btchakir's blog

C-Span has been running the videos from the Tea Party Convention in Nashville all night, and I started watching when I got up in the morning... and, believe me, this is scary stuff. I especially was taken by one Joseph Farah, who is the Founder, CEO and Editor In Chief of WorldNetDaily.

This is scathing stuff about the country's move to Socialism over 90 or so years, the Marxist description of President Obama, and the focus on changing our underlying culture with its non-political organizations away from the socialist-leaning entities that, he says, they have become.

It is particularly frightening to me because Theatre is one of the areas (Entertainment Industry) that Farah fingers and encourages his followers to overcome.

He ties everything together with ACORN (which he seems to think is an openly Obama-operated organization) and uses that connection to attack the poor, the immigrant population, etc., with the notion of "turning make believe crises into real crises... and why?... to take away our freedom and the American Way of life.

Is it dangerous to have this stuff up on TV... even at 6 in the morning? You bet it is. But, if like me, you believe in free speech, which I don't think Farah does, you have to let this crap go on. If you want to accept his notion that Obama is using Government to replace God for Americans (and here I will go beyond my own non-religion base), then you will see that he is calling for an Above The Government control of the population.

If you see, as he does, that our elected leaders are a judgment on us and that we have to find tea-party-related leaders to elect, then you are already removed from freedom.

Time to actively work against these monsters.

Under The LobsterScope

I have personally created several corporations in my time, and never once have I thought any of them to be separate "people" - if I had I would have been granting myself more than the "one man, one vote" concept of our Constitution and all related laws.

Now we have the Supreme Court allowing Corporations (and, yes, Labor Unions - also not separate "people") the ability to spend unregulated amounts of money on elections... because they are "people" within the law.

This is scary. In his weekly radio address, President Obama said:
"This ruling opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy. It gives the special interest lobbyists new leverage to spend millions on advertising to persuade elected officials to vote their way -- or to punish those who don't.

---

"I can't think of anything more devastating to the public interest. The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections."

(You can get all of Obama's comments in his weekly address HERE.)

I believe one of the main issues that the Conservatives have claimed to have brought to the Supreme Court is the idea that they do not make law, but only interpret the Constitution.

Well, they have not only made law here, they have overturned laws that have served us well since the Teddy Roosevelt Administration in 1907 - 102 years. During that century-plus, the law was updated, improved, added to by both Democrats and Republicans and made consistently better, all in an effort to guarantee our citizens (ie: human beings not organizations) the absolute power of "one man, one vote" without overpaid arm bending and potential blackmail by corporate interests.

So what do we do with a law-making Supreme Court that clearly has a majority of its members firmly planted in corporate pockets? Dahlia Lithwick, in Slate, has called the Supreme Court's action The Pinocchio Project - they have turned the concept of the corporation into a "real, live boy." Justice Stevens, in his partial dissent, commented that the Framers of the Constitution kept a "cautious view of corporate power" - something the current Supreme Court seems to be not only uncautious of but supportive of.

Can Congress create law to overturn this decision? I don't know. What we need is the unlikely event that will throw the Court's majority back to a more centrist (or, dare I say it, more progressive) majority. Remember, Justice Earl Warren, who brought a truly Constitutional view of Civil Rights to the Court in the 50s and 60s, was a Conservative Republican when appointed. There is the odd chance that a right-leaning Justice will actually see the error that was made here and turn the Court around.

It's possible. It's unlikely.

Under The LobsterScope

The move by President Obama to follow the ideas of Pal Volcker seems to push directly into the face of heretofore financial advisor Larry Summers.

Summers was not in favor of ANY of the things Volcker has brought into view. He did not want to regulate the banks. He did not want all things happening in the open. And he certainly didn't want to put any size restrictions on banks that become "Too big to fail."

So what will be Summera' position now? Certainly he can't be trusted with getting anywhere near the economy. And Bernanke is getting hit by Bernie Sanders who is standing in the way of his reappointment to the Fed. To quote Sanders:
"There is a growing understanding that our economy is in severe distress, a greater appreciation that people are disgusted with the never-ending greed on Wall Street, and a better recognition that we need a new direction at the Fed."
And underneath all of this is Geithner, who is trying to get Congress to do more TARP money... which they are now not likely to do.

