The tiresome, bogeous label- or sham: `Reagan Democrat’[most likely a Gingrich tactic] made about as much sense as `Eskimos for Exxon’.
The very idea -especially with all we now know
regarding Bush sr. actually being the man at the controls makes the pathetic attempt of the Reagan
`cult’ to differentiate the former from the latter rather sad. Then you have the other appologists who now call themselves Reagan REPUBLICANS. The Democrats -assuming there really were all that
many-and Republicans alike who once beleived ,or still beleive this fairy tale are to be pitied.

too bad Webb was not covered by the mainstream media enough - they are studiously avoiding the whole inequality thing as they focus on the war.

sickening - hello consolidation, Journos, “We are our masters voice”

Comment #50070 by mark on 1/27 at 6:59 pm

“Ronald (“Tear Down This Wall”) Reagan spoke in a clean, clear prose that almost always left listeners with a sense that he stood for something.”

Yes, and his speech in Mississippi while running for President showed that his clear prose was racist, and on Irangate his clear prose was untruthful, and on school meals heartless, and in testimony brainless.

His sell out of his Hollywood “friends” during the McCarthy era, His stinking deal with Iran, His violation of the Boland ammendment, his appointments (Meese, North, Deaver, etc) all make Ron a person he attempted to hide….appearemtly very well….from the U.S. voter.

“Ronald (“Tear Down This Wall”) Reagan spoke in a clean, clear prose that almost always left listeners with a sense that he stood for something.”

Yes, and his speech in Mississippi while running for President showed that his clear prose was racist, and on Irangate his clear prose was untruthful, and on school meals heartless, and in testimony brainless.

I liked what Jim Webb had to say. I am not jumping on his bandwagon after hearing one speech from him.
Look at all the fools out there that thought George W. was so great; The ones that now claim to have never trusted him.
It’s best to sit back and take in the things Jim Webb, as well as others have to say, then carefully analyze before deciding.
Do we really want another dictator running this country because some foolish americans’ wear rose colored glasses when deciding who to vote for.

January 25, 2007
The Evils of Escalation
Bush’s State of Deception

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Bush’s state of the union address did not describe the deplorable state of the union. The speech’s importance consists of Bush’s plea to Congress to please let him fool them one more time in order that he can attack Iran and start a bigger war that Congress will have to support in order to support Israel.

That is all the president had to say.

The “surge” of US troops for Iraq is another deception. The surge’s purpose has nothing to do with achieving victory in Iraq. Its purpose is to counter the pressure from the American public, Congress, and the US military to withdraw US troops from Iraq. Once a withdrawal begins, the neoconservative misadventure in the Middle East is at an end before its goals can be achieved. Delaying the withdrawal by proposing an escalation and provoking a debate gives Bush and Israel time to orchestrate an attack on Iran.

No one in Congress or print and TV media is prepared to call Bush on this transparent deception. Instead, critics focus on the fact that the surge cannot succeed. For example, in the Democratic response to Bush’s address, Senator Jim Webb, who served as Secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, stressed the recklessness and cost of Bush’s invasion of Iraq:

“The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable and predicted disarray that has followed.”

Sen. Webb is the best that the Democrats have and with Ron Paul the best that Congress has. Yet, not even Webb can cut to the chase.

Consequently, while Congress wastes time with non-binding resolutions against the surge in Iraq, Bush proceeds to implement plans to start war with Iran.

I have said that the only hope of stopping Bush from initiating war with Iran is for the leadership of both parties in both houses of Congress to make unequivocally clear that Bush will be impeached if he attacks Iran without the approval of Congress. Even this might not be enough. The Bush Regime is capable of orchestrating an incident, such as an attack on a US aircraft carrier, that can be blamed on Iran and, in that way, sweep Congress along on a patriotic outburst against “Iranian aggression against US forces.”

Many of the people who have come to oppose Bush’s war in Iraq mistakenly believe that Bush is a good person who is trying to protect America, but that he is going about it in the wrong way and is too inflexible to learn from his mistakes. They have no clue as to the evil agenda that guides the Bush Regime.

The Bush Regime is the first neoconservative regime in US history.

Bush hides the neoconservative agenda behind “the war on terror,” which essentially is a hoax. The main purpose of the neoconservatives’ “war on terror” it to eliminate any effective Muslim opposition to Israel’s theft of Palestine and the Golan Heights.

