By David J. Cyr, September 25 at 6:39 pm Link to this comment

Since liberals have been conditioned to believe every Democrat lie, and Democrats can’t breathe without lying, (D) voting liberals consider anyone who is honest to be dishonest.

Such sweep in your condemnation. Such preternatural certainty you exhibit. As if anyone in any party is a cookie cutter clone. They are not. No more so than Conservatives. But to do that means using more of your brain to figure it out. So get off your brain and use it more! So that we can see it in action instead of this pablum you give us. Simplistic nonsense. Everyone of them? No. I know of several who aren’t like Pelosi & Leiberman such as Dennis Kucinich & Bernie Sanders . Not the same at all. The world isn’t made up of black and white absolutes.

But I must agree too many people with too little knowledge are buying more of the lies. But the Reich wing (in both parties) is more obvious about it. Remember propose a big lie, then reinforce it with more smaller lies. We see it happening through commission and omission. (Look at how the corporate press has mostly ignored the Liberal protestors on Wall St. for the tenth day!) Now if only a few Tea Baggers were there we would have almost wall-to-wall coverage. How liberal of them. (sarcasm)

Right now the Tea Party is pressing to make everyone in the Republican party sound like them of not do what they demand be done. (Whatever the Koch bros. want, just as any of the Dominionist social controls to that poisonous mix.) Unlike the Democratic party for now. But the leadership in the Democrats has been compromised by those who agree with the Tea Baggers. Or at least let them have their way more often than not. And the one behind both of them are the crypto-fascists who want a place even worse than Texas is now.

Just imagine if Perry orRomney get “elected” in 2012? Obama has been a duteful handmaid as Clinton was before him. What they are there for. Why the fascists (& their helpers) are so open about the destruction of the way our country works right now. They “smell the blood” of its end they are helping it along to. Why? To take over and remake it in their image.

It says a lot about the poor state of education in the US with the large number of people who deny human influence on globel warming, deny evolution, and try to deny the positive effects of nationalized medicine.

“Another blunder is the idea that it does not matter what actually causes global warming. Simple logic suggests that it matters a great deal. Evidence is mounting by the day that the extra CO2 we humans put into the atmosphere is not the the major cause of global warming/climate change. Climate change is always with us and if the current warming spell has very little to do with CO2 and is due to perfectly natural causes outside our control then a reduction of our CO2 production rate will do virtually nothing to alter current climate changes.”—-Ted Swart
Nowhere does Ms. Prins say that it doesn’t matter what causes global warming.  But your understanding of the subject is obviously poor, and has been formed by disinformation. How anyone with a scientific background can even doubt that human CO2 emissions are heating amazes me.  That CO2 acts like the glass in a greenhouse, allowing shortwave radiation from the sun to pass through, but capturing the longwave radiation emitted by the planet is not even debatable. Besides being experimentally proven, one needs only look at conditions on Venus, which has an atmosphere largely composed of CO2, and then look at the conditions on this planet when it was young and had little CO2 in the atmosphere. It was frozen from pole to pole, with no liquid water at the surface. Add to this the considerable fraction of total CO2 humans have added to the atmosphere in the last hundred years, and the conclusion that this would cause the warming we are experiencing is inescapable.

Since liberals have been conditioned to believe every Democrat lie, and Democrats can’t breathe without lying, (D) voting liberals consider anyone who is honest to be dishonest.

David J. Cyr, September 25 at 10:08 am

You, David Cyr, said:

“Cliff Carson wants sheeple to keep voting for one of the two heads of the two-headed corporate (R) & (D) party monster — the one head of the two that has (D) brains the monster needs to survive. That’s how loyal liberal Democrat voters have made America’s fascism so sustainable”.

Cliff Carson, September 25 at 5:32 am

I said:

“I want a moral and ethical Party, one that will represent the common man and our Constitution equally, to supplant the Two Headed Monster in Washington.”

