Comments on: If you are going to read one other blog today…

By: ekunin

ekunin — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:58:37 +0000

It is here we must think about how to take America back. Do we vote for Obama and hope he delivers the change he promises? Do our liberties depend on one man? If not, and if we all have responsibility, what can we do? Most, facing the enormity of the problem, throw up their hands and decide we can do nothing.

We need to begin to trust each other sight unseen, but that is a huge act of faith. No fun being the only one to show up for the general strike. The internet is a powerful instrument to give power to the people, but I’m technologically challenged, so I’m not sure how it would work or if it can work. It needs discussing.

By: SanderO

SanderO — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:09:10 +0000

I think many progressives understand the need to not only “take back america” or get us back the america we had, but really great a NEW america which is true to the tag lines we had drilled into her heads:

Liberty and Justice for all.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

A right is not something that can given, but something which cannot be taken away.

By: alank

alank — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:56:37 +0000

The news hacks can’t admit the dictim that war and calamity (contrived and otherwise) sell papers and bring in advertising revenues. This legacy of the Hearst newspapering philosophy is at bottom what’s behind the assholes who allow themselves to be pimped by today’s media moguls.

By: Jerryinexile

Jerryinexile — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:18:53 +0000

you are so right about the military bases. 700 at least around the world. But how many that we don’t know about? There aren’t supposed to be any in the Phillipines, by Philippine Law. But there is an air base near Cebu and another near Zamboanga City. If these are secret, am I now spilling the beans and bound for Guantanamo?
But I have seen US bases in the jungles of Trinidad Bolivia, and Tingo Maria, Peru. I’ll bet they aren’t on the list.

By: Jerryinexile

Jerryinexile — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:10:19 +0000

Thanks for your veiws on the great American democray. I am at the moment resideing in Italy, which is rapidly losing it’s affection for the US and it’s military bases. Nearbye a US nuclear sub base was told it must shut down and move last year. And in northern Italy another base is being picket by lot of locals, they don’t want it anymore. Likewise in anothe place I reside part time, the Philippines. THere are no more US bases, although the US military is still trying to station US troops there to fight the war on Terror. And the Phillippine Military fake terrorist attacks to extort money from the US government to fight this so called “War on Terror.”
I don’t think that our leadership gets it. They just ca’t grasp the differance in cultures. And just sell us out for the bucks

By: rxbusa

rxbusa — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:09:14 +0000

You can digg the excellent McClatchy column at http://digg.com/political_opin.....kes_Spooks

By: selise

selise — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:04:07 +0000

We maintain almost 200 military installations in 130 countries

according to chalmers johnson the number is well over 700 (and that’s just the non-secret ones)

By: SanderO

SanderO — Fri, 30 May 2008 12:48:59 +0000

The US has been an empire and acted like one for more than half a century.

We maintain almost 200 military installations in 130 countries and prowl the world’s oceans with fleets of nuclear enabled warships.

We call this “protecting our strategic interests” which are never defined and never explained how we have interests outside our shores which need military force protection.

We were founded as a nation with SOME democratic ideals, but at our birth we has slavery and didn’t consider blacks entire humans until almost 100 years into our existence as a nation.

We didn’t grant suffrage rights to women until the 20th century and so half the population was disenfranchised. Some democracy!

But the founding documents and the Bill of Rights (afterthoughts) do represent an enlightened form of participatory government for the time.

Even today we have many undemocratic instutions such as a senate which is not a one person one vote body, the electoral college which is also byzantine. We wold many colonies, such as Peurto Rico and Guam where we act no better than the colonizes of the the 17 century.

It’s about time to stop the pretense about a great democracy that we have.

It’s about freedom here,. but freedom for capital and markets, not human beings. We’re just commodities to market to and exploit for our labor.

By: ekunin

ekunin — Fri, 30 May 2008 12:22:28 +0000

We know enough to know the US govt has been peopled with hypocrites for some time. In the early fifties our first regime change happened in Iran. We upset a legally elected guy named Mossedegh (the spelling is wrong)and installed the Shah. Mossedegh’s failing was wanting to raise the price of Iranian oil-he believed the low price was the result of a sweetheart deal with a prior corrupt regime. The shah, our great friend, tortured and disappeared people for as long as he held power. So much for our support of liberal democracy. The Iranians hate us for many good reasons including the commercial aircraft we shot down in the first Iraq war and then bargained them down as to the value of an Iranian life. Rather than be generous in light of our substantial error, we were stingy. We have no reason to bomb them. They have several reasons to bomb us.

By: Jerryinexile

Jerryinexile — Fri, 30 May 2008 12:09:25 +0000

Yea, his training was took stick to the crib notes. And I don’t think that at this point he is going to become spontaeneous. Wish my TV received all these damn shows. But all I get right now is Late Edition on Sunday evening. And Wolf’s style is getting a bit “Aipac,” one might say.