121093 Well of course Ernest you are right! But when we see the push in nuclear energy by this administration, based upon the influence of the nuclear, coal and oil lobbies, we might as well hang ourselves out to dry. Nuclear power does not only cost more to operate than the energy it sells, it is the biggest polluter of them all and more importantly, it depends upon the oil and coal industries.

121081 I can relate to that CY and in fact it falls in line with the Peter Barnes plan from his, “Who Owns the Sky” book I posted with you earlier. He suggests a board of salaried civil appointees to oversee it rather than corruptible politicians. The idea is that the bigger the polluters, the more money they would have to pay into this fund, which would be largely based on the Alaska Trust Fund, only on a national scale. In other words, every time an oil company drills a new hole or a coal mining operation levels another mountain, they would have to subsidize this fund. Meanwhile, the folks who use less dirty energy(including the poor and those who live in small houses, drive little cars etc) get more money from this fund, offsetting the ultimate(whether we adopt this plan or not) higher cost in fossil fuels. The only losers in this would be the nuclear, coal and oil corporations.

Essentially it would be stock, clean environment stock that could reduce emissions up to 80 percent in the next twenty years and every man, woman and child in this nation would own a share in this stock. It is very capitalistic and socialistic as well. More importantly, it will help save the planet.

Problem is, Michael, that this unfettered greed may well lead to the destruction of a sustainable and livable environment.  We can’t wait for American fascism to collapse on its own accord.

121047 Well Ernest, I remember her in a speech saying in that case we found a third way in the New Deal. The bottom line is we found a third way and diverted crises. I agree with everything you’re saying too! I would also like to add that in the unfettered rush to gain more and more money as quickly as possible and without regard to the consequences, capitalism will ultimately fail. They realize this and thus the need for a police state, a new world order and a move to corporate feudalism. In essence they want the good old days, with a compliant, impoverished, basically helpless dullard society forever obedient or else. They won’t get it!

Actually, Michael, it isn’t true that the only third choice between fascism and communism was regulated capitalism or what Klein refers to as a mixed economy.  Indeed, Klein notes:  “Washington has always regarded democratic socialism as a greater threat than totalitarian Communism, which was easy to vilify and made a handy enemy.  In the sixties and seventies, the favored tactic for dealing with the inconvenient popularity of developmentalism and democratic socialism was to try to equate them with Stalinism, deliberately blurring the clear differences between the worldviews.  (Conflating all opposition with terrorism plays a similar role today).  A stark example of this strategy comes from the early days of the Chicago crusade, deep inside the declassified Chile documents.  Despite the CIA-funded propaganda campaign painting Allende as a Soviet-style dictator, Washington’s real concerns about the Allende election victory were relayed by Henry Kissinger in a 1970 memo to Nixon:  ‘The example of a successful elected Marxist government in Chile would surely have an impact on--and even precedent value for--other parts of the world...; the imitative spread of similar phenomena elsewhere would in turn significantly affect the world balance and our position in it.’ In other words, Allende needed to be taken out before his democratic third way spread.”

I think you can see the same factors at work today in the anti-Chavez propaganda; perhaps also in the apoplexy caused by Michael Moore filming 9/11 workers getting medical care in Cuba which care was denied by reason of their own country’s corrupt health care system.

120907 You’re right Mack it shouldn’t be racist and when we look at the real underlying problems, it has little to do with race as much as it does with elitist capitalism and the bottom line for the world’s wealthiest. Our economic policies are the real culprits. But is has become a matter of race. It’s become a matter of “us” or “them” now. The degradations of our lifestyles have little to do with them. In a game of quick profit, they are merely pawns, just like the rest of us. While we address the affect we fail to address the cause and we will continue to fail addressing it because it isn’t good for big business.

120864 I agree Ernest and as you point out it was not unfettered capitalism, but rather regulated capitalism. To save capitalism he had to regulate it. It was the third way Naomi Klein talks about, a compromise, the other two alternatives being either communism or fascism, the latter of which it seems is what we have right now. I see it as more than saving capitalism. I see it as saving the nation, which could very easily have taken a chaotic turn for the worse IE rebellion/revolution, military coup etc. Of course today there already has been a military coup of sorts since defense contractors rule the country and own our politicians, support the notion of a police state and executive dictatorship. This is not saving the country and it seeks no third way or any compromise. I believe in fact this road we’re on will lead us exactly to where Roosevelt knew it would.

This argument has gotten way too personal.

Can I suggest that it doesn’t make any difference who these undocumented workers are ethnically--it’s about how many and it’s about who is recruiting them and exploiting them. 

If racism were really at work here, these Mexicans would have been banished a long time ago (if, for instance, instead of 20 million Mexicans we had 20 million black Africans!) If we are so concerned about being humanitarian, why not bring over all the endangered Africans of the Sudan?  I’m sure they wouldn’t protest being used as cheap labor either.

How many people can we add to this country, flooding the job market, overwhelming the interstates and schools, without lowering everyone’s quality of life? 

What are the limits?  How many people can cities support overnight--schooling, medical care, postal delivery, water, electricity...? 

