“Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.” (p. 211)

That does not sound like a society at all, but more likely a grouping of societies all bickering with each other in what used to be the States. If we need a massive and widely perceived threat to get consensus, then the powers that be will have much incentive for the services of George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic. He does not sound all that different than PNAC speculating on the need for a new Pearl Harbor type event. In other words he sounds like a psychopath.

Zbig Quote

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080901215643AAC81Ih

The above link asks the source for the quote. I hope to know the answer in 3 days.

“If you don’t stop insulting my intelligence, I am going to give up on you. You post some random sentence, attribute it to Zbig, and call him a psychopath.”

Alex Jones had quoted him from one of his books. I’ll have to look into this more closely.

By Paracelsus, September 1 at 7:54 pm #

@Folktruther

“But he is now for the New Cold War, betraying his Polish roots.  He is more dangerous now than he was then.”

As they say in Massachusetts, “Absoluteleeee!” His son is working himself in as an advisor to Obama.
——————————————————————————
Horrors! Not only that, but his daughter Mika is a reporter for MSNBC! As Lewis Black says, you don’t fuck with that kind of evil!

By Paracelsus, September 1 at 2:42 pm #

@Tony Wicher

“People? ,but they never rebel…
....They will just turn around and eat their dead”—Zbig

He’s a psychopath, Tony.
——————————————————————————
Paracelsus,

If you don’t stop insulting my intelligence, I am going to give up on you. You post some random sentence, attribute it to Zbig, and call him a psychopath. Bah! I tried to Google the words in your alleged quote together with “Brzezinski”, but I did not come up with anything. So you are going to have to tell me: where is this quote coming from? Do you have a link to back you up?

@Folktruther

“But he is now for the New Cold War, betraying his Polish roots.  He is more dangerous now than he was then.”

As they say in Massachusetts, “Absoluteleeee!” His son is working himself in as an advisor to Obama. On the other side of it, there is a former lobbyist for Georgia working for McInsane. Both of these guys are working toward WWIII, except Obama is “better” because he will work to give you government paid health care.

I think the worst thing FDR did among many was to get rid of our internal gold standard. At least with the gold standard, the government could not get away with too much war spending, because it would cause a “run on the bank”.

There had been a trend toward over issuance of bank notes in the European nations before WWI. I don’t think they could have redeemed all those notes with specie if everyone made presentment of the notes. Of course all that paper was used to buy weapons, battleships and munitions. For some reason the peoples of those nations saw no need to redeem paper so as to restrain their governments from unwise military spending. Perhaps not enough of them possessed the gold notes needed to veto all that imperialistic expenditure. If so, then an unprincipled elite held on to their vast share of notes in order to profit from the arms sales. 

Wilson presented the first 20th century version of the “Patriot Act” during the Great War. From the Trading with the Enemy executive order was given the precedent for FDR to seize any commodity he deemed the government needed- in this case gold. In my opinion, it should be noted that a modern welfare and warfare state cannot exist for long if its currency and debt is callable for immediate redemption in gold and silver by its own citizens. I don’t think such things as the space program and the Manhattan project are possible with internal convertibility, at least not as long term programs.

An elastic currency such as the post 1933 dollar or should it be post 1913, had done much good for liberal/progressive causes, but it has done much harm
as well in bipartisan imperialistic policies for the world. I don’t think Hitler good have implemented many of his ideas if the Reichsmark had been strictly convertible in gold and silver, though he did seem motivated to invade other countries so as to raid the central banks.

In the end, easily expandable currencies seem to aid militaristic governments. Sparta itself did not have gold or silver as money. The Spartans did well enough on iron tokens. These are some ideas I am throwing out. I just wish to stimulate some though on the matter. I am not overly attached to these notions, but they do seem to be entertaining ideas.

Paracelsus,

You left out the quotes from pages 209 and 211 of the same book:

“In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last.” (p.209)

“Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.” (p. 211)

Pretty smart man, that Zbig. Realistic and tough as hell. And not a Zionist. And quite reasonable about the Middle East. Was against the Iraq war as a stupid war (same as Obama). That book was written back in 1997. His latest book, Second Chance (2007), reaches conclusions that I think we can all agree with:

“As Global Leader III, George W. Bush misunderstood the historical moment, and in just five years dangerously undermined America’s geopolitical position. In seeking to pursue a policy based on the delusion that “we are an empire now, and when we act, we create our reality,” Bush endangered America. Europe is now increasingly alienated. Russia and China are both more assertive and more in step. Asia is turning away and organizing itself while Japan is quietly considering how to make itself more secure. Latin American democracy is becoming populist and anti-American. The Middle East is fragmenting and on the brink of explosion. The world of Islam is inflamed by rising religious passion and anti-imperialist nationalisms. Throughout the world, public opinion polls show that U.S. policy is widely feared and even despised.”

Brzezinski concludes his section on George W. Bush with the chilling and powerful words below. I encourage you to read this book (and Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard as background) to understand just how serious a problem we are facing today.

“It follows that the next U.S. president will have to mount a monumental effort to restore Americas legitimacy as the major guarantor of global security and reidentify America with a common response to intensifying social dilemmas in a world that is now politically awakened and not susceptible to imperial domination. Arnold Toynbee, in his classic study of history, ascribed the fall of empires ultimately to “suicidal statecraft” by their leaders. The saving grace for America may be that, unlike emperors, U.S. presidents, including catastrophic ones, are limited to eight years in office.”

Zbig was the Dem counterpart of PNAC.  But when China and Russia organized the ‘Stans’ of mid Asia into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, he changed his mind.  He was against the Iraqi war.

But he is now for the New Cold War, betraying his Polish roots.  He is more dangerous now than he was then.

More of that Zbig Goodness:

The Grand Chessboard by Zbigniew Brzezinski – More Quotes

“...The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a tectonic shift in world affairs. For the first time ever, a non-Eurasian power has emerged not only as a key arbiter of Eurasian power relations but also as the world’s paramount power. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power…” (p. xiii)

“... But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book.” (p. xiv)

“The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America’s engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.” (pp 24-5)

“For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia… Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia - and America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.” (p.30)

“America’s withdrawal from the world or because of the sudden emergence of a successful rival - would produce massive international instability. It would prompt global anarchy.” (p. 30)

“In that context, how America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical. Eurasia is the globe’s largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world’s GNP and about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.” (p.31)

“It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America’s power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public’s sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization.” (p.35)

“Two basic steps are thus required: first, to identify the geostrategically dynamic Eurasian states that have the power to cause a potentially important shift in the international distribution of power and to decipher the central external goals of their respective political elites and the likely consequences of their seeking to attain them;... second, to formulate specific U.S. policies to offset, co-opt, and/or control the above…” (p. 40)

“...To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.” (p.40)

“Henceforth, the United States may have to determine how to cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of Eurasia, thereby threatening America’s status as a global power.” (p.55)

“Uzbekistan, nationally the most vital and the most populous of the central Asian states, represents the major obstacle to any renewed Russian control over the region. Its independence is critical to the survival of the other Central Asian states, and it is the least vulnerable to Russian pressures.” (p. 121)

[Referring to an area he calls the “Eurasian Balkans” and a 1997 map in which he has circled the exact location of the current conflict - describing it as the central region of pending conflict for world dominance]
“Moreover, they [the Central Asian Republics] are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold.” (p.124)

“The world’s energy consumption is bound to vastly increase over the next two or three decades. Estimates by the U.S. Department of energy anticipate that world demand will rise by more than 50 percent between 1993 and 2015, with the most significant increase in consumption occurring in the Far East. The momentum of Asia’s economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea.” (p.125)

“Uzbekistan is, in fact, the prime candidate for regional leadership in Central Asia.” (p.130)

“Once pipelines to the area have been developed, Turkmenistan’s truly vast natural gas reserves augur a prosperous future for the country’s people.” (p.132)

“In fact, an Islamic revival - already abetted from the outside not only by Iran but also by Saudi Arabia - is likely to become the mobilizing impulse for the increasingly pervasive new nationalisms, determined to oppose any reintegration under Russian - and hence infidel - control.” (p. 133).