What I have said over and over, is that the Two Headed Monster can be taken down by killing off one of the heads at a time.  I chose to kill off the Republican Party FIRST because…..

You David ,on the other hand, keep braying that I want the Democrat Party to ....see above, claiming that I am a Liberal Democrat wanting ....

David, you are a shill for the Green Party and you prove it by your actions.  David, the Green Party is not the salvation of America.

My claim is that a Coalition of Independent Parties could be.  The difference between you and me seems to be one of honesty. 

I am what I claim to be, you on the other hand are a shill for the Green Party and you have no other goal other than advancement of the Green Party, while claiming to be otherwise.  You sound like any other current Political Troll.

I see you as a dishonest person.

QUOTE, MaxShields:

Our duopoly controls the rules and marginalizes all other players.
________________

Imagine a national election in which the majority of voters refused to vote for either of the corporate (R) & (D) party’s candidates.

That would be an enormously important historic election for opponents of corporatism, regardless of which corporate candidate might be automatically installed… and those voting against corporatism wouldn’t need to agree upon whom to vote for, only which two not to vote for.

The dementia of Democrat voters is their belief that elections can only serve a good purpose if their evil wins.

Every election that has people fighting over whether to vote for the corporate party’s (R) or (D) candidate is an election in which natural persons have lost to corporate persons.

Who good intentioned people vote for isn’t nearly as important as having them not vote for either evil is.

http://www.chenangogreens.org

Mr. Cyr and Mr. Carson,

The problems we have will not be addressed by a “party” however configured given the utter corruption of our political system. A “Green Pary” does not simply Waltz into office and initiate change.

The Eurpean Greens have had some success (particularly in Germany) because of the kind representation they have through a parlimentary system. You can begin to purge the political system through an increase of organized party affiliations and proportional representation…or at least that seems to be the case in some instances.

Our duopoly controls the rules and marginalizes all other players. Since our Congress (with the exception of unaffiliated “independents” who are total opposites - Lieberman and Sanders - the latter a progressive with little more than a megaphone that has little play in the game of power).

QUOTE, Cliff Carson:

“You [David Cyr] claim voting Green is the only way.”
________________

No, I haven’t, and I do not.

Cliff Carson wants sheeple to keep voting for one of the two heads of the two-headed corporate (R) & (D) party monster — the one head of the two that has (D) brains the monster needs to survive. That’s how loyal liberal Democrat voters have made America’s fascism so sustainable.

Actually, I don’t advocate that it’s necessary for people to vote Green, but that would be a considerably more constructively cast vote than any for any of the corporate party’s candidates. For reasons very different from liberals I’m not a Nader fan, and Nader is not a Green — he never was — and he was not a Green Party candidate in 2004 or 2008 (he was an independent candidate), but votes cast for him were votes against war and for Single-Payer. All the votes for Kerry and Obama were votes for perpetual war, and against Single-Payer.

What I advocate for is for people to actually vote for what they say they are for… even if they have to write-in their own name because there’s no candidate standing for what they are for.

The corporate (R) & (D) party isn’t for anything that liberals so heavily advertise that they are for, so their votes for Democrats pervert the political process. The millions of liberal votes for Democrats ensure that elections serve no good purpose.

The Democrats perceived to be “good” are actually the worst, because it is those successfully appearing to be “good” Democrats who keep so many millions of people voting for all the Democrats who are transparently evil.

The first step is to stop collaborating. Only corporate person government collaborators vote for Democrats.

Generally, one of the corporate party’s two POTUS candidates gets about 49% of half of the eligible electorate’s vote, and the corporate pre-selected “winner” gets about 50% of half of the eligible electorate’s vote (about 25% of the potential votes). About 99% of the participating electorate regularly votes affirmatively to (R) & (D) continue corporatism. Only about 1% vote against corporate government… against perpetual war, for Single-Payer, for future generation survival.

It’s election result evident that liberals have been morally and intellectually incapable of voting for any of the good they claim they are for.

