By thebeerdoctor, August 21 at 1:29 am

•  “For all the talk of innovative change, I see the Illinois Senator making the same rounds as Senator McCain (VFW, NAACP, etc) including that Saddle bum church thing, where both anointed candidates had to respond to the baptism of Rick Warren.”

This is one of your sadder comments beerdoc, lacking completely in any sense of context. Help us connect ‘innovative change’ to the campaign process, and where any delegates happen to appear to talk to voters.

VFW, NAACP? How LWV, or the docs, or the firefighters, or maybe the students/staff at blah, blah, blah? (Hillary was at my campus, and Obama was at the City College here). How about any other Veterans Groups? How about the CYO or the XYZ?, How about any other Church? (Obama has spoken at many in Los Angeles) or ANYWHERE ELSE that US voters are likely to congregate? How about your regular old Town Hall Meetings? How about journalists? All of these follow a pretty basic format. The person/candidate speaks for however long they’re going to speak. That follows (generally though not always) with a question and answer period. This procedure is as old as dirt, and as old as campaigning has been around.

Why do they do it this way? Well, because it provides the LARGEST portion of the electorate opportunities listen to HOW the candidates ‘plan’ to work their CHANGE (if that’s what they are promising) and relative to the specific issues that people are concerned about. The questions and answers that follow, give ADDITIONAL opportunities for the candidates to make it clear, what they have in mind for CHANGE, and how they plan to go about it; .again in reference to the issues that most concern the particular group who happens to be gathered.

Q. Mr/Ms Candidate, will you change social security?

A (1)…Yes, and this is how…blah, blah, blah.

Or A(2) Hell NO! I’ll leave it just as jacked up as it is right now, at least until I can wipe it out entirely.

Q. Mr/Ms Candidate, will you change the current foreign policy?

A (1) Yes! I’m going to stop dispatching our military troops and equipment around the globe to steal their resources and force US global hegemony via bombs and other weapons. I’m also planning to engage in constructive dialoged with our international neighbors in order to reach mutually beneficial goals on the global level.

A (2) NO! I will not change anything of the basic strategy, but I will increase the level and frequency of blowing up the rest of the world. So, same stuff, but it’ll happen faster, and I’ll get to use all of the newest toys.

And, on it goes. That’s what we mean by ‘innovative’ change, and we get to find that out, when the candidates show up at all of these various and sundry locations, to talk to people. (or lie to us)

This particular session was of course a farce IMO because I don’t care about stuff like how ANY candidate feels about faith, or religion, God, or any of Her prophets. I DO care about whether or not safe medical procedures and birth control will be available for women, and by extension, there families, and I don’t want any president with the power to take that access away. So, I definitely would wanna know how these candidates feel about that. Other’s may wanna know that other stuff, and they vote too.

I don’t care about gay marriage either, because I’m not gay, and I don’t wanna marry anybody who is. (matter of fact, I don’t wanna marry ANYBODY) BUT, that might be something important for many people to hear. (I’m sure it is). Now of course we didn’t have to get those opinions from an interview by a self-ordained representative of some church. Any journalist could have posed those questions.

But I still don’t get how speaking to as many of the people of the nation as possible, is somehow an indication that there is no sincere desire to effect change in the way the government is operated.

So, if there’s any example of ‘no change’, it’s with your standard, NO CONNECTION analysis.

re: correction to post
that should be; “who do not even know what Truthdig is.”

Recent polls suggest that Senator McCain has closed the gap with Senator Obama, partially because of their joint appearance at the Saddleback church. Apparently calling the Arizona senator the bogeyman hasn’t quite worked among that vast number of folks who do not even what Truthdig is.
For all the talk of innovative change, I see the Illinois Senator making the same rounds as Senator McCain (VFW, NAACP, etc) including that Saddle bum church thing, where both anointed candidates had to respond to the baptism of Rick Warren.
I am no great fan of op-ed columnist Kathleen Parker, but in this matter I agree with her. Who really lost at the Saddleback event? The country. It seems the separation of church and state has disappeared. Both McCain and Obama should be ashamed.

Sodium, the reason Olbermann was so effective is that, unlike the right-wing clowns over at the network Olbermann aptly refers to as “Fixed Noise,” he takes the time to actually research a topic before he addresses it.

When I first entered the practice of law, I went to work for a business litigator who had at one time served in the Justice Department under Robert Kennedy.  I learned from him that the most effective means by which one can condemn an opponent is to use the opponent’s own words against him.

In this instance, Olbermann was deeply disturbed that McCain would suggest that Senator Obama would take the position he has taken on Iraq simply because Obama has “the ambition to be president.”  While Olbermann felt that remark an absurdity and said so previously, he didn’t stop there.  He or his staff did their homework, finding a passage in McCain’s own book where McCain wrote that he did not run for president in 2000 out of any lofty policy goals but simply because he had the ambition to become president.

In making the accusation against Senator Obama, McCain had done nothing less than to project onto his opponent his own personal motives, and that makes McCain the ultimate hypocrite.

The willingness to actually dig out the facts before running at the mouth is what separates the forceful editorial opinions of real journalists from the blather and propaganda that emerges from most of the talking heads in the corporate media.

Rod Adams,

Thanks so much for your comments @ By Rod Adams, August 19 at 12:08 am

I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Alberto Mora myself, but I he’s still a hero of mine as well. Same goes for Lawrence Wilkerson and Maj Gen Tabuga, both of whom I have had the pleasure to meet and hear from. I also ‘get it’ about the search terms, (such a shame, but it’s the way of the world now…to watch every word).