“For Pakistan, the primary interest is to gain Geostrategic depth through political influence in Afghanistan - and to deny to Iran the exercise of such influence in Afghanistan and Tajikistan - and to benefit eventually from any pipeline construction linking Central Asia with the Arabian Sea.” (p.139)

“Turkmenistan… has been actively exploring the construction of a new pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea…” (p.145)

“It follows that America’s primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it.” (p148)

I recommend the following website on Zbig:

http://www.takeoverworld.info/brzezinski_quotes.html

Here is one gem:

The following statement was made more than twenty-five years ago in a book by Brzezinski which he wrote while a professor at Columbia University:
“Political strategists are tempted to exploit research on the brain and human behavior. Geophysicist Gordon J.F. MacDonald, a specialist in problems of warfare, says accurately-timed, artificially-excited electronic strokes could lead to a pattern of oscillations that produce relatively high power levels over certain regions of the earth ... in this way one could develop a system that would seriously impair the brain performance of very large populations in selected regions over an extended period”

Re: Rock Star Obama

“In the technotronic society the trend would seem to be towards the aggregation of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the reach of magnetic and attractive personalities effectively exploiting the latest communications techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason.” —1970, Between Two Ages : America’s Role in the Technetronic Era

@Tony Wicher

“People? You can beat them,you can starve them,but they never rebel…
....They will just turn around and eat their dead”—Zbig

He’s a psychopath, Tony.

Re Paracelsus, August 24 at 7:12 pm #

@Tony Wicher

“Personally, Zbig seems like a very charming guy to me. I would like to take a class from him. Of course people are pawns on a chessboard to any geopolitical strategist. He’s a strong player and I would learn a lot.”

Of course a psychopath like Zbig is very charming. No woman would date Ted Bundy if he didn’t have an ingratiating way about him. And of course people are pawns on a chessboard to any hitman as well.
——————————————————————————-
Paracelsus,

Brzezinski is a distinguished gentleman, not a psychopath.
——————————————————————————
Have you heard what Zbig had to say about Pol Pot?

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/US_Pol Pot.html

“During his reign as National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski played an important role in determining how the U.S. would support the Pol Pot guerrillas. Elizabeth Becker, an expert on Cambodia, recently wrote, “Brzezinski himself claims that he concocted the idea of persuading Thailand to cooperate fully with China in efforts to rebuild the Khmer Rouge…. Brzezinski said, “ I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. I encouraged the Thai to help the DK [Democratic Kampuchea]. The question was how to help the Cambodian people. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could not support him but China could.” “
—————————————————————————-
Paracelsus,

According to your quote, what Brzezinski said was that Pol Pot “was an abomination”. We can all agree on that. Nevertheless he encouraged China to
support Pol Pot for geostrategic reasons. I guess it was because the Hun Sen government had been installed by Vietnam and we were still trying to screw them in the aftermath of the war. I quite agree that this was an utterly immoral thing to do, and I don’t see what it accomplished from a geostrategic point of view either. As far as I can see it did not accomplish much.

Brzezinski is passionately anti-Soviet. The Soviets supported Vietnam, whereas China is an age-old enemy of Vietnam. Brzezinski’s mission was to hurt the Soviets by any means necessary, regardless of “collateral damage”. Thus also and more famously his Afghanistan policy.

On the other hand, his policy positions concerning the Middle East and Israel have always been pretty sensible. A worthwhile read is his latest book, “Second Chance” about the opportunity for the use of American power in a post-Soviet world that was blown by Bush and Clinton, if you want to see where he would like to take our foreign policy under an Obama administration.

I know, I cry every time I read that.

He knew what was going to happen, Coretta said so too.

But the Vision in the content of his speech…unsurpassed.

Part 2

Again, from Ralph Nader’s book, “The Good Fight” (copyright 2002).

“In 2002, the FBI documented 16,204 homicides in the United States.  Compare that to the more than 55,000 deaths on the job or from occupational diseases, the 420,000 who died from promoted tobacco-induced disease, the 10,000 who die every year from illnesses caused by asbestos, the 65,000 deaths from air pollution, and the 80,000 people who lose their lives from medical incompetence in hospitals ANNUALLY (emphasis mine)”.  ...Ralph Nader

> So…should we go with the glam and the glitter or effect an ACTUAL change.  It appears to me that NADER is the ONLY current candidate even IMPLICATING these criminals.  All we need is a little better than 33% of the vote.  When you get in the voting booth think….think….think.

Remember….this is our country…do or die trying.

Part 1.

Maybe everyone ought to rethink Nader.  From Ralph Nader’s book “The Good Fight”. (copyright 2004)

(pg. 159)“It’s not unusual for a politician to return a political contribution after finding out that it comes from a disreputable source.  So what does it say that the two major political parties received $9.3 million from convicted criminals during the 2002 election cycle and didn’t blink an eye?  Without shame, they just pocketed the cash.

  What does it say? It says that the money came from criminals who are themselves without shame: corporate criminals.  It says that despite all of the publicity surrounding the most recent corporate crime wave, we still see such violations as less violent or abusive than street crime: while the latter is evil, the former is just business as usual.

  After all, the two parties would never consider accepting cash from street thugs, muggers, and crooks.  But corporate thugs, muggers, and crooks?  No problem…....

(pg.168).....“In 2002, the FBI estimated that the nation’s total loss from robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson was a not insignificant $18 billion.  Let’s compare that to just ONE (emphasis mine) segment of corporate fraud: health care fraud.  The General Accounting Office puts health care billing fraud at $150 billion, but Malcolm Sparrow, a professor at Harvard and author of the authoritative “License to Steal: Why Fraud Plagues America’s Health Care System”, says fraud could account for as much as 30 percent of all health care expenditures.  Last year, health care expenditures were 1.6 trillion.  A Dartmouth study estimated that about a third of health care is useless, redundant, or harmful.”  ...Ralph Nader

> Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t 30% of $1.6 trillion ($1.600,000,000,000) upwards of $500 BILLION DOLLARS ($500,000,000,000)!  All this in ONE YEAR!  But WAIT…, (yes, I watch infomercials, although not by choice) isn’t $500 BILLION dollars, $500 THOUSAND MILLION DOLLARS!  I think we could feed a couple of people with that….don’t you?  And yet, this is just ONE segment of corporate fraud.

