We here at DemocraticNationUSA have been saying (SHOUTING!) for the past dozen years, that THE RIGHT-WING AGENDA is simplicity itself: to TAKE America, and the vast majority of AMERICANS, as FAR BACK TOWARDS CHATTEL-SLAVERY as humanly (politically, practically, feasibly) possible.
Naomi Klein, in her book "The SHOCK DOCTRINE: The Rise of DISASTER CAPITALISM" outlines the ability of wealthy elites and financial managers to EXPLOIT DISASTERS FOR PROFITS, usually at the expense of victims.
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/resources/disaster-capitalism-in-action
Even before Klein came out her book, financial hired-gun John Perkins explained a similar, premeditated process, whereby financial elites could EXTORT a developing nation's valuable resources and assets AWAY from the people and citizens of that nation, by rigging financial failures in advance, in Perkins' book, "Confessions of an Economic Hitman."
http://www.economichitman.com/
Here in America thousands upon millions of Americans are familiar with an extremely similar process by which American credit cards SUCK CONSUMERS IN to LIFETIME DEBT: it is called "BAIT & SWITCH" credit, the soulless credit companies KNOWINGLY EXTEND MORE CREDIT than (statistically) credit card users will be able to pay back without, at some time, missing a payment or paying late ---> GOTCHA! The bankers then NAIL their customers. We here at DemNationUSA personally went from a 3% paid-in-advance interest rate (advance fee on a "0% interest rate") balance at Bank of America to a ___29.29%____ rate after a business emergency made us miss a due date by 3 days. BoA's hired credit associate let us know that we had violated the "TERMS AND CONDITIONS" of our contract... and that BoA now had EVERY RIGHT to SOCK IT TO US with a nearly THIRTY-PERCENT annual interest rate!
Quite simply, America's FINANICAL BULLIES do NOT believe in making an honest living: THEY ARE RELENTLESSLY LOOKING FOR OPPORTUNITIES to EXTORT and LOOT customers, consumers, and, thanks to the Bush administration and complicit corporate "Democrats" - AMERICAN TAXPAYERS as well....
Below, LONG before Naomi Klein codefied her "SHOCK DOCTRINE", America actually witnessed a REAL-LIFE case of DISASTER CAPITALISM... ghoulish planters in the Mississippi Delta using the disaster of THE GREAT FLOOD of 1927, AS AN EXCUSE to treat Black laborers and sharecroppers AS SLAVES, SHOOTING and KILLING those flood victims who resisted the round-up and forced labor under shotgun rule... AS local planters and businessmen STOLE the FEDERAL DISASTER ASSISTANCE MEANT for the traumatized disaster victims.
PRESIDENT OBAMA has ONE SIMPLE CHOICE for his administration: IS HE ON THE SIDE
of the workers and sharecroppers, or IS HE ON THE SIDE OF THE BANKERS, LOAN-SHARKS, ECONOMIC HIT-MEN, and CREDIT EXTORTIONISTS?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/flood/peopleevents/e_sharecroppers.html
<< At its inception, sharecropping in the Delta held the promise of a decent standard of living and independence. In theory, with a good harvest, everyone stood to make money.
In reality, planters exploited the system to their advantage, and sharecroppers often wound up in debt at the end of each year. With no income during the off season, croppers were forced to buy food, clothing and other necessary supplies on credit from the plantation commissaries. Prices were exorbitant, goods were shoddy and debt piled up. When harvest time came around, tenants were often forced to sell their share of the crop directly to the plantation at below market prices. After the harvest, the tenants often failed to earn enough to cover their debts. While Delta planters enjoyed great prosperity, their tenants were stuck in an endless cycle of debt. As plantations consolidated and centralized, what little opportunities for advancement the croppers once had slipped away. Entrenched in poverty, sharecroppers began heading north for industrial jobs. >>
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Ungrateful Obama Team shows DNC Chair Howard Dean the door....
It sure looks like President Elect Obama is SURROUNDING HIMSELF with the SAME BUBBLE MANAGERS as... George W. Bush?!