Every year, the time I spend commuting to work goes up, the money I spend on gas, the time I spend in a grocery store, the cars overtake everything. 

Why does Mexico get a pass?  Why aren’t we helping Mexico take care of its own citizens? 

Try sneaking into Mexico illegally--you’ll be put into the dungeons in a flash.  But we attempt to enforce laws that we’ve modified for Mexican immigrants repeatedly and we’re the bad guys?

The businesses who’ve recruited these workers should be forced to provide health, welfare, and education benefits instead of expecting taxpayers to foot this bill.  Why let them get away with $6/hour labor and ceo bonuses of billions in windfall profits?

This racism thing is merely a shield to deflect inquiry from the heart of the matter.

CY and Michael:  I think it would be fair to say that, by softening its impact through Keynesian economics, Roosevelt actually saved capitalism.  I would prefer democratic socialism, such as that embodied in the UK health care system, to the mixed system produced by Keynesian economics.  But that mixed system has been under assault by the most avaricious form of capitalism embodied in the doctrinaire ideology of Milton Friedman--a point so aptly demonstrated by Naomi Klein in “The Shock Doctrine.”

CY the fact that Michael and I have pointed out an inaccuracy in the perception you advanced about Roosevelt’s effort to pack the court does not equate rejecting all criticism of the man.  On the other hand, as 20th Century presidents go, I doubt that there is another who comes close to his level of positive accomplishments.

120719, CY, I never said you were trying to demonize Roosevelt, I said many who are rewriting history have already done the job. As for Zinn, a man who I basically respect, I see his putting the entire blame of Pearl Harbor on Roosevelt because of the statements made by a few people and the copies of a couple of ancient transcripts as preposterous! There is simply no proof, only speculation! And if there ever was real proof, the republicans would have been on him like flies on s**t! Also I’d like to see evidence of this anti-lynching legislation you talk about and the full legislative package assigned to it before “we” heap that on him as well! Yes he was a rich man, but unlike his current replacement, he had compassion for the little guy and was looking out for the interests of the entire nation, rather then only the elitists of this nation. Eleanor Roosevelt had a lot to do with it, but for all intents and purposes and from a purely historical standpoint, Roosevelt was for the little guy and he proved it. He was also probably the most beloved president in US history. In other words, the exact opposite of George W. Bush.

We need strong and compassionate leadership like his or we’re sunk though yes I believe the population is long overdue in growing a pair. You are right about the lead candidates as well.

120742. Also Ernest, thanks for pointing out this executive unitarian theory which is by far a greater threat to us then any terrorist organization or anything else for that matter, on the planet. These people who have either endorsed this or enabled this, have betrayed their sworn oaths to protect and defend the constitution of the United States. In my view(and Jefferson’s) that makes all of them traitors. Also long after Bush is gone, his stacked courts will continue to haunt us for decades to come, unless of course an act of God takes mercy upon us. Meanwhile with friends like Feinstein, who needs enemies?

120742 Thanks for adding on to that Ernest. As history is being rewritten, lots of people are going out of their way to paint FDR as a bad guy, including sadly, the great historian Howard Zinn. The irony of course is that people like Bush and Cheney love to quote him. I believe Cheney did as much as 7 times during the pre-2004 election at the RNC. Meanwhile they have done everything to undermine every good thing this president did! The Social Security issue is all that’s left and we all know what Bush wants to do with that. Privatization will take a huge chunk of that money, which is earmarked for recipients and give it to Wall Street. The most successful government program in US history we are told is draining government resources, thus the need to privatize it, or in other words to essentially destroy it. It is the only piece of government capital left the corporations can get their hands on. Meanwhile tax breaks, the largest bulk of which go to Wall Street and this so called war on terror that Wall Street profits so immensely from and this system of corporate lawlessness(corporatism) Bush as allowed, are the biggest culprits to draining government coffers. It was corporate lawlessness which brought us into the Great Depression in the first place and make no mistake, it is doing the same thing right now and indeed it will take another FDR, a man of courage and vision, to get us out of his mess.

Michael you are absolutely correct about the reasons behind the Roosevelt court packing scheme in which he sought to obtain a majority on the Supreme Court by increasing the number of Justices.  At the time, the Supreme Court was striking down just about every state law that sought to protect the public health and safety or to protect workers’ rights under the long since discredited doctrine of “substantive due process.”

Roosevelt’s move arose out of frustration because this was occurring at the height of the Great Depression when the nation was in dire need of Keynesian economics to overcome the disaster created by unregulated capitalism. 

Over the past forty years, the American hard-right has engaged in a very different court packing scheme, one which has produced no less than four federalist society radicals in robes on the Supreme Court--only one away from a majority.  All four subscribe to the subversive “Unitary Executive” theory--the theory that provides the basis for the more than 1000 presidential signing statements.  It is a theory that the president, in times of war, is not merely above the law but “is” the law.  Under Unitary Executive theory, it is the president (not Congress or the Courts) who has the exclusive authority to define the limits of presidential power in times of war.

Since the so-called “global war on terror” is intended to be endless, under “Unitary Executive” theory the hard right envisions a “permanent” change in our system from that of checks and balances to unchecked executive power.  We are now but one federalist society jurist away from ending the rule of law as we know it.