And…maybe I ‘get’ this part the most..

•  “Believe it or not, but it has - for the past 7 years at least - been a part of the indoctrination of staff officers to teach them that we have something called a “total force” that includes three types of employees - military, government civilians and contractors and that contractors are the most productive and least expensive part of that force. (I keep asking for the studies that show that - they do NOT exist.)”

I believe that it’s been part of the indoctrination, which actually began in the private sector long ago, as deregulation of everything hit my own former industry. (commercial air transportation). And, a bunch of the stuff that USED to exist (in study format as well as basic operational records) doesn’t exist any longer.

It’s really quite spooky. In fact, after 7 years of this stuff, it can make a person downright paranoid. (I have nightmares about renditions). Louise assures me that if we’re not paranoid, it means we’re not paying attention, so I take some comfort in that.

Thanks again.

To any that would be interested and have not been to bill moyers journal to catch his latest guest last friday, here is the link to moyers 2 part interview with Andrew Bacevich who teaches at a college in boston and has lost a son in Iraq and has a book, ‘The Limits of Power’. A very enlightening discussion from moyer’s journal:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08152008/watch.html

As a matter of fact I am repeating the link that
By GW=MCHammered, August 18 at 6:26 am
had posted in an earlier comment here.

Rod Adams, to clarify my last post, the number of private mercenaries now operating in Iraq now exceeds the number of the so-called Coalition Forces.  While the number of US troops still exceed the pre-escalation levels (labeled by the Orwellians in the Bush regime as “pre-surge” levels), the presence of these heavily armed mercenaries, coupled with the inability of media to travel un-embedded, frees the Bush regime to spin its “the surge is working” propaganda without any independent means of verification. 

The press will dutifully report the numbers of casualties amongst American troops, and, if there is a reduction in that number, cite it as evidence that “the surge is working.”  Deaths of mercenaries usually go unreported.  And what goes unmentioned is that overall violence reduction is largely attributable to the fact that Iraq has been carved into a network of heavily armed, sectarian enclaves where violence is largely reduced because ethnic cleansing campaigns have, in large measure, been completed within the enclaves.  Travel between enclaves remains exceedingly dangerous as there are snipers ready to take the other side out.

When the Bush regime invokes bringing democracy and freedom to the Iraqi people as a belated justification for this imperial conquest (WMD & al Qaeda links canards having been expose), it has resorted to the traditional language of “liberation” historically invoked to justify imperial conquest.  And, if the Lancet studies are anywhere near accurate, there has been a liberation of sorts.  More than 1.1 million Iraqis have been liberated from their obligation to breathe.

Commenting upon imperial conquest, the ancient Roman historian, Tacitus, said it best:  “They create desolation and call it peace.”

Rod, I thank you for your thoughtful and well-reasoned comment. 

The problem is not those serving in the U.S. military but those making a killing off the killing.

In “Thieves in High Places” Jim Hightower observed:

“The military budget is a massive wealth transfer program from ordinary taxpayers to major corporations, and it has proven easy over the years to wrap this transfer in the red, white and blue and
have a portion of the American people burst out in a rousing chorus of the national anthem and applaud their own mugging.”

Published in 1970, Seymour Melman’s “Pentagon Capitalism” noted that the alignment of the military-industrial complex under the state-controlled Pentagon system directed a major portion of the nation’s resources to “parasitic growth.”  The Pentagon system produced products that do not enter the marketplace and cannot be used for future production.  Sixteen years later, Gore Vidal would analogously observe:  “The Pentagon is like a black hole; what goes in is forever lost to us, and no new wealth is created.”  The enormous size of today’s “black hole” is perhaps reflected in a 2006 study released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute that revealed that global military spending has topped $1.1 trillion and that the “United States accounted for nearly half of the world’s spending.”  The U.S. spends $1,600 for every American; China, just $31/person.

What has changed since Melman’s time is the effort to outsource the military function itself, beginning in the early 90s when then Sec. of Def. Cheney began outsourcing the support function to KBR.  During the current regime even the military’s core functions are increasingly outsourced to private mercenary firms like Blackwater—and at a far greater cost than would occur if the same functions were handled directly by the military so that, by now, there are a greater number of these so-called “private contractors” operating without accountability in Iraq.

If you haven’t done so, I would strongly urge reading Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine.”  Klein observes:

“The Bush administration…seized upon the fear generated by the attacks not only to launch the ‘War on Terror’ but to ensure that it is an almost completely for-profit venture, a booming new industry…a ‘disaster capitalism complex,’…much farther-reaching tentacles than the military complex…; this is a global war fought on every level by private companies whose involvement is paid for with public money, with the unending mandate of protecting the…homeland in perpetuity….In only a few short years, the complex has already expanded its market reach from fighting terrorism to international peacekeeping, to municipal policing, to responding increasingly frequent natural disasters.  The ultimate goal for the corporations at the center of the complex is to bring the model of for-profit government…into the ordinary and day-to-day functioning of the state….”

