We have to work to get others to accept the idea that the rich must be taxed out of existence.  They only use money and position to steal.  Trash talk the idle rich and all their rackets.  Annoy everyone else.  Once enough people know the score, they will find a way.

A Vote of Confidence Amendment will enable us to remove politicians who fail to respond to the public will.

VOCA, Now!

I would be more gullible if they would address this nagging Building #7 thing.

Remember, America was stupid enough to buy the white male superiority thing when the evidence for the opposite has been under their nose for well over 200 years.

Another kangeroo trial in Guantanamo Boy: how can anyone believe what is going on there when only the 9/11 family members are allowed to be there, when there is a 30 second delay between what is said by the defendants and what the attendess at the show ‘trial’ hear?  This is just a star chamber trial, and the result of torture.
How can anyone there think that anyone with a brain or in any country but ours will believe the results of this ‘trial’ have any integrity?  Very similar to the chances of a black man being acquitted in segregation Birmingham, of a crime against a white person: nada.

You can go it alone almost every day.  My solitary street sign for today said:  Read History...Think Crooks.

A perfect summing up.  I copied and posted it to my address list.  I think the sociopaths are running out of public gullibility.  Hopefully, there are enough Americans who are taking off their rose-colored glasses and beginning to spot the sociopaths and wannabees.  The rest of the world is way ahead of us.

No one appears to understand that Bush et al. have fully succeeded at what they planned even before Bush was elected. The failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not failures from their perspective!

They WANT a civil war in Iraq. They WANT a failed state in Afghanistan. They WANT Iran to try to take over. It is all just what they wanted: a destabilized Middle East with all of us squabbling over the wreckage, Big Oil controlling all the resources, our civil rights destroyed. Hell, how ‘bout another war (with Iran) just to be sure.

The rich are not dependent on our country to do well. Globalized economy means globalized wealth. They WANT to turn the US into a third-world country of Wal-Mart employees. They are draining the accumulated wealth our country built up over the brief “blip” of the rise of the middle class and putting it back in their off-shore bank accounts.

All of this is just what they want and Bush and his friends are toasting each other with smiles of congratulation as all their plans come to completion.

All focus and energy spent on figure heads and front men, as causative, is a result of successful misdirection. The power remains unseen; out of focus. I know it’s necessary to start somewhere. Expelling the president and every politician who drifts from publicly controlled action is essential. But to spend this much energy on men and women, who once gone, will be replaced by other men and women who will play along with the power or cease to exist, is wasteful.
There are watchdog groups online that keep track of who gives who money and how many lobbyists a particular entity has and so on. I share as much stuff as I can within my limited sphere.
What suggestions do all of you have that would move us towards exposing the power and its plans?

That is especially true for religions which are basically preposterous and based on magical thinking.  Mormonism, Zionism, Scientology and most of the rest are relatively recent, but they make sure that no criticism can be uttered in the general media.  They are huge mutual con job societies run by sociopaths.
Zionism was partly behind 911, but no one can mention it.  Half the neocons were Zionist right-wing Jews.  If you are anti-crook, you are anti-religion.

Clinton has taken Kentucky and Obama is almost sure to win Oregon.
The Democratic race for nomination is still very much alive – and most likely to be decided by superdelegates – as CNN points out clearly

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/20/primary.wra p/index.html

If you’re tired of waiting around for those super delegates to make a decision already, go to LobbyDelegates.com and push them to support Clinton or Obama

If you haven’t done so yet, please write a message to each of your state’s superdelegates at http://www.lobbydelegates.com

Obama Supporters:

Sending a note to current Obama supporters lets them know it’s appreciated, sending a note to current Clinton supporters can hopefully sway them to change their vote to Obama, and sending a note to the uncommitted folks will hopefully sway them to vote for Obama. It’s that easy…

Clinton Supporters too …. !

It takes a moment, but what’s a few minutes now worth to get Clinton in office?! Those are really worth !