Something has to give folks, this thing HAS to be brought under control.

re: Paracelsus
Oops, sorry! One letter name too many.

Big B

as I was reading your post here, the one that included:
“Knowing that history is cyclical, I know that there is another wave on the way, I only hope it comes soon”, a rather sizable gust of wind and fresh air came through my humble chateau, ... I can only take it as a ‘sign’,  from either aliens or invisible god like beings of good things to come.

@thebeerdoctor

“Many many years ago I once saw Alan Watts speaking in Ann Arbor, Michigan. At the time he was deep into his Buddhist thing (This was about a year before his death).”

Pardon, but I think we are talking about different Alan Watt’s here. Alan Watt of Ontario, Canada is not the same as Alan Watts of Ann Arbor. If you are not in the mood to read a large tome, all you would need to do is download his MP3 files. He is very easy on the ears.

http://www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com/

By Paracelsus, August 23 at 5:32 pm #

Please write your letters of complaint to Zbig…
Please do not use any vulgarity. Let’s make Truthdig a center for activism, not just a sounding board. I suggest saying, “I am not a pawn on a chessboard. I am a human being”, when you call.”
——————————————————————————
Personally, Zbig seems like a very charming guy to me. I would like to take a class from him. Of course people are pawns on a chessboard to any geopolitical strategist. He’s a strong player and I would learn a lot.

Thanks for the link beerdoc! Between you and paracelsus I’ll have enough reading material for awhile (John Updike will have to wait a day or two)
I might as well just go back to college with my son, although he’s majoring in finance and economics (I always knew he be a capitalist stooge, his mother and I are so proud)
thanks again guys

re: Big B
Concerning the cycles of history, here is a link (I hope it works) that is, as they say, a real brain burger, but might be useful.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vico/

re: Paracelsus
Many many years ago I once saw Alan Watts speaking in Ann Arbor, Michigan. At the time he was deep into his Buddhist thing (This was about a year before his death). A brilliant speaker on comparative religions, he nevertheless became somewhat impatient with some of the stupid questions asked.
It was about two years later that I came across Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, and realized that as a person grounded in the western tradition, I will never fully grasp Buddhism on a cultural level. What little I did absorb (Big Mind, Small Mind etc.) has proved helpful in advocating for universal peace.

Thanks for the reading suggestion, Paraselus, I’ll jump right on that!
I guess, being a student of history and current events, it never ceases to amaze how little some people know of their history. No one wants to look back to see what our actions have wrought. The newest mantras of my sons generation seem to be a combination of “what is past is past” and “Don’t look back” or “just put it behind you”. While it is somewhat admirable that they only want to look forward, many people still think that the only way to truly move forward is to have put to rest all ghosts of our past. But it is an american trait to try to put a positive spin on everything(should I say an american CORPORATE trait, but that’s a whole other essay) As a nation it is tanamount to whistling past the graveyard for us to even mention slavery, the american indian genocide, manzanar, or a host of other atrocities perpetrated along our historical odysey as a nation.
For these reasons, and many more, I still look back on the summer of ‘68 as maybe the turning point for our nation. It’s as though we hit a peak and then made that fateful downhill turn in Chicago.
Hunter Thompson wrote in his “lasVegas” book these lines, and i think they hold as true today as they did then, “With the right kind of eyes you could almost see the high water mark- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
Knowing that history is cyclical, I know that there is another wave on the way, I only hope it comes soon.

re: Virginia777
You mentioned Martin Luther King Jr., and wondered about the absence of leadership. Take another look at Martin’s I’ve Been To The Mountaintop speech, given the night before his murder.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm

One of the most remarkable utterances in the history of humankind.

re: Big B, 8/24 @ 12:58 pm
What a fantastic post. The last two paragraphs get to a metaphysical perspective, rarely seen on Truthdig. Hats off to writing that not only makes you think, but also makes you feel what love and the human condition is truly about. Thank you.

I see too much of the machinery of the neocon Left (not right) being put into place.

It is the selling out of the Left (one sees this most visibly in the Media) that leaves us on the brink of disaster.

The umbrella of “Liberal” has become very comfortable for money and power to hide under.

I see this all over the place in California, but surely it is a danger all over the Nation.

“Many of our citizens and politicians in the 80’s and 90’s flogged themselves because they looked back on the social revolution of the 60’s as an abject failure. They had burned their bras and draftcards, tuned in, turned on, and dropped out. But after the leaders of the counter culture were shot, arrested, or defiled by the “man” (or themselves) and the great silent majority elected Nixon (twice) the movement lost it’s steam. They got their diplomas, got a job, a mortgage and a car payment, and just tried to forget, man.”

I wish you would look up Alan Watt, and his cutting through the matrix lectures. The culture of the sixties brought together a lot of very old ideas. One of those ideas was “free love”, which was practiced as early as the 2nd century by a Christian cult called the Adamites. Even the spiritualism and the use of drugs to change consciousness had historical precedence back into the 19th century. The reason none of this worked was that it caused people to think it was “all about me”. Free love movements in the past had always left a wake of orphans in its path. The big threat were all these social movements with committed and ascetic true believers, Ralph Nader types. Look at at how Nader lives and you will see that he lives a very simple life as far as pleasures are concerned. Another thing to realize is that the establishment always gives us its leaders. Groups like the Weathermen did not just come out of nowhere. They were cultivated and nourished by the state as provocateurs. The energy stirred up by the protest movement was later diverted into identity groups through the use of foundation grants to provide for the rights of some faction. The body politic became fragmented.

The Weimar period of Germany looks curiously similar in culture to the post Vietnam War period of the 70’s. Berlin was the city of sin. New Age spiritualism helped mothers and war widows get in touch with their lost loved ones. There was drug use, and there were parentless children born out of wedlock. That is how in the 20’s charities like Boys Town became popular. And of course there was the reaction. It is all part of a dialectic of extremes needed to bring in fascism. The social revolution of the 60’s was never meant to succeed. It was meant to provide fodder for the next wave of “evolution”.

jckpine and beerdoc

I think that the dimmos desperatly need to open a discussion at this convention concerning the future of liberals in the party. The poor showing of dimmos on the national stage since the days of Carter I think can be traced back to the post Vietnam, post watergate era guilt trip the US imposed on itself.
Many of our citizens and politicians in the 80’s and 90’s flogged themselves because they looked back on the social revolution of the 60’s as an abject failure. They had burned their bras and draftcards, tuned in, turned on, and dropped out. But after the leaders of the counter culture were shot, arrested, or defiled by the “man” (or themselves) and the great silent majority elected Nixon (twice) the movement lost it’s steam. They got their diplomas, got a job, a mortgage and a car payment, and just tried to forget, man.
Then the machinery of the neocon right was put in place. Wealthy american moguls created uber conservative secret societies and proceded to put their fingers into every dirty pie in DC. They re-energized and reinfused (with money) the christian right so that the message of the liberal 60’s would be forever befouled in blue collar churches all over the american south. The era of the media pundit was born, and their message was clear, Liberals are evil, they are communists, they freed the blacks and the women, they brought down Nixon. we must chase the Liberal from public life and back into his jungle lair (can I go five friggin minutes without a movie reference? Planet of the Apes, by the way) The neocons threw the 1976 election in the hope that Carter would ultimatly be blamed for all the nations ills. And it worked! the 80’s guilt trip began and with it the neocon wet dreams of deregulation and never ending war.
The liberals are still lurking in their jungle lair (and blogging in places like “truthdig”) and waiting to be asked back to the party. Since the dimmos haven’t called, some are looking at Nader, others McKinney. And the dimmos may once again be sitting in the losers lounge, nursing a highball, and going through their wallets only to find a number on a faded napkin marked “liberals”. The napkin is embossed with “Hilton, Chicago, 1968”.
Hey Barry, regret can be a terrible thing. dig the number out now, and make the call.

