Pondering the upcoming elections
They just keep repeating the same lies over and over and a fairly large percentage of the public believes them.
Just because a lot of people who originally supported the Iraq invasion now oppose the occupation doesn't mean they oppose Bush in general. Their reasons for opposing have nothing do with sophisticated policy analysis.
People have no idea what Iraq is actually about. They just want the soldiers home. Iraq is not viewed as part of a larger policy plan. The country is tired of the "war" but the fact that they continue to view it as a war tells you they don't get it.
Yeah, large numbers of the public are disgusted by the "failure" in New Orleans, but they don't have a clue as to what really happened or why it happened. The right wing created mythology of these events stands relatively unchallenged.
Did the storm destroy New Orleans? No.
Years of failure to maintain infrastructure for POLICY reasons destroyed New Orleans. Katrina didn't do it. The levee failure did it.
Did everyone trapped in New Orleans have a reasonable expectation of help from the federal government in the form of rescue, etc? Yes.
But it wasn't there because of decades of policy shifts at the federal level.
This may be a failure to me and you, but to the people who make millions or billions of dollars from the "defense" industry, from privatizing it, from the "rebuilding" effort in New Orleans and privatizing it, it is a colossal success.
The socialist economy has been removed in Iraq and replaced with the Bremer orders. An astounding success for the right wing extremists. And we are not leaving. We have .. what? 140,000 troops on the ground, bases there and Afghanistan and and an undisclosed number of private military contractors in Iraq, Afghanistan and we don't even know where else. Iraq can have a civil war all they want.
A regional Sunni shite civil war would suit these neocons just fine. It gives them the excuse, just like 9-11 gave them an excuse.
We have ringed in Iran and we're going. Hell, they're even trotting out the creepy Shah's creepy son on CNN. He has no claim to anything at all there, but there he is. Who unearthed this spook and pushed him in front of the camera?
New Orleans is a huge success for the right wing extremists. Large numbers of poor people have been moved to circumstance much better for them, according to Babs Bush, matriarch of a (bowel) movement; real estate developers will get control of the property the poor inhabited and make millions. Oil companies are not being forced, as they should be, to pay for wet lands restoration. In fact the New Orleans destruction benefited them as they were able to raise the price of gas considerably and sort of test the public price tolerance. And look. Gas has remained high until very lately when it has begin to edge down to soften the anger for the mid term election. But after the election expect close to 4 dollars a gallon. The neocon mayor is still in control in New Orleans. Crony contracts are still being disbursed. Your taxes and mine are paying the contractors. Meaningful reconstruction and clean up is being stalled. Mercenaries patrol the area. And no levees will be adequately rebuilt until at which time a private company is paid to rebuild them.
New Orleans is a stunning success. Just because a few people are whining about it in the media is meaningless. It doesn't hurt the right wing. It doesn't stop them from continuing to profit from the same policies - BOTH PARTIES too.
It is important to acknowledge that the democrats are also part of the neoliberal policy shift.
Even if they do bankrupt the treasury it is of no consequence to them. They are "starving the beast" after all. Have you ever looked closely at how an IMF loan works? well, bankrupt the US enough and that could happen here. Or something like that.
Even if the country returns a completely democrat house and senate, the right wing will still be in power. Neo liberal policy has already won. It's won. If you ask me it won in the early 1980s and all opposition to it died when Bill Clinton was passed off as a liberal. Tell me something liberal about him. This kind of government is about
So even if the rats leave the republican party in the midterm elections - and with the kind of vote rigging we've had, and the lack of political consciousness in the country it remains to be seen if that will happen - the right wing is still in power, neo liberal policy is still winning .. except maybe in places like Venezuela where they are fighting back.
But America and Europe and their allies and trading partners are totally immersed in this bullshit.
You're talking about people making millions of dollars an hour in some of these endeavors. You're looking at people (Cheney, Rummy, Condi, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, etc.) who do not value life at all, only their own lives. Anyone who isn't one of them is expendable.
And the big psychological changes have been successful. The public accepts that an economy the size of this one should be steered through the stock market, that privatization and free trade are good, that unions are bad. The banking and investment laws have all been changed over the last 20 years or so, along with insurance regulations. The telecommunications laws have all been changed. The school system and the school financing system have been changed. The election system has been changed. And we have this looming constant terrorist threat that enables the government to do ANYTHING. You just name it. Every change benefits a few people only and the public accepts every change. Its like 1984 - or the matrix - they have created and sold a successful illusion.
Just because a lot of people who originally supported the Iraq invasion now oppose the occupation doesn't mean they oppose Bush in general. Their reasons for opposing have nothing do with sophisticated policy analysis.