Your personal experience squares with that assessment.

hi, guys I think about McCain Is More Dangerous Than Bush My guess is that Bush will talk to anyone when he’s drunk.  He’s also been known to challenge his father, the sitting Vice President, to a fistfight on the front lawn when he’s drunk. Cheney named himself VP and his pal Rumsfeld, became Secretary of Defense. They surrounded themselves with like-minded power-seekers and they were ready to “test” their vision. And people I know in the military immediately began informing me of their alarm. Certain this would mean within the next few years we would be at war!

rocky

owa Drug Treatment

cann4ing:

You wrote:

In the wake of 9/11, Addington, Mayer tells us, advanced a doctrine known as “the New Paradigm,” in which he asserted “that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it.  Under this framework, statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance have been set aside”—a doctrine which even a long-time Republican legal activist like Bruce Fein regards as “quite alarming.” Alberto Mora, the Navy’s general counsel, described the Justice Department memoranda as “an extreme and virtually unlimited theory of the extent of the president’s Commander-in-Chief authority.”

I had the honor of meeting Mr. Mora and supporting his office during my first DC job. He is one of my heroes.

In my view, a big part of the answer to the initial question posed in the title of the article falls into the study of the relationship between money and power, particularly the notion that money and power are ideally concentrated into the hands of a very thin slice of the world’s population. Please understand - that idea is NOT mine and NOT one that I have sworn to support and defend, but it is one that motivates and drives some of the key decision makers in our current government. Louise KNOWS who they are - she proved that to me by her commentary.

I am kind of talking around this, I know, but search technology makes it important to avoid certain words so that the meaning can be made clear to those in the discussion but not to those casually looking for certain clues or keywords.

I have expanded on the importance of energy fuels in my comments in this discussion because it is hard to talk about the anti-democratic use of money and power over the past 150 years or so (and especially in the past few) without recognizing the importance of control over energy fuels. In engineering there is a technical definition for power - energy per unit time. Mathematically, power increases by expending the maximum amount of energy in the shortest period of time. Monetary power also comes from a similar exercise - the concentration increases when you can increase the numerator and decrease the denominator.

I have spent the past 7 years in minor financial and technical positions in Navy headquarters staffs fighting against people who wanted to spend more quickly, to award more contracts in a shorter period of time, and to push as possible much of the very serious responsibility of projecting our nation’s power and influence into “the private sector”. Those courtiers are acting under the influence of briefings and directives signed out by SecDef with strong influence by VP. It has been a huge, depressingly eye-opening experience to see my organization being systematically stripped of many of the attributes that make it valuable to the nation and to the world. I started to awaken early in my DC tenure when I realized that all of the service secretaries (and many of the assistant secretaries with a big exception in Alberto Mora) had the same kind of defense contractor background.

Ike - one of the true heroes of the 20th century - did not warn people against the military, but against the “military-industrial complex”. I have encouraged many of my colleagues over the years to go back and carefully read that speech and to think long and hard about the contrast between Ike’s warning and some of the directives that we have been given.

Believe it or not, but it has - for the past 7 years at least - been a part of the indoctrination of staff officers to teach them that we have something called a “total force” that includes three types of employees - military, government civilians and contractors and that contractors are the most productive and least expensive part of that force. (I keep asking for the studies that show that - they do NOT exist.)

Samosamo,

Thanks for the link!! I did need it. I was able to figure out which book it was that she just put out, but I’m grateful for the link. I hadn’t seen it.

I agree with you and Louise, but at the same time, after so long conversing with Louise on this site, (which I thoroughly enjoy) I’ve decided that she gives GW slightly more credit than I do. I think he’s a total moron, who can’t do diddly shit on his own, and only takes orders from papa Dick, who actually IS very smart, and therefore able to convince Jr. that he thought it all up himself. That’s not to say that GW isn’t slick like a con-artist is, like when he suggested to Tony Blair (revealed by the downing street memos) that in order to invade Saddam, they could paint an aircraft in the UN colors and fly it over the no-fly zone, and have Saddam shoot at it, thereby providing a reason to strike back. Now he could think up something like that, or any other similar diabolical scheme.

BUT, the actual covering up of all of this stuff, and the paperwork for setting up the destruction of the constitution…no way. Dick has Addington do all of that, based on the vision that Louise described, and Cheney has had *that* vision for 30 years or better. Call it the New Paradigm, or the Imperial Presidency, or the Unitary Executive Doctrine. That’s always been Cheney’s goal, and we’ve watched him carry it out, with the help of the legal brain in Addington, (and the rest of Cheney’s secret staff). So they write the stuff, and the jr shrub signs it.

Remember how jr. couldn’t answer the 9/11 Commission questions by himself? He had to have Cheney with him, because Cheney insisted on it. And just last week in the midst of the Georgian surprise, jr was mild mannered enough in his dufus response, until Cheney told him to STFU and get his ass back to DC, while HE took care of things.

Still, I’m not saying that george wouldn’t still be dangerous on his own. He’s gotta be the type that choked and drowned small animals as a child, and picked the wings and legs off of flies. His favorite pastime at Yale was playing that board game, “Global Domination”. (A global version of monopoly). And, according to his colleagues from back then, would interrupt all of them when they were trying to study, insisting that they play with him, and of course always changing the rules or otherwise moving the goal posts when he was losing. I still don’t understand why nobody managed to beat the shit out of him decades ago. I guess the elite manage to do their worst damage without getting themselves dirty. But a good old fashioned gutter-brawl would have finished him off.

OK…thanks again for the link

Louise:

You wrote:

I appreciate your comments on energy, because like it or not, energy is a major factor in the power struggle that’s defined nations for many years. [Or at least the major excuse] And of course those who have goals that lead to a desire to add their name to that control, are or should be familiar to a degree with the energy “crisis.”