To silence Muslim opposition to Israel’s theft of Arab lands, the US must eliminate or intimidate Middle Eastern governments that are not under US control—Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah which governs southern Lebanon. The US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have failed to establish US control, but they have left both countries in a destructive civil war. Israel’s invasion of Lebanon appears to have renewed civil war in that country.

Part II

Bush is not going to be forthright about the neoconservative agenda, because he knows it is one that Congress and the American people must be manipulated and maneuvered into accepting. However, neoconservatives themselves are very forthright about their war plans. Let’s listen to their most recent pronouncements.

On January 23, former Republican Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, a leading neoconservative, told a conference in Herzliya, Israel, that the United States and Israel were in danger of nuclear attack from Iran. The crazed Gingrich, who is considering a run for the US presidency in 2008, said: “Our enemies are fully as determined as Nazi Germany, and more determined than the Soviets. Our enemies will kill us the first chance they get. There is no rational ability to deny that fact.”

Gingrich says: “We don’t have the right language, goals, structure, or operating speed, to defeat our enemies. My hope is that being this candid and direct, I could open a dialogue that will force people to come to grips with how serious this is, how real it is, how much we are threatened.”

Who are “our enemies?” Why, Iran, of course.

Iran is such a dangerous determined enemy that “the threat of a nuclear Holocaust” hovers over the US and Israel. “Israel is in the greatest danger it has been in since 1967.” The US could “lose two or three cities to nuclear weapons, or more than a million people to biological weapons. Freedom as we know it will disappear.”

Another American presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, told the Israeli audience that Islamic jihadism was “the nightmare of this century.” Israel, Romney declared, “is facing a jihadist threat that runs through Tehran, to Damascus, to Gaza.” Hezbollah, he declared, is not fighting for a Palestinian state but for the destruction of Israel.

The world has not experienced this level of warmongering since Hitler.

Also at the Israeli conference was US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who added fuel to the fire by alleging without any evidence that “Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon, there’s no doubt about it. There’s no debate among experts. It’s seeking a nuclear weapon at its plant at Nantz.”

A truthful statement, which no one any longer expects from any member of the Bush Regime, would be that the weapons inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency have poured over Iran’s nuclear program and have found no evidence of a weapons program. A number of experts, such as Gordon Prather, have fiercely disputed the propagandistic claims of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.

What concerns experts is that once Iran has succeeded with a nuclear energy program, it could go on, in the absence of inspections, to develop nuclear weapons in about 10 years. However, as a signatory nation to the non-proliferation treaty, Iran would undergo the inspections, as it was doing prior to the recent provocations orchestrated by the Bush Regime. In contrast, Israel has not signed the non-proliferation treaty and has a large number of nuclear weapons, the existence of which Israel has denied for years.

Burns told the Israeli conference that the US will not allow Iran to go nuclear. This is an extraordinary statement, because every signatory country to the non-proliferation treaty has the right to develop nuclear energy. Some people speculate that an oil-producing country doesn’t need nuclear power. However, oil is Iran’s only significant export. The less Iran uses its own oil, the greater its exports.

Burns told the Israelis that “We are committed to our alliance with Israel. We are committed to being Israel’s strongest security partner. I can’t remember a time when the relationship between our two countries was stronger than it is today.”

Part III

Chief US neoconsevative Richard Perle told the Israeli conference that President Bush would give the green light if US military involvement was needed for a successful strike on Iran. According to the Israeli press, “Perle hypothesized a nightmare scenario, saying: ‘In possession of nuclear weapons, or even in possession of nuclear material, Iran is perfectly capable of using its terrorist networks to enable others to inflict grievous damage.’”

Former Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz, who met privately with Burns prior to their joint appearance at the Herzliya conference, said that 2007 would decide the future of the Middle East. Mofaz declared, “The year of 2007 is a year of decisiveness. Iran of 2007 has all the components to threaten us existentially, and the whole of the region.”

Any expert or knowledgeable person who examines these statements sees nothing but unsupported assertions, paranoid speculations, fear-mongering and blatant lies. It is on this basis, and this basis alone, that the Bush Regime will initiate war with Iran.

Iran is being set up by the identical propaganda machine that set up Iraq with fearful imagery of “mushroom clouds over American cities” and nonexistent “weapons of mass destruction.”