Big B as far as I can tell you have brought up race more than Obama, Do you have something you want to tell us?

beerdoc,

That was an excellent - and concise - essay on the decline of American liberalism.  I’ve never understood why the American left allowed themselves to be routed in such a way that “liberal” became a pejorative.  Scratch that, i understand how it happened (which your post said so well), i just don’t understand why it was allowed to happen.

Though it started much earlier, i do blame Clinton for a great deal of it.  And while i’m not “liberal”, i’m sorely disappointed in what happened because it destroyed any idea of a loyal opposition.

Obama could only be called a liberal in America.  Everywhere else, his liberalism would be laughed out of the election.  Granted, he’d be a liberal in Europe…but they flip the terms there.

So while i understand why people are so upset about what shade of Right he may (or may not) be, i also don’t understand it.  What did anyone expect?

For about 72 hours i hoped that he would come through as a left-libertarian.  But if “liberal” is a bad word in America, then “libertarian” doesn’t even make it into the political dictionary. (And i don’t mean Ryandian, paleo-conservative libertarian, but simply for personal decision making/freedom as opposed to statist.)

Thanks Big E, Spelling has never been my strong point. I guess i’ll have to learn that spell check doodad some day.

During the “primary debates” Senator Obama harshly criticized Senator Clinton for having voted for the Iraq resolution of 2002. I have now checked Senator Biden’s record on the Iraq resolution and the attack on Iraq. I find that he has done far more than Senator Clinton to enable President Bush to invade Iraq. On numerous occasions he falsely claimed that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons and was developing atomic bombs. I am stunned that Obama is gung-ho on this war pusher. This choice makes Senator Obama’s criticism of Hillary Clinton super-hypocritical. Obama should apologize to her but he will not of course because he thinks that he is always right.

Re: the beerdoctor:

Thanks for the link. My favorite statement:

“In other words, Biden brings with him a degree of “seriousness” that the Washington establishment values highly. By selecting him, Obama has acknowledged that his brand of “change” will be tempered by moderation—that nothing in his agenda will threaten the status quo too much.“

So Biden was selected to calm some of the fears of the “old guard”. Sounds like Obama’s way of sending a wink and nod to his marketing scam of “change”.

We will be debating the definition of “is” soon. I can hear him now… “I never said I would change that.. I have been very careful to be very vague about change. That way it was left to the interpretation of the individual. So if you got it wrong, that is your fault.  Change is an idea, not an action.” lol.

Good point, Big B!!

To answer your question, if history proves anything, it takes a LEADER to lead people out of their Ignorance.

As you say, the LAST thing people give up IS their false beliefs, and it takes a real leader (like Martin Luther King) to insist on the kind of desperately needed changes to in-place (and entrenched!) social structures.

Where and who are the (real) Leaders today?

I LOVE your idea, Dr. Knowitall, PhD!!

It makes perfect sense.

(problem is, since when did Corporate America have “sense”? - especially when it comes to issues where they might have to integrate THEIR children with children of color)

Big B
the beer doctor

Wolfman is also one of my favs too…
it’s actually Maria Ouspenskaya ..

re:  thebeerdoctor at 9:00am

Standing on street corners etc. years ago protesting the Nam War etc., I was often called a Communist, a liberal and of course told to go back to Russia.  Interesting since Lenin hated liberals, social democrats, the bourgeoise and of course anarchists.

Now, as then,  liberals are tagged communists or socialists.  Odd, since one of the fathers of Communism permitted none in the Party.  Explanation?

re: rowman

Thank you for the technology/Joe Biden link. Here is a link that attempts to be positive towards Mr. Delaware. But praise is faint at best:
http://www.alternet.org/election08/96137/

re: Dr. Know-it-all

There is white smoke coming out of the chimney. We have a new POTUS!

re: jackpine savage
The transformation of liberal into a derogatory term has a curious history. I think part of it goes back to the GOP and their purge of the Rockefeller wing of their party. Hence, it wasn’t very long after that the term “limousine liberal” came into vogue. This was applied to any person of wealth who displayed a social conscience, and advocated social justice for the less fortunate. This was soon morphed by the Republicans as an attack tool against the Democrats, especially the Kennedy family at first, and then to democrats in general.
The fear mongering that came attached to making the term a pariah, proved especially useful for the republicans who have long sought to undo the social reforms of the New Deal. It is especially ironic that a democrat, a DLC democrat, Bill Clinton achieved their final victory, by abolishing federal welfare.
By that time, the population in general had been inundated with right wing propaganda for so long, that they actually advocated against their own self interests.
A unionized work force, they were instructed, was bad. The PATCO strike revealed that many Americans sided with Reagan, when he fired the air traffic controllers. As journalist Haynes Johnson found, many Americans thought Reagan was “the kind of leader the country longed for”.
The same can be said of the Major League Baseball players strike, the fans took the side of management, showing no sympathy for the over paid players. Never mind that it is the players product which is the raison d’etre of that industry.
The Democratic party did not help their cause by allowing the extremist blow hards amplify this smear against all things seeking to improve the general human condition. This coup of our language was made complete when Bill Clinton announced “he was a new kind of democrat”.
The infusion of religion and the intolerance that goes with it, curiously started with Jimmy Carter in a rather innocuous way, but soon became a mantle for cultural war against “godless secular humanism” which the republicans have embraced for their own nefarious ends.
One final note: Steven Colbert has been making hay about their being a limousine shortage at the DNC in Denver.

I’ve long believed that, since public schools’ function is mostly to train a corporate workforce, then it makes sense that corporations foot a major part of the expense of public ed., either through taxation or direct aid based on sales.

In thinking some more about that, I thought, why have this presidential election circus at all?  Voters don’t really matter, especially since corps and MSM control who we get as candidates.

Instead of delegates meeting in Denver, all the CEO’s and CFO’s of major corps. meet in Denver, decide who will best facilitate their agenda over the next four years and emerge after the “convention” to formally announce to the American people who our next POTUS will be.  Sort of like how they pick the Pope. 

It would save a lot of time, a lot of money and the continual insult to the collective Amercian intelligence for two years and, the bottom line results would be the same. 

