Lifting the Veil: Obama and the Failure of Capitalist Democracy

This is a good video, just wanted to post it as a historical record of the times we are going through in America today. It outlines how capitalism corrupts politics in America. Video is almost 2 hours long:

Is The Democratic Party's Chickens Coming Home To Roost?

All the mainstream media's analyst and pundits are predicting a blood bath for the Democratic Party this coming election. The Democratic Party is now scrambling in the final hours to try to get their supporters to get to vote on November 2. They are reminding us how scary those nutty Tea Bagger candidates are and that we can't allow those extremist to take power. And yes I agree those Tea Baggers are fucking scary but if the Republicans and the Tea Baggers take over the House and Senate, it will be the fault of the spineless and corrupt Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party was put in power in 2006 to change the course that the counry was on. But as soon as the Democrats won control of congress in 2006, they immediately started making excuses that they couldn't bring about the changes they promised because they didn't have big enough majorities in congress and plus they needed to keep their powder dry and focus on winnig the White house in 2008 in order to bring about true change and reform. So in 2008 the supporters of the Democratic Party went to work and got out the vote and the Democratic Party won the White house and huge majorities in the house and senate. But what happen? As soon as the Democratic Party gained power they started to walk back the promises they had made to their base and basically continue business as usual.

So now as we fast forward to 2010, the Democratic Party's base has basically lost faith in the Democratic Party. They no longer trust the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party base do not like the Tea Baggers but they are no longer fired up to go out and vote for the Democrats either.

Democrats started breaking their promises to their base as soon as they gained control of congress in 2006 and it continued under President Obama. Here are a few examples of Democrat politicians turning their backs on their supporters in an attempt to appease the Washington insiders, big business interest and uphold the status quo:

Four years ago John Conyers was all talk about investigating the Bush Administration for lying the nation into a war in Iraq. Prior to the 2006 elections, he even signed on as co sponsor to one or more bills to impeach Bush and Cheney for waging illegal wars to torture. But as soon as John Conyers became chairman of the House Judiciary Committe, the coward did complete about face and Bush and Cheney got off scott free. And with Obama basically continuing most of the Bush foreign policies, the Democratic Party has essentially legalized the atrocities of Bush and Cheney.

In 2006, the party base was expecting the Democrats to end the illegal wars but instead in 2007 the Iraq war was escalated under a Democratic controlled congress, and in 2009 the Afghanistan war was escalated under a Democratic controlled congress and Whitehouse. So things remained business as usual on the war front.

The bank bailouts were passed under the Democratic controlled congress, candidate Obama even left the campaign trail to go to Washington to bring some reluctant Democrats on board.

Democrats never passed the Employee Free Choice Act. Despite a massive Latino vote in 2006 and 2008, that community has nothing to show for its efforts but higher fences, drones on the border, and more deportations.

I guess the final straw for the Democratic Party voters was the watered down Health Care bill with no Single Payer and no Public option. They sold out to the Insurance and Pharmaceutical companies.

If you throw in the weak bill the Democrats passed to regulate the Wall Street and the Financial industry and the way they have shunned the LGBT community, it's not hard to figure out why Democratic Party voters are not excited this November.

The Sell Out Of The Liberal Class

I ran across this article about how the liberal class has sold out to the corporate state. It's a very good article that describes how the liberal class including the Universities, Churches, Media, Unions and the Democratic Party stopped caring about poor people and started embracing capitalism just so they could maintain their access and privileges in the modern corporate state of America.

The article is by Chris Hedges and I advise every Liberal and Progressive out there to read the entire article you will come away with an understanding of why the Democratic Party has become so impotent and ineffective. I've posted a couple of paragraphs below but you should read the entire article:

The lunatic fringe of the Republican Party, which looks set to make sweeping gains in the midterm elections, is the direct result of a collapse of liberalism. It is the product of bankrupt liberal institutions, including the press, the church, universities, labor unions, the arts and the Democratic Party. The legitimate rage being expressed by disenfranchised workers toward the college-educated liberal elite, who abetted or did nothing to halt the corporate assault on the poor and the working class of the last 30 years, is not misplaced. The liberal class is guilty. The liberal class, which continues to speak in the prim and obsolete language of policies and issues, refused to act. It failed to defend traditional liberal values during the long night of corporate assault in exchange for its position of privilege and comfort in the corporate state. The virulent right-wing backlash we now experience is an expression of the liberal class’ flagrant betrayal of the citizenry.