After years of blaming al-Qaeda for the Iraqi insurgency, the Bush Regime propagandists have suddenly switched gears and now are blaming Iran for the failure of the US occupation in Iraq and for the deaths of US troops. The Bush Regime recently arrested Iranian diplomats in northern Iraq and made charges so preposterous that the charges were even rejected by Bush’s Kurdish and Iraqi allies. Powerful US naval attack fleets have been stationed off Iran’s coast, and attack aircraft have been moved to Turkey and other locations on Iran’s borders.

Meanwhile, Iran has done nothing.

Iran has refrained from arming and encouraging its Iraqi Shi’ite allies to join the insurgency against US troops. Iran could deliver the weapons that can knock out US tanks and helicopter gunships, thus eliminating the US military advantage from the conflict.

Neoconservative and Israeli propagandists have spread the lie that the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has declared Iran’s intention “to wipe Israel off the map.” This lie is today regularly repeated even by such formerly careful newspapers as the New York Times and London Times.

A number of experts have examined the speech by the Iranian president. What Ahmadinejad actually said was a direct quote from the deceased Ayatollah Khomeini: “The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.” The experts explain that in the context of the text of the speech, what is being said is that peace in the Middle East requires regime change in Israel. In place of a Zionist regime hell bent on stealing more land from Muslims, Zionism will pass away and Israel will cease its aggressive policies and live at peace with its neighbors.

A great number of Western experts agree that the problem in the Middle East is neither Islamic jihad nor Israel per se, but Zionism, which keeps Israel on a land expansionist course at the expense of Arab peoples.

The failure of US policy in the Middle East is the failure to deter Israel from this Zionist policy. A large number of Israelis are opposed to this policy and recognize that Zionism is the cause of Israel’s conflict with Arabs.

Part IV

The real problem that Americans face is that the Zionist influence on US policy is so powerful that instead of dealing with the real cause of strife in the Middle East, the US is about to join Zionism in attempting to eliminate all Muslim opposition to Zionist expansion. Bush’s “war on terror” and Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons are just propagandistic cover for the real agenda, which is to silence opponents of Zionist expansion.

The fanaticism of Zionists has been made clear by their ferocious attack on President Jimmy Carter, who stated in his current book both clearly and reasonably that the only path to peace in the Middle East is for Israel to accept a viable Palestinian state.

Carter has done more for peace between Israelis and Arabs than anyone. Moreover, Israel, as opposed to Zionism, has had no greater friend or stronger supporter than Carter. But because Carter pointed out Zionism’s role in the conflict, America’s most decent and truthful president was demonized.

The unjustified Zionist attack on Carter should tell everyone where the real problem lies.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Jim Webb could have said more in order to convince me.
  Talking about a “mismanaged” war leaves some of us with an impression that there are wars which are managed correctly by the U.S. (BTW, which war did we fight properly? Vietnam, Panama,Grenada,Afganistan? Iraq I,Korea ?)
Also, he is crying over our dead and wounded soldiers, without mentioning over 650.ooo ( by now, perhaps over eight hundred thousand) dead Iraqis. To these one should add another half a million Iraqi kids whom Madlaine Albright had dispached to Allah before their time. Wouldn’t it have been appropriate to mention that these people would all had been alive if the vicious Saddam was still in power? Wouldn’t that have been the best way to illustrate the absurdity of our pretention that our bombs can liberate anybody?
Here, Webb clearly missed to score heavily.
And Webb is also deficient when he avoids mentioning who is really responsible for what he calls euphemistically “the Mess”.
He might have been brave on the battlefield but he clearly doesn’t dare to confront AIPEC and other war cheerleaders.
It is difficult to get out of this (and future!) mess if we refuse to see who pushed us there in the first place. Sure, as Santayana predicted, we are condamned to repeat the stupidity -and, perhaps, sooner than anybody expects.
Still, Jim Webb is the best prospective candidate we have so far.
Just look at those rogue characters like Clinton, McCain,Edwards or Romney, who are rushing to reassure Israel that they would continue the Wars.

Great rebuttal to such a bland, boring, meaningless, SOTU speech by the corporate shill.

Not difficult to sound good after listening to such deceitful hogwash.