Thank you for accepting my comments as not “off-topic” and for posting some very perceptive analysis of the way that people who favor an imperial presidency also favor the privatization of warfare.

You also wrote:

For example, where are the mountains of waste?

The answer is - there aren’t any. If you put all of the used nuclear fuel that the US has produced in the past 50 years into the same place, you would have perhaps the start of a small hill. On a football field, that hill would only be about 15 feet tall and it only grows by a few inches each year. It is adequately safe and secure right where it is until such time as we start reusing the remaining 95% of the energy stored in that solid, carefully inventoried asset.

Of course, the people who like the power and wealth brought by controlling fossil fuel supplies publicly talk about how hard they are working to eventually solve the problem of storing that used nuclear fuel. It keeps most of the nuclear power advocates happy to hear someone say things that sound kind of favorable but at the same time it cements a reluctance to use fission that is very useful to the continued economic concentration of wealth and power into the hands of the fossil fuel suppliers.

Here is a clue to understanding - despite all rhetoric, how many new nuclear plants have actually been started in the past 7.5 years?

I find it interesting that many of the people in this forum who do not like the decisions made by Big Pharma, Big Financial, King Coal, and Big Oil seem to fully support Big Energy’s decision to build windmills (GE, Siemens), solar panels (BP) and drill for geothermal (Halliburton) instead of building emission free nuclear plants.

I am more cynical and ask - why did they make that decision? What is in it for them to encourage taxpayers to subsidize wind, solar and geothermal? (I have some answers, but do not want to get too far off topic lest I offend cann4ing.)

By cyrena, August 18 at 8:16 pm #

You have probably seen this as I saw it because I check out bill moyers about once a week. I am very impressed with Ms. Mayer’s work. Here’s the link whether you need it or not:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07252008/watch2.html

As to your’s and louise’s conversation on the lies of w and his mental capacity, my 2 cents worth as I have commented/posted here and else where is: it does take a relatively high level of intelligence to lie and commit crimes especially to get away with them. Add the attribute of being able to keep up with the lies and to who, when, where and how would require a bit higher level of intelligence but I would think require a bit of management such as writing it down, archiving it and having it ready for verification which would most likely take a second or third layer of management. No w is not a complete idiot though he tries, but neither is he a consumate crook/liar because too much has been written as to cheney’s part in just about everything that deals with the major issues, such as w giving him the Iraq issue to deal with, the oil issue that dick handles and both work with the saudis to advance that area of corruption.
I don’t know what the percentages are for the criminals that get caught vs. the ones that get away but it does take some elaborate and sometimes over elaborate planning to get away with what you do criminally. And the main thing for me that comes to mind is the way these people just keep tearing this country and this world up and the the people are just as docile as sheep because they have no way of knowing or learning what has been done and how it happened, thanks mostly to the corporate media’s strangle hold on the truth.

Ernest,

I found it. Jane Mayer’s latest book, (Doubleday July 15, 2008) is:  “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals.”   
 
I’m not sure this is what you’d mentioned before, but it sounds like her normal excellent work. So, I’ve saved it to the wish list for when I get the Kindle.

•  “Yes. In a way Bush does have a ‘high degree of intelligence.’ Most schizophrenics do. And even allowing I could be wrong in my diagnosis, [after all who am I?] being completely bonkers doesn’t mean being completely ignorant. Foolish maybe, easily led about, perhaps, but not incapable of grasping the plan if clearly defined. [Especially if allowed to believe it’s HIS plan.]”

Louise,

Glad you elaborated. I agree with this 100%, if only because I’ve learned this long, long ago, dealing with people who are schizophrenics, as well as those with bi-polar disorder, and related mental illnesses that still defy full scientific analysis. So I’ve known for years,  just how intelligent they can be, (and usually ARE!)

And you’re right, it does take a certain intelligence (which I apparently lack) to keep track of all the lies, and who told them and who is privy to what lie, and on and on. I can’t do it, which is probably why I just avoid lying. I don’t like to trip myself up that way.

My discovery was early on. 2nd grade I think. I’d stopped at a mom/pop candy store on the way home from school, despite orders not to. When my mother asked me later that day if I’d stopped anywhere on the way home, I lied and said that I hadn’t. She promptly told me that I *had* and knew that I had stopped at that particular store, AND what I had purchased. (Raisinettes) In hindsight of course, I realize there had to be numerous ‘clues’ to what I’d been up to, that any adult could easily sniff out.  However, at the time, I was thoroughly convinced that my mother had eyes in the back of her head, and could see everything, from anywhere. (she was allegedly at work when I was in that store).

Now of course this was the same period when (in my 2nd grade Catholic school class) that we were being indoctrinated into the omnipresence of God. My unspoken thought was that He didn’t have *nothin’* on my mama! The moral of the story though, is that I just decided back then, that it was too much trouble to lie, and only compounded the punishment. First, for whatever the original ‘crime’ was, and then for lying about it. It wasn’t until later on down the road that I incorporated the ethical and moral concepts into it. That hasn’t prevented me from continuing to commit the occasional ‘crime’ (like when I don’t see the act as being at all criminal) but I never bother lying about it.

Meantime, thanks to both you and Ernest for the most recent posts you’ve put here. (too lazy to reference, but you know which ones). I’ve saved those to my ‘academic projects’ file, under the Authoritarian States Project. If I don’t manage to get that one wrapped up in the very near future, it won’t be for lack of information and research.

