Why is it that when Nancy Pelosi was just coming into office she was all light and substance and uplifting, but now she appears to be a poodle on Hoyer’s leash?

What is it about the upper reaches of power in America that makes people go crazy, lose their minds and act Conservative?

Even George Bush, yep, even George, said a few sensible things in the 2000 presidential campaign, but immediately became a brain-dead Conservative Neocon the second he was ‘elected’.

Is there some kind of brainwashing going on?

Just wondering why, after having read Glenn Greenwald’s column.

Not a word from Herr Chertoff about TOPOFF4, where they may try to instigate the completion of Rove’s Bushpresidencyforever plan?

Is that the ’simulation’ with a dirty bomb in Portland Oregon, Phoenix, and Guam tomorrow?

The republican right wing uber strategy was hatched in think tanks like the AEI which worked on behalf of the private sector to gain control and access to the huge tax revenues that the government had.

Their strategy included brainwashing the American public by controlling the media and its message just as in 1984. And as Naomi KLien points out they realized that crisis and shocks are opportunities to sneak in their agendas. They did it to NOLA after Katrina. They did it to Iraq and america with Shock and Awe. They did to ALL of us after 9.11.

We now outsource almost everything including war.

The public’s airwaves are owned by corporations with a profit agenda, not a public service one.

Our telcom industry has been turned over to big brother to spy on us with impunity.

Our justice department has be turned into a political wing of the executive branch, enabling it to grab more and more power from the congress.

The courts have been packed to read the laws as rightwing edicts reinforcing executive power, even installing a right winger as president who did not win the election.

Our congress leans to lobbyists not the will of the people. Money is free speech and corporations have legally bought influence. It’s bribery and corruption but they made it all legal

If you don’t think our government has been stolen. Think again. Bush was their last shot in a long series of moves building over 30 years.

Can the Genie be put back in the bottle? Or have we been already drowned and are swirling perilously close to the drain?

Someone has to put the stopper in the drain soon. Very soon.

These power hungering oligarchs do fear the ‘unwashed’ masses. The uber-rich gated communities reminiscent of the castles with moats and private armies now security guards soon to be replaced by the blackwater mercenaries. History is circular since the general populace seems to never learn. But one thing is certain, the uprising of the suppressed masses is part of mankind’s history as well.

But the telecommunications providers seem to us to have been acting as patriotic corporate citizens in a difficult and uncharted environment.

is hard to swallow given Saturday’s front page article that revealed NSA collaboration with US telecommunications companies other than Qwest on domestic wiretaps started as far back as February, 2001–one month after Bush’s inauguration and 7 months before the September 11, 2201 events that changed the Bush administration’s posture on defending our nation.

(I sent WaPo Ombudsperson Deborah “Hair in a Bun” Howell this comment, and I fully expect Mr. Hiatt to issue a retraction within 48 hours ;!)

[snip]

The Wind that Shakes the Barley

Also a lovely piece of music, especially on hammered dulcimer.