The “Principles” of Liberal Voters:

http://chenangogreens.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=491&Itemid=1

...“Parenti provides a list of steps necessary to mitigate some of the horrific effects of climate change, its causes and the catastrophic convergence of which it is a component. These include capping carbon dioxide emission, redirecting government subsidies to clean technologies and building better socioeconomic infrastructure that can withstand the adverse natural forces enhanced by man’s lack of respect for the atmosphere, in his unquenchable thirst for limitless accumulation…
  ” We’re talking about a seismic shift in the mentality of pretty powerful, selfish and destructive groups of people”...
  PS—It deserves mention that this is also a very small group of people, relative to the rest of the world.  They are also quite concentrated in location.  And they also circulate more among themselves than among others.  All this means they might be relatively easy to reach with initiatives and inducements to broaden their thinking and behavior.
  For example, they all got their education (such as it is) from a relatively few “institutions of higher learning”—which has proven to be not all that high.  Surely some of the people who teach at these institutions (and some fellow-alumni) realize what is going on, and the disaster it is leading to.  Surely some of these people (in governent as well as business) can “see the handwriting on the wall” for their future and the future of their children (as well as ours) and have the power to reach and change the mental landscape that is leading to this dog-eat-dog process of decadence and extinction.
  Harvard, Yale, Chicago, California, Dartmouth, U.Mass, etc. etc., why not have a go at it? Step outside your academia, get together and propose “To Help Make the Future Possible” or something, and finish educating these MBAs whom you allowed to graduate with insufficient qualifications.

To David J. Cyr, September 25 at 5:06 am

David

I see your problem, if it is not just a ploy, that is:

You and I seem to want the same reform of the criminal Government in power - with one exception.

You want the Green Party to be in power.

I want a moral and ethical Party, one that will represent the common man and our Constitution equally, to supplant the Two Headed Monster in Washington.

Your solution is for a majority to vote the Green Party.

That is the very epitome of Party Loyalty, David.

I have advocated a Coalition of Independent Parties that would include the Green Party.

I proposed that the best way to accomplish this (without the Money power and Media Corporate as part of that Money power), would be to get rid of the two Major Parties, one at a time.  I chose the Republican Party to shun first and stated why.  While doing this the people would need to be bringing about the Coalition Party.  Any Independent Party that would not want to participate would have to go it on their on, just as they have been seemingly forever.  What has been the result?

What you are proposing, you oaf, is to keep doing the same thing we have been doing, except that you want everyone to vote for your Party.

You claim voting Green is the only way.

My answer is - no way.

Quote, Cliff Carson:

“That the people let the Government get away with such nonsense is due in part to Party Loyalty.”
_______________

It’s due in largest part to the intractable corporate party loyalty of the majority of voters.

Due to corporate party loyalty like that of Cliff Carson, whose plan to end corporatism is for all to “vote Democratic until the Republican Party is gone” is just another devious Democrat operative ploy… as devious as MoveOn.org’s claim that it (the GOTV org for the most corporate funded and Wall St. owned candidate ever) is the org that will now lead us to ending corporate rule, by voting for the corporate party’s Democrats.

It’s not a moral solution — nor intelligent — to flock in support of (D) Schutzstaffel blackshirts when stupid people are supporting (R) Sturmabteilung brownshirts.

http://www.chenangogreens.org

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that victims of extraordinary rendition cannot sue Washington for torture suffered overseas, because Congress has not authorized such lawsuits.

This dovetails nicely with the Obama Circular Logic that I reported earlier:

“News reports that Obama says those who actually did the physical torture of detainees cannot be tried for their crimes because they were “just following orders.”  On the other hand, “those who ordered the torture cannot be tried as they only ordered it - They did not physically participate in the torture.”  Therefore no one can be tried for torture.  This is a perfect case of Circular Logic.

The point is that a Merging Disaster is when Circular Logic is used to absolve everyone of the perpetrators of blame,  in this case Torture, however it can be applied to all criminal activity to protect our Government from prosecution.