120359 CY I’d like to point out that FDR only threatened to stack the supreme court because the right wingers controlling it were preventing every program we needed to get this nation back on its feet. Also appointing its members is not exactly what one would call dictatorial. FDR never had anywhere near the powers this current president has and in fact has given himself. Take the letter from Feinstein I shared with Ernest. According to the security council, upon which Feinstein sits, the telecoms secretly spying upon us was legal. Her contentions to this end come from the pretense that secret letters sent by the president behind the backs of congress to these telecoms, requesting them to spy upon us makes them legal. The executive branch is not suppose to have the powers to legislate and in fact never did until Bush. When secretive letters that circumvent laws and treaties become law simply because the president sends them, and leaders in the house and senate see no wrong in this, we are all in big trouble. Roosevelt never had these self given powers and if he had for one moment tried to establish them, the whole nation, including the house and senate, would be up in arms. Here lies the real dictatorship, not in a great president long gone who was trying to do what was right for this nation and all of its people.

120309 Points taken Ernest and thank you! There is no doubt we are in a world of you know what. But as Kennedy once said “great crises produce great men, and great deeds of courage.” Let’s hope he was right!

Yes Michael I am an attorney.  I attended law school back in the mid 70s.  Back then no one had ever heard of “Unitary Executive” theory.  It was the 1982 brainchild of Sam Alito and the radically subversive, Robert Bork founded, Richard Mellon Scaife funded Federalist Society to which four of the nine Justices on the Supreme Court belong.

The concept that if the President says its okay its lawful was one advanced by President Nixon.  That attitude as much as his participation in a criminal coverup of Watergate is what led to his impeachment.  It is in essense a restatement that the King is the sovereign and therefore can do no wrong.

Of course, the Founders of this nation were definitely not looking for a new monarchy.  But I doubt they could so much as recognize the tattered remains of the constitution they so carefully drafted.  Bit by bit, in piecemeal fashion, the members of Congress have betrayed the solumn oath they took to defend that constitution, surrendering power to the executive as rights have steadily eroded. 

There was never a valid reason to tinker with FISA.  These efforts have nothing to do with protecting the American people and everything to do with the acquisition of unchecked executive power under the cover of an Orwellian “war on terror.”

With the ruthless Dick Cheney hell-bent on attacking Iran, a likely blowback and executive orders now in place that would permit the president to declare a national emergency in the event of a new terrorist incident on US soil, leading to martial law, a suspension of the Constitution, shutting down Congress and cancelling the November 2008 election, impeachment may well be the only legal device remaining which could save the Republic.  Unfortunately, with the Speaker of the House knee deep in the waterboarding scandal and with other so-called “leading Democrats” more concerned with trolling for the corporate money needed for the next election than they are with protecting the Republic, the rule of law may be in very serious jeopardy--and of course, if we are to take a lesson from Pakistan, once the putsch comes, lawyers don’t seem to fare very well.

120135 LOL! Well CY I’ll have to chew on this for awhile. At any rate Merry Christmas, especially since it might be our last… perhaps next year we’ll be herded onto that train to the New Dachau! I’d like to add as I have before, I do not support illegal immigration. I just see the problem from a different perspective than you do. God help us all though!

On another note, especially since you brought up rising waters and such, have you ever heard of a book called, “Who Owns the Sky?” It’s written by Peter Barnes, the former CEO who created the long distance company Working Assets. He has some good stuff in there based on the Alaska Trust Fund, that might help us solve the greenhouse affect. It’s the most practical solution I’ve heard anyone come up with. Here’s an article about it. I thought you might be interested.  http://www.middlebury.edu/about/pubaff/news_releases/2 007/pubaff_633257952167354828.htm

102184 Ernest you’re an attorney aren’t you? This is off topic, but I was wondering what you can make of this. It’s an intelligence committee report that basically says the telecommunications corporations didn’t break the law because the president authorized them to spy on us. It’s Feinstein’s excuse for supporting the idea no telecommunications corporations should be prosecuted.

http://intelligence.senate.gov/071025/report.pdf

As to those who claim they are only concerned with “illegal” immigration, consider the following from the Ventura County Star:

“Nearly two-thirds of the nation’s Latinos say the battle over illegal immigration has made life more difficult for all Latinos, including those here legally…

“About 64 percent of those surveyed by the Pew Hispanic Center said failed immigration-reform efforts in Congress have affected far more people than the estimated 12 million who have crossed the border illegally.

“About 53 percent said they had experienced at least one negative impact from a list that included not finding work, not finding housing, more demands to prove immigration status, reluctance to use government services and deciding not to travel out of the country.

“‘The biggest threat is that by the color of our skin and our last name, we’re all put in the same boat,’ said David Rodriquez of Camarillo, state deputy director of the League of United Latino American Citizens.  ‘We’re tainted by the ‘illegal’ brush.  That’s not fair.’”

Yes, like Jim Crow, not fair, but apparently as American as apple pie.