My heart goes out to the candidates who must work very hard these two years, running here and there, meeting with their strategists a/k/a/ muckrakers and making the politically correct trips overseas to see troops and furrin’ leaders who are in trouble.  Having to pack up their wife and kids.  Renting a plane.  No one should have to go through that.  Making sure someone in your org. keeps their thumb on the pulse of the country.  Learning, and remembering, at least for a few hours, lots of HSS statistics, remember whose running for which office, how many houses you have or what kind of car you drive.  What a bitch.

Doesn’t my idea make sense?

Joe Biden’s pro-RIAA, pro-FBI tech voting record

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10024163-38.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.0

beerdoctor,

I understand the frustration of “progressives” (though to be honest, i’m not really sure what progressives are: are they liberals who won’t use the word because it’s become dirty in the American lexicon…are they something new…are they throwbacks to the Teddy Roosevelt era?  Mostly it seems that they represent desires for something that they have no idea of how to obtain, but i could be wrong)

Still, i understand the frustration.  I don’t like any of the candidates.  All i want is some honesty and some commonsense; i don’t even care which side of the ideological spectrum it comes from.  I’m shit out of luck and i know it.

And all i hear is how politicians should do this or should be that or shouldn’t do this or shouldn’t be that.  All of the critiques are valid, but they miss the fundamental point: politicians are a reflection of the population.  They are what they are because we are what we is. (intentional Zappa reference)

You get what you pay for, so i expect shoddy merchandise.  I don’t like it, nor do i so much accept it as realize that changing it isn’t going to happen with a single election or without long-term, hard work.

I cannot escape the idea that we get what we deserve.  Rather than focus on how shitty what we get is, i tend to focus on why we deserve it.

Yes Big B, Ohio is a very strange place. In the southwest part of the state there is one zip code that George Bush knows by heart and that would be Indian Hill. It is the Indian Hillbillies such as Carl Lindner and family who run the city of Cincinnati. And Daddy Big Bucks is a bipartisan enabler. He slept in the Lincoln bedroom when Bill Clinton was president.
But after the fiasco of Governor Taft, Ohio turned to Ted Strickland to clean up the mess, which in many ways he has accomplished. But Ohio (as writer William Gass might say, “in the heart of the heart of the country”) is essentially republican and reactionary, despite the fact that the honorable Dennis Kucinich has been able to survive in Cleveland. The latest polls show that Obama trails McCain. How can the Illinois Senator win here? That is anybody’s guess.

Living on the border of Ohio and Pa I get to see and hear Ohioans opinions of the dimmocrates often. What I find mindboggling is not that they tend to be somewhat backward and a little racist on the whole(we have that same problem in western pa, or pennsyltucky as we call it here)but that they still blindly support republicans who have sold ohio down the river. How many more job losses can Ohio stomach before the poverty that comes with with it cause their seemingly blind support for the repugs to waver? It tends to play into my theory that we have fallen on hard times in this nation, but not hard enough yet to make the people cry out for the radical systemic changes that we so desperatly need.

re: jackpine savage

Just like the government’s war on plants (evil marijuana!) there are many assumptions, accepted as fact, that are just downright wrong. The pissed off progressives are in the state they’re in, because the candidates use their in-your-face pandering to keep them in that condition. Joe Biden’s statement that “you do not have to be a Jew to be a Zionist” is a classic example.
I wonder what would be wrong if the candidates simply kept their cards close to the vest. When asked about the Middle East Hornet’s Nest they might say: I will assess the situation when I am in a position to do something about it.
This whole business about shoring up the retired Jewish vote in Florida, clearly reveals that the electoral college needs to be abolished, because a 2% minority of the electorate is determining foreign policy for the majority. The selection of Senator Biden of course is to appeal (or should that be appease?) this minority.
Strangely, Biden will not help Obama win the state of Ohio. In Ohio, the Clinton-scorned reaction is all over the place. It seems to me that the Obama team has made a huge tactical mistake. Unlike 2004, when a criminal republican governor and secretary of state were in place, this time there is a distinct possibility that the election will take place honestly. The chances that Senator Obama will carry this state are slim at best.

re: Big B

Yes Big B, that is indeed from The Wolf Man, a personal favorite from the Universal Horror collection. Surveying the current situation, I sometimes wake up like Larry Talbot and have a funny (or sinking) feeling that things just ain’t quite right. Yikes! is right. Peace…

Vote for McKinney or Nader for Change! 

If you think that Obama/Biden are going to change anything, you are insane!

I guarantee you that Obama will not undo ONE atrocity to the Constitution, or our rights and privacy, that the bush crime family has done. Not one thing.

Nor will they prosecute bush/cheney for their war crimes.

The basic foreign policy will not change because Biden was instrumental in forming it in the first place!!

We will be in Iraq and Afghanistan forever.

The sham “war on terror” will increase by leaps and bounds. Not to mention Cold War 2.

9/11 *was* an inside job.
http://www.911truth.org
http://www.ae911truth.org

Please write your letters of complaint to Zbig.
His lunatic vision of the world will be carried out by either McCain or Obama. It’s just that McCain’s team would aim at a different method of starting WWIII. I would like to see how Mr. Zbig would react to large mail bags of complaints against his inhuman reductions of vast numbers of people to mere pawns on a chessboard. I want to see Truthers make him sweat.

Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski
John Hopkins University
The Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
Professor of American Foreign Policy
Rome 735
1619 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036

And here is his phone number as well:

202.663.5884

Please do not use any vulgarity. Let’s make Truthdig a center for activism, not just a sounding board. I suggest saying, “I am not a pawn on a chessboard. I am a human being”, when you call.

Witness what happened at Colombia University:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9pDY_ny6Qo

Make him do this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOimBHTNyAk

Let him show himself to be the dictatorial monster that he is.

Hey beerdoctor, sorry I was out all afternoon, is that quote from Maria Auspensia in “the Wolfman?”
Anyway, I have had hours to think about this whole “Biden” thing, and I have come to one conclusion. Like the head gremlin in the film “Gremlins II” said, (masterfully voiced by Tony Randall) “things look pretty bad here! we’re recommending that our clients put everything they have into canned food and shotguns!”
Once again, as I have admitted on this site in the past, I’ve got to stop watching so many movies. I think I’ll curl up with a good book tonite. Let’s see, what’s on the nitestand? 1984! HOLY SHIT!!

The first words out of the McCain campaign and McCain himself regarding Biden was a negative rehash of a democratic debate sound-byte.  This only proves the lack of depth of John McCain’s soul and campaign. He has no class. A REAL man, a REAL opposing candidate would have had the grace to congratulate his colleague first, on receiving the nomination, before going negative. This reaction from McCain is further proof that his emotional development did not end the day he was shot down, but, was formed by being the son and grandson of more accomplished men. His envy of his father and grandfather has propelled him to do them one better. If he couldn’t beat them by becoming an admiral, he thinks he can do it by becoming Commander-in-Chief of all the military. He always has been and always will be pitiful. We don’t need another president with “I can do better than daddy” issues.

Oh no, the “progressives” are upset about Joe Biden!  Perhaps what should be made clear is that a certain segment of the Left can only be satisfied with ideological purity.  What makes that segment any different from the segment of the Right that demands ideological purity?  A better, more true ideology?  Whatever.