SAY IT AIN'T SO, Barak!
While some might argue that this is a "radical" assertion, Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel once attempted to join the ISREAL MILITARY, and if he weren't so successful in US politics, he would probably be associated with the IDF today, CHEERING ON the bombardment of the Warsaw Ghetto, er, Gaza.
Obama has put HILLARY CLINTON at the top of his administration (as Secretary of State) - Hillary infamously voted FOR the Cheney-Bush INVASION OF IRAQ, and infamously REFUSES TO APOLOGIZE for same.
We could go on, but we will give Governor Dean a SALUTE for bringing some OUTSIDE DC SANITY _to_ official Washington, and wish him the very best.
===================================
Dean ending 30-year political career
By Nedra Pickler
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g0vr8a-oHbi1wAuYgxV_ditSzjrAD95OGS480
WASHINGTON (AP) — Outgoing Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Friday he would have liked to work in the Obama administration, but instead is embarking on a life in the private sector after nearly 30 years in politics.
Dean told The Associated Press in an interview that he is weighing where next to take a career that has moved rapidly from family doctor to Vermont governor to presidential candidate to national party boss. This Wednesday, he ends a term as chairman in which Democrats recaptured the White House, seized majorities in Congress and picked up governorships.
SAY IT AIN'T SO, Barak!
While some might argue that this is a "radical" assertion, Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel once attempted to join the ISREAL MILITARY, and if he weren't so successful in US politics, he would probably be associated with the IDF today, CHEERING ON the bombardment of the Warsaw Ghetto, er, Gaza.
Obama has put HILLARY CLINTON at the top of his administration (as Secretary of State) - Hillary infamously voted FOR the Cheney-Bush INVASION OF IRAQ, and infamously REFUSES TO APOLOGIZE for same.
We could go on, but we will give Governor Dean a SALUTE for bringing some OUTSIDE DC SANITY _to_ official Washington, and wish him the very best.
===================================
Dean ending 30-year political career
By Nedra Pickler
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g0vr8a-oHbi1wAuYgxV_ditSzjrAD95OGS480
WASHINGTON (AP) — Outgoing Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Friday he would have liked to work in the Obama administration, but instead is embarking on a life in the private sector after nearly 30 years in politics.
Dean told The Associated Press in an interview that he is weighing where next to take a career that has moved rapidly from family doctor to Vermont governor to presidential candidate to national party boss. This Wednesday, he ends a term as chairman in which Democrats recaptured the White House, seized majorities in Congress and picked up governorships.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Memo to Barak Obama: President Lincoln STOOD UP & FOUGHT the evils of SLAVERY. The crimes of the Bush administration WON'T GO AWAY on wishful thinking
Memo to Barak Obama: IF President Lincoln and tens of thousands of US soldiers had NOT STOOD UP and FOUGHT against the evils of SLAVERY, the Deep South would STILL BE SEGREGATED to this day... if not operating some form of economy based on Chattel Slavery (such as TERROR-BASED SHARE-CROPPING and other political & economic DISENFRANCHISEMENT techniques). (Note: the 2000 vote-count in Florida, and the 2004 presidential election vote-count in Ohio, were both textbook examples of VOTER DISENFRANCHISEMENT in the MODERN era.... much less had the South WON the Civil War (with victories at Gettysburg or Atlanta) and maintained some form of race-based "servitude" into the 20th century.)
(Note 2: EVEN WITH the US victory at Gettysburg, almost everyone agrees that Lincoln's RE-ELECTION PROSPECTS in the summer of 1864 were dismal (see Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals , among thousands of other sources on Lincoln's dismal re-election prospects) - until General Sherman's armies broke through on their march to Atlanta and the coast, giving Northern voters something to cheer about after 3 long, dreadful years of war.)