119945 CY to further clarify, I was not trying to call you a racist, if that’s what you thought I was doing. But I was promoting the idea that much of this illegal immigration bashing is a racist matter. I think Ernest worded it better when he mentioned the lying undercurrent in the movement. I do however believe America is a racist country, though certainly not all of its members. Not even most of them.

As for living in cities, I grew up in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, which ironically is probably one of the most racist cities in the nation. It is also one of the most liberal cities. But it is a town of racially defined neighborhoods. On this pretext and in my opinion, the anti immigration movement is doing the same thing but on a much grander scale. You obviously don’t agree with that and that’s OK.

The points you make about the environment, our water supply, our natural resources and the rising ocean waters are relevant, in fact even more relevant than this illegal immigration issue. This is a world problem, not just a national one. The world is becoming overpopulated and our impact on the planet, especially our industrial impact is frighteningly apparent. But these problems do not come strictly because of illegal immigration and stopping illegal immigration won’t solve these problems either. If we were the last country on earth that had drinkable water, would we let the rest of the world thirst? Or would we help them to produce their own through desalinization or whatnot? Corporations are privatizing water around the world. Once they succeed we won’t be in here arguing over illegal immigrants, we’ll be out in the streets burning down the capital and stringing up CEO’s.

120007 Thank you Ernest for a refreshing breath of truth! America is probably the most racist country on earth, though some might argue Japan is. These anti immigrant folk, along with Lou Dobbs, spend more time attacking the Southern Poverty Law Office then they do the poor illegals. As for SPLO, all they do is track the ever growing and dangerous fascist elements and hate groups in this country who have grown considerably since 9/11. Anyone who believes for one moment this movement isn’t racist are kidding themselves. These “people” will latch onto any hot key issue to better their own position. They also do a great job in detracting us from the real problem, corporate elitism.

119945 Conservative Yankee what in the hell are you talking about? I merely made an observation and threw out a few ideas. Now I’m a smear campaign? You must be joking! The smear isn’t being conducted by me but by NAFTA which has allowed corporate elitists to redefine the borders of Canada and Mexico. This redefining is not an attempt by the Mexicans to steal the entire southwest as these illegal immigrant bashers say, but it is a NAU of sorts, a corporate elitist NAU that allows corporate America to rape and pillage our neighbors and their resources. If you want to know why there are so many illegals running around the US, you should go to NAFTA then realize that because of it, Mexican factory workers have taken more than a 30% pay cut and hundreds of thousands of Mexican Farmers have been kicked off their lands thanks to the flooding of cheap corn subsidies from the United States.

Also I noticed you produced no proposals yourself.

The undercurrent of racism beneath the anti-immigrant bashing serves the interests of the ruling elite, who are able to deflect the American working class away from the economics driving the erosion of their middle class aspirations (e.g. NAFTA & neoliberal “free trade") to the fellow economic victims who are depicted as foreign, illegal and as competition.

This issue was touched upon by Naomi Klein in “Disaster Capitalism” wherein she discussed the “clashes between free markets and free people [which] took place in Europe in 2005, when the European Constitution was rejected in two national referendums.”

“The powerful rejection of what the French call ‘savage capitalism’ takes many different forms, including reactionary and racist ones.  In the US, rage at the shrinking of the middle class has been easily redirected to calls for border fences, with CNN’s Lou Dobbs leading a nightly campaign against the ‘invasioin of illegal aliens’ waging ‘war on the American middle class’--stealing jobs, spreading crime, as well as bringing in ‘highly contagious diseases.’...”

“In the Netherlands, the 2005 referendum on the European Constitution was similary hijacked by anti-immigration parties, turning it into a vote less against a corporate order than against the specter of Polish tradespeople flooding into Western Europ[e to push down wages...”

Scapegoating permits the ruling class to enjoy the feast as the peasants, both native and immigrant, are left to fight over the crumbs.

119874 Well look what Tennant got for falling on the sword! The Medal of Freedom Award! Then look at how after stopping all air traffic, they let the family members of the primary suspect take a flight out of the country without even questioning them!

We need a new investigation, there is no doubt about it, but still I believe we need to revamp the 9/11 commission or all we’ll get is more of the same. Investigations that restrict the right to persecute are a waste of time.

We need to hold these bastards accountable and we need committee members who are dedicated to that end. Unfortunately, presidential authority won’t allow it and neither will the republican and republicrat members of the senate. Perhaps that will change with the changing of the guard. We’ll have to wait and see. But regardless, by all means investigate!

119802 Well Cy my point was that under the pretexted illusion that we can and must preserve white rule and culture in the United States, that there is no reasonable resolution. With the illegals gone and the borders slammed shut we will in spite of this, eventually have an Hispanic majority. Perhaps we should have thought about this before we told the world to give us their huddled masses. We are a melting pot after all, not an Aryan nation. But an Aryan Nation is what well get if we keep charging down the current path.

With this situation, it seems we have but two choices, either accept the natural inevitability that one day Hispanics will outnumber whites, or impose unjust rules on non whites. It seems that right now the unjust rules are pressing at the forefront.