Ernest, I’d read this particular piece by Jane Meyer, (among dozens of others over the past several years now) but you also mentioned another book by her recently, that I was not familiar with. And, I can’t remember the title. It seems like you posted a link for it as well, so many they are one and the same. I’m not sure. If not, and if you remember what I’m talking about, can you repeat that info for me? In the meantime, I’ll check the standard references to see what her latest work is.

alas: alternative green energy solutions have been squashed by our Gov to “keep” oil KNOWING that car emmisions were the #1 cause of global warming; which I learned in early 60’s in junior high; not new then; car companies bought & kept all car patents in vault; well aware & capable of creating vehicles with more MPG that ran cleaner, etc; they “claimed” they didn’t; kinda like they claimed the WMD existed in Iraq; finally Japan was allowed to make cars in USA after signing treaty agreeing would LIMIT MPG to 20-25; Europe & other countries averaged 50-70 MPG & USA destroyed cars bought & brought to USA in 70’s at Oregon port; fraud, deception, lies, bribes, graft, & corruption; BOTH parties are in on it; so is the Pentagon with it’s “overspending” & “lost” equipment that always goes into their pockets; WAKE UP AMERICANS!

cyrena,

At first I laughed. Such an obvious question. Then I read about going back to the Brotherhood of the Illuminati and laughed some more, because I feel your pain.

Then I thought about it. And my answer surprised even me.

Yes. In a way Bush does have a ‘high degree of intelligence.’ Most schizophrenics do. And even allowing I could be wrong in my diagnosis, [after all who am I?] being completely bonkers doesn’t mean being completely ignorant. Foolish maybe, easily led about, perhaps, but not incapable of grasping the plan if clearly defined. [Especially if allowed to believe it’s HIS plan.]

Some of the most powerful leaders in history have been completely insane and still made brilliant strategically decisions. I think when it comes to thought process, Bush is lazy. I think when it comes to understanding what he wants and how to get it he’s smart. Another gift schizoids have is the ability to almost read the other guys mind, and anticipate what they will say or do before they say or do it. Keeping track of lies and who did what to who and when requires a high degree of intelligence.
Cripes! I think I’m pretty smart and I cant keep track of all of them!

Who are the ones using the tools?
Who controls the wealth of the world?

Even allowing for overlaps, ‘cause some of these folks are very wealthy, the fact remains. The true wealth of the world is controlled by a select group. A tight little club that’s very hard to get into.

By Rod Adams, August 17 at 11:21 pm

My apologies for the wrong name and yes I would say you are in a position to not express political rhetoric. As a matter of fact I see you in a unique position to have access to information that lay people like myself don’t have especially when it comes to foreign affairs which I would assume you cannot make comment at just anytime you feel. And since you can’t jump into political debate I will not push you to it as accepting the aggressiveness of russia which I include the US as such.
I will still take the issue of the invention of the internal combustion engine as being a cause of an increase in demand for oil and issues of today about supply, demand and control. I am aware of the use and drilling for oil pre-ICengines but how could it be other wise that the demand increased dramatically at least 25 years after the invention of ICengines. That has to have started a mad dash to pump oil out and make the gas to run these engines. In your capacity, do you have figures showing the difference of pre IC to say 25-50 years after ICengines? I am not trying to prove a point but would like to know what that would be.
U.S. the lone superpower, I still don’t believe russia is not a super power, nor china, nor india, nor just about anyone that has a deliverable atomic weapon. In my reality, if just one of the atomic nations(weapon) attacked another nation, it would create at the least a major dispruption in the short term for most of if not all the world. And I don’t want to use that as the definition of a super power.
One last question: Of late I have heard that using spend nuclear fuel is a possible source of energy, better to me since it seems that is would keep from more and more used nuclear material being buried, recycled sort of, like that could be an answer to the nuclear problems, is this true or possible and how?

Yes, McCain Is More Dangerous Than Bush. Because McCain is much more like Cheney and Rumsfeld!

A “war against terrorism” is akin to a “war on war,” something that sounds nonsensical unless you examine the mind-set that believes a war can be fought and won with less fighting bodies and more fighting machines. But that belief has to be proved. And how else to prove war for the sake of war, as a means to prove and define a new vision, than endless war for the sake of war?

Cheney named himself VP and his pal Rumsfeld, became Secretary of Defense. They surrounded themselves with like-minded power-seekers and they were ready to “test” their vision. And people I know in the military immediately began informing me of their alarm. Certain this would mean within the next few years we would be at war!

Rumsfeld re-wrote Air-Force response directives to hijacking, and Cheney took charge of security response staging “simulated” attacks on Manhattan, [coincidentally] the day 9/11 happened, which gave them the excuse they needed to go to the new long war standard.

We’ve seen disastrous results, but the money people who guide the machine and the politicians, are quite content with the out-come. Billions of dollars have been fed into private coffers. And the best part of all, the profit has come on the tax-payers investment, not theirs. And you can bet they have no intention of letting that go without a fight.

This isn’t being dumb. This is about the deliberate lack of preparations for the aftermath of military victory in Iraq. And there-in lies the truth that proves the position that the whole thing is founded in the need for a grand experiment. A test. A necessary exercise to see what will work and what will not. And none of this would be possible without the GWOT, and the support and encouragement of the powers that control the money. And by the way, OIL.