That the people let the Government get away with such nonsense is due in part to Party Loyalty.

It is killing America.

To David J. Cyr, September 24 at 8:07 am

David

“Your new found knowledge could be better put to use challenging the self-delusion of liberals who believe it’s better to have fascism well done by Democrats than poorly managed by Republicans.”

Please explain this statement of yours.

What is my new found knowledge

Why you never have missed an opportunity to denigrate Liberals

Why you state that Liberals believe in Fascism well done

And why you think Republicans are poor managers of Fascism

And is this just your method of promoting the Green Party?

Two final things:

What makes Christian Palenti a knowledgeable writer simply because he is a son of Michael Palenti?

I wrote about the dictatorial excesses of the Presidency in using Directives to supersede Congress and the Constitution - if you allude to that as my new found knowledge, you obviously haven’t been paying attention to the substance of my comments.

What is it with you David J. Cyr?

Quote, Cliff Carson:

“My question is whether either the author, or Prins,  have a clue about the extent of dictatorial authority assigned to the Presidency… Is allowing our Presidents to assume dictatorial un-constitutional powers a form of merging disaster?”
_______________

Since nearly everyone in America who votes self-restricts themselves to voting only for the corporate (R) & (D) party’s corporate pre-selected to be “electable” candidates the sheeple who have voted for corporatism shouldn’t be surprised when they get it.

You need not lecture Christian Parenti on the excesses of America’s popular mandate dictatorship. His father is Michael Parenti.

http://www.michaelparenti.org/books.html

Your new found knowledge could be better put to use challenging the self-delusion of liberals who believe it’s better to have fascism well done by Democrats than poorly managed by Republicans.

My question is whether either the author, or Prins,  have a clue about the extent of dictatorial authority assigned to the Presidency, by the former Presidents, and the effect pushed down to subjugate the common man.  I see these Presidential usurpations of dictatorial power combined with Congressional failure to apply restraint, as an extremely dangerous merging disaster of our Government.  I think I will get the book and read it.  See if it says anything about what I see as a merging disaster.

Copied from Wikipedia Sources with editing by me:

Of all the National Security Presidential Directives (estimated to exceed 60) issued by the last Bush Administration, and I’ll bet others added by Obama, the titles of only about half of the Bush Presidential Directives have been publicly identified. There is descriptive material or actual text in the public domain for only about a third.  In other words, there are dozens of undisclosed Presidential directives that define U.S. national security policy and task government agencies, but whose substance is unknown either to the public or, as a rule, to Congress.

In 1984 and 1986, during the wave of terrorist attacks around the world, Congress passed laws making air piracy and attacks on Americans abroad federal crimes. President Reagan added teeth to these laws by signing a secret covert-action directive in 1986 that authorized the CIA to kidnap, anywhere abroad, foreigners wanted for suspected terrorism.  As a consequence, a new word entered the dictionary of U.S. foreign relations: rendition.

The US has used rendition increasingly as a tool in the US-led “War on Terror”  to deal with foreign detainees, ignoring international law, which the U S insists all other nations (of course excepting our friends)are obligated to obey.  Modern methods of rendition includes a form where suspects are taken into US custody usually by CIA operatives, in a procedure called “extraordinary rendition”.  The CIA was granted permission to use renditions in a Presidential Directive by President Clinton following a procedure established by US President George H. W. Bush in January 1993.
 
Have any “innocent” people (of the thousands who been swept up in this operation) been tortured?  What would be your guess?  The answer is many.  How many were tortured to death? This is another unknown.  What would you accept as an acceptable number of innocents subjected to this torture?

Is allowing our Presidents to assume dictatorial un-constitutional powers a form of merging disaster?

QUOTE, Ted Swart:

“Norman Prins makes so many blunders that it is hard to trust anything he says”
_______________

Since Swart believes that any error (however minor) that a writer makes means they are not worthy of serious consideration, then he should give himself no serious consideration.