Sending a note to current Clinton supporters lets them know it’s appreciated, sending a note to current Obama supporters can hopefully sway them to change their vote to Clinton, and sending a note to the uncommitted folks will hopefully sway them to vote for Clinton. It’s that easy…

The secrets of the religionists are out.  God (whatever) is what Freud called “oceanic feelings” and they can be found in the upper right hand part of the brain.  Since these feelings have a biological source they probably have some survival use - perhaps they serve for necessary illusions under great stress.  Theology is not God (whatever).  It is an attempt to explain to ignorant people the nature of the unknowable.  It is a medicine show con job that finally becomes believable over time.  The Oceanic feelings are the emotional root for the stories that make up all the cults and religions.  It is important to separate the too.  Most people who are against organized religion understand this, but they may not extend it to such theologies as nationalism, etc.

having read through a lot of gore vidal’s work, i can’t say that this is any less true, it seems so odd that we afford religion such protection when there is no real reason to. I mean really, think about it. If someone has an idea in any category but religion (that you disagree with), it is socially acceptable to act intolerant of it. The attitude may not be considered intolerance, but really, that’s what it is. We afford religion respect and protection for no real reason. If a child in a conservative neighborhood has his house vandalized for his political affiliation, the house is expected to shrug it off, or go after them for vandalism. In a religous setting, the same act is considered a hate crime, and is thought of as being much more serious.

were like crooked Catholics, they would take over our media, finances, and government and pour our money and youth into wars for the Vatican. 

I would guess that 60 percent of American Jews are moderate to liberal, and they are completely conned by the right-wing Israel nightmare.  It is OK to criticize anything except Judaism and Israel.

The fruits of Bush’s efforts, you say, but not yet felt, will surely sink home?  Soooooo true and that home is the USA.

“The original amendment to the Constitution is the cornerstone of the way of life in the United States, promising citizens the freedoms of religion, speech, press and assembly.” That is taken from survey of student ignorance about the 1 st Amendment.  The quote omits the right to petition government.  Vidal made reference to the story.

“Like a good for nothing cock, without having won the victory, some walk away from an argument and crow.” I would guess that you are about 14 years old.

Is that all you can do?

Anyone who’s wondering what a credit default is - anyone who hasn’t heard this should listen to this amazingly clear, fascinating, and alarming interview with Michael Greenberger
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8 9338743

Thanks for reminding me about Mr. Dooley.  The Imperial Raypublic has been a continuing nightmare throughout our rap sheet.  Those who don’t know history are likely to think it was admirable.

AS usual, Mr. Vidal, your commentary is learned and spot on. However, as to your being the first . . .
I haven’t the exact date of publication at the moment, but the Irish-American author Finley Peter Dunne, in the guise of Mr. Dooley referred to the US as “this Imperial Raypublic” on numerous occasions, around the time of the Spanish-American War, when referring to the shenanigans of “me frind McKinley.”

Almost everything that is deemed sacred is a con job.  All of our institutions have degraded, poisoned and ripped us off.  Bush and Co. are just the latest incarnation of the hideous termites that have directed this country for years.  With the media they play us like a piano.  They can always send us where they want by changing the subject.  In Naziland the screaming never stops.  The worst thing you can do is to act as if they deserve any respect.

I read that Brattleboro had indeed passed this measure, which I find very sensible. The reaction of the White House was rather amusing, something along the lines of “Huh?”, but with more words.

What is this advertisement for John McCain doing on this Web page, I’d like to know?

Cheers,

Cynthia

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index. php?id=11015
------------------------
March 2nd, 2008 11:46 am
Indictment proposal gets hearing

By Susan Smallheer / Rutland Herald

BRATTLEBORO, VT – Vermonters have long taken stands on the big issues of the day at town meeting.

Back in 1854, the issue was slavery. Several towns passed resolutions condemning the pending federal Kansas-Nebraska legislation that would have allowed the new states to sanction slavery, according to State Archivist Gregory Sanford.

In 1974, the town of Thetford voted to impeach then-President Richard Nixon, who went on to resign later that year.

Eight years later, 150 Vermont towns adopted a nuclear weapons freeze resolution.