This seems to call for a real turnover which would be in Obama's best interest... and might lead him back to his campaign promises.

Under The LobsterScope

Every Vote Matters. You can either ignore the decades of work by Ted Kennedy to get Health Care for all Americans, you can ignore the two terms of George W. Bush and the six years of Republican led Congress that brought us to the dismal near-Depression that the Obama Administration has been busting a tail to get us away from, you can fall for the cries of the wealthy and the Corporations that taxes are coming (for them... not 95% of you)... or you can buy into the lies that have been told by Scotty Brown to suck up to the Teabaggers.

If you are a woman who needs womens health coverage, if you are unemployed and know it was the Republicans and the Banks and operations like AIG that got us there, if you are a Union member who forgets that the number of Union members in the USA is half of what it was when we started all this Conservative crap under Reagan and continued it right through George W. Bush... Then you better be ready to Vote For Coakley.

If you don't get out there and do it, we weaken the Senate that we need to make America strong for ALL of us again.

Under The LobsterScope

When FDR said “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” he could have been summing up what faces Americans today. The TV news networks are all pushing interviews with Senators and Congressmen (mostly Republicans) who tell us that the Christmas Eve flight bombing attempt, the shutting down of our Yemen Embassy (apparently not abandoned by cut off fro any visitors), the killing of CIA people in Afghanistan and other events and rumors of events are reasons not to close Gitmo and to increase military presence in…gosh, how many countries?…Yemen and other spots.

After watching all of the Adam Curtis documentary, The Power of Nightmares, that I put up yesterday on Under The LobsterScope it is clear that we are being sold nightmares to get us all riled up over uncountable numbers of Al Q’aeda operatives (of which there are probably very few.)

If we can avoid succumbing to fear and realize that these are political moves to keep us in our middle-class constraints, perhaps we can focus back on curing what’s wrong with our economy, our health care system, and so many other things.

We need to GET OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST. Period. We cannot afford to be the world’s bodyguard and we must realize that not everyone wants to be like us. If the do, they will pull it off themselves in an overwhelming manner (it’s about to happen in Iran without any of our help… just watch.)

I don't know if you get to read incoming e-mail. I doubt it, as I know the value of your time in running the country and still finding some room for your wife, children and dog. However, I would like to offer you a couple of points from my not-so-unique position as an unemployed American with two college degrees who worked on your campaign steadily for many months last year... and who is now getting more and more disappointed in your progress, or lack thereof.

"Progress" is the key word here. The expectation of so many of us who walked from door to door or sealed and sent mailing pieces or stood at intersections waving signs instead of going home to our families in the evening was that your Presidency, tied with the majorities for the Democratic Party in both Houses of Congress, would bring us out of the fiscal slurry that the Bush Administration had sunk our lower extremities in. Oh, I know you have made accomplishments... that somehow you and Bernanke saved us from a Depression with a fairly hideous Recession, that you started a process to close Gitmo and began making buddies again with the rest of the world. I know all of that.

What I can't understand is why, after the huge effort you put into the election campaign making us all convinced you were a Progressive Hope for all of us, you have really become a mostly talk and let others do the action kind of guy. I speak specifically about Rahm Emanuel, who seems to really run the domestic policies that are fed out to the Congress, about Tim Geithner and the rest financial service types who made sure their industry was protected first while your small voters, who could not commit the millions in campaign bucks that you seem all too willing to sell us off for, cut down on their grocery shopping and debated the best way to come up with their kids' tuition over mortgage payments, and about the Military's need to keep us involved in the most unnecessary confrontation anyone could imagine, making our international debt so huge that even words don't describe it.

I can't understand why the Health Care deals where made with the Pharmaceutical companies and the lobbyists from the Insurance industry, and the Liebermans and Nelsons and other bought and paid for types, and not with the cast majority of people who elected you...people who once thought there was a chance at a single-payer solution to Health Care and who continued to think they would still get an advantage with the now vanished Public Option.

We thought you wanted to change things.

Instead, you have worked yourself into a sticky and overgrown corner where just getting out is nearly impossible. While it is possible that you might reevaluate the situation before the Fall and the 2010 Congressional elections start and get into the fray yourself (and, frankly, tell your current policy wonks to listen to the people who elected you OR ELSE), the reality seems to be that all the changes we had hoped for have been sidelined by the most controllable of uncontrollable things.