None of you actually expected a US, presidential hopeful to set him/herself up against Israel before he/she even gets elected, did you?  If you did, then the real question becomes: why is the Left suicidal?

Obama’s no saint (surprise!) and neither is Biden, but a saint isn’t going to be President any time soon anyhow.  Biden does shore up some weaknesses, and it will be a laugh a minute with the press hanging on his every word for a while.

Oh, and you’re not going to get a chance to vote for someone who isn’t CFR, et. al.  It would be great, but it isn’t happening in 08 and you shouldn’t have expected it.  The best we can hope for is more reason, more real politik, and <u>less</u> ideology (any and all ideologies) in foreign policy.

re: webbedouin, Paracelsus

Thank you for pointing out the obvious truths about Senator Biden, that so many zealous Obamakins refuse to acknowledge. I am afraid that such supporters are truly a lost cause, who will twist their positions into anything malleable, to accommodate the continuous equivocations of their beloved candidate. Nevertheless, it is important to proceed and point out, as the cliche goes, to put truth to power, so that some, if not more, will realize they are being manipulated as pawns, in the cruelest of games.
Your postings on Truthdig give me hope that not everyone is just a manipulated fool. Thank you both very much.

If anybody actually believed that Obama would change anything, you got your wake up call today.  Joe Biden A#1 Zionist creep (outside of LIEberman) is here to make sure that neocon (Israeli) policies continue to dominate the leadership of the US. 

If you don’t think that Israel is the prime concern of our government personalities yet, perhaps you’ll gain enlightenment when McCain picks LIEberman for his VP.

The only way out of the mess we find ourselves in is not to vote for a Democrap or a Repugnican.  They represent more of the same.

But you say, but voting independant means McCain wins!  You just don’t get it, do you.  God damn fools.  More of the same is more of the same and that is the choice you are being offered.

Oh, you don’t think Biden is a Zionist?
http://www.erichufschmid.net/TFC/Shalom-interview-Senator-Biden.html

http://openyourmindseye.blogspot.com/2005/09/microchips-brainscans.html

I think Joseph Biden is one creepy, nasty creature.

http://www.cfr.org/bios/1451/joseph_r_biden_jr.html

“He returned to the Senate to become a prominent foreign policy voice in the 1990s, particularly on the Balkans conflicts. He has traveled to the region many times and was a proponent for U.S. intervention there. Biden has also been a strong advocate for nuclear nonproliferation efforts.

Biden’s proposal for resolving the conflict in Iraq continued to generate discussion late into 2007. Biden, along with CFR President Emeritus Leslie H. Gelb, back creation of a federal state in Iraq with Kurdish, Sunni, and Shia autonomous regions. Biden is also one of the only candidates to support using U.S. ground forces to end the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZFyol_cCvU

He actually believes that Bin Laden fairy tale.

I see that Obama might win the purple this fall from the Praetorian Guard. So I mailed the following letter to Zbig of the Paul Nasty School of International Chaos at John Hopped Up University:

Dear Dr. Brzezinski:

    I have skimmed over your record of service through many administrations. I must say I am impressed with your ability to get hired by so many Presidents. It is as if not one President dares to hire somebody different. It is as if these executives have a gun held to their head as compulsion. I see that you served LBJ well through his disastrous foreign policy in SE Asia. Then there was that stint with Carter where you caused to have implemented a proxy war with the USSR through Afghanistan. I was in high school then and I remember with much hope how we were going to have peace with the USSR, and then you and your wrecking crew proceeded to make an abattoir of it at the Soviet Union’s door step.

  I have read with alarm your viewpoints on controlling Central Asia. Yes, we know it is a mineral storehouse, and it is the traditional center of many trade routes. But I don’t think America can be a livable country if we have leaders installed with the vision of the world as a chessboard. I want no part of your or your cohorts’ ambitions. I see no benefit in it for me or my compatriots.

  I realize that men with your world view infest the political system, and the federal government. I don’t see voting as any sort of succor to my problems or to anyone else’s problems. I wish I could make you go away. I wish I could make all of you go away. Such people as Max Cleland, Thomas PM Barnett, and Tamar Jacoby I have communicated with; I wish they would go away. (Tamar has yet to reply to my correspondence.) But all these people seem to have in common is the view that we should intervene in other nations’ affairs with both diplomacy and high tech weapons on the sweat of American labor and the shedding of American blood. I dearly pray I could have a government that would let people be.

  I don’t even want the people’s taxes to pay your salary or your research grants. In fact I highly resent every taxpayer penny that crosses your palm. You have a lovely platonic arrangement here: get paid to pursue war gaming off the toil of us peasants. You would contribute more to society as a burger chef. Your chief occupation seems to be to stir up bloodymindedness and strife. Pardon me, but does that sound like the very devil, himself?

  As to your democratic sentiments, I don’t believe you have any. You seem to think boyars such as yourself are entitled to free speech and critical thought, but others should be inculcated to repeat inanities from the media. So we have a country ruled by think tanks and policy experts. To hell with that! God damn it! I am a human being! And so are the other commoners who must share this planet with you. As to your humanity, you have not a pennyweight of it.

                Yours truly,

Paracelsus

Probably old news by now but Biden may have just been picked because he can get away with attacking McCain, having spent years in the Senate with him, which means Obama doesn’t have to.

Let’s face it, Obama is amazingly politically astute.

Way to go, Ed.  Ed Harge’s link to Alexander Cockburn’s short but accurate comments about Biden tells all you need to know about the political man.  The reasson he is such a fiasco for progressives is the change in the nature of the American power system.

Congress and the Supreme court are getting increasingly irrelevant historically while the Administration is turning into the President-Premier system of most Western Democracies.  Under Obama, the president will do domestic policy while Biden, the vice president will do foreign policy, the Dem counterpart to Bush-Cheney. 

Given the gridlock of the govenment on domestic policy, the freezing up of ‘checks and balances, the main interests of the population will be promoted, or undermined, in the world arena.  Now, it turns out, by Israel’s man in the White House, Biden.

From now on the US will have two Wars going, the War on Terrorism against Muslims, and the Cold War against Russia.  These are conflated into one by the US military and called the Long War, it being endless.

But the US doesn’t have enough troops for two Wars, and counting (this ignores confrontation with China) so Obama has to bring us together to institute a military draft.  Rangal, a Dem Rep in the House, has already introduced a number of bills for a draft.
A partial draft has already occurred by keeping soldiers in the military longer than they signed up for.

The only altrnative in confronting the nuclear powers of Russia and Pakistan is to threaten, and use, tactical nuclear weapons.  Russia, not having smart bombs, has already threatened Poland with them to counter the first strike capacity masqurading under missile defense.  Since Biden is a faithful servant of Aipac and the Israel lobby, the use of nuclear weapons would increase the credibility of their threat and use by Israel.

This is the change that we can believe in.  This is the hopelessness that Obama has called Hope.  The population has to mobilize to try to stop it.

Joe Biden could knock back a beer and a shot and you could believe he had done it before. He is the real deal, not one who has to pose as having working class credentials. This ticket represents real middle American values, not the ultra-rich lifestyles of say a McCain/Romney ticket - products of privilege and wealth from day one of their birth. McCain will attack Obama for lack of experience but I will take Obama’s life experience and political wisdom any day over that of George W. Bush or John McCain. It’s time we had leaders in D.C. who really represent the working class in this country.