The liberal class, which once made piecemeal and incremental reform possible, functioned traditionally as a safety valve. During the Great Depression, with the collapse of capitalism, it made possible the New Deal. During the turmoil of the 1960s, it provided legitimate channels within the system to express the discontent of African-Americans and the anti-war movement. But the liberal class, in our age of neo-feudalism, is now powerless. It offers nothing but empty rhetoric. It refuses to concede that power has been wrested so efficiently from the hands of citizens by corporations that the Constitution and its guarantees of personal liberty are irrelevant. It does not act to mitigate the suffering of tens of millions of Americans who now make up a growing and desperate permanent underclass. And the disparity between the rhetoric of liberal values and the rapacious system of inverted totalitarianism the liberal class serves makes liberal elites, including Barack Obama, a legitimate source of public ridicule. The liberal class, whether in universities, the press or the Democratic Party, insists on clinging to its privileges and comforts even if this forces it to serve as an apologist for the expanding cruelty and exploitation carried out by the corporate state.

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Republican Woman - New Video by Jasiri X

Jasiri X appears to be an intelligent young rapper. It's hard to find conscience rappers these days so whenever someone like Jasiri X come along, it's good to give em props and support them as much as possible. Jasiri's latest video is about those crazy ass Republican women running in the 2010 elections. Check it out:



LYRICS

Look what Sarah Palin done started
A bunch of candidates with the intellect of starlets
On the surface they seem like they’re harmless
But what if they win and end they up in congress
The result would be carnage I’m just being honest
How high’s your education if you can’t name your college
I guess your resume needed polish
I’m you you not me that’s y’all witch
Look what at what they’lll do to win a office
Pour 100 million dollars down a faucet
Now that’s flossin but you cut cost when
Them undocumented workers you was bossin
And whose crazier than Michele Bachmann
And the loonies in that tea party caucus
Plus her wild eye ranting causes
More shame for Minnesota than all the texting Favre did

Republican Woman stay away from me
Republican woman you are so crazy

Don’t come hanging ya signs on my door
I don’t wanna see ya debate no more
I got more important things to do
That waste my vote casting it on you

Now woman I said stay away
Republican woman listen what I say

Dear God I wonder could you save me
Cause these republican women are so crazy
Like that Governor out west in AZ
Saying we got headless bodies but still come my state please
And she must have never heard of debating
Really, how do you mess up on ya opening statement
plus ya hatin made ya state look racist
The fact that your even governor’s amazing
It’s like they candidates don’t even know the basics
but if you watch em they use the same playlist
every time they see the press they skating
unless it’s fox news where they can do fund raising
if they positions not popular they change em
hoping Rush, Hannity and Beck can save em
They faker than wrestling it’s something to see
they even drafted the chick from WWE

Kanye West's Telethon Controversy

It seems my boy Kanye West's reputation is catching up with him. There are reports that says he will be banned from the up coming Telethon for Haiti due to his reputation of going off script.

Who can forget his "Bush don't care about black people" comments during the 2005 Katrina Telethon and most recently the comments he made during the MTV Music Awards when he interupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech. Here is a story from the Huffington Post that are being reported about Mr. West:

Will Kanye West be allowed at the Clooney-helmed Haiti telethon airing this Friday?

"After what he said on the Katrina telethon and the way he behaved at the MTV Video Music Awards, everyone agrees it's just best that he does not participate," a source told AOL's PopEater. "Kayne has to make everything about himself. He will do anything to steal the spotlight and, well, this night it's just not about him."

It doesn't take an insider to point out Kanye's loose cannon tendencies, but "everyone" does not agree that he is disinvited from 'Hope for Haiti.' MTV, which is hosting the telethon, says there is no truth to AOL's reports of a Kanye ban.

"That's absolutely not true. We DID reach out to Kanye," a rep told Us Weekly.

I noticed Kanye was absent from this years Grammy Awards so I don't know what's really going on, I guess we will see...

Obama Tortures Republicans

Well I must say hope is in the air again. For the last few months I was starting to suspect that President Obama was a coward or worse, a turn coat. But all of that changed after watching him courageously go to the Republican Retreat in Maryland to debate, and he destroyed the Republicans and their talking points. It was like watching a skilled professor lecture and at times chastise a classroom of dishonest and disobedient students.

President Obama didn't show anger, he didn't loose his cool, he remained presidential and he just beat the republicans down with the facts. He showed that he was knowledgeable on all the subjects and issues. Obama destroyed all of the republicans ideas and talking points with the facts.

The republicans fucked up by inviting Obama to their retreat to speak and debate, thinking they could embarrass the president and get him to say something that they could run campaign ads against for the 2010 congressional campaigns. They were 'feeling themselves', over confident I guess because of the Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts and the recent gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia.