The only real solution as I see it is acclimation! For example, there are generations of Hispanics in California who are more American than most Americans and their history here spans long before California became a part of the United States. Many of them don’t even speak Spanish. On the other hand, many Anglos have embraced certain aspects in Hispanic culture and speak the language fluently. We eat their food, we share in their religious practices, we inter-marry, we embrace the same basic value systems. We’re acclimating! Acclimation is the only viable cure and that will mean as it always does, that cultures will ultimately mold and change. This is the most inevitable reality of them all. It won’t mean an end to Anglo-European culture, just a natural process in change that all cultures and even languages go through. Everything changes. A thousand years from now our culture will have evolved into something completely different and most people won’t even think twice about it. Perhaps George Bernard Shaw had the answer/foresight when he suggested interracial marriage, until one day there would only be but one race on this planet, the human race. That way we would embrace all the things we have in common and literally remove the prejudicial differences.

This rant by O’Reilly saying we’re going to lose the entire southwest is ridicules. It will lead us to drastic measures and roads that we should not go down.

I suppose we could limit immigration to whites, but they aren’t exactly pounding down our doors and they wouldn’t accept cheap labor status either. Most of them are better educated than we are and doing better economically and socially. Also to impose such injustice in a nation that boasts about justice for all, would simply be one more example to the rest of the world that we preach one thing and do another.

We could do what the Chinese have done, if you have one kid you get a tax break, more than one you pay more taxes.

We could try fining the Mexican government, charging them for all the process fees concerning illegals. When they laugh in our faces, we could invade Mexico and make it another state, but then we’d end up with another Iraq situation or worse. Perhaps we should ask Mexico to simply join us peacefully. Who knows, maybe they would! Regardless of any of it, Hispanics will still be the majority here 50 years down the road.

How do you propose we solve this issue?

Michael,

Well I think the people from the steering committee want a new investigation and I think they should get it.  Not a single reprimand or firing, in fact didn’t the general in charge of US defenses get a promotion to the joint chiefs of staff?  What the hell did he do?  lol

I’d also heard that not a single fighter jet had been scrambled to intercept a passenger plane from the month that Bush/Cheney took office.  For 10 years prior to that an average of 12 interceptions occured every month.

Now you just don’t let murder go uninvestigated, doesn’t matter what other pressing issues there are.

Oh well, it’s your country and your credibility.

119818 Ernest, Adio is an inflected form of adiar which means to fix, appoint(day). Basically it means “until then” or until that specific time or day rather than goodbye. In other words its a bent word.

CY, it’s adios, not adio, mi hermano.

119776 I hear ya filthycherry, but I think part of the problem behind progressive journalists not taking a stand concerning the 9/11 truth movement is because of the many kooks out there who have embraced it and who in many ways have made it their own. There are several noteworthy and respectable people involved in the movement like David Ray Griffin for example, but there are also people like Tarpley and LaRouche. Alex Jones has ties to extreme right wing elements. He was one of the guests at that American Free Press/Barnes Review conference I mentioned previously with fempatriot. Michael Collins Piper, Christopher Bollyn, etc, and these folks, just by their mere presence make the search for truth a mission in absurdity. Their main agenda, beyond stressing their own importance and intellect, is to detract. They also weaken credibility and make them all look like kooks, which of course isn’t true.

But as much as I wish to learn the entire truth about 9/11, JFK, MLK and a myriad of other issues, I tend to agree with Klein. There are far more important things at play here and take note that all the corporate lawlessness that’s been going on has only gotten worse during this entire 9/11 truth process. Besides, what we already know about this administration and 9/11 is damning enough. We know they were warned several times and we also know at the very least, they chose to ignore those warnings. Whether the Bush regime actually planned and carried out this act or simply allowed it to happen (as I suspect) is mute. Either action would be construed as an act in treason, but since most of the tangible evidence has already been destroyed, and what wasn’t has been sealed for god knows how long, we’ll be debating this seemingly unresolvable issue for the next 50 years or longer, when any illicit parties involved will be dead and gone. Meanwhile we’re on the brink of national bankruptcy, environmental crisis, corporatized media and government, another possible war on the horizon and our civil liberties continue to die on the vine.

Thanks for the link though. I will respond a bit later.

119761 Well Cy I don’t for one moment believe the issue hasn’t any merit. I’m glad you acknowledge the racist right however.

Recently I was watching FOX News and they were running a survey showing the republicans are losing Hispanic support in key red states where there are large Latino populations. They stressed the fact that because of this, they could lose those key red states in the coming elections. But the reality is the same as it was concerning the war in Iraq. They are targeting the angry white male just as they did then, essentially abandoning their Hispanic supporters who are on the losing end of this hotkey issue. That display on FOX was in there for one reason, to fire up white middle America to vote republican. They did remark about Bush once enjoying large Hispanic support, almost as if to suggest the reason they lost it was not because of Bush but because of the current candidates, but I see that as window dressing. They knew it would fire up the white middle class, who thanks to these same right wingers are now in a state of hysteria over this illegal immigration issue.