An uninspired choice, but preferable to Hillary Clinton-who at this late date still seems determined to leave her party in a pile of the ashes of her own ambition. ‘Nuff said. One can alsways hope that McPain will pick Mitt Romney, since Biden is sort of a Democratic version of that dope, to level the playing field. For all of his stumbles, at least he’s not a preening harpy like Clinton.

”Why did Obama chose Biden? One important constituency pressing for Biden was no doubt the Israel lobby inside the Democratic Party. Obama, no matter how fervent his proclamations of support for Israel, has always been viewed with some suspicion by the lobby. For half the lifespan of the state of Israel, Biden has proved himself its unswerving acolyte in the senate.”

http://counterpunch.org/cockburn08232008.html

If image is everything, Biden’s wife adds at least 5 points to the cause even before doing or saying anything.

It’s pretty clear by now that politicians gear their political policies/actions/rhetoric (and choice of running mates) toward potential campaign donors and potential voters.  If they don’t, obviously their political lives are short, or non-existent.

Seems like we, the electorate, are the ones in the drivers’ seats.  Maybe rather than criticizing the candidates we should start criticizing ourselves.

wish i new…

You’re much too logical——this site is populated by extremists, radicals, and militants!!!

Reply to Wish I Knew

I’m the skeptic.  But I finding myself feeling a little bouyed by watching the proceedings, people gathering in Springfield.

I agree with you.  I, for one, expect too much.  Working class people don’t even get acknowledged by their government, the exception being Shrubs recent politically motivated stimulus payment.

This ticket, at least, with a dem majority in congress may result in a tiny bit of working class consideration by our corp. run gov.
and that, in my book, is a huge plus.  I’m excited.  From this day forth, I’m setting aside my negativity.  Go, Barack and Joe!! 

Also, KYJuris, I agree with you, Biden is a great choice.  He’s got middle class roots, is a family man, has experienced and overcome huge personal loss, takes good care of his mother, and his political strengths compliment Obama’s.  He knows the DC ropes. I don’t think Obama could have chosen a better mentor.  There’s a lot there to make one hopeful.

Oh one more thing.  No need to worry about Hillary she’ll either become a very strong Senator especially with the predicted large Democratic majority or she was promised a high position in BHO’s administration.

I wonder how they will handle these traitors and scum.

http://www.911missinglinks.com/

Its a long movie but quite revealing.

re: Big B

“Even the man who’s pure of heart and says his prayers at night
May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.”

Yesterday I said both partys were doing there best to lose this race. With Mcsame ready to pick a morman running mate, to the chagrin of the wacko right. And now Barry picks the lout that is Biden, so that he can further alienate me and the rest of the “Moon Bat” left. (thanks again rus, I love that phrase)
If I were a praying man, I would be expecting a plague of locusts soon. But we’ll be ok till the potomac turns to blood, just like the Volga, the Rhine, the Tigris, et al.

They replayed a CSPAN interview with Senator Biden this morning. The personal biography sounded good, at first. His personal tragedies I am sure were and are an ordeal no one would want to go through. But then as the interview moved on, Biden just kept going on and on. Within twenty minutes I had fallen asleep.
Even this is any indication, the one vice-presidential debate will be one tough sled to watch and ride.

Can’t we all just get behind one tiny step away from total neocon domination? Anyone who thinks all our problems can take a 180 degree turn with just one election is delusional. If Obama wins this election he has a TON of work to do. We are in such an enormous mess in this country it is going to take a lot of convincing to get John Q Public off the ridiculous “if I vote republican I will be rich someday” train of thought.
I am a progressive, but I am also completely lacking confidence in much of the public which consistently votes against its own interests. We don’t have the luxury of a ridiculous dollar-bill hypnotic lure over the masses like the repubs, we have to work for it. And I think having Biden on board might actually at the very least, exhibit that the democratic ticket now has some fight in it. Baby steps, people. Get the neocons out of office and work harder at getting progressives into Congress. We can get there. We just don’t have the luxury of buying our way in.

This is horrible news! and reveals, yet again, the degree of conservatism in Obama. This is the last thing we need.

re: McCain ad video clip

OUCH!

Joe Biden appears to be an EXCELLENT pick for Barack Obama.

And John McCain has a new ad in which he uses Joe Biden’s “loose lips” against Barack Obama. This one HURTS, folks:

http://osi-speaks.blogspot.com/2008/08/john-mccain-doesnt-waste-any-time-body.html#links

By rowman, August 23 at 7:02 am:

No, Rowman, if you look at my posts and many of the other critics of Obama here, you will see that we have for a long time expressed disgust with Obama’s ever more abject groveling to Israel. We’re not surprised at all by this choice, because it’s just more of what he’s been doing for a long time. We’re not surprised; we just don’t like it.

Most amazingly no one in the so-called pundocracy has noticed that Biden’s concept of a Federal Republic of Iraq is 180 degree different from Obama’s concept of an undivided state of Iraq. Boy, is the Democratic Party ever split!
A fundamental question is whether the Congress will “end the war in Iraq” as promised in 2006 if Obama/Biden get to the White House and demand a firm and swift timetable for the withdrawal of all troops not merely “combat units” or else no funding. I am not a visionary but I have a hunch that our slovenly sissy Congress will once again cave in, this time to “one of its own” and allow the indefinite occupation of Iraq to continue.
To me the issue is truly simple: “No more casualties for permanent military bases in Iraq.”

Biden is a good safe choice for BHO.  Biden brings the foreign affairs experience to the ticket plus he has a son in the military to counteract McCain.  BHO needed someone relatively older as McCain needs someone younger like Romney.  Remember the ticket always has to balance in some fashion.  However, what is rarely talked out is the extent of the anti-black vote.  It is estimated that 3% of the electorate harbor an anti-black bias and it could be as high as 6%.  If the anti-black vote in those electoral swing states is 1-2% then HBO is the president, but if the anti-black vote is 3-4% that is probably enough to deny HBO the presidency.

Ah, c’mon. Such sour grapes.

You guys are just pissed that you were taken on a ride. A campaign of “change”. Ha!

It’s what many people have been saying here for a long time. The guy is a scam and many of you have and continue to buy it.

You were scammed. Get over it.

re: y Rus7355, August 23 at 6:43 am:

The choice is not “interesting” at all. It’s just another step in Obama’s uninterrupted process of moving to the right on Israel-related issues, ever since he got the nomination. This is about placating the Israel-first, so-called “Americans” like Rus7355 who vote on that issue alone and can determine whether or not Obama wins Florida, among other things.

By scottk, August 23 at 6:19 am:

Folktruther’s summary of the situation is correct - down to every ‘a’, ‘and’, and ‘the’. Perhaps VietnamVet is the one who needs mental help.

RE: Post by By Folktruther, August 23 at 5:49 am

Get some mental help quick! You really need it, my friend.

1.  Obama has chosen a Zionist VP the way Gore chose Lieberman two elections ago.  He is there to continue the neocon foreign and domesitic policy of Israel, war abroad and a impoverished police state at home. 