I wholeheartedly agreed with all the points Senator Webb made regarding our involvement in Iraq and the dangerous direction the class war is taking us.

But I still need to hear a few million more words from him stated as succinctly as he did his rebuttal on the floor of the Senate before I am ready to endorse him for the oval office.

What is making me so skeptical about what he really stands for was the little speech he gave the other day as a member of the Armed Services Committee. He said, that he had to respond to Senator Kerry, since his name was mentioned. Now I am paraphrasing, but he thought it was inaccurate to compare Iraq to Vietnam, he said that in the Vietnam War the majority of Americans supported the war and wanted a victory. So in his estimation it was not a fair comparison since the majority of Americans do not support the war in Iraq.

Is he one of those Americans who still believe that victory in Vietnam was possible if only we allowed the boots on the ground to do their job?

Like I said I need to hear a few million more words from our newly elected esteemed Senator before making him our commander in chief.

Comment #49675 by Ellis on 1/25 at 12:41 pm says:

“Capitalism stinks”

But it sells!

We have embedded into our system the idea that capitalism = Freedom.

Any man can be a king.. Pull self up by bootstraps…  etc etc etc…

In fact, when land was cheap, society valued hard work, and we were a farm-family-society, this may have been so, BUT as soon as the factories began luring the young women from Anson Maine to Lowell Massachusetts, the fat have been getting fatter, and the workers have been shunted aside.

Now, with Walmart, and the international energy companies, capitalism is nothing but a big Keeno scam.  a pyrimid scheme to lure money from the lower and middle class to the top.

People actually buy that “Mexicans do jobs that US citizens won’t do” bull. 
I put myself through college (the second time) washing dishes, and moving warehouse stock.  It was good work and except for the pay, I would not mind doing it still.  Incidently the peopleI worked with then were head and shoulders above the white collar scum who run Adelphia, Enron, Tyco, and World Com

Senator Webb, has “packages of potential”, just NOT yet unwrapped.  Although, I assisted with his election as a out of state resident, I was shocked by the locals strong support of an UNKNOWN man.  The people in VA truly believe in him strongly.  Further, I witnessed this at the ” VA xxxxxxx stores”. His latest speech, was point driven, no handlers.  Very, very accurate.
Jim, don’t forget your residents down by the “bridge”.

Within my mind he scoreD a perfect 2400!
Now onto…...“accountability” show the WAY, please!

Apex <lol> always wins Jim.
All the best….
Sincerely,
Logic = Inductive ~ Deductive.

When Webb ran for Senate, he indicated that he would be a populist on the role of economics in our society. He harkens back to Charles McCune of the 1880s populist movement.

The speech says as much about the Democratic Party as it does Webb. He was chosen, and his speech was vetted, by the Democratic leadership. Maybe there is some hope…. still I remain a member of the Green Party.
More extensive transcript of Webb’s discussion of the failed freemarket economic ideology and wealth gap

How does he feel about gay issues? Anyone here know? I like him so far, it would be nice if he doesn’t look down on guys like me.

I was very impressed by this Senators presentation and manner during his SOTU Democratic rebuttal. His delivery and stature made me want to hear his every word. His message gave me hope that perhaps we the people of the USA might be able to get beyond BushCo and Iraq???

Here is a person who can unite us once more, I think.

Is it just me?  Because when I first heard Reagan’s “trickle-down” hypothesis, all I could think of was that he was saying, essentially, p*ss-on-you.  And so it was.  And even more so, with this chimp in the White House.  Compassionate conservative is the non plus ultra of oxymorons.  Can we impeach yet?

There will always be a need for enough Democrats to support Republican traitors.

No surprise here, Most of you are too young to remember, but, Ronald Reagan WAS a Roosvelt Democrat.  He changed parties when it was in his best interest as did Phil Graham, Nighthorse Campbell, and Strom Thurmond (to name but a few.)

Webb has learned.  When running for the Kingship….Ah, sorry, I mean presidency, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Webb jumped from back bencher to head of class in one speech

Watchout Hillary….Obama.

I thought Webb’s response was outstanding as far as it went but I’ll believe that we have something approaching an honest politician in him if he can manage something resembling Jimmy Carter’s independence when it comes to the policies that have an interest to AIPAC. Otherwise all we’ll have in him is more of the same bacteria that currently infest our one party state. We’ll see if he’s courageous.