No matter what they do, or how horrible the outcome, we in a sick perverted way accept and even justify, because of the OIL.

War with Iraq was necessary to test and prove pre-conceived notions that would never prove out against a nation guided by a bunch of tribal factions with no real leader or army. It had to be a nation with a recognized leader and an organized military.

Bush has rewarded key architects of the war for their incompetence. And the war for war continues on. And beyond the desire to absolutely control all governments and their resources on the planet earth, the absolute has not yet been clearly attained.

Absolute control of the world by America requires absolute control of the American people. Which in turn requires absolute control by a dictator in the office of president, and that requires a congress willing to abdicate their responsibility as a check and balance.

To this end, creating the Imperial Presidency, Cheney has dedicated the last thirty years. But the absolute has not yet been reached, because each day is another foray into identifying and controlling unknowns.

A vision of the perfect fighting machine, with a small force backed up by a “for profit” corporate machine has been a Rumsfeld dream since the failures in Vietnam. Cheney and Rumsfeld came together and through the years have devised [with help and support from many others] what seemed the perfect plan.

Develop the new military “for profit” machine, and create the all powerful Imperial Presidency. The eternal war gives unprecedented power to the later and the later gives continual finance to the former.

Now, Iran is an invitation to test our nuclear bunker-busters. And the borders of Georgia and Ukraine an invitation to test our missile defense system. And whether or not Russia really will come after us.

And oil is the fuel, literally and figuratively that drives the madness, while the search for absolute continues. And that philosophy is completely embraced by McCain.

Cheney was and is a radical sociopath who has never accepted the constitutional separation of powers.

As revealed by Jane Mayer’s July 3, 2006 New Yorker exposé, “The Hidden Power,” the driving force behind unprecedented claims of dictatorial executive powers is to be found not in the President but in the Vice-President, and more especially, in the Vice-President’s chief of staff and long-time legal adviser, David Addington, a man described by Lawrence Wilkerson, Collin Powell’s former assistant at the State Department, as “utterly ruthless.” 
Addington, who began his government legal career inside imperialism’s covert branch resisting Congressional oversight at the William Casey-led CIA, assisted Richard Cheney in preparation of the Iran-Contra Minority Report when, in 1987, Congressman Cheney served as the ranking Republican on the House Select Committee investigating Iran-Contra.  As noted by Ms. Mayer, despite the fact that the scandal produced seventeen felony convictions, the Minority Report made the “outlandish” claim that it was “Congress—not the President—[which] had overstepped its authority, by encroaching on the President’s foreign-policy powers.  The President, the report said, had been driven by ‘a legitimate frustration with abuses of power and irresolution by the legislative branch.’”

In the wake of 9/11, Addington, Mayer tells us, advanced a doctrine known as “the New Paradigm,” in which he asserted “that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it.  Under this framework, statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance have been set aside”—a doctrine which even a long-time Republican legal activist like Bruce Fein regards as “quite alarming.”  Alberto Mora, the Navy’s general counsel, described the Justice Department memoranda as “an extreme and virtually unlimited theory of the extent of the president’s Commander-in-Chief authority.”

It is Cheney and Addington who were behind the more than 1,000 presidential signing statements that suggest the president can pick and choose which laws he will abide by and who are principally responsible for torture and the Kafka-like military tribunals.

Louise,

Thanks for the essay and specifically the links. If there’s one thing to reiterate here, it is that Dick Cheney has been THE MOST POWERFUL FIGURE in the Executive Branch of the US government…EVER, if only BECAUSE of his determined vision for a Unitary Executive Doctrine. That Americans somehow missed this along the way of the past 30 years is the disaster. Then again, based on our politically apathetic character, it was probably inevitable.

But, I’m curious about your take here, for when you have more time:

•  “..Personally I think Cheney, like Bush and Bush and Rumsfeld and Gates, and all the “right” Supremes, and yes even Rove and McCain are tools. Tools who are easily used, because their high degree of intelligence is equaled only by their high degree of amorality, conceit and personal ambition.”

Did you really mean to include both of the Bushes in this group of ‘high degree of intelligence’ tools? I mean clearly we cannot find anything ‘intelligent’ about GW. It’s impossible. It’s not there. But, if the others are in fact ‘tools’ (and I can see that with some like Gates, and Rove and McCain) who are the ones using them?

I’m still trying to narrow down the main characters behind the main characters, behind them. If I go much further, I’ll be back to the Brotherhood of the Illuminati, and I’d really rather not go there.

Rod Adams,

I appreciate your comments on energy, because like it or not, energy is a major factor in the power struggle that’s defined nations for many years. [Or at least the major excuse] And of course those who have goals that lead to a desire to add their name to that control, are or should be familiar to a degree with the energy “crisis.”

However, I have some concerns over nuclear energy as being the best solution. Specifically the growing problem with nuclear waste. Anything you can offer that might prove helpful to easing these fears would be appreciated.

For example, where are the mountains of waste?

Ed Harges,

“Louise, you’re wrong. I have never liked Cheney. But you simply refuse to see that he’s gotten worse than he used to be. Your reasoning seems to be, “This is a terrible person; therefore, everything he’s ever done and said must have been wrong.”

au contraire!

This is a man with a vision. A vision that has guided his entire adult life. That fulfilling his vision has required from time to time doing terrible things does not alter who or what he is. He is an opportunist with grand plans, too many of which have come to pass.