Ms Prins’ name is Nomi — not Norman — and her area of expertise is in exposing financial crimes.

http://www.nomiprins.com

This site and this particular article is clearly being attcked.

Sonds like a good book.

the taliban’s view of poppy cultivation looks to be a
tangled one.  the largest afghani crop ever was in
1999 when the taliban ruled.  at that time, the
taliban had an uneasy truce with the northern
alliance and the taliban-enforced drastic reduction
in poppy growing during the following 2 years may
have been a tactic to weaken the northern alliance
who were heavily benefiting from poppy production.
and more recently,  a 2007 NYT article said both the
karazai gov’t AND the taliban are
sheltering/condoning poppy cultivation.

concerning ted swart’s comment…mr. swart has
previously expressed his scepticism about man’s
activity as a major cause of global warming.  he
claims he’s a scientist, so one must at least give
him a hearing.  james hansen is a scientist who does
believe in man-made global warming. i guess those of
us who are incapable of measuring climatic variables
will have to make the best informed choice we can. 
swart accuses prins of blundering because she claims
the richest nations produce the greatest amount of
carbon, when technically she should have said carbon
dioxide.  this is petty nit-picking on his
part…prins earlier in her review, when discussing
ways of mitigating global warming, suggested capping
carbon DIOXIDE emissions. swart says that these
‘blunders’ make parenti’s book unworthy of his
consideration.  his loss..christian parenti is one of
the finest young journalists around.

Norman Prins makes so many blunders that it is hard to trust anything he says and—by association—to trust the book on which he comments. He suggests that the Taliban supports the growing of opium poppies which is the exact reverse of what is actually the case. When the Taliban ran Afghanistan they were totally opposed to the growing of poppies and had reduced the amount of poppy growing dramatically. I hate to say nice things about the Taliban—since they were and are one of the most despicable regimes in human history—but truth is better than fiction any day.
Another blunder is the idea that it does not matter what actually causes global warming. Simple logic suggests that it matters a great deal. Evidence is mounting by the day that the extra CO2 we humans put into the atmosphere is not the the major cause of global warming/climate change. Climate change is always with us and if the current warming spell has very little to do with CO2 and is due to perfectly natural causes outside our control then a reduction of our CO2 production rate will do virtually nothing to alter current climate changes. 
A third blunder concerns the statement that the US:
“produces the greatest amount of carbon”.
Neither the US nor any other country produces “carbon” which is something that can only be done by a nuclear reaction from some other element. What actually happens is that the carbon in coal or oil or gasoline is converted by oxidation—when burnt—into CO2. And it is, moreover, incorrect to state that the the US “produces the greatest amount of CO2” since China’s CO2 production rate exceeds that of the US and its production rate is increasing very rapidly.
I am forced to conclude that neither the commentary nor the book itself is worthy of serious consideration.

Other than the comment on the poppy industries which is complete backwards,the concept of catastrophic convergence is sound. The reality is that our problems are now almost beyond our ability to resolve, and one builds on another to intensify the affect.

We are committing species suicide by our pollution and destruction of the planet and are well on our way to extinction.  I think that most people in the back of their minds know with some certainty that things are going to get very bad in the near future. Any intelligent person can understand the following.

(1) The world’s population continues to rise and our resources are declining. Oil has peaked.

(2) We have built an entire civilization on a non-renewable resource (oil), and failed to seriously consider building alternate, non-polluting energy sources and now we are building another on rare metals.

(3) We are polluting the planet’s air, water, oceans, and lands to the point of ecological collapse. [The Gulf oil spill being a classic example, or the killing of forests and phytoplankton to the point where it will affect our oxygen levels, or Climate change resulting from our destructive behaviors].  If we do use all our remaining oil, what will the results be from releasing all the waste products into the ecosystem?

(4) Our governments are corrupt, controlled by corporate interests, and block serious change. [World-wide, not simply the US].