This town meeting Brattleboro voters will decide whether President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should be indicted for violating their oath of office and failing to follow the Constitution for a variety of actions stemming from the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism.
....
------------------------
Can the people of Washington, D.C., forbid Bush to enter their town? So he would have to fly to the White House by helicopter?
Then, a little late of course, one could have tried to ban political candidates who don’t oppose the war or support(ed) torture (almost all)…
How about banning army recruiters from schools, colleges, villages and towns?
...

Every sting matters, said the bee.

JPBreeze, I wrote the original post you and several others have critiqued with your fine wit and grace.
The only problem is that you intellectuals either read only the first sentence or have no concept of irony or caricature. Vidal surely understood I was having fun at Bush’s expense. I am stunned that you and other responders are baffled by blatant satire.

Hi John, I like the insect thing. But you malign insects everywhere with your comparison. Think of the busy, busy honey bee or the tireless leaf-cutter ant...all good citizens of our planet. Pinworms might be closer to the mark. You must present alternatives, great one. Bomarc, holy shit. Haven’t heard that one in a while. Vacuum tubes, I’ll bet. How about Snark, Nike Ajax, launch on warning, failsafe point, duck and cover...? I’ve already done my Curtis LeMay screed under a different nic but you got to love these mad bomber types. They worry too much about precious bodily fluids, though. Remember that Slim Pickins ride down the pike?

I just got back from a lively conversation with a B-24 pilot, a B-52 pilot and a Bomarc Missile engineer.  I am a Navy veteran.  We have lively conversations about politics in a local coffee shop and people overhear us every time we meet.  I make the same arguments that I make on this site.  I always express the basic notion that the human race is made up of crooks, suckers, and lazy cowards.  That the human race stops growing intellectually and emotionally at 14 years old, and that most of our institutions are responsible.

I don’t try to convert.  That is always a major mistake, because you set up a vertical dynamic that way.  You just have to speak plainly and as honestly as possible.  (That means dump the Marxist jargon.)

Americans learn just enough stupid things by age 14 to be susceptible to every crook lie that comes down the pike.  They are not made intellectually and emotionally immature.  The media keeps them intellectually and emotionally immature by pandering to that level of development.

Even simple villagers know enough to compare notes about strangers.  We have lost the art.  We don’t talk, think, read, or write.  We are perfectly groomed suckers.

To the ungodly vidal idiot;

The fruits of Bush’s efforts have already been felt, just not in the way he imagined.  Whatever grand visions Dubya imagined, were hijacked by the neocon’s, “Project for a New American Century”, which is almost within their grasp.  The final piece to the puzzle is to gain control of the internet, which CIA spook McConnell is currently writing.

Maybe you could afford some of us an example where Bush made just a “minor slip”?  The crimes of Bushco are to varied and many to be afforded the “just a slip” moniker.  As for you labelling Vidal as someone who pokes Mexicans with sticks, where do you get off saying this?  Is it because you have done so yourself?  Get a life!  Maybe you need to read some Ann Coulter, yea, that will get you in a good mood.

Let’s not give this frat boy filth the status of criminals.  They are priceless examples of insect depravity.  They should spend two hours a day chained to light posts with signs and funny hats.  The rest of their day should be spend visting schools and telling the stories of their endless, hustles, lies and crimes.
ALL AMERICANS ARE CROOKS, SUCKERS, AND LAZY COWARDS.  They need to see what can sometimes happen when the country is infested with Republican termites.

A simple war on stupidity would be more than worthwhile.

Critical thinking is an imaginary “skill”.  The war on stupidity is a never ending artistic adventure.

Peter, I don’t think you read my post carefully.

The only strategy Bush had was to “liberate” the Iraqi people and then liberate their resources.  Since the invasion and occupation, Bush has had to keep his money scam alive hoping for divine intervention.

To defy Ungodly Vidal,
The Republicans are smoking something better than i am if they think bush is being maligned!!!