I finished my remark with “I could be wrong.” Referring to Cheney and the Gulf War. And I respect your kindness in stepping up to try and prove me wrong. However with all due respect I still think I’m right, but proof of that will have to come later, since I’m constricted by time factors.

Cheney,  like Rumsfeld shared a vision of turning our military into a small force with a big “private enterprise” machine. Cheney validated his position in the first Gulf War, but only to a degree. He eventually had to accept that moving into Baghdad would require a force presence for many years. And the vision of the growing mindless machine that would replace the “force” was still in the development stage. Besides, the reality of replacing a military presence with a civilian presence was gaining public support, and in some areas proving cost effective, and profitable.

I don’t believe Cheney was concerned about troop losses, as was Powell. In any case, based on Powell’s advise, the decision was made by Bush I, not Cheney.

Cheney had to see great potential for profit in the growing civilian service to the military and that’s where he put his eggs.

Personally I think Cheney, like Bush and Bush and Rumsfeld and Gates, and all the “right” Supremes, and yes even Rove and McCain are tools. Tools who are easily used, because their high degree of intelligence is equaled only by their high degree of amorality, conceit and personal ambition.

Their intelligence provides appropriate response when inappropriate action is required for dominance or control.

Their amorality makes it possible to do things on the “dark side” without feeling any personal remorse for bad consequences.

They are driven by a centered conceit that allows them to believe they are the really big fish when in reality they are the suckers being pulled along on the bait.

But Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush I, are unique in that they, particularly Cheney have played on both sides of this fascist monster, managing to not only put themselves in positions of power and influence, but amass a personal fortune along the way.
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/dickcheney/timeline_printer.html

And we mustn’t forget, Cheney spent 30 years lobbying for a new version of the office of president. The Imperial Presidency.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/09/savage-cheney/

The Presidency defined as the First Branch of government, exercising absolute control over the other branches of government. The selection of Bush and then himself as Bushes Vice made his goal much easier to attain. In today’s White House, the Vice President of the United States has more power than most previous presidents. Maybe that’s back-handed payback for being shut out of the final decision to end the Gulf War. And what better way to justify an Imperial presidency to a distracted and disinterested populace than eternal war?

No I do not agree that Cheney has gotten worse.

Cheney has never changed. It’s just that ‘we the people’ are slow to identify a political monster hungry for absolute power.

They start with infants; put growth hormones & other toxins in the formula; the FDA is FOREVER DENYING AMERICANS the TRUTH! IT is like the whistle blowing office Bush set up; for whistleblowers to have an office to go to without fear of retribution; ALL reports were sat on; until finally enough pressure was put on them to ACT; Bush shook his hand on TV & stated” good job; thank you for serving your country; HEADS UP ALERT! to ignorant people:THIS was the JOB they wanted DONE! to SIT ON & DO NOTHING on the PROBLEMS whistleblowers told about; they “present” us as “this is what we are doing” and folks THINK it is a good thing; in REALITY: it is SERVING the country the way THEY want it served; both parties are 1; they want us to THINK one or the other is “better”; that they are NOT dictatorship; that they are looking out for our interests; THEY ARE NOT! Did they LIE to Indians? to vets? about WMD? about Georgia? about Al Quieda? do they not train torturers for other countries including Mexico? And Chad? do they not over throw Govs who are NOT with “their” agenda and set up someone who is? DICTATORS like the Shah of Iran, like in chile, etc etc etc; SMASH thru images YOU have been propagandaed into believing; they use every psychological tool they have AGAINST you; then READ, & WEEP; then get mad & FIGHT.

our Gov is run on BRIBES: folks: http://www.pbs.com; bill moyers journal; capital crimes; READ IT; and weep; UNDERSTAND everything is set up with Corps to exploit, victimize, and harm to the maximum degree the people who are called pinheads, & other things; claiming “this is the way democracy works”; it is the WAY our Gov works & NEWS FLASH! “we” are NOT the good guys! Rumsfield rushed thru asparteme; it has FORMALDEHYDE in it that breaks down in your system; this is one of the most harmful toxins on the planet;it has been agressively used in every possible way in the USA to do the greatest harm to get the most $ to the Pharma’s ; who also have the lawyers who get mega lawsuits that KEEP over 2/3’s of the amount supposedly awarded & KEEP the rest. Just like our Gov keeps 2/3s of all stated AID to countiries for thenselves claiming cost;

Mr. Adams, the topic of this article is whether John McCain is more dangerous than George Bush.  It is not about whether wind/solar/geothermal/wave technologies are superior to nuclear.  Do you have anything that is not “off-topic” to add?

cyrena:

I realize that many people post under assumed names, but there are some of us who take full responsibility for what we say in serious discussions. I apologize if my comment seemed a bit arrogant, but I was simply trying to provide samosamo and others a suggestion. If you want to find out who someone is, it is often quick to do a Google search to see if they have much written by them or about them.

You wrote:

As MOST of us know, solar, wind, and water energy are hardly new. In fact, they’re about as old as the wheel. The technology for such increased uses (like updating from the centuries old windmills) has been available and in use by many other modernized nations for decades. It’s been available in the US as well, but has consistently been STIFLED by the interests of the OIL industry.

I completely agree with all but the last few words - humans have known that there is energy available in the wind and sun for thousands of years. We have also known that energy is useful and makes life better, so countless generations of scientists, engineers and inventors have worked on ways to produce useful ways to capture energy to make it do work.