As for the fear of losing our national identity goes, if the plan was to remain white forever, it’s too late for that now, unless we decide to foolishly embrace some version of South Africa’s Apartheid government! Even if we deported every illegal, abandoned the immigration process entirely and allowed not one single foreigner into this country ever again, in the next 50 years our population will be a Latino majority. More importantly, what they see happening to them now they will remember in that 50 year timetable. Better to make friends than enemies I say. It’s either that or allow a complete white racist takeover. As for my part, I’m brushing up on my Spanish. Adio mi Hermano!

Ernest and Michael, thanks for the links.  Good stuff there.

Norman Dodd was interviewed by G. Edward Griffin in 1982 and he alleged that tax-exempt foundations were created to control education and media.  Here’s the transcript:

http://www.supremelaw.org/authors/dodd/interview.htm

Michael, I was just very disappointed with the Greenspan interview.  Amy kept thanking Greenspan for coming on the show and it was making me sick.  I must have skipped the Krugman show but I’ve got it as I use the torrent feature to get each show so I’m going to watch it today.

As for Amy, Klein, and Chomsky, their work is insightful and invaluable but on the 9/11 issue they just won’t touch it, and it surprises me (and disappoints).  I went to Naomi’s book launch and when asked about 9/11 being a false flag operation she stated (and she’s thought this out because she’s been asked a few times now):

“First of all, I’m not so sure I would put anything past these people. It’s just that with these conspiracy theories I feel that we’re taking away all this energy that could be going toward other issues that are so important right now”.

And with the words “conspiracy theory” everyone mumbles and nods like the left wing parrots they are.

This is really odd because her mother-in-law is Michele Landsberg who has written, favourably, two articles about the 9/11 Truth movement in her column for the Toronto Star. Given that and her general support for grassroots labour, feminist, and anti-global groups and issues she can hardly be ignorant of the number of the anomalies, contradictions and absurdities of the official story or the need for a new and proper investigation.

Is that taking away energy that could be going towards other issues that are so important right now?

I think the statement is belittling and disempowering. “It’s like she’s a life guard who is helping you stay afloat even as she points out that the rough seas you are in have been deliberately stired up by forces that want to drown you. Lifeguard Naomi tells you, as you’re bobbing around and gasping for breath, how bad these forces are and explains how they make the waves…
Then she lets go of you, and you drown.” - Barry Zwicker

That, in my books, is a Gatekeeper.

119673 Great analogy again Conservative Yankee, but I would add the right wing smear campaign, aka Willie Horton and that Snoopy tank ride that was as ridicules as Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” jet landing on that carrier.

We’re talking about short attention span theater here where presentation (in 10 second sound bytes) is everything and genuine issues become less viable. In a sense, this really is psychology 101 as a nervous Bush recently rendered, but not for him, the American people. I hope they are smart enough to realize it. Polls seem to indicate most Americans want change. That doesn’t help the “stay the course” crowd. I truly hope however that the dems don’t blow it again. They can only win unless they embrace stupidity.

Heres more:

You can hear the push to defend “white culture” from nearly every sector of the right, from Bill O’Reilly:

But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part, and so am I, and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right.

To Patrick Buchanan:

I think America may exist, but I’ll tell you this: I do believe we’re going to lose the American Southwest. I think it is almost inevitable. If we do not put a fence on that border ... you’re going to have 100 million Hispanics in the country, most of them new immigrants from Mexico, which believes that belongs to them. What’s going to happen to us, Sean, in my judgment, is what is happening right now: We are Balkanizing. We are dividing and separating from one another politically, morally—on issues like abortion or Terri Schiavo—racially and ethnically, when you get Jena and then you get Don Imus, and all of these things ripping us apart. All the things that used to pull us together and hold us together no longer do.

To Michael Savage:

But basically, if you’re talking about a day like today, Martin Luther King Junior Day, and you’re gonna understand what civil rights has become, the con it’s become in this country. It’s a whole industry; it’s a racket. It’s a racket that is used to exploit primarily heterosexual, Christian, white males’ birthright and steal from them what is their birthright and give it to people who didn’t qualify for it.

http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/white_backlash_and_ri ght?tx=3

“.......if it weren’t already crystal clear that the right-wing approach to the immigration debate has had the effect of infusing movement conservatism with the toxic sewage of the racist right—all the way to the highest levels—last night’s GOP presidential debate drove the point home rather vividly.”

Rick Perlstein surveyed the damage and acidly observed:

The Republican YouTube debate was an astonishment. Not a single second on the economy, which may well be on the verge of collapse, with the middle class potentially more vulnerable than its been at any point since the 1920s. And yet, as my colleague Bill Scher points out, twenty-three minutes of ranting about the dusky hordes invading our shores. Is a great American political party really going to base its entire presidential appeal on scapegoating the Other?

Question answers itself, I guess.

I thought this would add some fuel to the debate.

http://firedoglake.com/2007/11/29/when-the-sewage-seeps-in/

119737 Opps! He was talking about Edward Griffin. Don’t know much about him beyond cancer research. I’m getting old I guess!

119661 You’re right Ernest and I’m a Philly boy too, an avid Chomsky fan. Sorry Noam! I only wish I had added how the 9/11 Commission snubbed the widows of 9/11, the very people who demanded an investigation in the first place. I do respect David Ray Griffin though.