But what the republicans forget is that they don't have any new ideas, they don't have any plans for the 21st century. They only have old stale talking points. They are still running on Reaganomics that has proven to be a flawed and discredited economic plan.

If you haven't seen the debate you really need to watch it, it's over an hour long but it will be an hour well spent.

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith Interview with Barack Obama

Video time: 7 min 13 sec

President Obama Refuses To Sign Treaty Banning Landmines

One of the most insidious weapons is the land mine, that small, explosive device filled with shrapnel that burns or blinds, maims or kills. Triggered by the touch of a foot or movement or even sound, more often than not it's the innocent who are its victims -- 75 to 80 percent of the time, in fact.

As a weapon, variations of land mines have been around since perhaps as early as the 13th century, but it was not until World War I that the technology was more or less perfected, if that can be said of weapons that mangle and mutilate the human body, and their use became common.

The United States has not actively used land mines since the first Gulf War in 1991, but we still possess some 10-15 million of them, making us the third largest stockpiler in the world, behind China and Russia. Like those two countries, we have refused to sign an international agreement banning the manufacture, stockpiling and use of land mines. Since 1987, 156 other nations have signed it, including every country in NATO. Amongst that 156, more than 40 million mines have been destroyed.

Just days before Obama flew to Oslo to make his Nobel Peace Prize speech, an international summit conference was held in Cartagena, Colombia, to review the progress of the treaty. The United States sent representatives and the State Department says our government has begun a comprehensive review of its current policy.

Last year 5,000 people were killed or wounded by land mines, often placed in the ground years before, during wars long since over. They kill or blow away the limbs of a farmer or child as indiscriminately as they do a soldier. But still we refuse to sign, citing security commitments to our friends and allies, such as South Korea, where a million mines fill the demilitarized zone between it and North Korea.

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I wonder why the Nobel Peace Prize winning Barack Obama refused to sign the treaty? That would have been such a small gesture to toss to the progressive and the anti war groups that supported him. The liberals would have cheered and then Obama could have told Rahm Emanuel to pass the word along to Congress that he’d much prefer the legislators not ratify his decision.

But Obama’s too chicken to risk a gesture like that. What people are suddenly realizing is that with Obama there is a absolute disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality.

Militaristic, corrupt America increasingly resembles a Third World state

Despite a change of presidents, America remains mired in economic, institutional, and cultural purgatory, with Obama’s exalted oratory circling the stratosphere like a taunt.

Angry nationalism shouts down prudence. Disproportionate military spending threatens economic wellbeing. Industry has its hand so deep in the government’s purse that private enterprise is becoming public property. The currency falters, the infrastructure crumbles. And a supine media, once a watchdog of the powerful, happily licks the strongman’s hand.

If the picture looks familiar, that’s because we’ve seen it many times before, from Argentina to Chile to Russia. The U.S. is third worlding.

That statement may smack of hyperbole. It may also understate the phenomenon, for many of the countries that the United States increasingly resembles are not only Third World—they are authoritarian, even rogue.

This is not to say the U.S. will be indistinguishable from a Third World country any time soon. We’re clearly nowhere near Sudanese levels of violence or Bangladeshi depths of poverty. But in terms of institutional structure, financial stability, and even national spirit, the U.S. looks little like the country it was a generation ago and more like nations it has long condemned.

The turning point came on 9/11. Terrorism is now a weary concern: other issues dominate the headlines—stimulus, healthcare, climate change. Yet the attacks were a pretext for a host of foreign and domestic policies that promised to secure America against its hell-bent enemies but have instead dragged the country down, eroding the qualities that distinguished it from the rest of the world.

The Third Worlding of America is less cinematic but more serious than empire-in-decline analogies suggest. After all, Britain no longer wields global supremacy, but it is still firmly in the First World, its political class scrutinized by an independent, assertive media. And even after its post-World War II penury, it did not backpedal on political reforms at home. This is not to excuse the colonizer’s brutality abroad but rather to distinguish Britain’s imperial decline from America’s homeland decay.

The United States has transgressed her traditions in the fog of war before, only to redeem herself later. But we are now engaged in a war without borders against a self-multiplying enemy. There is no army to trounce, so no clear end to the bloodletting or bankrupting.

The patchouli-scented youth, who protest in the streets of D.C. with their towering papier-mâché effigies, may have been correct after all in highlighting the breadth of America’s all-encompassing problems—if not their remedies. Crisis has pushed the U.S. toward Third World policies with alarming swiftness. But the risk is not that Americans will bring out the pitchforks and join the protestors. Rather, citizens seem as disaffected and resigned as their Third World brethren, only occasionally roused from reality TV by their favorite pundit peddling the outrage du jour.

