November might threaten their jobs. Walmart fears unionizing efforts by Democrats.

The story says:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing U.S. store managers to lobby against Democrats in November's presidential election, fearing they will make it easier for workers to unionize, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if store workers unionize, the paper said.

About a dozen employees who attended meetings in seven states said executives argued employees would have to pay hefty union dues and get nothing in return, and might have to go on strike without compensation. They also warned that unionization could force the company to cut jobs as labor costs rise, the Journal reported.

I would imagine that Democrats all throughout America would be advised to stop shopping at Walmart Stores and pass that information on to hteir friends and families. The power of the dollar ought to serve as a good lesson to the GOP-friendly Walmart executives.

In Search Of: The Real John McCain Episode #2

In the first part of this investigation, In Search Of: The Real John McCain, I touched on his early days in the senate and his admission of guilt in the Keating 5 Scandal and how he used it to propel himself into the nations conciousness as a "Straight Shooter".
I have chosen not to talk about his real record in the Armed Services or his personal life, though a brief recount of his divorce would be in order. While he was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, his first wife, Carol was the victim of a tragic auto accident which left her inches shorter and in desparate need of rehabilitation.
The once statuesque blond was a short physically disfigured and disabled woman when John McCain returned home. While he wass in North Vietnam, Texas Oil Billionaire, H. Ross Perot personally undertook the expenses for Carols medical care and built the McCain family a new house designed for the disabled Carol.

John soon felt disatisfaction with his life with a crippled wife. He began to have affairs and met Cindy Lou Hensley, the heir to the Hensley & Co., the biggest beer distributor in America. She was and is worth millions.
His first wife, Carol described the utter surprise and shock she felt when she was informed that John wanted a divorce. She did not contest the divorce and took a settlement of $1625 a month.

I cannot comment on "affairs of the heart" and remain even handed in an editorial sense. I will only quote H. Ross Perot who said that John McCain was one of the vainest and cruelly selfish men he had ever met.

McCain pretty much disappeared from view in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s – the Dems controlled the Senate, the Cold War (his signature issue) was winding down and the Defense budget (his primary source of legislative goodies to dispense) was being cut. The big issues back then were the budget deficit and the economy, and McCain’s never been able to conceal the fact that he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about either of them.

The only real publicity I recall McCain getting during that time was over the "issue" (if that’s the right word) of missing POWs in Vietnam. McCain, the POW movement’s former poster boy, suddenly became McCain, Hanoi’s best good buddy on Capitol Hill. The media, which thought the POW activists were a bunch of kooks, gladly gave him an free pass on that particular flip and flop. The activists, who remembered that McCain had been sympathetic, or even a full-fledged supporter, up until about his first Senate race, were much less charitable – the diehards still hate his guts. (That the Obama campaign hasn’t reached out to them the way Rove reached out to the anti-Kerry Swiftboat cranks in 2004 tells you all you need to know about the Democrats’ nice-guys-finish-last syndrome.)

In any case, McCain didn’t register in my political consciousness again until 1999, when he, somewhat improbably, decided to run for president. Everyone in Washington knew the GOP skids had already been greased for Bush (first for Jeb, who flamed out in his first run for governor, and then for Shrub.)McCain’s media bandwagon wasn’t nearly as big and noisy as it later became. In a crowded field -- which also included Dan Quayle, Orrin Hatch, Lamar Alexander, Liddy Dole, John Kasich, Gary Bauer and Alan Keynes (the salt and pepper of American religious nutjobbery)-- McCain didn't exactly stand head and shoulders above the pack.

The rest of the story is more familiar: As the outsider, one of a number of outsiders, running against the GOP establishment favorite, McCain desperately needed – and knew he needed – independents and Democrats to turn out for him in the primaries where they were allowed to do so. But his record and his positions on most issues defined him as a fairly conventional GOP conservative – what’s more, one whose primary passion, national security hawkishness, was way out of fashion. So, McCain and his political advisors used his personal biography (not least his post-Keaton Five contrition) to fashion a new political persona that would appeal to independents and/or moderates: McCain 2.0. To demonstrate his bona fides, he even took a totally gratuitous (if entirely accurate) public shot at the religious right, defining them as "the agents of intolerance."

It worked well initially -- well enough to put the fear into Karl Rove and George W. Bush, not to mention the entire GOP establishment. But conservative, hardcore Republican South Carolina turned into the make-or-break primary state, and McCain’s supposed appeal to veterans turned out to be much less tangible than the Bush machine’s tight connections to the fundamentalist Taliban. So suddenly John McCain, the supposed straight talker, was ducking and weaving around the perennially important issue of whether the Confederate flag should continue to wave over the cradle of the Civil War.

He lost anyway, of course -- but here again, as during the Keating Five scandal, McCain managed to make political vice look like virtue, at least in the media’s eyes. In late April, he gave a speech announcing he’d been wrong not to denounce the Stars and Bars. "I chose to compromise my principles," he confessed, and "broke my promise to always tell the truth" in order to win in South Carolina.