John Lowell

It’s about time someone had the guts to point out that trickle down economics doesn’t work. The greedy bastards at the top hog all the profits and the workers see little, if any, of it. Then we have outsourcing of jobs our workers should be doing and the insourcing of cheap illegal immigrant labor which keeps our workers from getting a living wage. Capitalism stinks !!

Webb, being a former US Marine officer in Vietnam, has probably learned to speak with clarity and get to the point of a given situation.

This kind of training also may have taught the ability to provide leadership: Psychological, moral and tactical.

In addition, he has seen the Vietnam War up close, and the similarities between Iraq and Vietnam are very significant in several ways.

For those too young to remember, or those who want to refresh their memories, the two articles below may be of interest:

Revisiting the Vietnam war era: The draft, casualties and the Kent State shootings

Steve Hammons
American Chronicle
November 5, 2005

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=3514

-  -  -

‘Nam war and ‘Raq war have differences, similarities

Steve Hammons
American Chronicle
October 29, 2005

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=3331

He will be president in 2012 or 2016.  I loved his speech.  I wrote him an e-mail to thank him for being born in this country.  The dude is a throwback to the early days of this country.  Madison, Franklin, Jefferson…I want to hang out with the guy.

Like many others, I was impressed with Webb’s clarity in selecting the two overriding issues in Bush’s reign, war and class. Based on his brief speech, Webb would make the best presidential candidate by far of either major party. But does anyone outside of Bush’s 34% (or 28% or whatever) believe that the country can stand two more years of Bush-Cheney? Webb must find the courage to propose the impeachment of Bush. He has already stated an adequate basis for it.

I think John in Bear has his head up his.

E.J. Dionne may be impressed by Sen. James Webb’s speech—but I am not. Why so? Because Webb “simultaneously came out against “a precipitous withdrawalÂ’Â’ from Iraq and in favor of “a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq.Â’Â’

Translate that into English and you’ll find “combat forces” withdrawn from Iraq. But about 70,000 American “support personnel” will STILL be in Iraq, plus the 30,000 odd American corporate mercenaries that no politician wants to talk about. Thus Webb is no more courageous, no more forthright than the rest of the treacherous, murdering bastards who presently squander our tax dollars in Washington.

Webb gets some respect from me insofar as he’s an ex-Marine (I am, too) who has a son in the Marines, fighting in Iraq (I don’t have kids). Good for Webb on that account. But it’s plain enough that he has no intention of ending the war and, if it comes to that, no intent to disallow Bush’s planned (nuclear?) attack on Iran. The only way to stop Bush’s impending attack on Iran is to impeach him NOW. Give him just a little more time, it’ll be too late. Webb and other Democrats all know this. Failure to impeach is therefore a tacit endorsement of what results.

Does anyone here have any idea how the world will react to a U.S./Israeli nuclear strike on Iran? Does anyone here want to wake up in the morning and learn that our Uncle Sam killed one or two million people last night? What’s happening to our country? What’s happening to us? Does anyone here believe that America actually contemplates a first-use of nuclear weapons? Is this the country I grew up believing in?

I’m sorry to say it, folks: but I don’t believe any more.

I am beginning to wonder if Webb’s response may not find a place in history as the most analyzed political speech since the Kennedy inauguration!  Mind you, I plead guilty to being one of the analysts, without having to worry about any column-length limitations that Dionne have have had (having read his piece first in print):

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2007/01/responding-to-state-of-union-address.html

However, behind all the analysis, the thing that stuck with me the most was the “anger factor,” probably because of Madison Shockley’s comments about “ANGRY black candidates” and the reactions calling for more angry candidates of any color:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070122_madison_shockley_black_man_white_house/

I think the important thing is that a piece of political discourse worthy of reflective reading as dropped in our laps, and it has been so long since we have encountered one that we are not quite sure what to do with it!  I would like to see others pick up the baton;  and, if Hagel can get beyond his current round of penetrating rants, he may be able to do so.  Lord knows, it’s about time we get past the Vice President’s excuse for political discourse!

My post at 3:23 am this date January 25, has an incorrect link; the correct link for the January 25, 2007 New York Times article on hedge funds and their new, trillion dollar,  political influence - refreshing for this paper in that it names names in a context where big Wall Street-Greenwich, Connecticut money is being made - is:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/business/25hedge.html

“we are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable—and predicted—disarray that has followed.’’