I hope you had a chance to watch, or listen to, or at least read a transcript of Bill Moyers' Journal from the 18th of the month (and one that had not been edited by your staff to remove the highlights that they are most involved in). If not, I think you should note that the first half of the program is something is something that you should pay close attention to. It's called "Is Washington For Sale?" and it features some very clear words from Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone and Economist Robert Kuttner. You can see it on line at http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/12182009/watch.html, if you are able to get on line. I hope you can. Hell, you're the President. Call PBS and ask them to send you a DVD!

It is so important that you become aware of what the community of Americans, who gave the government to you and the Congress not so long ago, think. All our futures are tied together, but you have your hand on the knot.

Regards,

Bill Tchakirides
Under The LobsterScope
Shepherdstown, WV

To the Majority leaders of the Senate, the House of Representatives, their Minority counterparts, the President of the United States, and various others (such as Senators McCain, Lieberman, and all the others who are making a mess out of our legislative system and the future of our economy and our government):

What the hell is wrong with you guys? Don't you know we are watching all of you as you behave like High School adolescents and make our lawmaking processes a joke? Don't you know you were elected by ordinary people like me and, while we don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to make sure your campaign hotel accommodations are first rate, we believed that in voting for you... all of you...that you would not only represent us, but LISTEN to our concerns and work together to solve our collective problems?

I don't think you do. Any of you... and, frankly, I am losing faith in your campaign promises, your intelligence and intellect, and your ability to do the best you can for the majority of Americans.

Are you aware that at least 99.9% of the people who voted for all of you are NOT Insurance CEOs, or Bankers, or Stockbrokers, or, for that matter, Party Attack Dogs? We are working people... some of us long past the point of collecting unemployment as we try to find a job in the economy you have previously legislated into existence. Yet every day you remove your lips from some lobbyist's backside and remove one more item from the list of reasons we originally gave you our votes. And, if you are an intentional staller like Mitch McConnell, a direct employee of the Insurance companies like Holy Joe Lieberman, or a Religion-created Anti- Abortionist like Ben Nelson, you are more concerned with making most Americans a species of serfs with no voice in the matter.

Well, I have a suggestion for all of you: Listen to what THE PEOPLE are saying and try to factor that into your decisions. And I warn you, the people are NOT saying: "don't do anything." They are NOT saying "make sure my money makes the Insurance companies richer." They are NOT saying "ignore where the Banks are spending the give-away millions you gave them."

And Nelson... for you and the anti-choice contingent in general. If you're going to take away a woman's right to maintain her own body, then you have to do something similar to men... my suggestion is a law requiring IMMEDIATE CASTRATION for any man who gets a woman pregnant against her will or who stands in the way of a woman's power of choice. And make this law publicly enforced! If you do, you'll see how fast any Abortion amendments drift away into the night.

And Mr. President, it is time for you to get off your butt and take charge of the things we elected you for. We didn't elect you to stay out of the way of Congress. We DID elect you to keep the promises you made... or at least to TRY!

I'm getting tired of ALL OF YOU. And I'm not the only one. Your problem is that you'll wait until there's an election to find out for yourself.

Sincerely,
One angry, unemployed taxpayer,

Bill Tchakirides at Under The LobsterScope

This Tuesday Obama is supposed to announce his decision on troops and Afghanistan (the last guess I heard was 30,000 as opposed to the 40,000 the General asked for) and we will once again see our middle-east battle commitment increase.

But is there a reason why the President didn't turn the problem over to the State Department for a negotiated solution? Sherwood Ross in OpEdNews writes an extended article on why diplomacy wasn't even considered. here's a clip:
Afghanistan is valued today for the oil and gas pipelines the U.S. wants built there, no matter what other reasons Obama gives.