"I do not intend for this apology to help me evade criticism for my failure," the noble McCain nobly added. "I will be criticized by all sides for my late act of contrition. I accept all of it, I deserve it."

Once again, the hearts of supposedly hard-hearted reporters melted like butter – not withstanding the obvious fact that McCain had saved his road-to-Damascus moment until after the votes were cast in South Carolina and after Bush had effectively nailed down the nomination. (McCain’s flips and flops on racial issues, such as his forth and back and forth on making MLK’s birthday a federal holiday, are worth a post just in themselves.)

Like Achilles, McCain largely withdrew to his tent for the 2000 general election campaign – sulking after his defeat, it was said; although, in hindsight, hedging his bets might be a more accurate description. But after the Florida debacle, with the Cheney Administration off to a rocky start and Shrub looking like a possible one-term failed nominal president, McCain re-emerged to re-define himself legislatively as a "maverick" Republican -- opposing tax cuts, slamming the tobacco lobby, embracing campaign finance reform, etc.

But then 9/11 reshuffled the political cards once again. With Bush transformed into the GOP's Maximum Leader, McCain reinvented himself AGAIN as a loyal foot soldier in the war on terrorism -- but managed to keep just enough daylight between himself and the Cheney Administration (on the conduct of the war in Iraq, the use of torture, etc.) to give himself an out if thing went South.

In the summer of 2004, when it looked like Bush might actually lose, McCain played footsie under the table with John Kerry, briefly considering a spot on the Democratic ticket. But when he saw what a lousy candidate Kerry was (and how effective the Rovian Swiftboat machine could be) he quickly switched gears and hit the campaign trail with Bush.

In 2005 and early 2006, as things DID go south in a big way for Shrub, McCain stepped up his public criticisms -- but at the same time moved behind the scenes to reassure the GOP party establishment (particularly the religious fundamentalist wing) that he could be team player. He even went down to Lynchburg and kissed the ring of Jerry Falwell (a.k.a. the "agent of intolerance.)

In public and his private media love sessions, McCain spoke out against torture (with the inevitable reference to those POW horrors he doesn’t like to talk about even while he’s talking about them.) Privately, he worked with the Cheney Administration on a compromise that would shift all torture-related program activities to the CIA and absolve everybody involved of any legal culpability. Publicly, he moved to distance himself from his GOP colleagues and their pork barrel ways (grandstanding all the way). But that didn’t stop him from campaigning for some of the worst offenders in the fall, collecting political chits he knew he would need for his second presidential run.

After the congressional elections resulted in a Democratic House and Senate, McCain must have realized that if the Democrats and the Jim Baker wing of the GOP succeeded in liquidating the Iraq fiasco forthwith, his political and foreign policy reputation would be left in shreds. So he backed the "surge" – but again, left himself a later out, if necessary, by publicly questioning whether a gang as incompetent as the Cheney Administration would be able to see it through.

Now, finally, all that hard work and twisting and turning have paid off, and McCain IS the GOP establishment candidate. In April, as Clinton and Obama were tearing into each other (or rather, as she was tearing into him) the McCain campaign clearly saw an advantage in positioning their guy above the fray, as the "kinder, gentler" candidate – the better to pick off supporters of the loser in the Democratic primary race. Thus McCain’s promise to run a "respectful campaign." (He didn’t explain that what he meant was respect for HIM.)

But McCain and his new team of Rovian handlers now realize they won't have a prayer in November unless they can motivate the conservative base and (to use Lee Atwater's charming phrase) "strip the bark" off Obama. And they have to do it NOW, so McCain can pivot back to a softer, more upbeat message in September.

So that's exactly what McCain is doing – instantly, unapologetically, without shame or embarrassment. His enormous cynicism about the political process and his contempt for the voters – not to mention his vast sense of self-entitlement - have led McCain to take exactly the same low road as the Bush family and its various henchmen (Atwater, Rove): Whatever works; whatever it takes.

And so it’s finally dawning, even on some members of his media "base" (ever the hapless clowns in our political theater of the absurd ) that McCain isn’t quite the straight-talking, straight-shooting military man of honor they thought he was. The White Knight has morphed into the Great White Hope – the GOP machine’s last, desperate chance to avoid the mortal humiliation of being defeated not just by a Democrat, not just by a liberal, but by a liberal Democratic black man.

Some of the suckers are even starting to suspect McCain’s been lying about them, too. Despite the cozy chats on the Straight Talk Express, the Arizona barbeque weekends, the cheerfully misogynist jokes and the teary-eyed moments when John tells one of his patented POW stories – despite, even, the donuts with sprinkles – he isn’t actually their friend at all. In fact it’s pretty obvious he despises them almost as much as he despises a system that forces him to pander both to them and to the voters.