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Saturday, February 09, 2008

Follow the Leaders

Looks like John McCain is going to be the Republican nominee for president. You have to respect a man who was held and tortured for 5 years in a Vietnam prison. But the dude is old. The word cain is in his name to remind you of that. It's great to watch the republican party pull itself apart debating if he is conservative enough though. He insulted the religious wing of the party by once referring to TV evangelists as agents of intolerance. I think he got that one right. He is soft on immigration too, according to them and the worse sin; he voted against the Bush tax cuts. Just a quick reminder on that scam. Those tax cuts were only for the wealthiest 2% of Americans. In fact, if you put his record up against Hillary Clinton's you won't see much of a difference.
All republicans do the same thing, invoke the name of the mighty Ronald Reagan. For a conservative, Reagan was something of a mystery to me. Consider that he left office 8 years latter with massive debt. He cut and ran in Lebanon after more than 200 hundred Marines were killed in a suicide attack on a base there. He also granted amnesty to million of illegal aliens. I don't know why he is seen as a towering figure of conservatism with a record like that, but he is. Oh yeah, for some reason he gets credit for the end of the Soviet Union. Part of how that was accomplished was to fund the covert war in Afghanistan. I think we all know how that worked out for us in the long run.
Obama is my candidate. He has to be yours too folks. What does it say about the worlds largest democracy if we pass the highest elected office back and forth between two families? Any place else that would happen in the world and the word Democracy wouldn't be used to describe it. No, it's time for real change.
We know the next President will be a Democrat. We know this because Wall Street tells us so. For the last 25 years the party that received the most money from Wall Street became the party that won the White House. At the moment, 57% of the money donated from fortune 500 companies has gone to Democrats. Will it be Hillary or Obama?
What Obama has going for him is that he dose not have a record the republican smear machine can go to town on. Lets face it, no one in Washington is clean, but you have to be mighty dim to think Hillary doesn't have more than a few skeletons in the closet. Whats Obamas major fault? His middle name is Hussein? He doesn't have enough experience? Well, look at the people who have had plenty of experience and where they have led us?
America is in decline. The Empire has turned a corner and for anyone who wishes to notice them, the signs are every where. You want to know how bad the economy really is? In New York, merchants have begun to accept the Euro. The dollar is so weak that New York is being flooded by European tourists. It's a bargain for them to come now. The best solution the government can come up with is to send everyone a $300 check? Honestly, to anyone seriously struggling, 300 bucks is not going to do a lot. But at least the money is finally getting into the right hands. By doing this, the Reganites are admitting that the whole trickle down theory of economics is a joke. You remember that concept, don't you? Give the rich more money and they will hire more workers, build more plants and keep the economy growing. Well, it didn't work then and it didn't work now. In fact George Herbert Bush, our current presidents dad, referred to it as Voodoo economics. Now that were seriously screwed, they want to actually put money in the hands of the masses. Guess what? When my check arrives it goes right into the bank and stays there. Thats what the rich did with their tax breaks apparently otherwise the idea of actually giving checks to everyone in the country wouldn't be on the table.
By the way, when the Pentagon submitted it's budget, it declined to place a number, any number on the amount of money it needs to keep the war going. They actually have asked for a blank check.
Guess who has received the most amount of contributions from defense contractors? Hillary. You really think she's going to pull the troops out right away?
Follow the money folks. It will tell you everything.

2 comments:

joe klocek said...

P.S.
A few other things came to mind after I hit publish on this one. First off, what a surprise that Mike Huckabe, former Baptist minister won the state of Kansas. Kansas, you will recall, is still debating evolution.
Today, the minister of OPEC said they might price oil in euros with in the next ten years. Apparently, since 2000, the dollar has lost a stunning 44% of it's value against the euro. Not very good for us, my friends.
Oh, and another thing about Regans wonderful legacy concerning Afghanistan. He not only referred to the Taliban as revolutionaries to be compared with George Washington, but had several of their leaders over to the White House where he declared a day, Taliban day. In fact, there is no better way to view how we were told to look at the Taliban than this little fact; Rambo 3 was all about Rambo helping them to defeat the Russians. Remember?
Who ever the next President is has a hell of a job in front of them. On the one hand, there is no way that the real power brokers in this country will let go of Iraq. We have already built close to 40 permanent bases there. Bases that are intended to project our power into the oil rich region of the globe. But, as our national treasury continues to bleed dollars for the continued occupation of Iraq, a choice is going to have to be made if we can afford to stay. A report came out last week that didn't get much attention, but it basically stated in the plain language of military jargon, that the military has been effectively broken. Even if a majority of people thought going into Iran was a good idea, we couldn't do it for at least another 5 years. Thats 5 years after we leave Iraq and rebuild the military.
Cheers

Dean said...

Fresh postings = no longer bed-ridden Joe. Yea!

No more Romney... I could never reconcile having a president with nuclear launch codes, but who couldn't order a mochaccino...