Michael Shaw & filthycherry, it’s Chomsky, not Chomski.

I agree with your post totally, Michael, but would add that filthycherry left out that Amy & Juan followed up their interview of Greenspan by having Paul Krugman on their show.  Krugman tore Greenspan a new rear end.

119561 Filthycherry, the steering committee for the 9/11 Commission was handpicked by George W. Bush. His allowance in creating the committee in the first place was based on the premise that he handpick its members and that their investigative conclusions would lead to no prosecutions. Thus their end result, everyone was at fault and no one was at fault. In other words it was a complete waste of time. An independent investigation was what was called for, not a staged circus packed with Bush’s cronies.

To denigrate Noam Chomski and Naomi Klein, and then chastise Goodman and Gonzales on this premise is preposterous. Also if Amy and Juan didn’t care about the FED and what Greenspan was doing, they wouldn’t have exposed him in the first place, unlike any major media who basically consider him a god. Also to suggest coercion on the show is absurd and there is virtually no evidence whatsoever to back that insinuation up.

If you truly wish to attack media, you should be going after the major broadcasters who for the most part are owned by defense contractors. Here lie the true media whores. Visit the Center for Public Integrity and see for yourself. I’d also like to add Democracy Now has no lobby expenditures and do not support political candidates, unlike their corporate opposites.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/telecom/

119546 Right! What’s good is bad and what’s bad is good! Flawlessly logical T Rex. I hope you realize exactly what you’re saying here, that neo-Nazi’s, white supremacists and racists are the truth sayers and those who oppose them are the liars. No wonder you applaud Dobbs over Goodman and Gonzales. He after all has these bigots on his show and all Juan and Amy do is expose them.

I’m quite a fan of the show and it’s my main source of news but I don’t see how this interview could good.  Especially when she had Allan Greenspan on just a while ago and was hardly calling him out on the horrors that he’s had a hand in. Let’s face it, Amy is a disciple of St. Chomski, as is Naomi Klein, and as such they are gatekeepers unwilling to even support the people involved in the steering committee of the 9/11 commission report who are demanding a real investigation.  Chomski doesn’t think it’s important so neither do they. It’s sad really.

As for foundations donating to DN, I think it’s important to note.  Money talks as they say.  Now if anyone doubts the altruistic nature of these fundings then they should look up the interview that was done with Senator Dodd by G. Edward Griffin.  I’m sure it’s on googlevid or youtube or somesuch.

No T. Rex, I do not think you cynical.  I think you are an under-educated, ignorant, opinionated fool who lacks the ability to organize a coherent thought.

As to your suggestion that I am a Zionist, I have to burst out laughing.  I’d suggest you read some of my past posts on that topic here at Truthdig. 

Frankly T. Rex there is a fundamental difference between the academic work of Prof. Finkelstein demonstrating “misuse” of the Holocaust for political gain and your off-the-wall effort to deny established facts, coupled with your paranoia about any who do not buy into your delusion.

I suspect that you are someone who could benefit from years of psychotherapy.  Regardless, I do know you are someone badly in need of an education.

Mr. Shaw, you can mention name after name and that doesn’t change the fact that Mr. Dobbs comes much closer to targeting the real guilty parties promoting and encouraging the invasion of our country by illegal immigrants, than Amy and Juan do.

And a person can appear to be “good” and lie like a cheap rug. A person can also appear “bad”, and be engaged in nothing more than ramming home the truth. The revelations regarding Iran during the last week provide a tailor made, recent example of this phenomenon.

It’s the message, not the messenger. And the word “hate” in these cases, is much too simplistic and overused for my personal comfort. Being “hate mongers” as defined by you, means that I should not believe anything they say? Use of the word “hate” is much too often used to protect and further agendas in my opinion. It’s breathtakingly rare that the word is used to protect individuals.

Mr. Canning, you are obviously deeply invested in the zionist version of reality. The fact that you get your fur up so far at the mere thought of anyone questioning the facts behind the holocaust indicates the behavior of someone who’s thinking has been completely halted. A more sinister explanation could also explain it, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt on an agenda based motivation. 52 million people rarely spoken about, nor made the subject of endless movies, books, documentaries, news reports, powerful and wealthy lobbying firms, foreign policy manipulation, etc., etc.? And that’s irrelevant? Was their suffering less important? Better check your ability to think objectively here. Logic indeed. I never claimed to be the sole repository for truth either. But I will not let inertia stop my quest for the truth. It’s a rule I established for myself after 9/11. I think that’s happened to a lot of people since that day. It seems, the collective veil of “established” B.S. surrounding much of history is being slowly pulled away and only those who’ve been honest can afford to sit back and relax.

Professor Finkelstein is very good at stating the obvious, but like so many others regarding this uncomfortable subject, they aren’t nearly so good at taking the next obvious step. Why does an industry exist? Is it to defend the questionable? Is it to further an agenda? If so, when did that agenda start and what are it’s goals? Ask yourself, if the subject weren’t the holocaust, wouldn’t I be asking these questions? Call me cynical, but it seems obvious that “truth” shouldn’t really need it’s own infrastructure. Even the most simple minded among us can rattle off a list of atrocities from history that did not need this kind of massive effort given to their continued remembrance. And surely, no decent jew would tolerate this effort being made for profit or territory if it were truly the horror that it’s been portrayed as?