President George W. Bush is being maligned by the master of misdirection. Vidal, a closet admirer of Aaron Burr, would have been at home huddling with Burr and Andrew Jackson, the three of them cruising around looking for good Indian land and maybe whacking a Mexican with a stick if no one is looking. His historical soul-mates not available, Vidal has made George W his personal Mexican, poking him with a stick every time this President makes a minor slip; like letting the second most prominent target on earth, the Twin Towers, not be defended. or...stuff like blowing up a small country for no apparent reason...or keep saying nukuler or just not (though no fault of his own) being able to do one thing. Vidal, in summary, is a WHINER. Yes, a hitting Mexican with a stick whiner. George W. Bush will be known to future generations for his inner greatness and his vision for a better world. The fruits of his efforts, though not yet felt, will surely sink home in not so many years.

Man that s- is just too damn FUNNY- take that on the road!

I can see media and corporate filth laughing together like the Beavis and Butthead they are.  We will never get their attention.  That is why I talk, talk, talk, and put signs on my car.  Millions know what is going on.  They just need to see that they are not alone.  There is also Air America radio, thank God.

Gore, enough already.  We do not need your humor today when untold many are tortured.  Please get back to 9/11 is inside.  Shaking the cage long enough will have corporate TV talking finally.  Please, please.

Gore, hey.  That 9/11 is an inside job is better conversation than being funny.  Enough, please.  Please get on back at your original: 9/11 is inside.  In all the stupifying chickenshit we need to get the enfeebled across the starting line, gang up and get it going.  Too much time wasted already, time now is death, starvation, torture, imprisonment for thousands, millions.  Gore, it is time to make some true noise, rattle the mob truly.  Enough already.

Sorry David.  You can’t speak for anyone but yourself.  I will fight against this filth until my last breath - alone if need be.

Sorry, Gore, no one cares enough to do anything.  We are all hostages to the Repubs and Dems.  Neither will serve the populace, only themselves.  RIP America 1776-2001

Every window on my car is covered with computer printed signs expressing my hatred for the Nazi filth who stole this country and the lazy cowards who have gone along with it.  My car is a very hostile billboard against these scum.  I don’t give a damn whether anyone agrees with me or not.  I will not go silently into this dark night.  It is not enough to analyze things.  There is not time enough.  “Anger is tiresome.  Hatred is serene.”

In response to #113198 by John Hanks, reading:
“Every nation is populated by lazy cowards and suckers.  The remaining crooks have plenty to feed on.  Bush is simply the latest manifestation of cartel filth.  It is always a small minority that has the smarts to know what is going on and to put up a fight.  I hope that liberals and others learn a soldier’s hatred before it is too late.

John, Don’t hold back. Say what you really think.
Err...only thing I can suggest is that you don’t cut the red wire.  (Actually, if you’ll replace the soldier’s hatred with a Ritter-style cold analysis, you’ll find a lot of posters here agree with you).
Don’t be too mad at Mr. Bush. He’s only following the natural tendency to domination for which Americans have had a craving since at least the McKinley-Teddy Roosevelt years.

Every nation is populated by lazy cowards and suckers.  The remaining crooks have plenty to feed on.  Bush is simply the latest manifestation of cartel filth.  It is always a small minority that has the smarts to know what is going on and to put up a fight.  I hope that liberals and others learn a soldier’s hatred before it is too late.

I gleefully chuckled at Mr. Gore’s idea Bush is really just a jinx who inadvertently causes disasters for all those around him.  If I was superstitious or believed in Fate, I would likely find that suggestion a welcome explanation for incredible tidal wave of trouble Bush and his buddies continue to immerse us. 

The image of Biblical Jonah in the White House, couldn’t help but conjure up for me other walking disasters from literature.  I even wondered if instead of Jonah, perhaps the reference shouldn’t be to the eternally wrong optimist, Candide, or maybe Joe Btfsplk, the sad character in Little Abner who was constantly followed by a cloud of rain.  Thanks for the mental fun. 

Ultimately though, I realized that none of them, not even Jonah of whale fame, really apply here since in each case including Jonah, the characters were essentially innocent victims.  They did not bring the vortexs of troubles upon themselves.  Incompetence, ignorance, ego, hubris, laziness and extremely questionable motives played little or no part in their particular pitfalls.  With Bush however, all those are present in unending supply. 

Moreover, Bush suffers little or not at all the calamities he sows.  Other than the occasional disparaging word or image, which he probably never sees or hears anyway, there are few consequences.  Unlike Custer, our current leaders are the ones least likely to suffer from their idiocies.