People have no idea what Iraq is actually about. They just want the soldiers home. Iraq is not viewed as part of a larger policy plan. The country is tired of the "war" but the fact that they continue to view it as a war tells you they don't get it.
Yeah, large numbers of the public are disgusted by the "failure" in New Orleans, but they don't have a clue as to what really happened or why it happened. The right wing created mythology of these events stands relatively unchallenged.
Did the storm destroy New Orleans? No.
Years of failure to maintain infrastructure for POLICY reasons destroyed New Orleans. Katrina didn't do it. The levee failure did it.
Did everyone trapped in New Orleans have a reasonable expectation of help from the federal government in the form of rescue, etc? Yes.
But it wasn't there because of decades of policy shifts at the federal level.
This may be a failure to me and you, but to the people who make millions or billions of dollars from the "defense" industry, from privatizing it, from the "rebuilding" effort in New Orleans and privatizing it, it is a colossal success.
The socialist economy has been removed in Iraq and replaced with the Bremer orders. An astounding success for the right wing extremists. And we are not leaving. We have .. what? 140,000 troops on the ground, bases there and Afghanistan and and an undisclosed number of private military contractors in Iraq, Afghanistan and we don't even know where else. Iraq can have a civil war all they want.
A regional Sunni shite civil war would suit these neocons just fine. It gives them the excuse, just like 9-11 gave them an excuse.
We have ringed in Iran and we're going. Hell, they're even trotting out the creepy Shah's creepy son on CNN. He has no claim to anything at all there, but there he is. Who unearthed this spook and pushed him in front of the camera?
New Orleans is a huge success for the right wing extremists. Large numbers of poor people have been moved to circumstance much better for them, according to Babs Bush, matriarch of a (bowel) movement; real estate developers will get control of the property the poor inhabited and make millions. Oil companies are not being forced, as they should be, to pay for wet lands restoration. In fact the New Orleans destruction benefited them as they were able to raise the price of gas considerably and sort of test the public price tolerance. And look. Gas has remained high until very lately when it has begin to edge down to soften the anger for the mid term election. But after the election expect close to 4 dollars a gallon. The neocon mayor is still in control in New Orleans. Crony contracts are still being disbursed. Your taxes and mine are paying the contractors. Meaningful reconstruction and clean up is being stalled. Mercenaries patrol the area. And no levees will be adequately rebuilt until at which time a private company is paid to rebuild them.
New Orleans is a stunning success. Just because a few people are whining about it in the media is meaningless. It doesn't hurt the right wing. It doesn't stop them from continuing to profit from the same policies - BOTH PARTIES too.
It is important to acknowledge that the democrats are also part of the neoliberal policy shift.
Even if they do bankrupt the treasury it is of no consequence to them. They are "starving the beast" after all. Have you ever looked closely at how an IMF loan works? well, bankrupt the US enough and that could happen here. Or something like that.
Even if the country returns a completely democrat house and senate, the right wing will still be in power. Neo liberal policy has already won. It's won. If you ask me it won in the early 1980s and all opposition to it died when Bill Clinton was passed off as a liberal. Tell me something liberal about him. This kind of government is about
- consolidating power in the hands of a few key industries who operate world wide
- suppressing all their competition world wide if possible
- stripping the federal government of the resources and apparatus to deal with domestic concerns of any kind and turning that tremendous wealth - TRILLIONS - into profit
- suppressing the population so that they can not effectively protest or change policy or have any voice in t he government
- taking all the productivity of everyone in the country and translating it into wealth that is always directed to the ones who run those few key industries and control the political operators.
So even if the rats leave the republican party in the midterm elections - and with the kind of vote rigging we've had, and the lack of political consciousness in the country it remains to be seen if that will happen - the right wing is still in power, neo liberal policy is still winning .. except maybe in places like Venezuela where they are fighting back.
But America and Europe and their allies and trading partners are totally immersed in this bullshit.
You're talking about people making millions of dollars an hour in some of these endeavors. You're looking at people (Cheney, Rummy, Condi, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, etc.) who do not value life at all, only their own lives. Anyone who isn't one of them is expendable.
And the big psychological changes have been successful. The public accepts that an economy the size of this one should be steered through the stock market, that privatization and free trade are good, that unions are bad. The banking and investment laws have all been changed over the last 20 years or so, along with insurance regulations. The telecommunications laws have all been changed. The school system and the school financing system have been changed. The election system has been changed. And we have this looming constant terrorist threat that enables the government to do ANYTHING. You just name it. Every change benefits a few people only and the public accepts every change. Its like 1984 - or the matrix - they have created and sold a successful illusion.
posted by TheFuriousGourmet | 6:18 AM
1 Comments:
Whoo. Talk about putting it all together. You did that.
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