The far Right wallows in paranoia with its dreams of overturning an election by discovering a Kenyan birth certificate. Most on the Left seem too mesmerized by the president to hold him accountable. The media ranges from insipid to hysterical. This country may never see the reasons for—and the parallels to—its disintegration.

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Rap legend Tupac Shakur makes it on the Vatican playlist

The Vatican recently released an official music playlist -- and slipped in among the Mozart and Regina Coeli, the late Tupac Shakur made the cut.

On the Vatican's MySpace page, the playlist is described like so:

This playlist is a perfect mix of classical, world and contemporary music. The genres are very different from each other, but all these artists share the aim to reach the heart of good minded people.

The Tupac song picked is Changes. Listen to it below:

How to create millions of jobs in the U.S. imediately

By repealing NAFTA, CAFTA and renegotiating or scrapping GATT altogether.

Ban the sale of goods in America by American companies that use foreign slave/serf labor. Known as reimportation.

Ban reimportation.

Tax/tariff all imports that were produced by low paid sweatshop type labor. So that said products are forced to compete with products produced by workers who are paid a fair wage.

An American company should never again be allowed to produce a product in a foreign country then reimport it back into the US to sell it in America.

It's a sad day in America when the term "American Made" has become a foreign concept.

Is it too much to ask and expect that Dems actually act like they give a fuck about the little fella?

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In order for this to happen, we would first need politicians that will stand up and regulate the corporations and that's not happening anytime soon because too many of our politicians are bought and paid for by the Wall Street blood. corporations.

Obama and the democrats have abandoned the regular folks

Little wonder the US can’t afford health care for the uninsured and unemployed. It is far more important to finance multi-million dollar bonuses for investment bankers. I mean, what would we do without capitalism?

Of course, it is not really capitalism. It is an oligarchy or a financial plutocracy.

In a failed state, the government’s priorities are totally separate from those of the people. The US can’t afford health care or a bailout for jobless homeowners, but it can afford a pointless war and multi-million dollar bonuses for banksters who wrecked the economy.

Millions of laid-off workers lost their health insurance subsidies on December 1, the day President Obama announced a $30 billion “surge” in Afghanistan.

Why does President Obama think the US can afford a war in Afghanistan when the US economy is falling apart? Massive joblessness. Massive homelessness. Millions of Americans without medical care.

There was a time when Democratic presidents represented the little man, and Republicans represented business. Today both parties represent the moneyed interests. On December 3 at the jobs summit with business leaders, Obama said, “We don’t have enough public dollars to fill the hole of private dollars that was created as a consequence of the crisis.”

In other words, all the public’s money has been spent on the banks and the wars.

Despite Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and the ease with which Obama won the presidential election over McCain/Palin, the Democratic Party has totally collapsed. The Democrats have abandoned every constituency. Democrats have discarded the American people. Democrats, in pursuit of campaign contributions, represent the moneyed interests on Wall Street, the munitions companies, the insurance companies, the agri-businesses that have destroyed independent farmers, despoilers of the environment, unaccountable police, and the builders of detention centers. The exception is Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

The Democrats have become brownshirt Republicans.

The American people, except for the one percent of super-rich, have been abandoned.

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We are witnessing the corporate merger of the Democratic & Republican parties

Just look at all the signs:

The holdover of key cabinet and management positions. No radical rocking of policy, more continuance of same rather than change. Completely unnecessary "bi-partisan" appointments despite electoral wishes/mandates.

The hard-core remnants of both parties will be spun off as specialty shops - "Teabaggers" on one side "Old-fashioned Liberals" on the other. Makes for good theater. The stances of the candidates of the two parties will become increasingly difficult to differentiate. The bare minimum legislatively will be passed by either/both parties and they will blame the other for obstructionism. They will all grant each other plausible deniability for why we end up with the crap legislation we will get for time immemorial.

Notice how well this kabuki is working in the sham we have going on for what passes for "Healthcare Reform". We will get the barest, crappiest reform possible, in fact a great victory for profit healthcare, but it will be framed as a Herculean struggle to get the populace some crumbs - that we will celebrate and be grateful for.

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"Taxpayer March" - Real Outrage or White Angst II?

Today the Right Wingers are having a march on Washington, DC today. The crowd will be filled with all the right wing wackos like the Tea Baggers, Birthers, Town Hall Screamers, Deathers and other racist fucks across the country. I always ask, where were these right wing nuts when the Bush Gang was looting the country? Most people have figured it out, it's not about policy with these clowns instead it is about the man residing in "their" White House. Brian Ross hit the nail on the fucking head with an article on The Huffington Post about this "astro turf" outrage from these people and the motive behind it. Here is what he had to say:

The "Taxpayer March" that is expected to draw between 2,000 and 200,000 people to the streets of Washington, D.C. represents a hodge-podge of interests from Birthers to Bailout Bashers to Health Care Hysterics.