You do NOT need a crystal ball to see how any FAILURE of the Obama administration to PROSECUTE JUSTICE for CRIMINAL CONDUCT of the past 8 years will unfold:
...distinguished investigative reporter Robert Parry has already laid out the Republican route to DEMAGOGUERY, relentless blame-mongering, and scapegoating that led directly to the CLINTON IMPEACHMENT, after President Clinton ASSISTED Republicans in SWEEPING ON-GOING CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS _out the door_ and under the rug when Clinton first became president in January 1993. As Parry documents in his book, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq
(paraphrasing) - "within 16 months of assuming the presidency, and helping Republicans sweep those criminal investigations out of Washington in the deluded hope of 'BIPARTISAN' reciprocity from the Republicans, President Clinton was openly complaining to his White House guests about how horribly the Republicans and their establishment press were treating him."
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/100307.html
Indeed, since it will be quite impossible to actually SEE TO JUSTICE for ALL the CRIMINAL CONDUCT of the Bush administration's dismal past 8 years (just LISTING the scandals, from Enron to Abramoff to lies-to-war to "outing" CIA undercover operations to perjury and obstruction of justice to using the "Justice Department" as a racketeering enforcement arm of Republican electioneering and disenfranchisement, to gross financial misconduct and in-your-face contracts and bailout corruption - makes a writer sound demented!) the Obama administration should secretly plan to run selected trials AS THEATER - first those corruption and financial fraud cases that MUST be prosecuted to restore America's financial integrity, TO ILLUSTRATE to the press, media, and American public HOW America GOT INTO THIS ECONOMIC RECESSION in the first place; in order to put pressure on Republicans who will now try to play the "FISCAL CONSERVATIVE!" card to SABOTAGE economic recovery...
....while simultaneously doing the groundwork for the other criminal trials - torture, abuse of power in the Justice Department, war contracts fraud, etc. - those trials to unfold only after the financial fraud and bailout larceny trials have started deliberations.
IF President Obama thinks that the United States would have ended and overthrown slavery without Americans, from the lowest private or drummer boy to President Lincoln - STANDING UP and FIGHTING that evil, he is seriously deluded.
IF President Obama thinks he can "MOVE FORWARD" without using the BULLY-PULPIT to EXPOSE the crimes and corruptions of the past 8 years, and thereby ALLOW Republicans to DEMAGOGUE America's current fiscal crisis as the fault of "TAX AND SPEND DEMOCRATS!" (EXACTLY as Timmy McVeigh, Republicans, Right-Wing hate radio, and hate-group militias demagogued the early 1990s Bush-1 Recession as THE FAULT of "Tax & Spend Democrats" and the _Clinton_ presidency in particular!) he is also naive to the point of being seriously deluded.
----------------------------------------------------
Past as preview: After President Clinton HELPED Republicans SWEEP on-going CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS _OUT_ of Washington - BCCI, Iran-Contra, Iraq-gate (the supply to Iraq of illegal weapons and financing through BCCI, shadow firms, etc..) - Republicans responded by launching a SERIES of RELENTLESS, often petty, and always VINDICTIVE INVESTIGATIONS into EVERY ASPECT of the Clinton White House, from the LEGAL firing of the private firm associated with the Bush family's PRIVATE White House Travel arrangements (the so-called "White House TRAVEL OFFICE 'scandal'!") to the Clinton's ENTIRELY LEGAL OVERNIGHT GUEST LIST! (the so-called "LINCOLN BEDROOM SCANDAL!") to the ENTIRELY FABRICATED stories that the Clintons were making off with White House property while Clinton-Gore staffers were allegedly "TRASHING!" sacred White House offices!
(That later story RUNNING for WEEKS and WEEKS and WEEKS in the Lying New York Times and Cowardly, lying Washington Post - WITHOUT ONE PHOTOGRAPH OF EVIDENCE to support OCEANS of ink alleging that destruction of government property!)
Robert Parry, on-line comments to posting of entire first chapter of his book, "Secrecy & Privilege" cited above, on-line:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/100307.html
(Note 2: EVEN WITH the US victory at Gettysburg, almost everyone agrees that Lincoln's RE-ELECTION PROSPECTS in the summer of 1864 were dismal (see Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals , among thousands of other sources on Lincoln's dismal re-election prospects) - until General Sherman's armies broke through on their march to Atlanta and the coast, giving Northern voters something to cheer about after 3 long, dreadful years of war.)