Worse, we are not innocent victims ourselves.  After all, although we did not put this putz in power, we allow him to remain there where he can harm us and our descendants.  Consequently, we probably deserve what misfortunes befall us.  This story unfortunately is a tragedy, not a comedy.

I feel that “Dark Ages”, in reference to our current predicament, unjustly defiles that unilluminated period.  I prefer to anoint this special time we are in as the “Gray Ages”. The gray implies a greater deceit and hipocrisy.

I must say that this is an article and a style of writing I can appreciate. The biblical reference is one that hopefully the rest of society could relate to. Also, the American Republic is how I see this country as well, I don’t know about anyone else.

There once was a pundit named Hannity
Who possessed neither reason nor sanity
Champion of slobs
A disgrace to the Gods
What he held to be truth was just vanity

There was an old man named George Bush
Who put the whole country on its tush
Lost in pursuit
While ignoring the truth
The country impeached him with a Whoosh!

There was a mean, mad, dog named Cheney
Who snarled, bit, chewed, barked, and pissed on me.
Deserving a kick
I launched him real quick
And so was revealed this epiphany:

When government ignores your commands
And pees on the truth in your hands
Gently remind them
By kicking behind them
Its your dollar they have in their hands!

I blame our addiction to media filth.

Mr. Vidal’s article is thoughtful, humorous, compassionate, and supurbly written.  What else should one expect from the greatest literary figure in American letters since Mark Twain?  He scatters opprobria over this president and his croneys as a bishop of constitutional orthodoxy wielding an aspergillum filled with holy water, or perhaps filled with ink from Mr. Jefferson’s inkwell.
I will not comment further on the contents of the article, save to agree that this period is indeed the beginning of the end of intellectual imagination in this Republic.  It is interesting to compare the numbers of doctors, philosophers, engineers, poets, writers, scientists, and other such persons in the four hundred years prior to Caesar Augustus, and the four hundred years following the ascension of the Princeps.  It’s easy enough to do...and you will find the intellectual life of Europe growing thinner and thinner on the ground, until, after the incident at the Malvern bridge, it soons ceases to exist in and meaningful way for a THOUSAND years.
Our drought will not be so long.  China will not permit it.  Nevertheless, this National Treasure in the form of Mr. Vidal is to be understood absolutely. 
Enough of the so excellent article.  Now a word about the man.  When I was a lad of 16 years, I first discovered Mr. Vidal’s “The City and the Pillar”, in a massive old library in Paterson, New Jersey.  I was a Southerner from Carolina lost in this big Yankee city, and while I remember little about the place, (which was, at this time in the ‘50’s, in decline), I found a writer who has given so many, many hours of pleasure, to me and others, and has been a link for me, to the long political traditions of the Republic back to its earliest days.  My thanks to you, Sir, for your valiant attempts to remind your fellow citizens what the US was all about, when it was concieved, and where it has deviated in succeeding years.  You have taught us so much, and still you continue.  May the gods bless you for your efforts.  Perhaps you may yet clarify for an apathetic citizenry, the difference between ruling and governing, as between tyranny and liberty.  The Republic owes you much, indeed.
Max L. Cadenhead,
Libertarian/Socialist club.

The “Imperator,” to borrow an expression from the Orient, has lost the “Mandate of Heaven.”

Glub, glub.  We are in shit swamp.  Might a million people howl in unision 9/11 is inside. Can a US Buddhist priest set hisself afire and sit peaceful with the universe in his then horrific final earthy stench. How get attention of the ants who see US corporate television?  Is it too late?  Glub, glub.

Revere’s post was nice and hopefilled and somrthing I would have encouraged a young student with some years back. The reality, in its manifold simplicity, is that schoolkids here in USA are fed a stream of nonsense in their history texts, led to believe power is the key to success ( hmmm, true I guess) and left swinging in the noxious breeze of carelessness by their finely brain attenuated parents. And their political candidates.  The real problem with Revere’s thinking is that some systems are by nature meant to fail when they become out of control. George Bush has merely been the tool we’ve chosen to help ease us out of global relevance. I don’t go quite as far as my beloved Kurt Vonnegut and state that all we humans should be good syphillis (organisms) and go extinct. I do, though, believe that nature has her uncompromising ways of ridding herself of pointless burdens. We are, after all, part of the natural system.