That’s a mouthful. Feeling as though we are held hostage is a perfect description for the current situation. The word “predicted” connotes that this hostage situation was and is at the root of this ridiculous and undeclared war.

The question is, hostage to whom? Certainly not a half witted good old boy president. How about that military industrial complex, President Eisenhower warned us of. Those masters of war are the only winners in this preposterous travesty.

And no I do not appreciate Ronald Reagan. But I despise the posthumous deification of him that’s been shoved down our throats so often.

I thought his speech kicked ass.

it is about time but you know, honestly, i expect even more.  I do expect bush and cheney and any others that serve us to be held accountable.  to stand in front of the public and answer questions on a quarterly basis or more often.  you work for me, i have a right to ask questions.  bush doesn’t this in front of selected groups with prepared statements and answers.

i want him and others to be held accountable for what they have done to our country.  a man that does what he wants and not what the voting public wants, is a problem.  then, when you read that he was attemting to gain free pass to attack anywhere within asia…that is scary.  he has his own agenda

What worth does a political party have if according to E.J. DionneÂ’s piece, “so many of them terrified of saying exactly whatÂ’s on their mind”?  If ever that’s the case then obviously in a democratic society it is time for a new party representative ‘of the interests of all of the people’ be formed.   

Only one Republican (Sen. Chuck Hagel) joined the majority Democrats opposing more troops to Iraq, and his words were searing:

“There is no strategy, this is a ping-pong game with American lives, and we better be damned sure we know what we’re doing - all of us - before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder.”

Three cheers for Hagel.  It’s about darn time!

Secret US plans for Iraq’s oil
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4354269.stm

Bushes & the Bin Ladens
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/progs/newsnight/attack22.ram

Florida 2000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/progs/newsnight/palast.ram

Time for the troops to come home; they should never have been sent in the first place.

It took a visit to the very ably written and thoughtful, trenchantly expressed website of the Fourth International’s Socialist Equality Party, http://www.wsws.org, for me to understand the import of Senator Webb’s speech, which has impressed people as politically different—and as different in their philosophies of political candor—as E.J. Dionne and Patrick Martin of wsws.org at http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jan2007/dems-j25.shtml

What it all amounts to is a test-marketing of Senator Webb as a presidential candidate.

But it is a falsehood to claim that a single person, be it Bush or Webb or Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama- can make any more than a stylistic difference in our federal executive after 20 cumulative years of oligarchical rule sealed in its finality by tens of thousands of lobbyists and billions of dollars of money poured into buying up the current pliant, rubber-stamp politicians and political aspirants who now are the window-dressing for the real political power in the United States.

In 2002 Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity told Bill Moyers on the latter’s “Now” program that in 1968 there were 62 registered lobbyists in Washington, D.C. and that by the date of their PBS interview, the number had risen to 20,000.

See http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_lewis.html

And on June21, 2005, the Washington Post published this report contending that those lobbyists had doubled their fees since the year 2000, and that interval of time, their numbers had doubled to 34,750.

See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/21/AR2005062101632.html

Finally, today’s New York Times broke the story many people have known for at least a year - that the hedge fund managers who have been turning the global money and commodities markets into a casino for the benefit of the rich and to the economic detriment of just about everyone else, are now trillion-dollar players in the presidential elections, buying up every presidential contender they can;

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/21/AR2005062101632.html

Nothing in American politics will change in 2008, because nothing can change. U.S. society and the politics never has changed unless in times of economic crisis or economic warfare between contending groupings - that was true in the year 1860, and the year 1932.

And, it will be true in 2008 - which won’t like be such a year, given the way Bush and the U.S. congress have inflated the U.S. economy with hundreds of billions of dollars of “military Keynesian” megabucks: So there will be no change.

I have yet to encounter any articles on the TruthDig site about the way our bloated military industrial economy and its associated massive debt is destroying our nation’s economic future, nor about the destructive role of D.C.‘s rapidly metastasizing, economically sterile lobbying industry on our politics.

Truthdig columnists may tell us (rhetorically) to stop Bush “before he kills again.” But that’s double-think, since every Truth Dig columnist knows that any man in Bush’s job would do—and will continue to do—just what he’s doing, with possibly only slight stylistic differences.