You do NOT need a crystal ball to see how any FAILURE of the Obama administration to PROSECUTE JUSTICE for CRIMINAL CONDUCT of the past 8 years will unfold:
...distinguished investigative reporter Robert Parry has already laid out the Republican route to DEMAGOGUERY, relentless blame-mongering, and scapegoating that led directly to the CLINTON IMPEACHMENT, after President Clinton ASSISTED Republicans in SWEEPING ON-GOING CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS _out the door_ and under the rug when Clinton first became president in January 1993. As Parry documents in his book, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq
(paraphrasing) - "within 16 months of assuming the presidency, and helping Republicans sweep those criminal investigations out of Washington in the deluded hope of 'BIPARTISAN' reciprocity from the Republicans, President Clinton was openly complaining to his White House guests about how horribly the Republicans and their establishment press were treating him."
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/100307.html
Indeed, since it will be quite impossible to actually SEE TO JUSTICE for ALL the CRIMINAL CONDUCT of the Bush administration's dismal past 8 years (just LISTING the scandals, from Enron to Abramoff to lies-to-war to "outing" CIA undercover operations to perjury and obstruction of justice to using the "Justice Department" as a racketeering enforcement arm of Republican electioneering and disenfranchisement, to gross financial misconduct and in-your-face contracts and bailout corruption - makes a writer sound demented!) the Obama administration should secretly plan to run selected trials AS THEATER - first those corruption and financial fraud cases that MUST be prosecuted to restore America's financial integrity, TO ILLUSTRATE to the press, media, and American public HOW America GOT INTO THIS ECONOMIC RECESSION in the first place; in order to put pressure on Republicans who will now try to play the "FISCAL CONSERVATIVE!" card to SABOTAGE economic recovery...
....while simultaneously doing the groundwork for the other criminal trials - torture, abuse of power in the Justice Department, war contracts fraud, etc. - those trials to unfold only after the financial fraud and bailout larceny trials have started deliberations.
IF President Obama thinks that the United States would have ended and overthrown slavery without Americans, from the lowest private or drummer boy to President Lincoln - STANDING UP and FIGHTING that evil, he is seriously deluded.
IF President Obama thinks he can "MOVE FORWARD" without using the BULLY-PULPIT to EXPOSE the crimes and corruptions of the past 8 years, and thereby ALLOW Republicans to DEMAGOGUE America's current fiscal crisis as the fault of "TAX AND SPEND DEMOCRATS!" (EXACTLY as Timmy McVeigh, Republicans, Right-Wing hate radio, and hate-group militias demagogued the early 1990s Bush-1 Recession as THE FAULT of "Tax & Spend Democrats" and the _Clinton_ presidency in particular!) he is also naive to the point of being seriously deluded.
----------------------------------------------------
Past as preview: After President Clinton HELPED Republicans SWEEP on-going CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS _OUT_ of Washington - BCCI, Iran-Contra, Iraq-gate (the supply to Iraq of illegal weapons and financing through BCCI, shadow firms, etc..) - Republicans responded by launching a SERIES of RELENTLESS, often petty, and always VINDICTIVE INVESTIGATIONS into EVERY ASPECT of the Clinton White House, from the LEGAL firing of the private firm associated with the Bush family's PRIVATE White House Travel arrangements (the so-called "White House TRAVEL OFFICE 'scandal'!") to the Clinton's ENTIRELY LEGAL OVERNIGHT GUEST LIST! (the so-called "LINCOLN BEDROOM SCANDAL!") to the ENTIRELY FABRICATED stories that the Clintons were making off with White House property while Clinton-Gore staffers were allegedly "TRASHING!" sacred White House offices!