Like those aerial cam shots of schools of sharks swarming off of some eastern seaboard town, today cameras will get to watch what happens when the GOP scrapes up a smorgasbord of screw-loose-sharks and dumps a bucket of political blood from the Wilson nonsense on to the streets of Washington, D.C. to stir them into a feeding frenzy.

If the events leading up to the "march" are any indication, they will be white, largely middle and lower-middle income and angry.

Politico calls into question whether they represent a movement, or they are just the scrapings of the bottom of the Reactionary Right's Tea Party movement scam.

They are John McCain's people. His contribution to American politics. Yes, the white angst and anger that both the dyed-in-the-wool and the closet racists share was always there. McCain, though, in the final days of his campaign, wheeled in the microphones and the cameras in for a close-up on a small part of society that is seldom heard.

They gave that white angst about a black man running the country shape and form, molding a Joe the Plumber out of that racist, xenophobic clay, and dropped Sarah Palin, Miss White Angst of 2008, into his team to capitalize on it.

These are indeed Joe Wilson's people - Ignorant 99% white Americanists who somehow feel that they are losing "their country." They are easily manipulated, as they will believe just about anything that is dropped in front of their face that affirms their world view.

They have bought into the Birther business. They turned out for tea parties. They are the tiny, louder, more radical fraction of the 57% of white voters who voted for McCain.

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What I see is pathetic: A rag-tag band of political puppets performing for unseen neo-con masters who pull their angst-strings, manipulated political Punch-and-Judys, dancing for the cameras with their placards and their angry white faces, screaming out childish cries like "Liar liar pants on fire" at yesterday's "rally."

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This is not about a black man in office for the white men behind the scenes. It is about throwing human debris in the path of change. They are the pawns of a corporate America which has profited from complacency and ignorance, which apparently fears the return of regulation and accountability that they have spent, since the days of Ronald Reagan, billions to employ the right people in government to aid in its dismantling.

I couldn't have said the shit better myself.

United States of Morons

Not much has changed since 1922 when H. L. Mencken described the United States as "the commonwealth of morons." The majority of Americans are under-educated, pathetically misinformed, generally lacking critical thinking skills, and apparently incapable of fact-based analysis. Indeed, American ignorance about current events, their own culture, history and government, as well as international current events, cultures and history, is well documented. For further evidence, simply talk to your neighbors, read comments on political blogs or listen to call-ins on talk radio. You will be astounded and even frightened.

In addition to being uninformed and incapable of connecting the dots, many Americans actually take pride in their ignorance and lack of civility. Currently we are subjected to the unmitigated ignorance of "birther" morons and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin making the ludicrous assertion that health care proposals include a "death panel." The media whores on television and braying jackasses on talk radio actually report these inanities as newsworthy of serious discussion.

Meanwhile, organized right wing efforts disrupt attempts at informed health care discussion by Democratic members of Congress with their home constituencies. These disruptions are supported by many Republicans and receive financial support from the health care industry. The spittle-screaming thugs at recent town meetings are reminiscent of the goose stepping brown shirts in the latter days of the WeimarRepublic.

Anti-intellectualism, Bible thumping ignorance and thuggish behaviors have become patriotic hallmarks. Anyone who is reasonably educated, reasonably informed and behaves in a reasonably civilized manner is branded an elitist.

In the 1980s voters agreed with Reagan that "government is the problem" and entrusted their jobs, homes, health, retirement and future of their children to corporate America. The overturning of the Glass-Steagall Act and other government regulations transformed the corporate exploitation of America in the 1980s and 1990s into the savage rape of the 21st century.

American morons are suckers for any scam as long as they are manipulated with proper flag waving, Jesus praising and fear mongering. Other effective strategies include declaring any government assistance program "socialism" and calling for more tax cuts despite national insolvency and the obscene tax breaks already scammed by corporations and the wealthy. Perhaps we should cease funding Social Security, Medicare, public school education and other such "socialist" abominations.

Now Americans stare like deer in headlights as the United States plunges into cultural and economic free fall. Homes are foreclosed and millions are unemployed while manufacturing and high tech job are lost permanently overseas. Health care bankruptcy, depleted retirement savings and a bleak future for the next generation is the new American reality.

Government was never the problem. The problem was and is American morons and the corrupt corporate stooges they elect and re-elect to public office. The commonwealth of morons deserves its fate.

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