(5) Our food sources are declining, creating hunger and civil unrest. [World-wide]

(6) The unequal distribution of wealth is resulting in a few very rich and in massive poverty for most of the World’s population. This will eventually produce violent conflict and class warfare.

(7) Human behaviour itself is working against our survival, i.e., denying problems, procrastination and hoping it will go away, and leaving it up to a fairy-tale figure to resolve it all in some supernatural way. Above all, a high level of ignorance prevails, maintained by politics and religion.

(8) We are slowly building up to a 3rd world war involving nuclear weapons, which could hasten our destruction.  It will likely be triggered by a need for resources, most likely oil, rare metals, and even food.

Is it any wonder that the human species is slowly going insane as it faces the consequences of their behaviour? It’s all just a matter of time. I’ll give us anywhere between 10 to 50 years. You can expect an increasing number of civil uprisings in the near future as people are forced by circumstances to acknowledge a dawning reality of our own extinction.  And, in typical fashion, we will do our best to kill the messengers of bad news.

Haven’t read it, but if I read this review correctly, Prins must have a jokester mentality or too many closets in his mind that have no doors.

The Taliban supports poppy production? “because the Taliban financially supports poppy production”? Prins,surely you jest.  When the Taliban was in control in Afghanistan, they almost completely eradicated the Poppy production.  They probably would have completely done so by now, except the American invasion brought the Opium production roaring back.

And “Juarez, Mexico (“the city that NAFTA built and then began to kill, but climate change will finish the task … ”)”,  oh Prins, back in the fifty’s - before NAFTA some of you will recall, I spent much time sojourning in the Carta Blanca brewery there in Juarez, sipping the good life.  Once the Border Guards inquired of me if I was carrying anything whereupon I confessed that I indeed was carrying a load of intoxicants internally.

As to the Mexican people, my Sister in Law was the most beautiful woman that ever put on a bikini.  My male friends an I had decided that she could don her bikini and walk around our pool three times and surely the water would began to steam.  My wife and the females around us hatred that bikini.

Oh, I do agree with him on one thing though, the IMF is not in the business of helping poor nations - that is merely their propaganda.

Sorry, Prins, maybe I should read it so that I can really trash it.

Reminds me of something my Preacher friend told me concerning a rival preacher that seemed to be more popular than he, He said that “he went to listen to him preach because he knew that his rival wouldn’t be any good - and sure enough he wasn’t”.

I want this book. It has helpful guide lines of not just the far future but well within our life times. Convergence where we need to forestall the totalitarian methods being employed now by us and others. And to keep our own democracy from being changed to a despotic fascism in order to “preserve our liberties” etc. It happened on a hemispheric level during the heating and cooling of the Upper Dryas that caused all kinds of disaster including the spread of the Black Death an the loss if liberalism an intellectualism to dictatorship and narrow religious fanaticism. Only now we see it on a global scale. Where the most violent means will be chosen first. That must not happen.

We have already been positioned by the wealthy among us to crash the economy so that they could take over and “save us” from democracy and Social Security.

“Our hysterical war on immigration routinely
kills or incarcerates people who have nowhere else to
move because of a combination of climate change and
economic devastation caused by financial and trade
deregulation.”

The migration problem the world is experiencing is due to the chaos caused by invading armies from the west! which then leads to death and heartbreak.

By Amon Drool, September 23 at 8:25 am

Good point. Our “problems” quickly become left/right complaints rather than real solutions with a clear understanding of the problelms underpinnings and solution consequences. Easily we move from a certain sensibility to ideological talking points - no problems are clearly address and remediated.

prins: “Our hysterical war on immigration routinely
kills or incarcerates people who have nowhere else to
move because of a combination of climate change and
economic devastation caused by financial and trade
deregulation.”

i’m in agreement the reasons prins gives for the recent huge increase in immigration, but why
characterize people who are concerned about un-
controlled immigration as hysterical?  doesn’t land
have limited carrying capacity?  and shouldn’t people
who inhabit that land have the right, through their
gov’t, to put limits onto how many people can flood
into their geographic space?