(That later story RUNNING for WEEKS and WEEKS and WEEKS in the Lying New York Times and Cowardly, lying Washington Post - WITHOUT ONE PHOTOGRAPH OF EVIDENCE to support OCEANS of ink alleging that destruction of government property!)
Robert Parry, on-line comments to posting of entire first chapter of his book, "Secrecy & Privilege" cited above, on-line:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/100307.html
"The book opens with a scene early in the second year of Bill Clinton’s presidency with him explaining to White House guests why he didn’t pursue geopolitical scandals that had implicated George H.W. Bush in gross abuses of power and arguably criminal acts.
President Clinton made clear he saw historical truth as less important than his hopes for Republican cooperation on his domestic agenda. But this willingness to sweep major scandals under the rug left the White House back door ajar for a restoration of the Bush Family dynasty a half dozen years later – with disastrous consequences for the American Republic.
The relevance of this story today is that Bill Clinton’s misguided 'pragmatism' seems... characteristic" [of most influential Democrats in Washington both in the 1990s and even today].
Friday, January 9, 2009
Rachel Maddow CALLS OUT Senator Diane Feinstein's AIPAC, WAR-LOBBY bluff...
Thank god for YouTube! This video clip from the Rachel Maddow show captures the CRUX of the CRISIS America finds itself in: BOTH PARTIES are OWNED by the Big-Business, Big-Finance, and WAR-LOBBY lobbies!
Here, Rachel says that she has previously said on her show -
"the Senator [Feinstein] was ESSENTIALLY IMPLICATED in the bush administration's 'Intelligence' FIASCOs, like TORTURE and RENDITION and WARRANTLESS WIRETAPPING, because she had a KEY CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT ROLE for intelligence during the bush administration,
and if he had HAD EFFECTIVE OVERSIGHT, during the Bush administration, none of that stuff should have happened."
[Continuing, Rachel says] - "Well, Senator feinstein's office issued a statement to us:
[Rachel reads text of e-mail comment from senator feinstein's office]-
"I have LONG OPPOSED ILLEGAL DETENTIONS and COERCIVE INTERROGATION METHODS.
These activities HAVE GREATLY DAMAGED AMERICA's REPUTATION AROUND THE WORLD, and HAVE MADE THE WAR ON TERROR HARDER TO FIGHT"
"Ending thise Detention and interrogation practises are among my TOP PRIORITIES as CHAIRMAN of the SENATE INTELLIGENCE Committee."
==========================================================
Rachel cleverly closes the segment by noting that her show has repeatedly provided Senator Feinstein an opportunity to come on the show, and discuss those policies, or in particular what the Senator has done to oppose them in, oh, the past 8 years.
Those policies that, HAVE, INDEED!, MADE THE WAR ON TERROR FAR MORE DIFFICULT and costly than otherwise - WITH the tacit, lying, hypocritical, sanctimonious, TWO-FACED COMPLICITY of Senator Feinstein and the other AIPAC & WAR-LOBBY "Democrats"!
Seantor Feinstein's PROTESTATIONS that she have "LONG OPPOSED" those policies ARE at best a lame denial, at worst a Neo-Con WHITEWASH LIE.
Senator Feinstein, as almost all the other Senate Democrats, did NOTHING to SUPPORT Representative Kucinich's REAL attempts to "OPPOSE" Dick Cheney's and George W. Bush's DISASTROUS "intel" policies which, in her own words "GREATLY DAMAGED AMERICA's" ability to wage the war on terror!
THE ONLY reason we get this REAL News - which the LYING, pro- TORTURE, pro-DEFICITS, pro-STOLEN ELECTIONS, pro-LOOTED TREASURY, pro-ILLEGAL SPYING, pro-WAR-CRIMES corporate media _refuse_ to cover - is because YouTube was able to catch Senator Feinstein's own statement (as read by Rachel Maddow) and juxtapose them with the REALITY that Senator Feinstein has DONE NOTHING to OPPOSE those policies in 8 years, instead of the polished fluff and whitewash DISTRACTIONS the "major media" likes to CRAM DOWN America's THROATS.
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