Both parties are dominated by the Israeli lobby whos major, but no only, agent in the US is Aipac.  Obama has already groveled before Aipac, and this selection should get him a bundle of money and favorable media attention from the Zionist press.

And all he has to do in return is to shit on progressives.  Mainstream progressives do not understand that a coup d’etat took place in 2000 that brought the neocons in power, who solidified their hold by the 9/11-anthrax false flag operation in 2001.  They have and are destroying the traditional American government and power sytem and substituting a gangster regime based on corruption and violence.

This will now be done, if Obama wins, as a White policy with a black face.  Powell and Rice put black faces on the US state department to mitigate the horror and fear of the world of US foreign policy.  Militarism will now be increased, as Obama has always said he would, and war will continue to be the permanent policy of the US.  It can only be conducted by continuing to impoverish the American people and increase class inequality.

Obama is very useful in serving Israel’s Lichud policy.  It is an apartheid state based on war with Muslims who is conditioning the population toward genocide of the Palestians, under the codeword of “transfer.”  This cannot be done with US approval and what better public relations ploy than having a Colored man lead public apporval and damage control for the massacre.

The US populatin cannot distuished clearly between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.  The distinction is muddied by Aipac who supports anti-Semites who are pro-Zionist.  They featured, for example, Hagee who is mobilizing right wing religious loonies for Zionism, who publically praised Hitler for “doing God’s work.”

But since there is rising opposition to the Israeli hijacking of US policy, There must be a American police state instituted to combat it.  Obama has already voted for the lawless spying on Americans by the US power system, voting also against a filibuster of it. 

Jane Harman, a Zionist rep from Venice, Calif, sponsored a Zionist bill, the thought control bill, to censor the Internet and attack truthers “before they became violent.”  It passed the House 400+ to 6.  Only three Dems voted against it.

A police state is more easily imposed during war time. US wars in this century have traditionally been conducted by Dems with the resulting police state oppression.  Military drafts have been implemented by the Dems rather than the Gops to give it greater legitimacy.

In 1916 Wilson, after campaigning on a peace platform, led the US into WW 1, implementing a draft, and instituting the Palmer raids against radicals and Foreigners.

in 1940 Roosevelt, campaigning agains “foreign” wars, manipulated the attack on Pearl Harbor, imprisoning in concentration camps over a hundred thousand Japanese US citizens.

After WW2 Truman instituted the first peace time draft, introduced Loyalty oaths, and intervened in the Korean war.

In 1964, after the assassination of Kennedy put Johson in office, he introducted ground troops into Vietnam.  The assassination of American Dem leaders who opposed it began, and the FBI infiltrated, manipulated, imprisoned, and murdered progressive leaders of color.

Since then the US has used mercenaries.  But there aren’t enough troops for general ground war.  So a draft can be implemented by Obama.

If the population is not mobilized against both neocon candidates, one or the other will continue the Bushite foreign policy and consequently block reform of domestic policy.  In my opinion this can best be done by supporting Cynthia McKinney to oppose both candidates.

We are all Palestinians now.

We’re on the same page per the Bush revulsion.
As are many of our numbers.
However, it takes too many words to justify/sell Biden to all but the faithful.
Unfortunately, some/many of said faithful have left the big tent with Hillary. She’ll do a yeoman’s (yeowoman’s?) job of selling it to the faithful, but it could fall short.
Adlai Stevenson was finishing a speech, in 1954,when a supporter yelled, “You’ll have the vote of every thinking man in America!” Stevenson shot back, “That’s not enough, I need a majority!”
Biden ain’t never gonna be a draw for the working stiff, especially after his record on banking…which may get some airing by the right.
We just ceded the middle class men to McCain’s maverick image.
After this, all we have is the ability to pick at McCain’s corners while he picks a running mate that dazzles and shoves it in our faces…just you wait. He’ll go semi-outsider without all the baghdadage (new word, I think) and insider image. He could pick a chick and make Obama look like machine politics.
Biden’s pick effectively put us on our heels…again.
How can smart people be so stupid. (last sentence not a question, because we all know.)

@ Frank and thebeerdoctor;
Yes, I know…just a little frustrated “tongue in cheek”.  I had too high an expectation, and silly me; I am too old for that foolishness and should have known better.  Somehow we’re always stuck in second gear going up steep hills; no rest for the wicked, eh?  Hope springs eternal and I guess that’s better than the alternative.  I’ll leave it to you young buccaneers to go fight the good fight.  But please, do get those other parties active and viable, not just also rans.  I have voted Nader in the past.

TheRealFish has made excellent points. There will be no perfect candidate. There will be no candidate who will not be viciously attacked by the Rovian Slime Machine.
Biden is an aggressive individual who will wipe the ol Mittster off the map in any vp debate.
Majority of the public are being swayed by Mcain’s portrayal of Obama as a novice in foreign affairs, in a dangerous and hostile world. The old fear and smear strategy remains quite effective. This could rob our country of a last chance opportunity to repair some of the damage done. Barack and Biden need to be aggressive yet appear positive.
What did Lee Atwater say on his deathbed?

No VP pick was going to please everyone, but I think Joe Biden is a solid choice.

Pro’s in the general election:

Biden will make a excellent attack dog, one of the most important roles for a VP pick in the general election. Joe can rip them a new one in a debate and sound good doing it.

He is a “safe” and familiar face for those fence-sitters who like Obama’s message but are leery of Obama’s relative newness and are perhaps subconsciously vulnerable to smear rumors about him being muslim, communist, etc.

Biden has more experience than even McCain, so he shifts the experience advantage argument in favor of the Obama ticket. It is a very important distinction, however,  that the old washington insider on the Obama ticket will be the VP, not the decision maker, allowing Obama to still portray himself as the ‘Change’ ticket, albeit one that has the experience of a seasoned statesmen on tap when needed.

Pro’s after election:

Foreign policy: Biden will be a familiar face with many world leaders as Obama works to repair international relationships and undo the damage of the Bush administration on the world stage. Hugely important for America right now.

I’m not going to get into Cons as I want to leave the PUMAs, leftists, and neocons on the board with something to do.

Joe Biden is all about foreign policy.

Therefore this pick is about foreign policy and therefore it’s all about Israel (because our foreign policy is all about Israel) and therefore about the Florida Jewish vote.

He represents the foreign policy status quo, which is that the US does whatever Israel wants, and Israel also does whatever Israel wants, forever and ever amen.

This is just more of what Obama has been doing ever since he got the nomination: running to the right on foreign policy to placate the Israel-first crowd.

Don’t believe me? Read this from the Jewish Daily Forward:

As the liberals clamor for greater distance between the U.S. and Israel, one of Washington’s most vocal critics of the administration’s Middle East policy is vowing to keep the two countries joined at the hip if he is elected president.

...“The Arab nations have known that there is no daylight between us and Israel.”

http://www.forward.com/blogs/campaign-confidential/for ward-interview-biden-rejects-clamoring-for-the/

Biden balances out the Democratic ticket with the foreign relations experience that Obama lacks. This was the best choice and shows the competence that will make for a better leadership than we’ve had in a long time.