As fempatriot alluded to, history is written by the victors. Fempatriot is quite correct in that observation, but winning should not be confused with honesty. I’m completely lucid regarding this subject. That’s due to having no predefined truth to protect. It really is quite liberating and it doesn’t make you into a hater, a denier or anything other than open minded. I’d be even happier if it turned out that I was wrong about the reality of holocaust history, because it’s very offensive being manipulated and lied to for decades.

119355

Fempatriot, you know full well who the Barnes Review is. You also know that Piper introduced Theo Junker, the former SS twit who immortalized Hitler on his farm at that Barnes Review/American Free Press conference yet you still go out of your way to defend these thugs. Amazingly, in your attempt to glorify them, you suggest in your opening lines you’ve been attacked......

“I’ve been posting for several years, and I’ve been attacked by people before."…

...Now where in the world did I attack you? I merely pointed to one of your sources, exposing it for what it was. I even admitted some of your reading suggestions were good ones! Is presenting facts about Michael Collins Piper and the Barnes Review an attack, or simply exposing the realities? 

You go on..."The Barnes Review magazine is devoted to history that is _not_ written by the VICTORS as so much of our history is.” ...not written by the victors...who are the victors?...the Colonial Army, the Union, perhaps the Allies after WW2? If so, who then are the none victors? To quote Mel Gibson, “history is written by those who hang heroes,” but are Piper, Carto, Tanton, the National Alliance and the KKK heroes? I think not! Is Theo Junker a hero? Adolf Hitler? David Duke? Your presenting the Barnes Review as a dependable news source that prints the “truth” no one else dares to might suggest to some you believe they are.

“American Free Press speaks out about subjects that other news media is afraid/forbidden to tackle.” What a hoot!

While you so adamantly support the militias who are currently guarding our southwestern borders, have you ever once considered the implications? The federal government is allowing armed militias, vigilantes in fact to do its job. We haven’t seen the likes of that since the brown shirts in 1930’s Germany. Also try to remember that in Germany back then, Jews, minorities, foreigners, liberals and others were singled out as the source in all of Germany’s woes. Attack the minorities, the weak and the most vulnerable, the easiest patsies and who knows, someday those losers you talk about will one day be the winners.

As for the USS Liberty, that was a tragic event and although it deserves scrutiny and I personally see no wrong in honoring those who have fallen, the bottom line is we were in the middle of a red zone, in a war in fact we were not directly a part of. Had we not been there in the first place we may never have been targeted. The fact the Barnes Review, along with their neo-Nazi counterparts decided to memorialize it is not a revelation, merely one more of the many propaganda tools you’ve been spouting off about.

You are right, all governments use rhetoric. But why this fact should lead you to embrace the worse group of rhetorical liars in the history of the planet is beyond the realm of logical comprehension.

Also you make it sound as though only you and these groups you believe in support free speech. No one in here, not me, not Mr. Canning nor anyone else has ever tried to suggest people shouldn’t read, write or say what they want to. In the case of the Barnes Review, I merely stated I don’t abide in them and I gave my reasons and supported them. If people wish to abide in them, I won’t stop them. But I shouldn’t be stopped either in adding another side to this conversation. I have free speech rights too!

In closing I’d like to first add I do not support illegal immigration. But the way we are going about solving this problem is what draws my attention. Also ignoring the real culprits behind it, who are profiting from it and who wish to continue profiting from it while they make scapegoats and criminals out of people who are only trying their best to survive.

Lastly, thank God FDR wanted a war against fascism. It is a shame other, more recent presidents have failed so poorly where he so admirably succeeded.

119290 T Rex...Clever analogy in non-layman’s terms but it simply doesn’t wash. If you’re trying to tell me, or anyone else for that matter that the National Alliance, The Barnes Review, The American Free Press, Michael Collins Piper, Willis Carto, David Duke etc etc etc are not hate mongers, you can save your breath! You may not hate Jews and Mexicans,....(I never said you or fempatriot or anyone else in here did)...but you certainly seem ready to stand up and defend those who do.

T.Rex--the fact that there is a “Holocaust industry” which, as Prof. Finkelstein so aptly demonstrates in “Beyond Chutzpa” misuses the Holocaust to advance Zionist goals does not mean that the Holocaust did not occur.  The fact that there were millions of people killed during WW II, combatants and non-combatants alike, that were not included amongst those made to enter the gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps does not mean that the Holocaust did not occur.  The fact that you chose to deny uncontrovertable and well documented facts does not elevate your belief into “truth.” The fact that you would cite so many irrelevancies to demonstrate your point reflects that you, unfortunately, lack the fundamental ability to reason by logic.  The fact that you would use the ubiquitous “they” to describe any and all who disagree with either Mr. Dobbs or with you suggests also that you suffer from some level of psychopathology.

News flash!  T.Rex, you are not the sole repository of “truth.”

Conservative Yankee I agree with much of what you’r