“In the late 1990s,” writes Washington reporter Bill Blum in his “Anti-Empire Report,” “the American oil company, Unocal, met with Taliban officials in Texas to discuss the pipelines" Unocal's talks with the Taliban, conducted with the full knowledge of the Clinton administration"continued as late as 2000 or 2001.” Adds Paul Craig Roberts writing in the December Rock Creek Free Press of Washington, D.C., the U.S./U.K. military aggression in Afghanistan “had to do with the natural gas deposits in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.” Roberts explains:

“The Americans wanted a pipeline that bypassed Russia and Iran and went through Afghanistan. To insure this, an invasion was necessary. The idiot American public could be told that the invasion was necessary because of 9/11 and to save them from ‘terrorism,' and the utter fools would believe the lie.” The war, Roberts continued, is to guard the pipeline route. “It's about money, it's about energy, it's not about democracy.”
So, if this is indeed WHY we are there, how long can it last?
In January, a Defense Department report stated “building a fully competent and independent Afghan government will be a lengthy process that will last, at a minimum, decades,” The Nation magazine's Jonathan Schell reports (Nov. 30). So far from defeating the Taliban are Allied forces that US military contractors “are forced to pay suspected insurgents to protect American supply routes,” Aram Roston writes in the same issue. “It is an accepted fact of the military logistics operation in Afghanistan that the US government funds the very forces American troops are fighting.” In fact, an American executive there told Roston, “The Army is basically paying the Taliban not to shoot at them. It is Department of Defense money.”
It is Corporate concern which controls the decision making here...and, of course, we travel farther into deficit spending by pouring money into Afghanistan (and Iraq, which we are NOT remotely out of, yet.)

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has stated that it costs about a million dollars per year for each deployed US soldier, beyond the expense of training and maintaining a security force. You can do the math: there are 180,000 troops in Afghanistan and Iraq right now... add another 30,000 and we are spending $210,000,000,000.00 per year (that's just on those troops active in the mid-east... we are also paying for the pentagon, all our worldwide bases, all the equipment we use worldwide, health recovery by the veteran's Administration for soldiers who come back wounded... not to mention the costs for those who come back dead.) The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost 768.8 billion dollars so far and by the end of this fiscal year, the price tag will approach one trillion dollars.

It's not even a number that most people can even conceive of!

Ross goes on to say that...

"...in all the recent debate in Washington, who has heard a word of concern for the impact of escalation on the suffering civilian populations of Afghanistan and Pakistan?

“ 'Our military demands ever more troops,' Veterans Speaker Alliance's founder Paul Cox said at an Oakland, Calif., rally, last week with Barbara Lee, the only member of Congress to vote against the initial Afghan aggression. 'Meanwhile, our economy is in the toilet, health care costs are out of control, and we can't afford to educate our children. But somehow, there's always money for war.' Rep. Lee called for putting 'this stage of American history—a stage characterized by open-ended war—to a close.' "

Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders and a few others represent a very tiny segment of The Congress, both Representatives and Senators, who would push to get us out of the middle east as warriors.

Unless America rises up to support such a massive withdrawal, this will never even be a remote possibility. Ongoing warfare is our Heritage and our Curse.

Under The LobsterScope

Today is Black Friday.

It has only been in the last couple of years that stores gave actually referred to "Black Friday" in their post-Thanksgiving-sale ads... There was a time that they didn't really want nyou to know that it was the point on the fiscal calendar when they went into the Black...or started to earn a profit, as opposed to being in the Red, or losing money. Once upon a time the retailers did not want you to know how tenuous their existence was... it would be more like begging than selling.

This year's Black Friday is supposed to have an increase dnumber of shoppers from last year, but it is not likely that they will actually make an increase in sales... and it is possible that they won't go into the Black today, but may continue to be in the Red right through the year's end.

Speaking for myself, unemployed and very low on funds, this is not a shopping Black Friday for me. I believe that there are a vast number of folks like me as well... folks who are thinking of MAKING holiday gifts for Friends and family, or buying less expensive and more practical things... grocery store coupons, perhaps... for giftgiving. I won't be helping retailers get into the Black this year... not because I don't want to, but because I can't afford to.

I have been watching the commercials on TV pushing the Black Friday Specials from store to store. There is a sense of desperation here, hiding under an advertising agency mask of granting special favors to beloved customers (something which happens rarely in economically profitable years) from a powerful friend who just knows you need a new blender or washing machine. I feel for them... I really do.

But today, Black Friday, I'll be staying home.

Under the LobsterScope