Those of us who have dedicated a good portion of our lives to the study of energy production systems, however, know about the limitations as well as the opportunities offered by such diffuse and unreliable energy sources as the wind and the sun.

Oil became important BECAUSE engineering types realized that it offered a better solution to an old problem, the inventions to use oil did not occur because there was a vast and powerful industry that wanted to sell oil. If you study the history of science and technology, you will find that the industrial age began with wood and then coal as the more accessible and useful fuels - oil did not make many inroads into the market until nearly 100 years after the invention of the steam engine.

You also wrote:

“we just happen to consume more of the stuff then the rest of the world combined. (the military helps considerably in this consumption)”

That is not factually true - US energy consumption is about 20-25% of the world consumption, so the rest of the world combined consumes between 3-4 times as much as we do.

I do agree that we use a lot more energy per person that many other countries, although I believe there are several countries, like our northern neighbors, that actually beat us in this measure of energy consumption.

From my point of view, harnessing energy to do work and to make climate more amenable to human comfort is a good thing. I have lived off the grid in several different environments; it is not a very comfortable or even particularly healthy way to exist.

My personal goal is to enable as many people as possible achieve the same access to energy sources that Americans have always taken for granted.

I also am quite proud of the fact that my particular section of the military does not use much fossil fuel - my last ship was powered by a heavy metal core that could fit under my office desk and it lasted for 15 years of rather heavy use.

Ed Harges, Your post is smack dead on.  The real question is why someone has not run the same 1964 ad against McCain, who is more reckless than Goldwater, and certainly more dishonest.

To the extent that McCain can see no mistakes in the current policy.  Like they should not have done the invasion in the first place.  This alone make McCain more dangerous than Bush

re: By metros, August 18 at 9:50 am:

Metros can’t fight the evidence, so he tries a superficial association.

It’s a cliché to attack that ancient TV ad, and so just because Metros asserts a similarity between this article and that ad, we’re supposed to dismiss the whole issue. Pathetic.

First of all, Metros, the main reason that ad is infamous is NOT because it was untrue that Golswater was a dangerous militarist extremist - he certainly gave every indication of being exactly that by his heated cold war rhetoric.

The scary claim of that ad that was essentially true: Goldwater WAS a fanatical cold war hothead who seemed very eager to nuke everybody he didn’t like. That ad was NOT a smear. It was NOT a misrepresentation of Goldwater’s foreign policy views.

The ONLY reason that ad was, in hindsight, misleading, was that Johnson HIMSELF also turned out to be a dangerous hawk, disastrously escalating the Vietnam War after he got himself elected.

By GW=MCHammered, August 18 at 6:26 am

Thanks for the link to pbs/moyers as I would not have gotten there until later this week. This Bracevich is really on top of the cause and effects, so much so that his book will be one of the next I get, if it is in hardback.
I took exception to moyers claiming that russia attacked georgia and would like for him to bring the proof of that out now. I could have missed some revelation about this skirmish but I don’t think I have. And I was impressed by bracvich’s description of our ‘consumer’ empire to make a connect to my idea of this being a false economy.
I have yet to see the 2nd half and will but I have things to do and much start doing them now. But moyers, appears to be the best ‘public’ (or pbs, period)place to get real news.

Flash;New Campaign Slogan for Mac, the war hero, not the computer;

  Making the world safe for Chevron,Haliburton & Blackwater 1 war at a time! Or maybe 2 or 3.

Why is this Arizona resident not supporting John McCain? With out question it is his lack of support for our state in Washington. McCain’s call to fame is that he is the only representative in Washington never to request any earmarks for his home state. What does that prove? To me it shows that in McCain’s mind Arizona is so wealthy that we do not need any assistance from Washington. It seems he is happy to see all the tax dollars that we send to DC go to other states. Wake up John McCain! Arizona has Indian Reservations with unemployment over 60%. We have beautiful rural areas that would greatly benefit from an increase in tourism. McCain’s lack of concern for Arizona shows that when John and Cindy fly over our state in their private plane that they do not pay attention to the people that live outside of Scottsdale. Lets see if in November the citizens of Arizona will send him a message and not vote for him.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

“Did John McCain “Borrow” His “Cross In The Sand” Story?

I report, you decide. Transcript from the forum last night here.

It just sounded so fake and so contrived, so I did a little research about it. Someone on here said it sounded like a scene from Ben-Hur, so I did a google search about Ben-Hur and cross in the sand and such. No dice. But I searched around a little bit more and here is what I found. A story about Alexander Solzhenitsyn from his times in the Soviet Gulags.

(snip)

As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.

As Solzhenitsyn stared at the Cross drawn in the dirt his entire perspective changed. He knew he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire. Yet he knew there was something greater than the evil he saw in the prison camp, something greater than the Soviet Union. He knew that hope for all people was represented by that simple Cross. Through the power of the Cross, anything was possible.

Excerpted from “The Gulag Archipelago” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, three volumes published 1973–1978.”

http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.blogspot.com/2008/0 8/did-john-mccain-borrow-his-cross-in.html

Louise writes:

‘If Cheney took the position that we should not continue the Gulf War after we drove Saddam’s troops from Kuwait, that’s news to me. I heard they had to physically remove him from the “War Room” ‘.

Louise, you’re wrong. I have never liked Cheney. But you simply refuse to see that he’s gotten worse than he used to be. Your reasoning seems to be, “This is a terrible person; therefore, everything he̵