This was a great allegory for this administration.  Unfortunately, like Jonah, if Bush was once favored by God, he is no longer.  I don’t think Bush is doing God’s will.  Did you ever hear of false prophets and pharasees?

Roughly half of Americans do not believe in evolution - Gallup Poll.  Over half say bomb Iran as of Oct-31-07 - Zogby Poll.  Bush is a product of us.

When you want the truth—ask Vidal.  He’s about the only one who has ever seen the truth the floats behind all the smoke, mirrors and neocon idiocy, and about the only one who has the courage and integrity to speak it. Oh yes, he also writes well, and expresses his ideas intelligently...far too intelligently for the majority of the American public to comprehend, perhaps, but intelligent nonetheless.

I have a plan.

Shut it down.

Pick a day and shut the whole thing down. Without our disciplined participation - getting up every day and taking our assigned places on the assembly line of empire - nothing happens. The masters and their minions are disempowered.

It’s easy, folks. Pick a day and shut it down. If that doesn’t get us what we need, pick a second day. Stay home, put the feet up. Decline to participate, as often as it takes.

Let’s simplify this thing. We don’t need nuanced argument. We all know we have a problem. We all know what the problem is.

Let’s just shut the whole thing down.

WR Curley
Elizabeth, Colorado

Dennis Kucinich will be bringing the Articles of Impeachment against Cheney to the floor for a vote in about 2 weeks. If you want to see this vote take place, please write/call/e-mail your representatives in congress and tell then you want them to vote NO on the Motion to Table that will be introduced to try to STOP the vote on Articles of Impeachment.

A few years ago, California governor, Gray Davis was voted out of office and replaced by Arnold schwarzenegger.  It is unfortunate that we cannot do the same for federal office holders like the president and his appointees, eg supreme court justices.

Not to promote my new invention I must, however, tell you about it. The device is an advanced medical imaging system, so sensitive it is capable of detecting even the rudimentary spine sometimes visible in Democrat legislators; those who agree for some reason to be scanned. Ever up to a manly challenge, candidate Hillary, without forethought or hesitation, parked her enticing derriere in my scanning chair. Her confidence was richly rewarded as I imaged one of the most finely contoured backbones I have seen since initially trying out the untested device on my former mother in law. I could not find the words to tell the candidate, though, about the disturbing ghostly image I had been stunned to spy through the lens of my gamma filter. Revealed there from shoulder to sturdy shoulder was the glaring visage of one gaius Caligula. It’s been weeks now, but I have yet to think of a way to get George Bush to sit in the imaging chair. Maybe I’ll tell him it’s a novel torture engine of some sort and he can just sit there for a minute and pretend. Kind of like reading a book.

Bruce Boyle has hijacked this thread of comments.  In order to follow the thread, skip the Bruce Boyle series of comments below on WTC Bldg #7.  They are not germane to the essay written by Mr. Vidal.

Blackwater
This is what Bush’s Blackwater forshadows for the world. The only thing that we have to do, is to advertise this nightmare to the entire world.
I noticed that in Kansas, where there is no industry to speak of, there are new shopping centers jumping up where “muscle men equivalents” through around what they have earned from unknown sources. This is social welfare and redistribution, Cheney style.

I just want Gore Vidal to know how much I respect him . . . very, very, very, very much!

PART SIX

Below you will find a link to the current version of “Why Indeed . . .” a report devoted to the collapse of WTC Building # 7. This report, by Dr. Jones, can be downloaded as a PDF file. It is 48 pages in length --along with photos-- so it can take as much as 3 to 5 minutes (at 56 Kbps --the speed of my set up). My PC uses phone lines, it has a limited modem, and thus it tends to slow things down. Perhaps you have greater speed. If so, less time will be required.

In 2005 I carefully went through his earlier draft and concluded that Dr Jones made a strong case by the use of fact based research and scientific methodology